Rarity rating

[amigamemo]

Originally Posted by DrBong

In the meantime, if you find anymore examples of dubious rarity ratings of HOL games, then please sing out and tell us why you you don't agree Even PM me if you dare

Hi Folks,

i disgusted this term with cebulba days ago (btw: among others, i found this JET excample. while putting the game on my museum-site, i was wondering of this 'comen as mud' rating at hol. 'cause as an hardcore-collector i 've never seen this game in years

but getting straight to my point of view: i think this two star rating at hol has an quite confusing term : 'One version is common, at least one other version is rare'
hmmm... i've often think about it, when i have a game at hand that exist in one version only, worldwide. so it is common, or is it rare ? you see !

[dlfrsilver]

i have to react here. while i like the rating system, the main reverse backside of the medal is that some dishonesty sellers just SELL afterwards the game WAY WAY more
expensive that they are RATED. As a result some rare games which are elected to be
preserved by caps can't be bought to fulfill this, as buyers just can't pay the FEE-PRICE applied. And by experience collectors just buy out games, AND DON'T HELP PRESERVATION.

See the point ? We have in France Biggest collectors of europe. i don't talk about
guys like me who owns 700+ (counting 220 games SEALED) games up to those having 3500+ games, but people which have a lot more, like 7000-7500+ games ! These ones owns many 3/4 stars games rated by HOL which others under just doesn't have.

Unfortunately collecting takes them so much time they just can't preserve ! And they
stop others to preserve as we have the time but not the money LMAO ^^.

Also, there is thing for which collectors are not good to because they have their own
relations and way-to-get-the-games. some people says yes i have won the game X
for 45 euros shipping included. and then i answer ok pal, i got the game SEALED for 5 euros the box, and the seller has the game in 300 units alone.

guess the guy's reaction. he tought having the game for a correct price thinking
it's rare, as it's not really !

what do you think about my statement ?

[NOB]

I like the rating system. And for sure there is a differce between
wanted and rare games.
The best way to rate is ideed to watch the market.And count how often they
appear.
It is dubios that Hacker isn´t rated as extremely rare.Same for
Crystal Hammer (even if cebulba has two of it)

[andreas]

I only rate if I'm sure about their frequency on ebay! HONESTLY.
And no, I would not give "Millen(n)ium" a 4-stars rating either

Also thanks must go to dlfrsilver who has already pointed me to some very rare games, and also requested ratings to be changed. (sometimes from 4 stars back to 3)

"Extremely rare" could, however, very SAFELY be put on almost the whole Spain-only and Italy-only releases! They're "very rare by design", as only sold in SPA/ITA.
French games might also have been sold in Canada, where people have French as *first* language very often.

This *must not* be compared to German releases, which were usually also put out in Switzerland and Austria, let alone Luxembourg and Belgium maybe, the latter of which does contain an officially approved German minority (Eupen region). If the region is not TOO rural, German games may have been sold there too.

[dlfrsilver]

and for instance even the spanish developpers exemple dinamic have stated they didn't
have anymore the master disk of their games.

AND more important, spanish games were sold in FEW HUNDRED copies only.

hence why they are very rare !!!

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by NOB

It is dubios that Hacker isn´t rated as extremely rare. Same for Crystal Hammer (even if cebulba has two of it)

Hacker is reasonably easy to pick up in the U.S. Given it was an early Amiga release, it may have only been available on import in Europe, which might explain its rarity there. Certainly was available on the shelves here in Australia as I came across a few loose disk copies quite easily before getting a boxed copy. Like the U.S. release of Millenium, I think 3 stars is about right.

The original release of Crystal Hammer is hard to get hold of outside Germany, but the compilation versions aren't.....hence the 3 star rating.

Hope that gives some insight into those ratings!

[andreas]

I tend to disagree for Hacker. Reasonably easy? Not anymore - as the game is from 1985! A boxed copy is almost as rare as "One-on-one" retail boxed.

[dlfrsilver]

hacker appears in many compilations.

A game is RARE mainly because it's HARD to get it. Hacker is not !

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by andreas

I tend to disagree for Hacker. Reasonably easy? Not anymore - as the game is from 1985! A boxed copy is almost as rare as "One-on-one" retail boxed.

I doubt the Amiga version was published in 1985. More like late 1986 or early 1987 (reviewed in Amiga World in July 87). Have to dig my copy out and have a look at date stamps on the disk files and change the HOL entry. The copyright year on the Amiga titlescreen is a legacy of the C64 version.

