Code Monkey

On 2/27/2024 at 10:52 PM, Sumez said:

It's up for preorder on roughly half the webshops I've checked, there's no real information anywhere outside of that

What's a wethsop?

Nevermind, I don't know why I thought you wrote wetshop. I must have been tired reading that.

On 2/22/2024 at 4:17 AM, Sumez said:

The new Contra is already getting a regular retail release with wide distribution at a decent discount price, even on PS5. Does the LRG release offer anything to separate it from this?

Where? I couldn't find it on Amazon.

2 hours ago, AirVillain said:

Interesting, didn't know that. Thank you.

Still, though. The assumption is that the link is there for that particular game. And in Amazon's case, it's a shitty place to buy NES games. 

Now there's an eBay link. Which I assume works in a similar way?

This is what I meant by "it depends on your philosophy". And of course how much $$$ you can bring in with the links. If you're using it to help fund the site, then of course you need it. But if the collecting tool is powerful (good?) enough then I would say it's better to not have the links.

This website seems best suited for people who want a "Collection Tracker". Hopefully the crew there can find the market they need and get it all figured out.

If so, they're required to notify the user (you) they receive compensation for the affiliate links. Otherwise their affiliate account can be suspended.

If you look around the site, you'll see if this is posted somewhere for both Amazon and eBay but yes, they both work the same way.

A few days ago my mom had a heart attack and has been in the hospital all week awaiting a triple bypass.

You think your parents are healthy until reality tells you otherwise.

I received 2 games today:

• Castlevania: Advance Collection
• Jurassic Park Collection

On 2/12/2024 at 8:38 AM, AirVillain said:

Thanks for the shout-out.

Nice. The site looks nice, like I said before.

I guess it depends on your philosophy and how you want to present the site, in terms of how many games you want to come up/view.

I can see the "box art" approach being better for hardcore collectors (maybe someone who is going for a complete CIB set) but a list view might be better for someone who is just wanting to find games from their childhood/recommendations.....

So yeah, kind of depends who you are targeting.

For someone who wants to literally use your collection tracker function, they can input their games and they're done. For others, who use the site as a "pricing resource", maybe not (as it's not super easy to scroll through the game list to check out prices to update their own Excel sheet, for example. Al prices are in USD as well...). So I guess it depends who you want to use the site.

Re: The Amazon link deal, once again, depends on your philosophy vs. how much $$$ you can bring in with the links.

Like others have said, I'm not sure how many people actually purchase this stuff from Amazon. I certainly never have. If the links are bringing in major revenue then hell, leave them, of course. But if the revenue isn't super high, I think you might want to take that into consideration as they do somewhat detract from the overall "sanctity" of the site, and very few have the actual game available on Amazon.

Neat work, either way!

The Amazon affiliate links don't work like that, you don't have to buy the product in the link. The basic idea is to get you to click the link, regardless of where the link takes you. Once you click an affiliate link with my affiliate ID in it, Amazon holds that for a week and anything you buy on Amazon within that week, I get a percentage of that sale. So you don't have to buy that item but if you do plan on buying anything frm Amazon, hey, click my link first and let me get a pece.

I realize I was writing that in the first person but I'm not affiliated with Mynty, just explaining how it works.

13 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Not trying to shit on anyone cause I dig the site aesthetic and the graphics are neat but same problem I have with Price Charting and why I no longer use it. It’s just easier to get sales data directly from eBay. 
 

Rando game I picked and one is not even close to a good enough sample size but loose shows 4 recent sales on eBay from 2023 when there are a shit ton more as soon as yesterday. Last tracked loose sale on Mynty is 11/2023 it looks like
 

https://mynty.gg/game/dungeon-explorer-3/?item=loose

Edit: pulled another rando - Super C loose on NES, last tracked sale on Mynty - 10/2023

https://mynty.gg/game/super-c/?item=loose

They just finished describing how their sales sorting process is manual. Sales frm yesterday will take quite a while to get manually sorted.

12 hours ago, c4 said:

First up, thanks so much for your feedback. I really appreciate it when people step up and take the time to share their thoughts, as it helps me tackle any issues head-on.

