While we're at it...

[Fleck586 | 300]

I think it would be great to give GVN a run for it's money.  I'd be willing to help input games similar to what I did at GVN.  It's time consuming, but I know nothing of website design, programming, Ebay API, etc. so I don't feel like I could help in that way.  BUT, how cool would it be to have a collection database that actually provided values as well?

[jonebone | 1,307]

It would be, but the problem is that these sites (PC / GVN) benefit from their longevity.  If you start now, you miss out on all of the prior data the other sites have.

And it also strikes me as a monumental task, not easy to build eBay scraping API tools with flashy interfaces.  Hogie poured in thousands upon thousands of hours into that site.  I helped him with some of the manual overrides (reviewing the flagged listing each day), but even after a few weeks of that I told him I just didn't have the time. 

[Fleck586 | 300]

2 minutes ago, jonebone said:

It would be, but the problem is that these sites (PC / GVN) benefit from their longevity.  If you start now, you miss out on all of the prior data the other sites have.

And it also strikes me as a monumental task, not easy to build eBay scraping API tools with flashy interfaces.  Hogie poured in thousands upon thousands of hours into that site.  I helped him with some of the manual overrides (reviewing the flagged listing each day), but even after a few weeks of that I told him I just didn't have the time. 

Is there no way to mine historical data on Ebay once the tools are in place?  I know absolutely nothing about the process, so purely just asking to understand.  I don't doubt that Rick poured that much time into it, and I certainly don't blame him for cashing his check.  I just think that because of GoCollect's handling of the site so far, it will go the way of NA and I think there is a huge need for that data, and for it to be as accurate as possible.  That is what I don't think PC has going for it.  You just look at all the the shit that it is pulling in to it's pricing averages and you can tell it's not going to be accurate.

[RH | 4,903]

8 minutes ago, jonebone said:

It would be, but the problem is that these sites (PC / GVN) benefit from their longevity.  If you start now, you miss out on all of the prior data the other sites have.

And it also strikes me as a monumental task, not easy to build eBay scraping API tools with flashy interfaces.  Hogie poured in thousands upon thousands of hours into that site.  I helped him with some of the manual overrides (reviewing the flagged listing each day), but even after a few weeks of that I told him I just didn't have the time. 

If you start with the scrapper and keep caching those details while you build out the new service API, and then the UI, you could have "good enough" data once it goes live.  If you can have 3 months in the can, that's good enough for the modern stuff.

Also, since list of games are already public knowledge, you could shortcut your assimilation task by creating a big game list of every game from GVN, and then import that into your new tool.  I'd only take the a names/systems, but that'd be it.

Also, I don't know if GVN does this, but a better approach to dumping eBay data might be to daily dump info from each category, or do wider searches like "SNES GAME", or something like that.  Then, once you dump all of the VG game sales for a given day, you can analyze it on your server.  The benefit to this (again, if it is an option) is it will dramatically cut down on the API calls.  I think we all remember how long VGN was down because eBay kept giving them the runaround regarding getting their API limit increased.  If you can properly structure your queries to return more data, then maybe you can operate within that limit.

[jonebone | 1,307]

11 minutes ago, Fleck586 said:

Is there no way to mine historical data on Ebay once the tools are in place?  I know absolutely nothing about the process, so purely just asking to understand.  I don't doubt that Rick poured that much time into it, and I certainly don't blame him for cashing his check.  I just think that because of GoCollect's handling of the site so far, it will go the way of NA and I think there is a huge need for that data, and for it to be as accurate as possible.  That is what I don't think PC has going for it.  You just look at all the the shit that it is pulling in to it's pricing averages and you can tell it's not going to be accurate.

No.  That's why GVN didn't go back as far as PC.  Best you could do would be to go back to 60 / 90 days (whatever eBay keeps in completed) from the day you started the project. 

Not to mention, PC and GVN both didn't change as eBay changed.  eBay rolled out their best offers on auctions within the last year or so, yet no one can see the data.  If I list something at $9.99 auction with "best offer" and you buy it for $50, it doesn't show up in completed listings and it doesn't get caught by either site.  

Not to mention the countless side deals that happen on BIN / OBO that gets pulled.

Either way, the pricing sites do the best they can but are just guides and nothing more. 

[RH | 4,903]

Ah, I wasn't aware that the Best Offer values weren't available (if I understand what you're saying.)  I knew you couldn't get those details if you went to a SOLD page, if they sold that way, but I assumed their APIs would properly return that information.

 

[jonebone | 1,307]

19 minutes ago, RH said:

Ah, I wasn't aware that the Best Offer values weren't available (if I understand what you're saying.)  I knew you couldn't get those details if you went to a SOLD page, if they sold that way, but I assumed their APIs would properly return that information.

 

Best offers on an auction.  Best offers on a BIN are available, though I'm noticing GVN and PC not properly returning some of those too. 

[DefaultGen | 5,403]

PriceCharting has an API you could subscribe to to pull in pricing data. I don't personally see the need for a third pricing website unless it's going to add something the other two don't already do (variants, true completeness, condition, etc.) which would be a ton of manual work.

[Fleck586 | 300]

On 10/23/2019 at 10:33 AM, DefaultGen said:

PriceCharting has an API you could subscribe to to pull in pricing data. I don't personally see the need for a third pricing website unless it's going to add something the other two don't already do (variants, true completeness, condition, etc.) which would be a ton of manual work.

Well, There is really only one that is active now.  GVN hasn't updated it's database in months.  Who knows what GoCollect is going to do to it.

[jonebone | 1,307]

2 minutes ago, Fleck586 said:

Well, There is really only one that is active now.  GVN hasn't updated it's database in months.  Who knows what GoCollect is going to do to it.

GVN is still actively collecting data on historical games.  It's just not adding new games like a Switch collector or modern collector would want to happen.

GVN bought it to integrate into it's pricing data.  What that means is TBD.  

[Fleck586 | 300]

3 minutes ago, jonebone said:

GVN is still actively collecting data on historical games.  It's just not adding new games like a Switch collector or modern collector would want to happen.

GVN bought it to integrate into it's pricing data.  What that means is TBD.  

I think you mean GoCollect bought it, right?

 

And you have a fair point, but that still makes it only partially active to me as I do collect Switch and there are a lot of modern collectors out there that can't use the site now because it hasn't been updated.  You are right in that it is a great resource for retro collectors, but it has alienated a subset of collectors at this point and one could argue that point alone could label it as inactive, especially the longer it goes without being updated.