Grondorr

Why is everything WATA?

12 minutes ago, Link said:

Does advertising offer a substantial amount? For a little site like this. Is it like pennies per thousands of impressions and slightly more for clickthroughs.

Well, that would be true for traditional advertising, but perhaps sponsorship ads might be more lucrative. That said, I hope we can avoid ads, and cover costs via the optional subscriptions. Ignoring the fact that ads can be annoying, they also create a sense of obligation to the advertisers.

 @Gloves please try to keep us posted on if you need more subscriptions.   (I'm hoping that like wikipedia we can be 100% supported by donations.)

Three weeks into BoTW (WiiU). (Technically two weeks, as I haven't been able to play this last week due to work schedule.)

I have 13 towers, solved Ruta and have the master sword. This is actually my first time picking the game up. (I was waiting untill I beat some other games, but a friend talked me into not waiting any longer.)

The games I was playing and will now eventually need to get back to are (These are all first time play throughs).:

- Zelda Minish cap (I'm at the Gyorg Pair, which is the boss for the Palace of Winds, so I am pretty far along)
- Zelda LttP (Not that far)
- Zelda OoT (guessing about a 3rd of the way through)
- Zelda LbW (Not that far.)
- Zelda Link's Awakening DX (Not that far.)
- Metroid Fusion (pretty far)
- Metroid Zero Mission (stuck on Kraid)
- Metroid Samus Returns (not that far - not sure if I will play through)

A complete MINT set of US GBA releases. This includes Games, GBA Video and eReader. I understand this goal is not a short term goal, and may take longer than a lifetime, and I will need to be patient, and plan to start with whatever condition I can get (hoping to at least start with nice CIB copies except maybe the rare stuff), and will continually do condition upgrades over time. I'm putting it out there, in case anyone has GBA games they need to get rid of, and wants to help me out. (As far as I know only DreamTR has a boxed GBA set. If anyone has done this before,  I'd love from hear from you.)

In parallel I am hoping to complete a US GBA NFR set as well.

I have other collecting goals, but they aren't my focus right now.

Quick update (02/11/2024).. I finished the boxed GBA set. I'll be updating my wishlist soon. Still open to games on the sealed wishlist though.

(Updated 05/10/21)

So for those few folks following me, know I've been working on a full boxed set of GBA for at least a couple years now. Fatigue is setting as I'm very much into the junk end of the set, so I'm taking a break to revitalize and focus on other goals. 

One other transition I've been going through is shifting from largely CIB collecting to sealed and graded collecting.  This transition started some time in 2019, but really cemented itself in the second half of 2020, when I somehow made the transition into a graded collector. (I guess my small graded collection had grown big enough, and "collection-y" enough, that I could focus on growing it.) I've sent my first two batches of games to VGA in pursuit of this. (I won't get them back this year.) Update: I'm now working on my 6th batch.

For fun and excitement, I've begun exploring other consoles looking for GOAT sealed games that I really want to collect.  I also have a few great GBA games that I still need sealed. No surprises here, other than maybe the lack of Mario games on my wishlist. I do prefer VGA to WATA, but am open to both now that there is cross-grading data published. Ungraded is totally fine, but we'd just need to work through more pics/review.

Priority 1 (looking for NM+/M graded/NIB, unless otherwise noted):

NES    1986    Metroid (TM, Round SOQ, No Rev-A) (*) condition flexible
NES    1987    The Legend of Zelda (TM, Round SOQ, No Rev-A) (*) condition flexible
DMG    1991    Metroid II: Return of Samus (*) condition flexible
SNES    1992    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 1st print (*) condition flexible
DMG    1993    The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (*) condition flexible
SNES    1994    Super Metroid
DMG    1998    Pokemon Blue White ESRB 1st print
DMG    1998    Pokemon Red White ESRB 1st print
N64    1998    The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Collector's edition
DMG    1999    Pokemon Yellow
GBC    2000    Pokemon Gold
GBC    2000    Pokemon Silver
N64    2000    The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Collector's edition
GBC    2001    Pokemon Crystal
GBA    2002    Metroid Fusion
GBA    2003    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
GBA    2003    Fire Emblem
GBA    2003    Pokemon Ruby
GBA    2003    Pokemon Sapphire
GCN    2003    The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Walker
GBA    2004    Metroid: Zero Mission
GBA    2004    Pokemon Fire Red
GBA    2004    Pokemon Leaf Green
GBA    2005    Pokemon Emerald
GBA    2005    The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

Priority 2 (looking for NM+/M graded/NIB):

