To people who swap PS2/PS3 cases to improve condition

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

If a collector is this hard up for completeness, why not just buy sealed and open it yourself. There's a price to pay for having it the way it was meant to be. Either pay the price (sealed) or take the chance of it being not the way it came from the factory.  

I never really understood people who are hard up about condition but then buy used. 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

On 9/8/2022 at 2:13 AM, DefaultGen said:

The more I learn about variants, the more swapping almost anything is likely to pair incorrectly. There are components that look identical, but have different weights, it's nuts.

This is why folks, just say no to swapping

[TDIRunner | 2,737]

21 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

If a collector is this hard up for completeness, why not just buy sealed and open it yourself. There's a price to pay for having it the way it was meant to be. Either pay the price (sealed) or take the chance of it being not the way it came from the factory.  

I never really understood people who are hard up about condition but then buy used. 

Considering there is no database or tracking method of any kind for matching case type for each game (and each separate release for each game), then the ONLY way for collectors to know for sure is to buy new and sealed games only.  They should have absolutely zero interest in the used market.  

As I mentioned before, outside of unusual or obvious situations, swapping cases has no impact on the collectability because there is not way to know.  WATA grades open, CIB games and they are certainly not checking if the original case is used.  If you want to create a database to track this stuff, it will require opening thousands upon thousands of sealed games.  The thought of that makes me super happy, so I say we go for it.  Send me your sealed games.  I will open them, and track all of the case specs and enter them into a database.  I will send your opened games back to you once I'm done.  

[Lynda Monica | 350]

I have a similar issue with the Wii as the Wii had MANY different case types. While I'm pretty knowledgeable about which games had which type(s) of case, I don't expect people online to have that same level of knowledge.

Swapping cases is just a thing that needs to be done sometimes in order to get a good copy for a low cost, and I often have to wait weeks or months for a spare case of the right type to fall into my lap.

The idea that such a thing is morally wrong is likely a sign that you're taking it too seriously. I also wish people didn't swap case types, but the only thing I can really do about it is swap them back whenever I can.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Lynda Monica

[austin532 | 467]

On 9/5/2022 at 7:24 PM, fcgamer said:

In the end it just hurts the collectors, is what I'm saying, I know I was being extreme

I guess I now have a reason to collect sealed...it's not about the mintness, rather it's about the cases not being swapped 

 

No joke, this is the main reason why I open sealed games. I want everything to be mint and original from the factory. I've gotten burned too many times in the past.

Also, to the original topic. The Japanese PS2 cases feel higher quality. The plastic feels thicker and smoother. I think the European PS2 cases are the same as NA but are blue.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

I'm swapping out my slashed case for a pristine case from my kids' game.  Just thought everyone should know  

[GPX | 1,369]

On 1/1/2023 at 8:06 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

I'm swapping out my slashed case for a pristine case from my kids' game.  Just thought everyone should know  

What a rebel! I say we burn him!!

On a more serious note, I always try to mix CIB components to their correct match. However, with PS2 cases, I rarely think too much as there’s just way too much variants to know what the heck truly belongs to what! 

[Tyree_Cooper | 755]

We will need to burn you with him then.

[GPX | 1,369]

26 minutes ago, Tyree_Cooper said:

We will need to burn you with him then.

Haters need to all take a cold shower and find something new to hate, because it is all a lost cause trying to stop people from swapping PS2 cases..ain’t ever gonna happen!

 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

51 minutes ago, GPX said:

Haters need to all take a cold shower and find something new to hate, because it is all a lost cause trying to stop people from swapping PS2 cases..ain’t ever gonna happen!

Honestly, if I ever meet anyone who's that nuts about this in real life, I'm going to show them what PS2 games I kept, then tell them that I swapped some of the cases and ask them to tell me which ones, and sit back and watch as they come up with examples and explain why this one is wrong, etc., even though I've never swapped any of my games.  I get the concept of wanting everything to be correct, as it originally shipped from the factory, but I can all but guarantee that most, if not the vast majority of people who are that anal about case swapping either wouldn't be able to tell when it's done 99 times out of 100 or would start pulling examples that weren't swaps at all.  There's not enough known, or documented about these things for anyone to be getting their panties into this much of a wad over it.  Perhaps if there was some sort of well researched and documented "bible" for this sort of thing (with photos!) somewhere, it would be worthwhile to give some (more?) consideration to this "issue," but as it is, it's closer to being afraid of the monster in the closet than fear of anything real.

[GPX | 1,369]

23 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

Honestly, if I ever meet anyone who's that nuts about this in real life, I'm going to show them what PS2 games I kept, then tell them that I swapped some of the cases and ask them to tell me which ones, and sit back and watch as they come up with examples and explain why this one is wrong, etc., even though I've never swapped any of my games.  I get the concept of wanting everything to be correct, as it originally shipped from the factory, but I can all but guarantee that most, if not the vast majority of people who are that anal about case swapping either wouldn't be able to tell when it's done 99 times out of 100 or would start pulling examples that weren't swaps at all.  There's not enough known, or documented about these things for anyone to be getting their panties into this much of a wad over it.  Perhaps if there was some sort of well researched and documented "bible" for this sort of thing (with photos!) somewhere, it would be worthwhile to give some (more?) consideration to this "issue," but as it is, it's closer to being afraid of the monster in the closet than fear of anything real.

I’m pretty sure there’s been international and intercontinental case-swaps happening already. Therefore I propose for anyone seriously committed to getting all correct properly matched PS2 cases to:

- buy up all the sealed games in the PS2 library

- make sure to buy all the later-version prints for each year or two

- then buy up all the different country variants, NTSC, Pal, Asian, Brazil etc.

- now break open them sexy seals and voila! You have now confirmed all the accurate matching PS2 cases! Should be damn easy! 

[Tyree_Cooper | 755]

u a funny chap

the idea is to raise awareness that some boxes have hard to see but obvious differences once you handle a few of them. you swap whatever you want, total freedom and total democracy to you

Edited January 4, 2023 by Tyree_Cooper

[GPX | 1,369]

5 hours ago, Tyree_Cooper said:

u a funny chap

the idea is to raise awareness that some boxes have hard to see but obvious differences once you handle a few of them. you swap whatever you want, total freedom and total democracy to you

I get your point. Although we’re making separate points, not the same conversation. I was using dry humour to highlight the fact it’s close to impossible to figure out exact matches for all PS2 games to their cases, and if you consider promo pamphlets and registration cards…it’s too much work to collate all the case/contents data for the entire PS2 library!
 

[Tyree_Cooper | 755]

I don't think it's impossible for small print areas and sets. If you have a large collection or a pool of large collections, once you have identified the existing case variants, it's mostly a matter of checking several copies of the same game. It's just pointless in general, but less pointless for those select titles that are really rare or expensive.

If you collected Japanese soundtracks you'd appreciate a lot more having the right case and tray. It has become a battlefield with even most Japanese sellers swapping cases just to have a clean one for the sale when the original one isn't even broken. I keep as many photos of sealed copies as I can find, to help keeping track of original cases.

[TDIRunner | 2,737]

Oh good, we are talking about this again.