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Auction for rare NES-game ends at...

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Kandrick said:
Who cares if the guy wants to spend 12k on a game ? People pay millions for some shitty paintings just because it was made by someone famous.
Except those are works of art, which video games are not.
 
Kandrick said:
Who cares if the guy wants to spend 12k on a game ? People pay millions for some shitty paintings just because it was made by someone famous.
Having a real Gorky painting wins over Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991.
 
I've got a better idea. Invest that $12,100 in my education. When I have a nice cushy job I'll pay you back that amount plus another $5000.

PROFIT!
 

DrFunk

not licensed in your state
Kandrick said:
Who cares if the guy wants to spend 12k on a game ? People pay millions for some shitty paintings just because it was made by someone famous.

I understand your rationale, but you really can't compare a Picasso to something made by Nintendo.
 

RotBot

Member
AstroLad said:
Except those are works of art, which video games are not.
Baseball cards aren't works of art. One of them sold for $2.35 million.
Stamps aren't works of art, especially not ones that have printing errors. $2.3 million.
G.I. Joe action figures aren't works of art. $200,000.
And so on.
 

kamorra

Fuck Cancer
DrFunk said:
I understand your rationale, but you really can't compare a Picasso to something made by Nintendo.

No._5%2C_1948.jpg

$143m
 
This is silly.

And no, I wouldn't say "hey, you who can't afford to buy a famous, expensive painting and bought it anyway, gj!". They're stupid too. Most people who do stuff like this don't have a dispensable income, they're just irresponsible.
 
RotBot said:
Baseball cards aren't works of art. One of them sold for $2.35 million.
Stamps aren't works of art, especially not ones that have printing errors. $2.3 million.
G.I. Joe action figures aren't works of art. $200,000.
And so on.

By the time a video game goes for that sort of money we will all be long dead.
and Thomaser will be halfway towards paying off his debts
 

OMG Aero

Member
I wonder if the guy who bought it will ever actually play it.
thomaser said:
The guy who sold it bought it this summer for $14000, and put it out on ebay now because he's building a house. He made it start at $0.01, with no reserve
Damn that guy had guts.
 

Kuraudo

Banned
I'm glad the OP didn't get it. Going into debt for something so trivial especially in this financial climate would be a horrendously bad decision.
 

Whimsical Phil

Ninja School will help you
For those who don't know and are too lazy to click on the eBay link, the cartridge in question was used in a contest back in 1991.

The contestants had roughly six minutes to play through portions of Super Mario Bros. 3, Pin-Bot, and Dr. Mario. When the time was up, scores were tallied, and a winner was determined.

So this $20,100 was spent on a cartridge that allows you to play six minutes worth of games that sell for a couple of bucks each. Not that this game was bought to be played, of course.

As a guy who collects NES games himself, I can certainly see the appeal of owning the only known copy of a cartridge, but cripes. I guess I have a limit.
 

Baker

Banned
Major Williams said:
Wow amazing... Reminds me of the King of Kong.
This story has absolutely nothing to do with King of Kong.

Whimsical Phil said:
The contestants had roughly six minutes to play through portions of Super Mario Bros. 3, Pin-Bot, and Dr. Mario. When the time was up, scores were tallied, and a winner was determined.
It also ended SMB3 at 50,000 points and Pinbot at 100,000. So pretty much that dude paid $20k for four minutes of Dr. Mario.
 

thomaser

Member
lawblob said:
Im' not clear what you mean by this. You were going to secure a personal bank loan to buy the game? You have a line of credit with a bank?

I would need to loan only a part of the amount, small enough to pay it down in less than a year. I believed the game would go for around $9-10000, so bidding $12100 was just a way to stay on top if someone else went to, say, $10500. But two people bid even higher, both going up to $20000. Mine didn't even register because the two others went past my amount just before I confirmed the bid, so I was too little and too late.

