Collecting - CIB or loose carts?

Complete or loose?

  • Complete in box

    Votes: 16 57.1%
  • Loosey goosey

    Votes: 12 42.9%

  • Total voters
    28

joala

A Joala is for Life., Not Just Christmas.,
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I guess I'm pretty pedantic about having games cib, never bothered collecting loose carts.

What say you? Do you need the complete plastic/cardboard housing or content enough to have the raw shell staring at you on the shelf?
 

Thierry Henry

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At least you didn't mention that you're the type that wants hang tabs intact and all inserts/registration cards/whatever, all present and accounted for. Right?
 

Dochartaigh

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I kinda want mine to be how I had the games when I was a kid. For Nintendo and SNES I never kept the crappy cardboard boxes since they never held up well (and thus never kept the manuals for too long either). Sega Genesis and PS1 came with hard plastic cases so on those I always want the complete box with manual (and forward most systems came with plastic boxes so I want the box for my collection). I have been thinking of getting those universal cartridge cases for the NES/SNES, but haven't made that leap quite yet (because then I would want the manuals too, and those can get expensive lol).
 

joala

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I dont think I'd mind getting loose USA SNES carts, the label is visible from the top so easily readable when lined up

SFC/PAL SNES, fuck knows what the cart is when viewing from the top. Just generic grey shells lol
 

wyo

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I dont think I'd mind getting loose USA SNES carts, the label is visible from the top so easily readable when lined up

SFC/PAL SNES, fuck knows what the cart is when viewing from the top. Just generic grey shells lol

Attn: All those in the recent purchases thread that compared me to this guy...

I am putting you all on notice right now, god dammit! :blow_top:

The answer to the question is "it depends". If the game came with a plastic case, go for complete. Hobo cardboard? Go for loose or risk mental illness and bankruptcy.
 
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Renmauzo

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Complete, and I mean truly complete, warranty cards and all; that's how they would have been bought back in the day, the excitement that was there when you'd get a new game and pour over everything in the box...the ritual of it I suppose...that's how I want my games to be.

You can play your games and have the desire for the complete package as I do.

Honestly, this movement of crapping on people for wanting the boxes and all the extras is obnoxious and tiresome.
 

wyo

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Complete, and I mean truly complete, warranty cards and all; that's how they would have been bought back in the day, the excitement that was there when you'd get a new game and pour over everything in the box...the ritual of it I suppose...that's how I want my games to be.

You can play your games and have the desire for the complete package as I do.

Honestly, this movement of crapping on people for wanting the boxes and all the extras is obnoxious and tiresome.

Warranty cards is a step too far IMO but whatever floats your boat. SNES games in particular often came with a plethora of paper inserts. I could be wrong here but it seems like most people that are super anal about completeness are those that weren't alive or buying said games back in the day. Getting nostalgic over warranty cards, posters, ads, stickers, or whatever is just weird to me. Back then we either tossed that shit or put it in a drawer or something. Leave the carts loose for easy access. Were there actually people that opened a SNES box, played a game, then placed everything back in the package?
 

Renmauzo

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Me. My family was quite poor in the 80's and 90's, so I appreciated and took care of everything I got on the very rare occasion I was ever gifted a game.
 

wyo

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Me. My family was quite poor in the 80's and 90's, so I appreciated and took care of everything I got on the very rare occasion I was ever gifted a game.

OK, I ain't gonna lie... Mega Drive was easy to store in the box but I would open a new SNES game and store everything but the cart separately to maintain the minty freshness :D
 

Renmauzo

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I did the same ;) I only had 4 SNES games: Chrono Trigger, Mega Man X, Mario Paint and Link to the Past. I stored the boxes and all that stuff so they wouldn't get damaged. I think part of it was that all 4 of those games were bought with money earned from a part time job I had on weekends at the flea market. Most of it went towards helping my folks with the bills, so when I had put together enough for games from time to time, they became even more important to me as a symbol of the hard work I had to do to get them in the first place.

