DarkKobold

Oh, absolutely, and my defense of WATA collectors should be in no way considered a defense of that company. They are shady as all hell. Karl Jobst did wonders bringing that to light.

I do want to be careful - I don't like the idea of people declaring everyone who isn't buying WATA games is a "real collector" and everyone who is, is a "dirty investor." There's definitely both types of people on both sides of WATA collecting. There's 100% people who are genuine collectors and enthusiasts who want to own minty WATA games, for whatever reason. My point was that, like it or not, there are some people with absurd means who have joined this hobby. Whether they're doing it because they think it's a great place to park their money, or they're just incredibly wealthy and have an interest in sealed games, it's not possible to know. I realize I won't win more fans by saying this, but there are legitimate collectors buying WATA games. Are they the ones spending 6 figures on a DKC? Probably not, but maybe they exist. I hate judging people I don't know. Mentioning "WATA-level buyers" was to remind people that there are people dropping 5-6 figures on video games, regularly. I mean, if the two people who bid this game up were instead interested in the Super A'can, I wouldn't have even been close to competing. I'd like to emphasize my point isn't "Man, this is worth so much more when I sell it." Before the auction closed, I didn't know if it was gonna sell for $500, $1000, $5,000, $10,000, $50,000, $500,000 etc. since there was no price history, and I didn't know who the competition was. If it was even one of the guys above who wanted it, again, I'd be screwed. I was quite happy when those guys did NOT show up. Maybe it's a little absurd to think there was a crossover between people buying WATA games and people interested in an obscure 16-bit console out of Taiwan. However, until the auction ended, I had no idea who was going to show up. I probably screwed up by mentioning "value" in my first post. I was just surprised to get it for cheaper than Magical Chase. Let me explain: I've been at a Turbografx-16 Complete HuCard collection minus one for close to a decade. I passed on getting Magical Chase when it was far cheaper, and now, I likely will never get it, because I feel "I can always get it later, or possibly find a deal on it." With REBEL, I assumed this was my first/last/only chance, so I was willing to go really high on it. Hence the comparison in value, both were 1 game needed to finish a set. Magical Chase, something I can reasonably expect to get later, frequently sells for more than I paid for REBEL, which I feel I would never have another shot at. There's no evil plan to promote the value for a later sale date, just a personal comparison of two items needed to finish two different sets, and surprise at the price discrepancy given the rarity discrepancy. And really, if I were super concerned about the long-term value, I absolutely would not be dumping it. Once the ROM is available, the "specialness" is partially lost, to some degree. The years of battles at NA over prototypes demonstrates this. Further, it invites someone to make a Son of Evil cart into a REBEL, and since it's impossible to open A'can carts without damaging them. Some shady person might start making fakes, which further dilutes the market and my "resale potential." But, at the end of the day, this game needs to be available and playable by all A'can fans.

I have no intention of selling any of it, ever. So it's worth as much now as after it becomes youtube famous, absolutely nothing! Also, Gamster81, LadyDecade and TopHotGamingMan all did youtube videos on it. LadyDecade even stole a photo of my collection a friend took (15:59 in the video.)

FWIW, Mods, I'm OK with an interesting discussion of what it paid, so long as it isn't personal attacks. You are absolutely, 110% correct. The "market" determined the price I paid, and that's what it's worth from a pure, emotionless economic perspective. I think my original post is being misconstrued. On a personal level, I feel like it was an absolute scorcher of a deal because to me, it's worth far more than an equivalent to two CIB Earthbounds. If I had a stack of 10 Earthbound CIB, and trading them is what it took to get REBEL, I would have traded them without a 2nd thought. The truth is, the market for this system is tiny, so yeah, demand is low. But to me, personally, seeing "rare" games sell in the high 4 figures daily, buying a game I've personally sought after for 8 years, buying for mid 4 figures feels amazing. So yeah, I'm celebrating what I emotionally consider a deal, even though rationally, the market dictated the price. It's hard for me to separate what I emotionally and personally think this game is worth, and all the naysayers saying that it's crazy to spend that much. I guess I'm lucky my grail is a game from a weird failed system from Taiwan, and not a Sticker Sealed 9.8 WATA graded Super Mario Bros, lol.