Sure, it's a strange "hobby". But we're not as crazy as the comic-book collectors yet.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Exactly, even using half of that money would have gone a long way towards alleviating poverty. The item has no inherent value or worth in the world beyond the fact that some collectors salivate over it because "ZOMG IT'S THE ONLY COPY!" It's just a collection of other widely available games hastily slapped together. It's not even a unique prototype or anything close to a work of art.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
HamPster PamPster said:
How much would it be worth if you cut it up and made a world 1-1 replica out of it?
It would be worth a ton, but there would be no one willing to pay more then the orignal cost of the painting (with the price adjusted for inflation) for decades, if even our life times.
 

whitehawk

Banned
kamorra said:
No._5%2C_1948.jpg

$143m
Ugh. There are a bunch of these at my school in the hallways, that look exactly the same as that thing. Why aren't they worth 143m? Jesus christ..

I would rather go to winners and buy a printed painting for $25.
 
thomaser said:
So today was a big day for Nintendo-collectors. An auction for the only known existing copy of "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991" ended a few hours ago. The guy who sold it bought it this summer for $14000, and put it out on ebay now because he's building a house. He made it start at $0.01, with no reserve and let it run for just over a week. The bidding quickly went up to $8500, and stayed that way until just two or three minutes before the auction ended.

Now, I had a hankerin' for this thing myself, so I prepared a bid of $12100 just to be sure to win. I don't have that kind of money, but have a nice bank and figured I could pay it down without too much trouble. So I waited until there was a minute left. Someone bumped it up to $10000 as I wrote in my amount, but I still felt pretty safe. Then I made the bid, got distracted by someone and had to look elsewhere a few seconds. Went back to the computer and clicked the confirm-button. Got held up again, and didn't see how the auction ended. Came back a few minutes later, anxious to see if I had won, and...

Well, I certainly didn't win, that's for sure. In the last few seconds, the price soared up to $20100. Highest amount ever paid for a game.

Here's the link.


Awesome and don't listen to the nozzles that are ragging on you about considering spending 12K on a game.

Hatters gonna hat...
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
I could totally understand throwing that amount of cash at it if you were super rich and money was literally no object to you.

But the mere idea of going to your bank for money to fund that boggles my mind :lol I hope the winner didn't have to do that.
 
thomaser said:
So today was a big day for Nintendo-collectors. An auction for the only known existing copy of "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991" ended a few hours ago. The guy who sold it bought it this summer for $14000, and put it out on ebay now because he's building a house. He made it start at $0.01, with no reserve and let it run for just over a week. The bidding quickly went up to $8500, and stayed that way until just two or three minutes before the auction ended.

Now, I had a hankerin' for this thing myself, so I prepared a bid of $12100 just to be sure to win. I don't have that kind of money, but have a nice bank and figured I could pay it down without too much trouble. So I waited until there was a minute left. Someone bumped it up to $10000 as I wrote in my amount, but I still felt pretty safe. Then I made the bid, got distracted by someone and had to look elsewhere a few seconds. Went back to the computer and clicked the confirm-button. Got held up again, and didn't see how the auction ended. Came back a few minutes later, anxious to see if I had won, and...

Well, I certainly didn't win, that's for sure. In the last few seconds, the price soared up to $20100. Highest amount ever paid for a game.

Here's the link.

avatar2.jpg

Is that your child? Does he know you're putting his future on the line?

If that's not your child, then the expression suits you. I understand being a collector, but that amount, especially if you have to take up a loan, is wrong. Buy within your means, man.
 
AstroLad said:
Exactly, even using half of that money would have gone a long way towards alleviating poverty. The item has no inherent value or worth in the world beyond the fact that some collectors salivate over it because "ZOMG IT'S THE ONLY COPY!" It's just a collection of other widely available games hastily slapped together. It's not even a unique prototype or anything close to a work of art.

Your "logic" is so entirely asinine and arbitrary that your right to be on the internet should be irrevocably revoked.
 

