Fell for the 'vintage' game reseller hype and lost $40 on a copy of E.T.

I bought a beat-up Atari 2600 cartridge of E.T. off Ebay for $40 thinking it was some rare collectible from the landfill story. Turns out they reprinted tons of these things, and my local retro shop has the same game for $2. Anyone else get tricked by those reseller listings with fake history?

2 comments

2 Comments

abby_palmer11d ago

Man I gotta ask, is this really that big of a deal? You're out forty bucks, not four hundred. People waste more than that on fast food in a week. The whole "fake history" thing is kinda funny though, like someone actually tried to sell you on the idea that a game that famously bombed is some kind of hidden treasure. At least you got a cool story out of it and a conversation starter for your shelf. Just take the L and move on, it's not like you bought a fake copy of Stadium Events or something.

lilychen8d ago

See it's not about the forty bucks or even the fake history. What bothers me is that this seller went out of their way to create a whole fake narrative around a game that was already pretty forgettable. You can find copies of Shaq Fu for basically nothing. So why bother? It tells me they probably do this with other stuff too. And if they got away with it once, they'll keep doing it. That's the part people miss. It eats away at trust in the whole collecting community.