I actually covered this topic in my last post. At the moment, we're importing data to the site manually—yes, manually, believe it or not! But I've recently brought on board a new development team to overhaul our aggregator system for automatic functionality. What's in it for you? Data importation will be significantly quicker on a daily basis. How quick, you ask? Right now, we manage to import between 100-250 games a day. With our new tool, we're looking at 700-1000 games a day.

One thing eBay doesn't offer is the separation of data by condition, and that's where Mynty excels. Sure, you can dig up the most recent data on eBay, but it doesn't sort by condition. You could do that legwork yourself, but why go through all that hassle when you can find it easily on Mynty? We're here to save you time and offer you more.

Oh, and I've just updated both of the games you mentioned below 

Dungeon Explorer / Super C

I'm curious where you wrote this if you copied and pasted it here. It's impossible to read using the site's dark theme because the lettering is almost black. It seems like a unique post intended only for here, did you post it somewhere else as well?

1 hour ago, kiljo said:

I guess I had never really thought about it before, but it makes sense.

The process of making a game would involve burning the code to a chip, then pushing the chipinto the slot on the board and trying it out. Remove the chip, reburn a new program, try again. Then you may have different builds on your desk, each one labelled with masking tape or a sticker to tell you which build it is. Eventually the board and chips get left in whichever state they were last used and thrown into a drawer, to be found by someone 20 years later.

I have many prototypes that are literally  just chips, no board.

Yes. I'm curious what you thought they would look like.

2 hours ago, snakeyez said:

Yessir, it was your video. It was the only thing I could find that visually explained the black box timeline. I'd like to see more of the hands-on explanations of variants that you displayed at the end of the video, especially dealing more with the cart/labels instead of the box. Good stuff to know. Appreciate the info!

As far as the Pro Wrestling, I saw 5 screws with and without the TM, 5 screws with and without the "Made in Japan" in the lower left front of the cart sticker, and at least another variation with the 3 screws including the A revision debossing on the back label. I'm hoping this is about the oldest Pro Wrestling variant.

Less of an emphasis is put on the label variants because the easiest way to pinpoint the printing for a cartridge is from the chip dates. They could have sourced old chips but it's more likely they're at least relative to the timeline. You can find out how early your cartridge is by opening it up and checking to see how close the chip dates are to October 18 1985.

And I may be doing another video with all of the Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! and The Legend Of Zelda variants. I have over half of them already.

17 hours ago, snakeyez said:

Again,thank you guys for your insight. After watching a well explained YouTube video on black box games, I feel like this is an early, early Pro Westling cart. I got it for $7.50.

Probably my video! It seems to be getting lots of attention.

The label is authentic, it's just a first print without the TM.

I called Netflix Customer Service for support on an unrelated issue last week and had to open up a random show or movie to test if it had been fixed. I clicked on the first random thing my remote landed on and the movie sat on the title screen but didn't play at all. It was an extremely confusing and long support call before we both realized I had clicked on a game and it was waiting for controller input. What a pain in the ass, I didn't even know it had games, I thought I had clicked a movie.

36 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Yup, here's how it went for me (I used a professional installer).

1. I got a quote from them in early June. Went back/forth on options, agreed on layout/# of panels, etc. They basically did all the work, I just decided how much I wanted to install/pay and if I wanted extras. This is generally dependent on how much electricity you use and how big your roof is. In my case my home is skinny so I don't have enough roof space to cover all my usage, I opted for "as much as I can get" 
2. They have to get a bunch of approvals/permits from town etc, had to sign up for some thing with my electrical provider
3. Installation scheduled for and completed late August. Installation took less than a day
4. Inspections are required and completed in the following month or so
5. Got permission from the town & power company to turn on October 2nd

I could've opted for a loan to pay for it and paid slightly more than the electricity savings every month for ~7 years or so, but I opted for cash payments. In my case it was $1,000 up front, then some % after I signed the agreement, another % payment on install day, and the final payment on "turn it on" day.

All-in-all, it cost me ~$26k for an ~8kwh system. I was supposed to get $1k back from the state (MD) but the company bungled the paperwork so I missed out on that. Federal gives 30% of the cost of the project which was about $7800.

If you have other questions, let me know! Overall I'm happy with the system. Since it's winter it's not exactly producing thrilling numbers, but over the course of the year it will definitely be awesome. I did have one month in the fall/winter with a ~$30 bill which was pretty awesome. Summer should be excellent.

