Sealed Vs Unsealed

[fondpondforever]

Lately i have been opening sealed games that I've bought from eBay. The Sealed games that i respect the most stay sealed for it's aesthetic value where as other games i collect and play for the Nintendo 64 get opened because there's a thrill in unboxing them. I guess it's best to be a Collector and a Player or have i broken cardinal sin

[Brannigan]

I can understand why people keep items unopened if it's for collecting. If it's unopened you don't know if it's in working condition or not but it might be. And that's where the value is. It's like Schrödinger's cat, except you won't be charged with animal cruelty.

Ok, enough ranting...
I'd say if things are useful then they are to be used and if you use them, you don't do anything wrong. Happy gaming!

[Amiga1992]

What's the point of buying a game you won't play?

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Akira

What's the point of buying a game you won't play?

Collecting. I have a lot of unopened game boxes just for boxes, while I play the same games in their WHDLoad form. I just love those colourful boxes and if they are still shrink wrapped, I love them even more, but only IF THEY have nice box cover art, or at least if the games they contain have some nostalgic value for me.

And what could sound crazy - I dont care if the floppies inside are working. I dont play games from floppies any more. I enjoy WHD games and I also enjoy game boxes, both in the separate way.

[mikey2002kent]

I'm in the process of collecting all my old boxed games I had on the Amiga, Using Whdload as well I have no use for the disks, but I like to have the boxes on my shelves and find the manuals especially helpful for games like Settlers, Civilization, A-train etc.

Whdload have solved the issue with dodgy disks but when a manual is needed, nothing is like Having the original to hand, especially for games I'm still discovering.

I've given up on finding working copies of games as floppy media is well past its useable life. If the disks still work then its a added bonus. I find I can get some bargains if sellers say the disks are not working as its only the box and manual I'm interested in.

If I come across anything sealed, I'd probably open it anyway, I collect for pleasure not for it to be hidden away then sold for a fat profit

[Steve T]

if you have a sealed copy then its as pristine and perfect as it ever could be, and therefore worth as much as it could possibly be worth. whether the diskettes still work is presumably irrelevant.

That said, if you're just going to open the thing up and start tainting everything then what was the point in buying the expensive, sealed version to start off with? To open any sealed game just to play it when there's so many other options to play the game (everdrives for consoles for example) just seems like a real numptie move! I guess though every time you bust open a sealed game, the rest of its still sealed ilk go up a little in value. - good for the ebay traders i suppose.

[dlfrsilver]

This reminds me a french guy, who is collecting capcom cps 2 games. Those are using batteries.... he wants to keep the batteries, when today it's useless, we have working non battery protected program code..... That's useless.

[ChrisUnionNJ]

The only bad thing is that they can be rewraped so you will
never know if the game is really there..

[TroelsDK]

I never look for a sealed copy, just one in good condition. However, from my own collection I'd say probably 40 of them I got sealed. In the beginning I wouldn't break the seal, but I got tired of not being able to look at the manuals and not being able to look at posters and all the other stuff inside so I desided enough is enough. Now I bust the seal emideately every time. I handle them very carefully and keep them in great condition still of course!
All the sealed copies I have bought have been bought at the same price a good condition one could be bought for.
I don't use the disks to play with, but I usually test them out for fun. All the sealed copies have worked so far.. If someone is a VERY serious collector and has the money to buy only sealed games and keep them that way that's fine by me, but as I see it, my collection is for me to enjoy fully and in 25 years who's gonna pay the same prices for them as I have any way?

[mr.vince]

Haha, so many true stories here. I have both, sealed and unsealed. I unseal if there's no known version that's good, so I try and create a raw dump to produce an IPF. But I have several games where I already have a good IPF for them. I like to play them from a (cloned) floppy disk or on my Minimig.

So I do keep some items sealed. But if I'd be interested in the materials, I'd open it up. Read the manual, other docs. See the poster. Take a sniff...

[fondpondforever]

Well, I've just opened my new and sealed Japanese version of Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64 from Japan. Awesome feeling about holding the cartridge and manual.

[edd_jedi]

It's funny, this is a debate I often see on gaming websites and gaming is the only place I see these kinds of answers.

In any other collecting community, opening a sealed item is a huge sin. There are only a finite number of sealed games left, yet there are literally millions of used ones out there. So why on earth would you pay many times over to have something you are going to open/use anyway? As soon as you do that, any value it had is lost.

So personally I don't think you should open anything vintage/collectable that is sealed if it is easy to source a used/open one. You can't reverse the damage you do.

[fondpondforever]

How about if there's a free poster in Sealed Strategy Guide. Definitely worth investing in then