Baker

Banned
elrechazao said:
Your "logic" is so entirely asinine and arbitrary that your right to be on the internet should be irrevocably revoked.
If it makes you feel any better, my right to view your posts is going to be revoked after I submit this message.
 
Why are yall babies crying about this dude wanting to waste 12k of HIS OWN money on a game?

Sounds like you guys worry about other people a little too much.
 

Drek

Member
whitehawk said:
Ugh. There are a bunch of these at my school in the hallways, that look exactly the same as that thing. Why aren't they worth 143m? Jesus christ..

I would rather go to winners and buy a printed painting for $25.
Because that is the value of the real Pollock and not just the work of some imitator hack who thinks aping the creative genius of someone else is a good way to express themselves?
 

Baker

Banned
MidnightRider said:
Why are yall babies crying about this dude wanting to waste 12k of HIS OWN money on a game?

Sounds like you guys worry about other people a little too much.
Three reasons:

1) I'm bored.

2) It wasn't "his own" money.

3) I still think he made up the part of trying to make a legit highest bid.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
MidnightRider said:
Why are yall babies crying about this dude wanting to waste 12k of HIS OWN money on a game?

It's not his own. That's what "loan" indicates. Childish attitudes toward money like that of the OP were a contributing factor to the financial crisis we still haven't recovered from.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Dizzle24 said:
Well he'd still basically need "disposable funds" to pay the loan back, so my statement is correct. :p

Perhaps you don't really understand how Americans tend to use loans. :p
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Wow, that is probably the most expencive game that i have seen indeed! Congratulations to the seller and to the buyer! :)

thomaser said:
So today was a big day for Nintendo-collectors. An auction for the only known existing copy of "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991" ended a few hours ago. The guy who sold it bought it this summer for $14000, and put it out on ebay now because he's building a house. He made it start at $0.01, with no reserve and let it run for just over a week. The bidding quickly went up to $8500, and stayed that way until just two or three minutes before the auction ended.

Now, I had a hankerin' for this thing myself, so I prepared a bid of $12100 just to be sure to win. I don't have that kind of money, but have a nice bank and figured I could pay it down without too much trouble. So I waited until there was a minute left. Someone bumped it up to $10000 as I wrote in my amount, but I still felt pretty safe. Then I made the bid, got distracted by someone and had to look elsewhere a few seconds. Went back to the computer and clicked the confirm-button. Got held up again, and didn't see how the auction ended. Came back a few minutes later, anxious to see if I had won, and...

Well, I certainly didn't win, that's for sure. In the last few seconds, the price soared up to $20100. Highest amount ever paid for a game.

Here's the link.
Pity to hear that you didnt won it :\ Seeing that you were willing to use this much money on a NES game, which makes me think that you collect NES games, do you already have a nice NES collection? :)


ShinAmano said:
I feel sorry for the winner...I love games as much as the next guy, but this is a horrible waste of money (IMO).
Why feel sorry for the winner? I agree that the price is pretty high, but i am sure that he/she really wanted the game and felt that it was worth to use this amount of money on the game, and as long as the winner is happy with the purchace, isnt that what matters the most? :)

EDIT: I added some text.
 

Gestahl

Member
I've pissed away a few thousand of my student loan money on frivolous things, but taking out a $12,000 bank loan for a video game is perhaps one of the dumbest things I've read on this forum. And that's quite a competition.
 

drakesfortune

Directions: Pull String For Uninformed Rant
The thing will most likely grow in value as time goes on. I don't think it's a bad investment for someone that has a lot of dough sitting around and looks at it as an antique investment type thing. For someone to take out a loan to buy it though...that's silly. The OP is very, very lucky not to have won it.

As anyone who's seen the antique's road show knows, these thing can become quite valuable. Not only is it one of a kind, but it has well documented history of a big event surrounding it.

Me personally, I'd rather buy one of Abraham Lincoln's socks, or George Washington's toenail clippings.
 
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