I'm not at liberty to discuss details, but I can hint there's some big news coming on that front.

I agree 100% with this. When I was building my A'can -1 set, I was not just throwing money at eBay, I was importing directly from sketchy Taiwanese sites I found, and searching low and high for games, attempting to make connections. However, when something as rare as REBEL is comes up for auction, sometimes the only way to get it is to throw money at it. It's entirely possible someone will find a case of 12 unopened copies tomorrow. However, I wasn't going to take that risk. Despite the angry ramblings on this forum, the only way to get this item was to have the item end with me as the highest bidder. Every angry person here says I shouldn't have spent as much, but doesn't have an alternative workable solution. Waiting another decade for someone to sell it wasn't an option for me.... And it likely will sell for even more money.

OK, since it's worth that, you should be able to obtain it for that, right? Hit me up when you find it for that price. Good luck. Saying what something is worth when it's not available for that price is just an endless circlejerk of useless opinions. I can say NTSC Stadium Events is only worth $100, max. No one on the planet is gonna sell it to me for that. So I can sit here with my smug attitude that "I alone know the REAL price," while never owning that cart. The market doesn't give half a shit about how you feel about prices. The TG16 community used to pull this bullshit back in 2015. They'd quote prices well below what things were actually selling for. No one would ever sell for those prices, but they'd yell and scream at any new person for "overspending." They proposed no workable solutions, other than "I can have these games and you can't." They were gatekeeping collecting. New collectors told them to suck rocks instead of cowtowing to their bullshit imaginary price guide. The community was just considered a toxic cesspool by new users. Good times.

I only ever found one console and a few games. In a world where I have infinite money, I'd love to get a complete set of Tiger handhelds. Those games are so awful, but the art on them is so interesting and unique. I pick up any Tiger handheld I can find cheap. People want pretty wild money for those these days, too.

Thanks for asking! I played C.U.G. in a random hotel hallway back at Midwest Gaming Classic 2015. (It's quite ironic that it was just sitting unattended in that hallway, given what things are worth now.) I loved the character, the great graphics, and the gameplay. I wanted to play more, but I wasn't able to break away from my booth for very long. I came home dying to complete that game. A few notes about me as a collector - I love to do difficult collections. I love to make complete sets. I love failed consoles. The Super A'can hit all three of those perfectly. It became an obsession. I spent the next 6 months scouring literally every single video game listing on Ruten (I found one that had been labeled wrong, that was a score!), making connections, doing whatever I could to buy off Taiwanese sites. I managed to put together one 11 of 12 set, and another 9 of 12 set... but of course always missing REBEL. I was one of many back in the day that hit up Brandon Cobb over at Assembler games to sell his copy, but of course at the time he wouldn't budge. I eventually stopped scouring the sites, as everything had been getting bought up, and I had given up on ever obtaining REBEL. I moved on to other sets, but I still love the A'can, and talked about it routinely. I fly from Utah to MGC to meet up with a group of friends. While this auction was live, I did a search of our facebook chat, and saw that the game had been mentioned over 100 times. It was basically a meme of the chat group. It's definitely always been on my radar, and I wasn't going to give up the chance to own it, even if that decision cost me my PS2 collection. In regards to other obscurities, I have a complete* Amstrad GX4000 collection (minus Chase HQ, 2 known copies, very similar to REBEL). I'm missing 3 games for a complete Sord M5 collection (including Adidas lucky shoot... 1 known?) . I have a complete Atari Jaguar/Jaguar CD collection (although that's almost mainstream, comparatively). I'm also working on an Emmerson Arcadia set, a Nuon set, sort stalled out on the GameKing set, about 3/4 of the way done on the Watara Supervision set.

I remember reading that a warehouse full of carts burned down. That could have been a complete B.S. rumor, or the truth. But, if we take it as truth, it might also be that the system was discontinued before this game actually made it to store shelves. Thus, potentially many copies were sitting in said warehouse, the entire thing burned down, and the only copies that made it out were ones handed to people directly involved with the system before it was released. That's just one possibility - I don't know Taiwanese tax law, but in America, TTi bulldozed copies of Magical Chase so they could write it off as a tax loss. Same with E.T. and Pacman buried in the desert. In the US, you have to destroy product to get a tax deduction for it.

