Game collecting is intimidating and you have to usually wade through a sea or crap before you get what you want. Sure, you’ve got that shiny new game, but wait, what’s that? It’s the wrong kind, it’s missing something, it’s full of stickers, and the case is smashed up? Don’t fret! Not only will I help you on finding the exact variant or kind of game you want, but also tips on how to restore a game to look new, where to find this stuff, and even how to get pesky stickers off of plastic and cardboard.

Most guides talk about how to get the rarest games, how to do garage sales, and all that stuff that most people either don’t care about or don’t need guides for. There are some things to look out for like reproduction carts, reproduction artwork and manuals, but online you really don’t have to worry about that on these sites as long as you aren’t paying $5 for Pokemon Green Version you should be fine. Just be smart about all of this. Another tip is do not buy any games from China as most of these are reproductions/fake. If you’re buying Japanese games the Japanese sellers are usually fairly honest and I have never had issues outside of blurry and awful photos. I’ve bought near mint consoles from Japan and the sellers are friendly and more than happy to offer more photos and info, again, in my own experience.

Where do I shop and how?

Well, outside of local retro game shops my go to places are eBay, Mercari, and OfferUp. I avoid Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace because for one, they usually don’t have obscure or rare titles, most people on there don’t know what they have and they charge way too much, and they’re usually in awful condition, or most of the games are bundled with consoles and accessories and they won’t let just the games go.

My only big tip when buying anywhere online is never buy from listings with stock or generic images! These are usually disc only copies or something is missing. Try to find listings with the actual game you are buying and preferably showing the disc, manual, any other items it includes, and even the underside of the disc or label side of the cart. Unless the item is marked sealed and brand new don’t look at stock images.

eBay

Filtering is key to getting the games you want for specific platforms. Let’s start with eBay.

First, make sure you are in the video games category or you will get everything from Sonic mugs to Final Fantasy knock off posters.

I always filter to Buy It Now. Why? Bidding sucks and you usually won’t get a game cheaper than Buy It Now anyways and it just ends up wasting time. You can try it though, but in my experience, I’ve wound up paying more in the end. The filtering works the same on the app so this applies for both.

Next I will filter by Lowest Price+Shipping. Yes, you usually see the crap at the top first, however, this allows you to spot the first complete game on the list with the cheapest asking price.

I then filter by console. With these three filters I’ve usually found exactly what I want in just a couple of minutes. If a game doesn’t exist, let’s say it’s particularly rare, just save the search and eBay will also save the filters you set.

Mercari

For Mercari there are more steps that are required to filter down to exactly what you want.

The first thing, like eBay, is sort by lowest price first

Next you want to select the video games category

Then make sure to select items for sale otherwise you will see more things that are sold

After this select the platform and not the brand. This is important as most items are sorted by brand correctly and you will miss a lot.

One extra thing you can do on Mercari that you really can’t on eBay is haggle. Always try to get the lowest price you can. Usually this only works for items over $20. Ask for the 20% off and see what the seller comes back with. Mercari is more of a garage sale site and they’re usually more desperate to let things go than on eBay. Seven times out of ten the sellers accept the offer or come back just a bit higher. Just be aware that once the seller accepts the offer your card is charged right away. So don’t go around asking for five different offers because you may wind up with multiple copies and backing out of a sale is much tougher than on eBay in my experience.

OfferUp

You’re probably going to have less luck here as it’s more like Craigslist with local pickups preferred. I have found some great stuff on here, but it requires more scrolling and specific searches. For one, you can’t filter down by platform like on the other two sites.

First, you need to select the category. OfferUp isn’t as smart as the other two sites and will usually search exactly what you typed in.

Then you need to sort by price.

This is where things get janky and weird. Depending on the title of the game you may need to search by platform as well. For example, “motogp 1 playstation” otherwise you will get every single MotoGP game for every system. The more generic the title the more specific you need to be in your search.

Things don’t move as fast on OfferUp so always click the Ask button and ask if the item is still available. I’ve had a few items never ship because the item has been on the site for over a year and the seller probably forgot about it. Also make sure you look at the posting date. The older it is, the less likely the seller will respond.

Why do variants and versions of games matter?

For most of the popular consoles from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft there are usually two separate versions of games and one is worth more than the other. Let’s start with the PlayStation as this where it basically started. This will also mostly apply to NTSC or North American releases. I’m pretty sure these all applied to all regions, but I’m to 100% certain.

