/ 19 April 2007

Yesterday’s games: Gold dust to collectors?

Video games, by their very nature, are considered disposable commodities. Today's cutting-edge masterpiece is tomorrow's laughable relic, and even those few titles that maintain their appeal can easily be picked up in bumper nostalgia packs like Sega's recent, and in my opinion unmissable, <i>Mega Drive Collection</i> on PlayStation Portable.

Video games, by their very nature, are considered disposable commodities. Today’s cutting-edge masterpiece is tomorrow’s laughable relic, and even those few titles that maintain their appeal can easily be picked up in bumper nostalgia packs like Sega’s recent, and in my opinion unmissable, Mega Drive Collection on PlayStation Portable.

The original releases, more often than not, are left to languish on the “pre-owned” shelves in charity shops, as unshiftable as those copies of A Brief History of Time and Superplonk 1993.

Slowly, however, as games work their way into our pop-culture canon, the physical objects themselves, with their quaint packaging and poorly translated instruction manuals, are becoming collectable. Of course, there have always been rare titles hunted down by demented completists. There is a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) called Nintendo World Championship 1990 of which only 116 copies were made for a United States gaming tour. One of these is worth several thousand dollars.

There are dozens of modestly valuable titles, and looking out for them could brighten up even the most ghoulish trip to the local car-boot sale. So here are a few tips.

If you’ve got no idea what you’re looking for, stick to NES titles in good condition — these came in perishable cardboard packaging, so decent examples are rare. It’s also worth picking up early or obscure titles in long-running series such as Zelda, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) or Mario — stuff that new fans won’t know, but might well fork out for.

There were a couple of Zelda titles on the ill-fated Philips CDi machine that are hard to find (they’re awful too, but that’s part of the fun), while the early GTA spin-off GTA London, on the original PlayStation, might fetch something too.

Look out also for older, less successful games by well-established developers. Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, was responsible for two early 1990s cult gems, Policenauts and Snatcher — both are gold dust to fans.

Finally, grasp almost any Japanese-made title from an obscure video-game console. Basically, if the game has “Neo Geo”, “PC Engine”, “MSX” or “FM Towns Marty” written in the corner, hand over your coins and run away cackling.

Collecting classic video games is never going to have the cachet (or profit) of fine wine or art, but then you won’t come across a bottle of Château Margaux 1985 at the church fete. A sought-after game in good condition put on eBay and described in detail can make a sound profit. Certainly more than that pristine copy of A Brief History of Time. — Guardian Unlimited Â