Buying Retro Games Online? Watch This First! (SCAM ALERT)

I played a bootleg version of 'Ocarina of Time' where the only instrument Link could play was a kazoo.

Amazon is completely out of control and Bezos is a straight up Bond villain. However...Nintendo is being stubborn AF. They refuse to make their entire back catalogue accessible, they could embrace the culture and make millions if they chose to.

About three years ago, my sister and I went to a used video game shop hoping to sell our old N64 games, we had a lot of them too. They took a while to look at all of them, longer than we thought, turns out they were making sure all them were legit. This was how I learned that bootleg copies of N64 games existed.

Anyone who wants the "real hardware" experience should probably invest in a flash cart at some point. Used game sales don't benefit the original developers anyhow, and you get the added bonuses like ROM hacks, easy save file backup, built-in gameshark codes, and sometimes even emulators for earlier systems.

Amazon is understandable to not buy from. But ebay, you still can request more info on the item. No penalty in that. If you see a seller that won't open the game cart or refuses to give more pictures of the items in any way, then you will know they are sketchy. This comes from a person who buys on ebay regularly for 15+ years now.

This has been an issue for 15 years. My local GameStop ended up getting used bootlegs mixed in with the real used games. At the time, they smelled like ink, didn't have have the seal of quality, they all seem to fit extremely tight, and when you put them in to play, some would have a rom credited before the title screen. Not just rare games, but common games that were still on store shelves at the time.

8:01 ah, my favorite game. the legend of zel

I buy to play, not to resell later. It's gross how stupid expensive some carts have gotten, especially crappy games.

So legit companies, AND bootleggers exploit labor laws!?! Who'd have thought?

There was a flea market near me a few years ago that was trying to sell a copy of Panic Restaurant ($800+ game) at the time for over $700. They shrink wrapped (???) the cartridge and would not let anyone open the cart up to prove the authenticity because it would "not make it new anymore" or something similar. It was wild.

2:20 My real copy of SM64 has those exact trademarks and years that my dad gave me long ago. The copy I have is U.S. and it contains the newer 1998-2003 ESRB "Everyone" rating logo, so it is possible that Nintendo changed the copyright and manufacture dates for these releases so that it would correspond to the updated rating systems during its time. Also SM64 started development in 1995, so that may explain the reasoning for the 1995 manufacture date.

Repros are not a bad thing given how absurd retro game prices have become nowadays. There's a difference between a repro and a bootleg though. Bootlegs are usually crappy rushed games or reskins of other games, put in a cartridge and thrown in the wild. Repros are usually exact copies of the game (ROMwise) with a donor cart and a brand new copy of the labels.

Buying bootlegs of expensive games like Clayfighter Sculptors Cut for 20 bucks is totally worth it.

Unless you are a collector, if the game plays the same then who cares? Not me. I'd rather pay for a $30 bootleg than an outrageous price for an original.

My mom fell for this scam once - it was Christmas 2019. Needless to say I was disappointed. I ended up buying a Japanese copy a few months later

if we're gonna be bringing back bootleg video games into mainstream circulation we could at least get the fun ones where it has mario's head over whatever licensed cartoon game they could find 😔

I think some of this is fear mongering. Some ebay sellers have photos of the PCB. I've ordered a handful of carts on ebay and all of them were authentic.

Okay if you are educated in cartridge based games it’s almost impossible to get scammed on eBay, so no I don’t believe that eBay is worse than Amazon in regards to fakes. Amazon typically uses stock photos & eBay sellers usually take real photos or open them up for people to authenticate them.

The big reason for bootlegs getting a foothold in the first place is the collector market. Collectors drive the price of legit games up high enough that normal people who just want to play games and don’t know any better will see a game for a reasonable price and just buy it. You’ll notice the proliferation of these bootlegs really hit a fever pitch over the last couple years especially during the pandemic when people were stuck inside and feeling nostalgia. I’m personally not a collector but I love older games. What worked for me was getting an EverDrive for my N64 and I’d recommend everyone who isn’t a collector who just wants to play games to get one as well. The collector market has driven up the price of basically every game except sports games to absurdity. It’s simply more cost effective to get an EverDrive than trying to find legit copies of games or even bootlegs when they’re at minimum 20 bucks a piece. Sad.

i got a bootleg version of gunstar heroes for sega genesis, and it will randomly soft lock by not playing a cutscene after a boss, or warp me way ahead to a level i shouldn't be at yet! i wondered what was wrong and i did so much research but it was all clear when i looked at my cartridge art compared to the official cartridge art. the one on mine was all stretched out and weird!