Sealed Game Evidence Archive

SGEA

Sooo, two uninsteresting but semi relevant stories, about two semi terrible games....Zero Divide (Longbox) and Sentient for PS1.

So, a while back, I bought Zero Divide off ebay fof eBay and when I received it, thought it was a complete fake. It had no hangtab, the plastic was different compared to other PS1 Longboxes and it has this really ugly looking seam on the back. Disappointed, I held onto it because it wasn't worth listing if resealed.

Fast forward to recently, where I come accross another Zero Divide in a lot and bang, same ugly plastic, same ugly seam on the back. The other games I could verify as original from other examples bought when new, so it made me realize that maybe this was the official seal for Zero Divide.

Same story with Sentient. Picked up a copy a while back, and it has a terrible, really puffy, fake looking seam seal...almost looks like it's falling off the game. So I think bad reseal, even though it still has the PS1 Holo Strip intact. Just today, I went to my local mom and pop game store, and bang, in a bin for 99 cent games, a sealed Sentient, with the same baggy plastic wrap that looks fake.

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What does all this mean? It means that the more time passes, the more knowledge of what is and should be slips away. Who knows what variations exist outside of generalities? To this day, the topic of "How the heck did early Sega Games seal themselves" comes up more often than not.

I was wondering what Pascal and others at SGH thought of making an online image archive of user submitted (confidently) factory sealed games? Owners, or otherwise could simply submit the game name, and image(s) and they would be upload to an online archive for the world to check against. Multiple examples uploaded of the same game can also point out anomolies, variations, etc etc.

It would be a way of recording what a sealed example looks like, and be an invaluable source of info to collectors. Obviously the user submitting the image wouldn't have to post their name for fear of being heckled like meat to sharks, but who knows. Maybe in a while, it could grow to something difinitive.

Anyway, just thinking out loud.

great idea, and just because pascal doesn't want to doesn't mean it doesn't have to happen. I will personally help you get this off the ground if you want to do it.

It's only as good as the info submitted though. If the only info submitted is from people who all have reseals, then it's not really accurate.

I think it would be easier to list all games that come with a certain type of seal. Eg, for PAL PlayStation games it would be good to make a list of any games known and owned that come with the official PlayStation tear strip. Same for various Nintendo games that come with the red Nintendo strip. Of course, this would only work with certain region releases and formats (Mostly PAL region Nintendo and Sony releases) - One reason I collect sealed Konami Sony games so I can prove that certain games do in fact come sealed with a tear strip

We should have a list of games (With photographic evidence) to confirm existence of certain games with tear strips. Any other kind of seal contary to the list should be considered a reseal.

I think that this is a good idea.

However, it would require a lot of work. Whoever is going to do it would need to decide well in advance exactly what information they want to be able to collect/reference. Otherwise they might end up with a database that's nothing but a dumping ground for pictures that don't really do much to clarify the issues.

The biggest problem is the problem faced by many such projects - it will be hard to convince people to contribute, because when it begins, it will be empty and thus useless. So unless you have a *lot* of data that you can enter yourself, or can convince a *lot* of people to enter their data despite not really getting any benefit, then it will stagnate and likely wither.

It's a classic chicken-and-egg problem, and you solve it the usual way; deliver a truckload of chickens or a truckload of eggs to get it started. One way to solve the "chickens" part would be, for example, to have the database do something else as well; for example, let collectors catalog their games so that they get an advantage from uploading pictures even if they don't benefit from the feature that you really have in mind. Or you could solve the "egg" part of the problem by pre-populating the database by scouring eBay and other websites or going to your local games stores with a camera and grabbing pictures of every game you can that reveals the seal type. Then, with the database already a useful reference, people will be much more willing to contribute because they (at least perceive that they) will get some use out of it.

A good idea, but requires careful consideration of the difficulties of getting it started.

I would gladly submit info by the truckload now I have my scanner working and can get good scans. It would be nice if Pascal would allow us to upload our pictures directly to the forum via attachments instead of having to have them hosted elsewhere though, as this would make things a lot easier and less time consuming, which ultimately is what puts most people off

As for benefit to the uploader - They would have a thread that contributes and also doubles as a display of their collection. Although to differenciate it from our collections threads, we'd have to have a rule that only one game per submission rather than just one blurry shot of a dozen sealed N64 games.

