So I've been continuing to collect cib genesis games and unfortunately my town is horrible for collecting, so I'm forced to buy online. What methods do you guys use to detect counterfeit cases, covers and instructions manuals etc...?
So I've been continuing to collect cib genesis games and unfortunately my town is horrible for collecting, so I'm forced to buy online. What methods do you guys use to detect counterfeit cases, covers and instructions manuals etc...?
Suspiciously low prices is the very first sign of piracy. I also look at the reputation of the user, people are usually smart enough to give negative feedback for sellers of fake stuff.
Even the best reproductions, from what I've seen, aren't quite like the real thing. Also, 20+ year old games tend to accumulate a bit of wear, dust, and handling. If you buy a copy that's pristine and smells new, that's suspicious. Compare any games you get to games you know are real. The thickness and texture of the paper, quality of the printing, etc.
Of course, the best way to protect yourself is to not buy from sellers located in China, period (or Russia for that matter). Avoid anyone that has a large inventory of games up for cheap BINs. If it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.
In my experience, there aren't too many people trying to pass off fakes as the real thing, usually they'll say "reproduction" or "replica" in the description. The fakes are usually very obvious.
This is getting more and more difficult to tell honestly by the day.
Just saw a video from a collector in Texas who visited a local game store in a town he was passing through. This store had near mint games on display for sale such as Bloodlines, contra hardcorp...etc. Collector looks at the games and they seem to have some slight surface wear around the card shell itself and the PCB had signs of scratches on the pins indicating use and it looks used. But the labels on all of the games were in excellent near mint condition. The boxes the games came in were also near mint as were the inserts all looking legit.
But..none of them had the manuals apparently, were being sold for current market values so like bloodlines was $40. The collector actually bought the bloodlines cart and was about to walk about but something didn't sit well with him so he went back to the counter and asked if they had tested the game. They stated they did but he asked them to fire it up to be sure. The cart would load only to the Konami screen and then lock up at that point no matter what.
The collector buying up the game now suspects it is a fake cart and asked if they could open the cart so he could see. The store refused to do this so the buyer askes for his money back since the game obviously doesn't work. Store was only willing to refund towards store credit and would not refund him back his cash that he just handed them as they have a strict no cash refunds policy apparently. Buyer gets mad at this point and threats to call law enforcement since he hadn't even left the store yet and gave them cash for the sale, it didn't seem right they wouldn't give him cash back.
Point is, the store themselves were either making repros out of recycled carts and PCBs or buying them cheap from someone who was making them and making them look very legit.
Apparently the labels on these carts while immaculate, did look like the right type of paper, thickness and gloss of a very well kept genesis cart.
The ONLY way to be sure is to request pics of the cart opened up so you can see if there is an eprom on the damn thing or not since actual released games were on masked roms originally and wouldn't have stickers covering windows on the chips inside. Unless they were prototypes, but that isn't common to fake given the types of boards used for most protos back then.
Eh? The store sells an item which doesn't work and only refunds towards store credit? That must be the highest form of douchebaggery I've heard of in a long while!
Sounds like a region protection issue to me, typical of Konami games.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrossBow
Still, this could mean they flashed the wrong rom.
Yes I agree and luckily I don't have such issues near me. Now having said that, the local gamestops and a few other chain stores that deal with pop culture items including video games have taken in Repros without knowledge before and tried to sell them off as legit. But those same stores, have been willing to listen to collectors and actually allow such repros to be verified as repro or not and adjust their pricing accordingly when called out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zebbe
The point of my story, was that a collector who was pretty versed in how these things should look, still almost got taken by a repro that was done purposely to look legit and had very nearly all the signs of being the real deal.
The main tip off was how pristine the label actually was compared to the normal wear condition of the cart and contacts, and the fact that NONE of these had their manuals but had cases with mint inserts. So the shop was in all likely hood either creating their own repros and knew that trying to create authentic manuals would drive the costs above what they were worth anyway, or have someone local doing it for them, or perhaps even making them and trading them into this store without the store really paying attention or having any idea. Hard to say.
