eBay vs. Amazon Trade-in: Duel!

So, recently I traded a few things into GameStop (mostly old cables and accessories) and used the rewards to buy L.A. Noire for PlayStation 3, which was just under $40 USD and a phenomenal value to the casual gamer. I applaud both Rockstar and Bondi for this title.

I’d planned on trading it into Amazon Trade-In for $15 (they buy used books and video games), but figured I’d try my luck at eBay, one last time. I’d posted about eBay’s new, outrageous fee-struture (~9%) before, and vowed to not use the service anymore unless absolutely necessary. — But, after all, the game was selling for at least $20 on eBay! My copy ended up selling for $21, plus $4 shipping and handling. Great, right?

Well, it didn’t actually end up being much better. Between all of the extra time I had to spend creating my listing, photographing the item, walking to the post office and mailing/addressing the package, chance of a buyer not paying or filing a claim, (etc.) … I only netted an extra $2 from a $21 sale versus a $15 sale. 

How is this possible? Amazon pays shipping and insures the package for $100, because all UPS shipments are automatically insured for that much. You print a label, and all you need otherwise is an old Amazon box, and some tape.

By comparison, the eBay auction ended up like this: $21 sale price + $4 shipping = $25.00 net income, - $1.03 in PayPal fees, - $2.25 in eBay Fees, - $2.22 in Shipping (USPS, Slowest speed), - $0.80 Delivery confirmation (required), - $1.80 Insurance (optional, but recommended) … = $16.90 total.

So, after all the extra hassle, I made an extra $2 using eBay. eBay/PayPal made $3, or so. And, instead of the package getting to Amazon next day, it’ll get to the buyer in just under a week. — The choice is yours. Good luck, all! I hope you’ll consider the new fees before selling.

Opinion: You should be able to return lousy video-games.

Before I knew to check the game-review websites for reference of whether something was worth buying, I always just bought whatever game I thought looked the “coolest”… literally judging a book, err… video-game…, by it’s cover.

I think that the main reason stores like GameStop still exist is the fact that you simply can’t return most of their merchandise if it’s been opened. The reality is that copies of a video-game cost almost nothing to produce, and are sold at $50-60 a piece. Of course, this is to cover the costs of developing a game… but if you’re making lousy video games, then you deserve to eat the cost if people don’t like them. Okay, yes I know this would be damaging to the business overall, but it would definitely filter-out a lot of the crud from the market.

/end-rant

Waiting for an update to ‘Fallout 3’…

I saw a friend of mine’s roommate playing Fallout 3 at this house the other night. Very pleased with it, reminds me of a combination of Half-Life 2 (one of my favorites) and Smuggler’s Run (similar theming, but a driving-game).

So basically for the past 24-hours I’ve been on-and-off glued to the game for hours at a time. It’s very open-ended, yet driven. Challenging, but not impossible or frustrating. Also, there are plenty of optional bonus quests to do on the side that aren’t particularly distracting or annoying… they are actually satisfying to complete! (you discover new areas, get paid decently, meet people that give you more side-quests, etc.)

So yeah, highly recommended… BUT, I found a bug: (others have found it, too)
[source: Fallout @ Wikia] “There is a known bug in all versions of the game where, if you do not exit Galaxy News Radio via the back door as Three Dog instructs, you will be unable to return to the building to complete the quest via the front door (using the intercom will result in the doorman telling you that it’s open, when it’s not), and the side-door will be locked and require a successful very hard lockpick to open. It is not known if you can backtrack from Dupont Circle to the back door, but dialog from Three Dog when you accept the quest would suggest that you cannot. Picking the very hard side door will result in negative karma, but will allow you entrance to the building to complete this quest.”

I never heard this part of the conversation with Three Dog, so naturally I just went out the way I came in. Nor did I receive a key for the door, which I’m pretty sure was required since I tried to use that door before even talking to him and it was locked. (requiring a key) Weird.

So obviously, this bug breaks the game. You cannot go any further unless you either:

1. browse around randomly and eventually discover ‘Rivet City’, where you can then resume your quest with a new goal.
2. check an online walkthrough at GameFAQs or something that tells you where to go next

As mentioned, this ALSO locks you out of the Dupont Circle region unless you find it manually… and also, the game is constantly telling you to “Return to Three Dog to talk about Dad” or whatever. Hah. This is one of the first times I’ve ever run into a bug like this in a game of this scale. Luckily, with these modern gaming-systems, they can patch it remotely and send out an update to everyone.
Yayyyyyyyyyy!

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Simon Wai prototype)

Way back in the day, I was too young to have had an original Sega Genesis. However, I had the Sega Nomad, the brick-sized Genesis “portable” that got an overwhelming 30-40 minutes maximum to a fresh set of 6-AA batteries.

My favorite game was always Sonic 2, it was so fun to play and there were lots of cool cheat-codes to do hidden things when you were bored. (Super Sonic, Debug mode, Level Select, Night mode, among others) So, naturally when I found out that there was an UNRELEASED BETA of the game floating around online in ROM-format, I had to check it out.

There are previously unreleased and/or incomplete levels in this version of the game… AWESOME. Plus a lot of the old classics in their incomplete or beta formats. It’s pretty cool to play if you’ve played the game. I’m using an emulator called Genesis Plus to play it on my Mac right now.

FYI there are some key combos you need to know to play this:
A+Start at the main screen = level select (otherwise you can only play the first level)
B+Start for two-player
… I guess that’s pretty much it.

Have fun, linked is a page at Sonic Retro with more information and a level-list that shows which zones are playable and which got either cut from the game, renamed, or combined/redesigned before the final release. There’s a really cool one called Wood Zone that I’m really sad didn’t make the cut, and also Hidden Palace Zone which seems pretty cool and is fairly playable in this beta, as well!