Ultimately, I'm 14 games away from being done my overall game collection (not complete collections, just what I consider done based on what games I like and play) and everything I have is complete anyway, so no reason not to continue going CIB.
 

Kid Panda

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Honestly, this movement of crapping on people for wanting the boxes and all the extras is obnoxious and tiresome.

The reason why? Most of it is the fact that I see people post tons upon tons of stuff they picked up. Here, FB, Instagram. I get it, you want to show it off. But at the same time, are these people really putting the time into the games? I get it, you find it CIB in the wild and you pick it up. But I'm talking about the chasers of the CIB experience. The OBI doesn't matter, it was for the UPC mostly in japan. The reg card, 10% of the people sent it in. I'm not trying to take away from anyone's childhood, what I have a problem with is the OCD manner at which 98% of the gaming community treats these things now.

Art is in the cart. Most of the art you see was/is mostly just a commission drawing and the artist doesn't even care about the game. It was a paycheck to them. Most of the games we play were nothing more than a paycheck.
 

ChuChu Flamingo

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Warranty cards is a step too far IMO but whatever floats your boat. SNES games in particular often came with a plethora of paper inserts. I could be wrong here but it seems like most people that are super anal about completeness are those that weren't alive or buying said games back in the day. Getting nostalgic over warranty cards, posters, ads, stickers, or whatever is just weird to me. Back then we either tossed that shit or put it in a drawer or something. Leave the carts loose for easy access. Were there actually people that opened a SNES box, played a game, then placed everything back in the package?

Also gotta consider the fact that even the same CIB game can have different papers or skip ones altogether depending upon the print run.
 
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ChuChu Flamingo

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Art is in the cart. Most of the art you see was/is mostly just a commission drawing and the artist doesn't even care about the game. It was a paycheck to them. Most of the games we play were nothing more than a paycheck.

I don't get how that has any bearing on someone enjoying the art, many artists in the past had patrons and often did things they didn't give 2 shits about yet people enjoy their stuff.

As a master of pulstar does it play better on AES over MVS?
 
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ggallegos1

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Carts illndoncsrt only, though I always enjoy reading the manuals of older NES and SNES games. Genesis i prefer CIB, but it's not a deal breaker. Ultimately I want to play the games, I'll make it look good on my shelf eventually.
 

oliverclaude

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There weren't any loose home carts to collect when I got hooked, so it would feel a bit awkward now. But if you are into protos or caravan copies, then 'loose' is quite trivial. Ultimately it's up to your own private preferences.
 

FilthyRear

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I guess I'm pretty pedantic about having games cib, never bothered collecting loose carts.

What say you? Do you need the complete plastic/cardboard housing or content enough to have the raw shell staring at you on the shelf?

Look at you spamming this place up so you can slide into the market...

You got quite a set on you.
 

joala

A Joala is for Life., Not Just Christmas.,
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Look at you spamming this place up so you can slide into the market...

You got quite a set on you.

Cheers :D

But seriously, I have trouble reading your posts because I get sidetracked staring at that fuckin signature pic of yours.... damn son....
 

snes_collector

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I did the SNES set loose and was happy with that. I do enjoy finding and buying the boxes/manuals now though, although I'll never have a complete collection of those. Cartridge games I am fine having loose, but I do like to have the box for Genesis games. Disc games I prefer complete but if there is a huge difference in the price I'll just buy loose. I saved a ton of money on some saturn games just buying loose.
 

snes_collector

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The full USA set? Nice work!

How long to get the set?

Thank you. Almost complete, I don't have the two competition carts or Mountainbike Rally/Speed Racer. I worked on it for 10 years, started in 2004 and finished in late 2014. It was really fun set to build, I spent a lot of time going to flea markets and game stores back in the day. SNES is by far my favorite system, and I can find enjoyment in most of the library.
 
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