Again, on any fairly high value game that is being sold or acutioned off, there should always be photos of the PCB provided or be willing to be provided to ensure some authenticity. It still isn't fool proof, because you could still get a legit PCB but get a different cart and repro label made up to look minty to sell the overall package at a higher value.
We see the same crap happening in the Atari world these days and are pretty vigilant about it.
Yeah, price is going to be your first indicator. If the price is too good to be true, then there is probably a reason.
If I buy stuff locally I'm pretty good at detecting fakes, to me the key is always the paper of the insert/manual. And a minty cart/insert with no manual is always a red flag to me.
That said, at least with buying on ebay you have buyer protection if you get it and find out it's a fake, just file a not as described claim and you will get your money back I think.
This. Double this.Quote:
Originally Posted by xelement5x
2 normal dead giveaways is the label being longer on the front and that little missing side of plastic on the cartridge itself.
Why do bootleg MD games always have a cartridge with a square piece missing on the side of the cartridge guys?
https://i.imgur.com/WHCCbrI.png
The square missing piece is so the cartridge will work in Japanese consoles which have a mechanism that prevents you from removing the cartridge when the power is turned on.
That is because in JPN that notch was needed for the cartridge lock. So that notch missing on US and EUR shells indicates a repro shell that was made to be universal on all models of the Genesis/Megadrive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderblaze16
Another one is, like, you know... Pulseman wasn't released in PAL territories :P.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderblaze16
Yeah, Japanese cartridges have a gap at the left for a physical lock (no notch = you can't turn on the console since the lock won't fit). Western cartridges don't have the notch, but the bottom of the cartridge shapes inwards to fit in the cartridge slot (which prevents Japanese cartridges from fitting in Western consoles). Bootleggers used cartridges that bad both characteristics so they'd work on any console (often they'd hack the ROM to remove the region check if present, too).
What, did you think bootleggers were all about being cheap only? They wanted a wider reach :v
And for the record, I recommend cartridge releases of homebrew to use the same kind of cartridges precisely for that reason (so they work on any console). Some people are put off by that though precisely due to the association with bootlegs.
In my experience, the common Chinese, Aliexpress type, bootlegs are easy to spot in person if you're familiar with genuine games of the same region. They might look pretty close but they feel wrong, the dimensions of the boxes tend to be slightly wrong compared to real boxes, the plastic's different, etc. Online, the plastic the boxes are made of can be a pretty big giveaway if the photos are good enough: the clear plastic on genuine boxes is usually textured (except for some EA games), while the fakes tend to use smooth plastic. This can be spotted some of the time. Of course, someone putting enough effort in to fool people could swap the box for an original from a cheap game...
Another big difference, unless they've improved recently, is that genuine cartridge connectors have the bottom edge of the PCB chamfered, while the bootlegs cut it straight across. After looking for the things that everyone's listed, it might be worth asking for a photo showing the cart connector if you have any doubt. That's not to say that the chamfered edges are a guarantee of a game being genuine either, but it should eliminate it from being one of the cheap and common fakes.
I did notice on ebay that a Chinese seller that I've used before, and has sold genuine goods, is now selling fakes alongside their genuine games. They're listed as customized games in the description, but could catch people out. For that reason, it is worth reading the descriptions carefully; AFAIK there aren't too many ebay sellers making a real effort to pass off fakes as genuine, and there will almost always be some mention of them being reproduction, customized, etc.
Most of the differences between real and fake games could be eliminated with high quality reproductions using better quality materials, machining, etc, but I'm not convinced that there are large numbers of those out there. Hopefully I'm not wrong. I actually wonder if you'd be more likely to get stung in a physical store with a cart with a genuine shell and box, but with swapped board, labels, etc. Would still require a fair amount of effort to do, but for the unscrupulous it might be worth it as a one off for a very high value game.
Final edit: When it comes to high value games, or anything to be honest, I'd be wary of anyone claiming to have absolutely no knowledge of what they're selling. E.g. "my dad died and we found this in his attic", when the game in question just happens to be a game with five known copies. It can be an attempt to feign ignorance and to not explicitly state that what they're selling is genuine.