Thanks for posting this. To add to this, with it highly unlikely to come up for sale again... Driving the price up for who? The nonexistent future buyer? A copy of Chase HQ 2 for the Amstrad GX4000 sold for $800 back in like 2008. There hasn't been a copy seen since. People were complaining about how high that was. In retrospect, that is a laughably low price for a game not seen for 15 years. I don't imagine if a copy of REBEL comes up for sale a decade from now, this price will have any bearing on that future sale price.

Ah yes, I used my powers of telepathy to know that Brandon Cobb was going to sell REBEL on random week in September after 13+ years of saying almost nothing about it. I hatched my evil plan, and laid in waiting with the greatest of patience. It's definitely not like I just searched the forum for mentions of Super A'can to see what discussion had happened recently, and bumped the thread in jest and excitement. Damn you for revealing my telepathy superpowers. My problem isn't that you said the system isn't great for Westerners. It's that you pulled a 180 degree turn in your argument. It's an awesome system for Westerns when you want a bauble, and it's a garbage system for Westerners when I get the grail.

I didn't quote you, I quoted other people, so as far as I know, you wouldn't have been notified. Your argument falls flat. You certainly are trying to make my purchase about you. Also, I have no intentions in replacing the staples Brandon Cobb removed. As far as I'm concerned, that's part of this individual copy's history now. Anything to shit on me getting this, huh? Also, claiming you weren't being serious, when you made multiple page responses talking about how great it was for Western collectors to collect A'can really is a load of hogwash. Anyone can open that thread and judge how serious you were.

There's currently 30 copies of Tengen Tetris on eBay. There's been one copy of REBEL on eBay since it's inception in 1996. What is your point?

Where did I ever say "selling auction values?" I feel I got it for cheaper than *I* think it is worth, and am celebrating that. Sorry, my copy won't be for sale any time in the forseeable future. I'm not flipping this, so stop insinuating that. And yeah, I'm excited by this win. Sue me. I wasn't even serious about asking for the bauble.

A used truck? More like a new truck these days. https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/articles/best-trucks-under-25k Also yeah, if I could have gotten this for $100, I'd have been absolutely stoked. I bid high because I assume this was it. I can't emphasize enough, I doubt anyone will ever see this game (especially not CIB) up for sale. A friend from twitter said he thinks there's one other CIB copy in existence.

I'm kinda surprised by this. On the scale of video games, for a once-in-a-lifetime game, this seemed insanely cheap. Magical Chase routinely sells for 7-9k CIB. Little Samson CIB is 4k, and there's pretty much always one on eBay. A loose cart NTSC Stadium Events sells for what? 20-25k these days? And those come up like every other year. Earthbound CIB sells for $3k, and there's a laughably high number of those in existence. This sold for less than two CIB Earthbounds, which is absurd to me. Keio Flying Squadron is also always available, and sits around 2.5k. I was honestly expecting to get out bid by the Kizuna Encounter kinda folks. This has the same level of rarity. https://www.neostore.com/Kizuna-Encounter-Super-Tag-Battle-English-AES-p/1029.htm I was legitimately worried some WATA-level buyers were going to drop a 6 figure bids at the last second. 5k is a lot of money, but let's be honest, someone dropped 1.5m on a sealed Mario 64 last year. This isn't even in the same realm of ridiculous.

Dude, you are pretending like this hasn't been sitting in a closet in California for the past 13+ years. The A'can has only been gone since 1996, so almost half this game's life has been tucked away in an American collection, never even seen or photographed before this auction. Also, Taiwan isn't like, that much poorer than the US. Maybe like half the average salary. (https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-taiwan/) You're pretending like America is some predatory nation, pilfering games from Taiwan, while in reality this game maybe crossed 3 state lines. I'll ignore the snide WATA crap.