I personally like what DJvilla has done with his Final Fantasy thread and listed each game individually - Maybe if we combined this style with the lists of games we already have here on the forum of certain games that come sealed in a certain way (Eg, there is a list of all PAL GameCube games with red Nintendo tear strip) then perhaps we are on to something. The foundations are already set, but just needs someone to take things one step further and evolve the idea into something else...

I am proud to announce that we have a solution for this and we will release a lot of new things in the next few weeks (maybe 2-3)...
stay tuned and still start to collect some informations !

Great Idea I would happily submit info for pal snes stuff and would be interested in the other formats

I recently was thinking about same thing, but about reseals.
A RESEAL database would be much better. Telling a snes sealed game is easy if you have the correct pictures, but there are so many types of reseals out there. Same for sega, even worse.

Its called the 'Confirmation & Evidence' section and its right here, in front of your eyes, yes!, really, on sgh.

yobo wrote:Its called the 'Confirmation & Evidence' section and its right here, in front of your eyes, yes!, really, on sgh.

it's something different

Its pointless unless when it comes down to which PAL games had the Nintendo tear-strip or not. And all that info is allready up as well.
We all know all NES, SNES and GB games have the H or V seam. Most US PSX games have Y-Fold and hologram inlays etc. So that is pointless to repeat to yourself.

And what about sega?? Do you know evrrything about it? I don't think so.
I opened my australian flashback cause i thought it was a reseal. And it was legit. While american reseals looked the same.
Not to mention there are numerous snes versions that are hard to guess if they are sealed or not.
Some picture database of reseals will be very helpful.

Still pretty useless. Your Flashback was probably a vintage reseal with new contents. Does not mean it was an original seal though so you cant count it as one. And just compare to your other legit games when in doubt.

heh. It's easy to say. And hard to compare.
I have dozens of sealed sega games and they all look different with different seal types.

Then whats the point of this when they all look different anyway?
Just leads to more confusion then is neccessary.

It would be good because sometimes more than one sealing type exists for a game (i.e. FF X Black Label NTSC-U has a hologram sticker, some copies have tearstrip, some greatest hits copies have a hologram sticker, some just have a seal). It's good for PS2, to see if the game is supposed to have a hologram sticker.

Also good for SNES NTSC where some SNES games had the v-seam, some had the overlap seam in the back, and some had no seam at all.

N64 Zelda OOT NTSC-U is the same, some had no seam, some overlap.

And, in the end, you get a sweet database with pics of (I hope) all the games in sealed condition, a virtual complete sealed set if you will.

Well, once again, that is why there is the confirmation section. All of the ones in question, Majesco titles, Zelda OOT etc., have been discussed allready. There are very few of these games with multiple seal styles out there.

yobo wrote:Well, once again, that is why there is the confirmation section. All of the ones in question, Majesco titles, Zelda OOT etc., have been discussed allready. There are very few of these games with multiple seal styles out there.

If nothing else, a centralized image archive is far easier to access then a bunch of random threads. The main point I tried to make originally was finding wierd examples of seals that may simply be unknown. Again, the community runs off well documented generalities that often do not account for variations. Game Rave does a great job pointing out PS1 Long box variations, for example, and besides that site, I'm not sure if another image archive exisst for that type of game.

Same case with sealed games. If not SGH, where?

yea, an obscure set of posts in a forum is far from perfect. I'm not saying this picture idea is but it's certainly a step up. I know that this archive of sealing types for games is what pascal was going for in the first place, which is why he doesn't allow double posts of the same games, and forces you to title threads in the standardized game - system - region format.

I think turning that confirmation section into a seperate site is a great idea. And again, I think it would be cool just to get a collection of high-quality pictures of all those sealed games in one place.

yep

striker wrote:
I think turning that confirmation section into a seperate site is a great idea. And again, I think it would be cool just to get a collection of high-quality pictures of all those sealed games in one place.

yeah and like I said stay tuned because we will have a solution in the near future !

The resolution is to not buy Sega