NES    1987    Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
DMG    1991    Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
SNES    1995    Chrono Trigger (*) condition flexible
PSX    1997    Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
GBC    1998    The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (Holo)
GBA    2001    Advance Wars
GBA    2001    Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
GBA    2001    Golden Sun
GBC    2001    The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Ages (Foil)
GBC    2001    The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Seasons (Foil)
GBA    2002    Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
GBA    2002    Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land
GCN    2002    Metroid Prime
GBA    2002    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords
GBA    2003    Advance Wars 2
GBA    2003    Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
GBA    2003    Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
GBA    2003    Ninja Five-O
GCN    2003    Soul Calibur 2
GCN    2003    The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition
GCN    2003    The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest
GBA    2004    Astro Boy: Omega Factor
GBA    2004    Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
GBA    2004    Mario vs Donkey Kong
GBA    2006    Drill Dozer
GCN    2006    The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
NDS    2009    Pokemon HeartGold Pokewalker bundle
NDS    2009    Pokemon SoulSilver Pokewalker bundle

I have to say.. I'm very relieved that you all created this site. I was confused at first because it seemed like people were overreacting, as in my mind there was "no way they are taking down nintendoage, as they would piss of so many people".

Boy was I wrong! Thank you to everyone involved!

1 hour ago, DefaultGen said:

I would want them and count them personally. I count the 3DO Vivid Interactive discs which are essentially just softcore porn video CDs. Original Game Boy has things that aren't games like Infogenius Spanish and Personal Organizer.

On the other hand I wouldn't want PSP UMD movie discs if I collected PSP. So my standards are totally arbitrary.

Oh I definitely plan to own the full GBA Video set, but I consider them separate. Remember, they were packaged in different packaging, used different color plastic housings and weren't distributed to entirely the same stores.  It's also been well advertised that they were made to compete directly with UMD video disks. (In my opinion poorly compete, as the video quality isn't great.)

The 3DO Vivid disks are FMV games, which is a genre of games, so clearly part of the main set. I also consider software like the organizers and whatnot part of the main set, mostly because that's how they were packaged and sold, and also because there seems to be a strong consensus to count them.

Thank you for the viewpoint, as having this discussion helped me clarify how I feel about it. I'd also love to hear from the hundreds of collectors who own full GBA sets. (Where are they?!)

For those that consider the GBA Videos part of the set, do you also consider the 700 or so UMD movies and UMD music discs, which are only playable in PSPs, part of the PSP set? If not, why the difference? If so, must suck to be a PSP full set collector! 

After thinking this all through, in my mind the full set of US Retail "media" for the GBA consists of three subsets.
1) GBA Game set. If you get these all, I consider you to have what most people would call a full set of GBA games.
2) GBA Video set. Note: As I understand, these do use a different cartridge technology, via a codec and storage technology developed by NERD (Nintendo European Research & Development). The largest games were 32MB, and the largest Videos were 64MB, which required a different storage technology to support. Also note they DO NOT work with the Game Boy Player for the Gamecube.
3) eReader card set. (Arguably, this could be considered a separate system like 32X or Sega CD) The walls blur a bit when we consider pack-in bonus cards. (IE: Are they part of this set, or are they inserts for a CIB game?)

In addition there is the non-retail NFR set, but that's clearly its own thing.

That's very cool. I have a very small collection of actual handhelds. However, I have recently decided that it's a reasonable life goal to acquire a complete Mint GBA US retail set. (Talking 900+ games all graded at 95.)  I'm actually decades away from even being close to such a feat, but I could see completing the set (ignoring condition) within 5 years. Note, I am talking all three subsets: games, e-reader cards and gba video.

3 minutes ago, ryanflucas said:

I assumed that, but then I wondered what did GoCollect even buy if they purchased a site, didn't keep the name, and all the data was owned by the individual people that posted it? What's even the point? 

Looking at what's happening, I'm pretty sure mostly all they wanted was GameValueNow and maybe the game and rarity databases. Obviously they wouldn't mind if people kept using their forums, but pretty sure they want the conversations to be different.

P.S. - I have thoughts that I'm not quite ready to share on community ownership of this site, and really would love to see community owned content regarding game/rarity lists, and pricelists. I expect we'll need to explore "creative commons" licensing. (There are a number of different types of CC licenses, some of which have restrictions.)

Wait what? None of the links work: http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=8&threadid=98939

FTR - I fully support allowing these topics in the "Off Topic" forum. Of course, I'd still expect that people would follow the site rules and be civil to each other.

So, considering what happened to NintendoAge, and how people have felt about everything that was taken away, I think that if it hasn't already been addressed publically, we should talk about who owns VGS and the VGS content. (I'm sure we don't want to pour our hearts and souls into a new site, only to have someone's life circumstances change, and accept an offer that they can't refuse.)

I'm wondering if it makes sense to have some soft of nonprofit/community/coop ownership of the site, and have the content be licensed using licenses similar to Wikipedia (Creative Commons)?

Thoughts? (Apologies if this has already been addressed, but I didn't find anything in the announcements other than a general pledge of non-affiliation with certain entities.)

P.S. - I think it was insane what happened. (Old ColdFusion could have been supported indefinitely by third party support companies.)

I'm mostly asking in the case of GBA Video carts. If someone was going for a full GBA US retail set, would GBA Video be considered part of that set? (And out of curiosity would the answer be any different for PSP video UMDs?)