The part that is missing from this is that it had no established value. It's never been for sale before on eBay, and in all likelihood, never will again. This wasn't just paying for a rarity, this was the once-in-a-lifetime chance to own it. To me, that means going all out. I am by no means rich, but I did everything in my power to make this happen. What do I mean by that? Well, I got incredibly lucky. The Utah retro gaming swap meet was the Saturday before. I sold as much of my PS2 collection as I could, knowing that I wanted to go all-in on that bid. The picture below shows what my PS2 heavy hitters USED to look like, before I sacrificed them to the almighty A'can god. (Note, these are just a few of the many games I sold. It's just the picture I had taken to show friends.) I had arranged with a reseller friend to buy everything that didn't sell, if I needed it to further cover my costs if the hammer price had been closer to my insane final bid. I also promised a close friend, so long as I won it, and that no matter what price I won it at, I'd sell him a CIB he'd been after to finish a set for a decent price. That also covered the ability to put in a stupid high bid. So despite the snide comments about deep pockets or throwing around money, I sacrificed other collections to own this game. I don't care if someone thinks I'm not "worthy" of owning it, I was willing to go all out on this, and I'm beyond happy to own it. I love the Super A'can, and no amount of gatekeeping bullcrap will change that.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. You were all about calling me one of your "A'can boyz" when you wanted a charm made for your Super A'can -1 set. This, by the way, is the ultimate e-peen demonstration. Note that I qualify for many charms, and have zero, because I don't give a shit about e-peen stuff. I just wanted to share in my happiness. You, however, threw an absolute tantrum about how little everyone knew about the merits of collecting for the Super A'can so you could get a badge made. These two statements were made by the same person: "since the guys going after A'can sets can't just be grouped together easily" "westerners viewing the machine, for who knows what reason, as some sort of epeen status symbol" You were desperate back in January of this year, lauding the efforts of Western Super A"can collectors, when you wanted recognition for your set. Now, we are called "western fullset apologists." Once a western collector gets the grail game, "national treasures should stay put." Anyone who wants to see the massive hypocrisy in action should read this thread. https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/topic/2469-baubles-charms-discussion-thread/page/18/

There's a handful of RPGs, including REBEL, which is still easy enough to play. The RPGs are fun if you can get past the language barrier. Speedy Dragon is a fun Sonic Rip-off. Hilarious how many shameless parallels there are. C.U.G (or Journey to the Laugh) is a fun platformer, with some pretty cool boss fights. Boom Zoo is a Bomberman clone with 2 player goodness. It's super fun. The baseball and pool games are competent for what they are, and Formosa Duel is a ripoff of Puyo-puyo (?) but does it right. African Adventures is a weird board game that's impossible to play without knowing Chinese, and really is only notable in having Hitler as a playable character. Sango Fighter is a horrible port of the PC game, and is probably the worst title on the system (aside from Mahjong), but also one of the more well-known titles.

Funny enough, this just isn't true for the Super A'can. I have 7 systems (just from having to buy a system to get a specific game). There were tons and tons of consoles produced, but it seems like a complete afterthought to have enough software. I also heard rumors about unsold software burning down in a warehouse, but any proof of that has long since disappeared from the internet. Anyway, there's far far far more consoles than software out there. There's youtubers and instagramers that have only the console, or at most 1-2 games. Maybe it's just an China/Taiwan market thing. You can buy a complete set of Game King 1 consoles (1 of each color, probably 10-15 colors) about 100 fold easier than finding 1 of each game.

I'm now eligible for the full charm, 12 of 12, if that counts for anything!

Well, it finally happened. The one owner of REBEL in the US decided to part with his copy. There's apparently 2 boxed copies known worldwide, and 2-3 loose carts known worldwide. It's never been dumped, so there's no ROM floating around out there. (I intend to change that) I wish there was a better story beyond "It popped up on eBay, and I bet the house on it." I'm just super thrilled, as I've been talking about this game for the last 8 years of collecting. This is the peak of my collection, and I can't imagine adding anything I would value more than this. I paid a lot of money for this, but still feel like I got it for an insane deal, given how it's the only copy that's ever been on eBay. A complete in box Magical Chase sells for more than this, and that's on eBay 1-3 times a year. My final bid was.... much, much higher than I won it for.

Bump as Christmas is coming soon!