eBay seller's question: Original seal or re-seal?

Here's the deal. I've had these old Sega Genesis games sitting around in my basement for years, some of them still in some kind of plastic. I've been trying to clear space around here, so I put my "sealed" copy of Mutant League Football on eBay and sold it for $85.

Not long after, the buyer returned it, saying he had it on good authority that the game was re-sealed by a third party before we bought it and subsequently sold it years later.

Now that I have it back, I need someone else's input on this. I've had this game lying around in my house for over a decade and I have no idea where I got it from, but I know it was secondhand. If this really was re-sealed, and not a genuine factory-sealed original, then my other "sealed" games could be the same. That said, I'm afraid of opening the plastic and possibly ruining the value in case this is legit.

Here's a photo of my copy of MLF for analysis. For some reason the site's not letting me post more than one. Further pics to come (hopefully).
Attachment 16065

EDIT: WTF I meant Mutant League, not Rocket League. smh my head

More pics of the suspect package

Attachment 16066

Attachment 16067

Attachment 16068

I'm not able to see any of the attachments in the second post. For whatever reason, this site does not seem to like attachments. My copy of Mutant League Football was purchased sealed and I opened it. I'm pretty confident it was authentic; condition was pristine and all inserts were included. It had a plastic hanging tab on the back. Does this copy have one? That's a pretty good sign it's authentic for games in cases with no hang tab.

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Originally Posted by ichbinian

I'm not able to see any of the attachments in the second post. For whatever reason, this site does not seem to like attachments. My copy of Mutant League Football was purchased sealed and I opened it. I'm pretty confident it was authentic; condition was pristine and all inserts were included. It had a plastic hanging tab on the back. Does this copy have one? That's a pretty good sign it's authentic for games in cases with no hang tab.

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I looked all over the case and I don't see a tab or any place where one would have been.

BTW did you click on the attachment links? The images should pop up.

Just an interesting note to share regarding Genesis sealed games: I recall in a forum years ago (I think it was SegaAge) someone who claimed they worked at a toy store mentioning that the store actually had a deal worked out with Sega where the store itself would seal the games and Sega would sell them for a cheaper price. I don't have any references but I've been opening sealed Genesis games for years now and I've seen different types of seals for games that appeared to be brand new when opened. If this is true than some games don't even have an authentic "factory seal" because they weren't actually sealed at the factory. I can't confirm that this is true, it's just something I saw in a forum years ago. It does seem plausible though.

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Originally Posted by SkepticalIdealist

BTW did you click on the attachment links? The images should pop up.

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Yeah. It says "Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator"

Maybe I could give it another whack on eBay later and just omit the "factory" part from the title this time. That might have been my mistake.

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Originally Posted by ichbinian

Yeah. It says "Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator"

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Darn. I'll try moving them to another image host.

This should work better
https://i.ibb.co/jZwHqLT/20210623-164209.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/MhfKqSp/20210623-164245.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/Qj0DZxn/20210623-164234.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/NNm4Q0g/20210623-164221.jpg

I hate eBAY buyers that return things without good cause it's an expensive pain. But in all honesty I think it is a resealed USED product I mean ask yourself this if it was a brand new factory product why would the paper insert be frayed along the edge! to be fair this is a minefield as in Japan all Mega Drive games are sealed in shrink wrap. so with someone with absolutely no knowledge with assume these ARE indeed factory sealed brand new games! BUT the truth is in Japan used games are sealed in shrink wrap Not to make them look Brand NEW but keep the contents together and just show that it's been SHOP checked, alot of these shops are really small and they don't have the facilities to store the games content behind the counter nor do they have the same crime of people stealing cartridges or game CDs

let's put it another way this is a Sega Genesis game sold in America in some shops they would stick out an empty case and keep the cartridge and booklet behind the counter to prevent it being stolen in the 1990s no-one had empty Genesis demo display cases apart from maybe Blockbuster! For a small independent retailer with limited stock only buying 5 or 10 copies of the same game not knowing how popular it maybe unfortunately this is why we end up with a debate years later if you buy that same game the box being displayed showing $29.99 ~$19.99 ~$2.95 ending up a bargain bucket is it still a completely new package? to have a shop worn box new unused cartridge creased manual. yes elements of this are brand new and better than some used condition Games, but it's not collectors condition. and anyway this is all completely irrelevant as most normal people wouldn't care when the price cheap it's only when you're asking $90 ~$100's that it becomes an absolute minefield for a seller

Appears to be factory sealed, but need to see the back side.

That's resealed. Source, I used to work at US game stores for about 5 years, and resealed, literally, thousands of games.

Edit: You can tell as well because the top of the jacket is fading. That never happened on sealed games. Also you can tell cause that shrink wrap, not the typical seal material they used. Additionally, you can see where the shrink wrap was heat cut on the spine (amateurs! we used a special heat cutting tool, then hit it with the heat gun. Generally, you want to keep that on the side of the case that opens. But in this case, that is a piece of cellophane that was already, itself, part of a piece that was used to reseal a game. That's why there's a seam on all sides of the box, with the exception of the bottom, which itself was the 'bottom' of that roll of heat shrink. This a bad reseal job, btw.)

Legit seals tend to be individual sleeves that get closed on a game. Not pieces cut from a roll.

It's super important to keep in mind, sealed vintage games, from Nintendo on up to modern games, were opened and resealed all the freaking time. Most retail places let employees borrow games. When returned we just resealed them. All console games got opened unless we had multiple copies, and even then multiple people could borrow the same game, so more than one new copy in a store would be resealed as a common occurrence.

One of the ways we could get really good looking reseals was when a store would order multiple sizes of heat shrink, which were like one long roll of wrap, almost like a giant sleeve. If they ordered multiple sizes, you could have a seem on only 3 sides if you did some cutting, sealing, then heat shrinking. That took longer though, so we didn't do it often. Ideally, the roll was the same height of the box, so you only had seams on two sides, but more often than not, they ordered one big roll that could be used with everything, or just the flat shrink wrap, which meant you had to situate the box in the middle, to the 3 side seal, then heat gun.

I think I finally have the answer, and it came about by pure chance.

Earlier this week I ordered a used PS2 game from eStarland, and it came today. Despite the site clearly labeling it as "pre-owned", it came sealed in plastic similar to the kind I found on my copy of Mutant League Football. It's likely, though I can't confirm this, that my copy of MLF (and several other sealed Genesis games) also came from eStarland, who re-sealed it at their headquarters.

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Originally Posted by segagamer

Appears to be factory sealed, but need to see the back side.

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Here you go

https://i.ibb.co/091n5pb/20210612-082236.jpg

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Originally Posted by SkepticalIdealist

I think I finally have the answer, and it came about by pure chance.

Earlier this week I ordered a used PS2 game from eStarland, and it came today. Despite the site clearly labeling it as "pre-owned", it came sealed in plastic similar to the kind I found on my copy of Mutant League Football. It's likely, though I can't confirm this, that my copy of MLF (and several other sealed Genesis games) also came from eStarland, who re-sealed it at their headquarters.



Here you go

https://i.ibb.co/091n5pb/20210612-082236.jpg

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I agree with the others who commented it is resealed. The back is missing the plastic hang tab like NES and SNES factory sealed games.

I worked at Blockbuster for many years and the seal on that game looks exactly like how our shrink wrap machine would seal a case - with a seam on 3 sides.