Sorry for hijacking but I feel like we answered the thread. Did you re-shingle your roof prior to the install? If not, how will you manage that with solar panels on them now?

On 2/4/2024 at 2:54 PM, Khromak said:

I'll be getting back about ~11k, ~8k of which comes from the solar tax credit for putting solar panels on my roof last year. I'll be spending most of it to pay off the last of the loans I took out to pay for the solar panels, which seems counter-intuitive but I'll have solar panels for another 30+ years so let the savings roll in!

I will be picking up a couple things for myself though, like a new phone I kinda need. No video game tapes though, I'm in a pretty good place with my collection and am not really hunting anything right now.

Can you please explain how you did it, how much it cost, how you paid and how long it took?

3 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

I strongly suggest you consult a tax professional on that. You are a pain in the ass know it all but you seem like a nice enough guy so try and stay out of jail

I have an accountant that takes care of it. I did the same thing last year.

I'll be claiming about $20,000 in video game purchases as a business expense.

Technically I'm building this collection tracker so I need them to photograph and inventory so they're a business expense. Work smarter, not harder.

This one is a tie between two PlayStation games:

• The X-Files
• Mega Man X6

I wish I could pay someone to erase the experiences from my memory.

Here is an eBay auction that recently ended, it contained the poster. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/364292539204

Interesting enough, it also contains a registration form and on that form is a checkbox to purchase a $5 poster. Could it potentially be the same poster? Was it a mail-away option?

On 1/31/2024 at 3:23 AM, the_wizard_666 said:

That's a nice poster!  I'm just seeing this for the first time, but man, this shows why we have to keep opening sealed games, even when they're already listed!  I personally opened the sealed Shockwave, and it had no inserts at all, as mentioned previously.  So this either came out of a copy of Chiller and was stuck into Shockwave later, or some print runs didn't bother with a poster.  Either way, that's pretty damn cool to know that exists!

When you opened yours, did you pull the cardboard sleeve out of the box? This one I have was advertised as box and cartridge but missing the manual so I think I picked it up for $14 or so. After I got into the car, I opeend the box again to look at the cartridge, then pulled out the sleeve and the manual and poster were sandwiched between the sleeve and the box. The seller didn't know they were there and I wouldn't have known had I not pulled that sleeve out.

How much interest is there for something made by a guy with no connection to the source material?

4 hours ago, RH said:

You mean Pope Alexander?  Lol.

No, the poet's name is Alexander Pope. I just had to look it up and be sure I wasn't crazy.

This movie also has my favourite quote from Alexander Pope:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

And another from Nietzsche:

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

I was watching something on television in 2005 and got too busy to realise the credits had finished and something new started. I picked up the remote to turn off the television so I could go to bed and saw Jim Carrey's name. I held the remote for a minute but just couldn't press the power button. This movie was so incredibly amazing I ended up sitting there well into the am and being tired at work the next day. I absolutely loved this movie and when someone asks me my top 10 favourites of all time, this would be around number 5. I had never heard of this movie before that night.

I rated it a 10.

1. I would love to know how Price Charting is manipulating sale prices. I know JJ and have spoken to him many times.
2. Why would you phone eBay to ask if they gave permission? They have an open and free API allowing anyone in the world to pull sales data and do whatever they want with it (within their terms and conditions). eBay has no idea whom is doing what.
3. Yes, you are correct that best offer pricing is reported at the full item value. I spent a month trying to make this work otherwise but they removed the functionality from their API so that will skew some of the sales data.
4. If you notice something that's not priced correctly on that website, there is a REPORT button next to every single sale listing. It's all automated so JJ would very much appreciate you reporting something that was incorrect. I let him know a few years back that he had the Indiana Jones games on NES swapped and he thanked me for pointing it out.
5. I actually thought you undervalued the Atari 2600 games.

31 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

No one really buys used games on Amazon anyways that I am aware. They are always more expensive than on eBay. 

It's not just for purchases on the direct link. As an affiliate, if you click a link with my affiliate ID in it, I get a percentage of anything you buy from Amazon over the next 7 days. The percentages vary per category.

2022

2023

California Raisins