PlayStation games also had longbox versions during the first 18 months or so of the system’s life. These are usually worth more as they were a shorter print run or were later released in regular jewel cases. Not all long box PS1 games are expensive, but most are. The majority of these games are made of cardboard kind of like a gift box. There are some that are like Saturn games with the plastic jewel case, then there are the really crappy ones with the long jewel case style but made of cardboard where there is a bit of plastic where the case can close. The top labels are usually peeling off as these are just glued to the plastic doors and look terrible.

PlayStation had a “Greatest Hits” line with a bright green label on the manual. These games are always worth less than the “black label” variant. These Greatest Hits versions sometimes have benefits like fixed bugs, but it’s hard to tell which have these fixed and which don’t unless it was stated by the developer. The black label versions are worth more as these are lower print runs as the game hadn’t garnered the sales it did to become a Greatest Hits title. Here’s the great thing about this. If you don’t care about have a rarer version of a game then the Greatest Hits versions are the way to go. You can usually save a lot of money. Usually these versions were always released at $20 and that still continues today.

Later the next generation had it on all three consoles. GameCube had “Player’s Choice” Xbox had “Platinum Hits” and PlayStation 2 had “Greatest Hits” but in red this time.

The GBA also had “Player’s Choice” but it seemed to only be on first party titles.

The DS completely skipped this and didn’t appear again until the 3DS released with “Nintendo Selects” on later print runs for first party titles only, and the PSP had the same red “Greatest Hits” banner like the PS2 games. The Vita skipped this as well due to the system’s lesser sales.

The next generation of consoles retained this as well. The Wii and Wii U had the same “Nintendo Selects” as the 3DS and was only on first party titles as well. These were also on later print runs that were sold in batches. These are still recent and can be bought new if you can find them.

The Xbox 360 kept the “Platinum Hits” line and the PS3 also had “Greatest Hits”. This was the last time Microsoft would do this. The Platinum Hits banner changes over time as Microsoft was always tweaking the Xbox 360 cover art template, but the PS3 mostly remained the same.

Sony remains the last company to still do these budget title boxes. With physical game sales dwindling there’s no need to lure shoppers to shelves of budget titles anymore. Sony changed there’s to “PlayStation Hits” with the same red banner.

The stickers…my God the stickers

These tend to be collector’s worse nightmares. With jewel case CDs you can just buy new jewel cases in bulk on Amazon. I buy packs of 50 for about $30. But for other cases you can sometimes buy new PS2 or GameCube cases, but these can be expensive as they aren’t manufactured anymore. Some people will buy cheap sports games and reuse the cases and toss the discs. Personally, there’s a special solvent you can use that I have never in my life seen a collector talk about on YouTube or otherwise and that’s Bestine. This is a solvent that stamp collectors use to remove stamps from paper. This stuff dries incredibly fast, but doesn’t stain, have an oil, doesn’t soak through or take off paint or ink. You can buy it on Amazon, Blick, or most art stores and it works wonders.

A lot of people suggest alcohol, WD4D, Goo Gone, and various other things, but it’s always oily, nasty, and requires further cleaning. Bestine doesn’t need any further cleaning after using, and best of all, it doesn’t need hot air on cardboard or anything like that.

Just pour some on a napkin or paper towel and get the sticker nice and saturated and it will start to come away. For thicker stickers or even metal ones you can wait for the soaking process longer. I even took rental labels off of the tops of discs with this stuff. It’s a miracle in a bottle. For plastic stickers you can get an edge up and with a cotton swab just rub along the edge while you pull up to dissolve the adhesive. I trust this stuff on my copy of Clock Tower II that’s worth $450. I took the rental label off the disc and a sticker on the manual, the front cover even, and it looks like nothing happened.

For long box games for Sega CD, Saturn, PlayStation, and 3DO you can buy newly printed cases off Amazon for $60 for about ten. These are really expensive and your best bet is to buy old sports games and reuse the cases. Sadly, these types of cases just aren’t really made anymore and can command a high price.

For jewel cases you can rebuy these, most of the early CD games came in these such as Philips CD-i, Dreamcast, PlayStation, Japanese Saturn games, PC Engine, and almost every other system until the PlayStation 2. but what about the black quad disc PlayStation games or games with two CDs inside? Thankfully you can make a Frankenstein quad disc CD with regular jewel cases and the black quad-CD cases you can find on eBay and Amazon. These cases don’t have the clear inside area for the art and are usually just opaque black. What a lot of people don’t know is that the outside parts of these cases are just the same jewel case bodies, minus the door. You can pop the doors off of two jewel cases and sandwich the black piece in between. Two CD jewel case are still made these days and are easy to buy. Either with the fold-out center piece or a hinged center to get to the second CD.