BTW One on One, like Hacker, isn't all that rare in the U.S. either.....boxed or unboxed. Just have to know where to look or be a bit patient for a copy to pop up on U.S. Ebay that is available to worldwide bidders. You have to consider that Ebay blocks out auctions to overseas bidders if the seller doesn't want to sell to your country. The only way to see these auctions is to search the parent Ebay site of such auctions (e.g. U.S. seller only wants to sell to North America -> auction won't show up on Ebay.fr, Ebay.au, Ebay.de etc., so you will have to go to Ebay.com to see such auctions).

[dlfrsilver]

i will take a look on some games, quite known and say to my point if rare or not.

edit : - example : demons ans drivers is not rare, i have seen it at least 4 times this year on ebay
if not even more.

the french retail version of Prince de Perse is extremmely rare. I only know 2 people who own it on amiga : Me and Thierry Levastre ^^. the compil version is quite easy to find.

Othello Killer on amiga is 4 stars, like his ST counterpart. again a game almost impossible to find.

the Shortgrey too, only seen this game 1 time on ebay in 3-4 years.

Time from empire in french is 4 stars. seen this game 2 times on ebay in 3-4 years too.
Never thought to have it without the help of my collector's friend ^^.

Super C is also 4 stars. never seen this games on ebay since i run on it.

Twinworld is 3 stars at least. only seen it 3 times in 3-4 years on ebay.

[Adderly]

Originally Posted by DrBong

... You have to consider that Ebay blocks out auctions to overseas bidders unless you're searching on the parent site of Ebay sellers.

Hopefully they are blocking only the auctions from people who are not selling/shipping to foreign countries???

Edit: i tried it with ebay.de and ebay.fr. Ebay.de shows me only auctions from France that have been marked for European/world-wide shipping. The ones that are not listed are auctions of stuff only shipped within France by choice of the auction-holder.

[andreas]

F§&K!
I did not know this!
Thanks DrBong! I didn't think Ebay had any *reason* to block these auctions. The guys would sell original stuff, no ADF "w4r3z" cds, wouldn't they? Nothing politically problematic either (World War II memorabilia etc.), so what the fuss?

@dlfrsilver: thanks! Lemme fix some ratings then...

[edit] awww...who put ADVERTS in Super C's boxscans section?

[NOB]

Originally Posted by DrBong

Hope that gives some insight into those ratings!

Interesting insights.What is the reason that Do! Run Run
is extremely rare.It was sold 1990 at the "best" Amiga years.
Is there a story behind this rarity? Or was it simply the "wrong"
publisher.I have seen that game only once at ebay. (IIRC)

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Adderly

Hopefully they are blocking only the auctions from people who are not selling/shipping to foreign countries???

Edit: i tried it with ebay.de and ebay.fr. Ebay.de shows me only auctions from France that have been marked for European/world-wide shipping. The ones that are not listed are auctions of stuff only shipped within France by choice of the auction-holder.

Yes, that's what I meant to say.....will edit my post above to make this clearer.

Originally Posted by andreas

I didn't think Ebay had any *reason* to block these auctions.

They only block when a seller doesn't want to sell to your country or region of the world. Sorry, I wasn't all that clear in my last post (now edited).

Originally Posted by NOB

What is the reason that Do! Run Run
is extremely rare. It was sold 1990 at the "best" Amiga years. Is there a story behind this rarity? Or was it simply the "wrong" publisher. I have seen that game only once at ebay. (IIRC)

I've wondered about this myself! Could be a few reasons for it. Poor distribution might be the most likely one as Electrocoin published their own conversion and they didn't have the market muscle of Capcom or Konami in the computer software or arcade arenas. Could be Electrocoin only did a small production run first off and further production was dependent on good initial sales (seems silly given it was a 1990 release, but companies did and still do strange things and the few reviews that appeared in the UK rated the game as mediocre). Finally, might be that Electrocoin went bust soon after publishing the game, their computer software division was closed down by the parent arcade company, or they were taken over by another company. Any of these would have impacted on production.

At the end of the day, I can't really tell you for sure as I haven't come across much on Electrocoin in my computer mags and didn't really find out too much doing a Google search. I've just made a few educated guesses based on why other Amiga games never made it on to the shelves in any great quantity.

[NOB]

Interesting aspects! I will dig out the review in the german
Amiga Joker mag and see how they rated it.

[NOB]

Space Ranger http://hol.abime.net/2035 is easy to pick up
in the UK.(?)
The 3 star rating seems to be overrated.
http://www.ukretro.co.uk/cpstorefron...?idCategory=12

[andreas]

agree - changed

[cebulba]

Perhaps you might consider adding such a message in the FAQ to the rarity guide...

Or introduce a "who owns what" like in klov.com

quote:
Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operatos might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range.

[Marcuz]

oh, btw:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=8014