Rarity of Motorodeo and Ikari should be changed

[video game addict]

A few carts is a big deal when it comes to the 10s. When a game has a ten rarity and 10 other copies are found you have just doubled the total available ammount known to collectors.

 

This is only correct if we all agree a 10 rating has a total of 10 known copies or less.

 

You have to lay out the guide lines that the guide must follow first. Right now there are 10s that probably have 30-50 copies floating around like Motorodeo, Music Machine, Obelix..

 

The major problem with all of this is that we still don't know just how many are out there, and probably never will. It's all a crapshoot.

 

The rarity guide is not a straight line curve its more like a bell curve. But this is not by design its more about where the games happen to fall. The only requirement for a level 4 game or a level 8 game or a level 10 game is that its equally as hard to find (meaning known copies in collectors hands) as the other games with the same rarity number.

 

Yes this makes sense, and I think we all pretty much agree to this, but what are the requirements for each level of rarity? That needs to be laid out before you just lump things in together.

 

The point I was trying to make above was that they are ALL getting more common as the years go by, not just the 10s, but each and every rarity level.

 

They need to stay in proportion to one another, otherwise we will continue to make changes until we are at Marcos first law of rarity.

[MegaManFan]

But it all comes full circle when you realize that a 10 is not just a 10 for how many exist, but how few you find. Have any of us found a 10 in the wild in the last year? Probably not. Those few who do post about it and we all gawk and say unbelievable. I've been collecting Atari games for 5 years and never once found anything rarer than a 7 in the wild. Now even when you take into consideration that many halfway decent Atari games get scooped up by somebody looking to cash in on eBay, if there were that many 10's out there to find there would be 2-3 on sale on there every week. Doesn't happen. Some weeks there aren't even any 8's or 9's. The rating makes sense because the market hasn't suddenly been flooded just because D-Lite found a cache that Atari never destroyed and has been gracious enough to let a few of us snap them up instead of storing them in a vault somewhere. I doubt any of the people like me who are buying one are going to turn around and put it on eBay, and if they do they're pretty foolish because it's not like another cache of Motorodeos will show up tomorrow. Eventually, maybe, but not 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months, or possibly even 5 years from now.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

Saying that 10 is reserved for qty of 10 or less, makes for a very small window, where basically we would have a 9 point rarity scale, with 10s reserved for a few special carts that don't fall in the ranges of 1-9.  Mattg had posted a scale of rarity just a range of quanities for all rarities, it seemed workable. I don't know which thread that was in though. 

 

 

As you drop the rarities down, then you begin to crowd up on the r9s & r8s & r7s, the whole scale is more bunched up.  There's already some huge inconsistencies between the rarities now.

 

If you search ebay, you can find a Waterworld or Qubes up almost weekly, while River Patrol & Out of Control may only be offered a few times a year. And Color Bar Generator probably hasn't been offered at all..  So there are some huge variances between the rarities, and it's like that all the way down the guide.

 

Should we really be dropping rarities down every time a new cart is found.. 

 

 

More copies are found all across the board.  So you would need to make most of the R9s drop, then drop most of the 8s, then most of the 7s.. It's a never ending cycle. There are still games waiting to be discovered in people's attics & basements, and closets..  There will continue to be finds all across the board of rarities. They are all going to become more common as the years go by.

 

Pepsi Invaders has a reported 100+ copies in existance, so does it belong as a rarity 10? Whether they are reported found or not, they exist somewhere. So it's reportedly more than double any other rarity 10 and yet only a few are known to exist right now, so we are content with it's place on the rarity list.

922293[/snapback]

This thread here:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=73527&hl=

 

I'm ducking for cover now...

[Buyatari]

What about Coke Wins?

 

I believe the minimum run for a mask ROM was/is around a minimum of 1000 units and very expensive.

[CPUWIZ]

What about Coke Wins?

 

I believe the minimum run for a mask ROM was/is around a minimum of 1000 units and very expensive.

925485[/snapback]

 

They most likely made 1000 of them, if they made it into a cartridge is another story.

[Buyatari]

So they would print 1000 with intentions of putting only 100 or 150 (how many was it?) into cartridges? Ehh I dunno about that one. If so what happened to the rest of them? Destroyed? That might explain why a box is so hard to find. But if there were 1000 printed I think we would be able to account for more.

[MegaManFan]

We all like to think of this like Atari carts are stamps or coins, something of obvious numistic value both at the time of issue and later to collectors. What we overlook is the obvious fact that to many people these carts were absolutely worthless. They were thrown away, destroyed, given away, what have you. I was told at least once by a guy who remembered having Cakewalk that he bought at a garage sale as a kid that his mother simply threw out all his games and Atari once he went to college. Tragic, but true. In many cases it doesn't matter how many were issued, it matters how many even exist to be found today. And that brings us full circle to numistic value - does it matter that a thousand or so upside down plane stamps may have been printed, or that only a few dozen exist today? It's not the size of the print run that matters.

[video game addict]

It's still an educated guess as to the totals on all of these though. You have threads in this fourm dating back a few years now with lists of ownership of most of the rarity 9s & 10s, and still there are many more of these games not listed in the various threads here that are in hands of collectors out there somewhere.

 

Someone mentioned in another thread of a find from a few years back of Rescue Terra I, 30 brand new copies, and yet only around 13 boxed are listed in the forum here. A few of these may have originated from the find of 30, but some probably were not.

 

Just because games are not known about on this site does not mean they don't exist. It's a small bubble we are all in here at AA.

[davepesc]

Just a question on the theory behind a rarity guide. Should a game's rarity be based on how many were made, or how many were made compared to other games.

 

If it's just how many were made, how do you compare across platforms? For example, if a Game like Madden 05 can sell millions of copies, does that make even the most common Atari game a 4 by comparison?

 

And on topic: I'd consider a game a 10 whether there were 10, 20, 30 or 100 known copies. Hell, 1,000 copies is still "unbelievably rare."

[video game addict]

I don't think cross platform ratings always work out. For some systems they do, but I think anytime you cross from one era to another there are bound to be some inconstancies. Especially comparing classics to next gen, that's 20 years apart! But comparing Atari to Colecovision I think you'd be okay. Comparing Genesis to SNES I think would be fair, but comparing either of those to the TG16, and there might be a few inconstancies between them too. I think each rarity list is relative to it's own platform.

 

As videogames become more mainstream, more copies are made & sold, so most are far more common than the stuff from early 90s & 80s or late 70s.

[Marco]

There are (1) Rare Games , and (2) Not-Rare games . The first account for 5% (or even less) of all Atari 2600 titles, Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors included. If you put a rarity 9 or 6 on them is moot.

 

Well, at least to me

 

Cheers,

Marco

[deathtrappomegranate]

There are (1) Rare Games , and (2) Not-Rare games . The first account for 5% (or even less) of all Atari 2600 titles, Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors included. If you put a rarity 9 or 6 on them is moot.

 

Well, at least to me 

 

Cheers,

Marco

950754[/snapback]

 

I agree.

 

"Rarity" is a subjective concept - "value" even more so.

[A.J. Franzman]

IMO, a rarity guide should be based on quantities of titles known to exist at the present, and not solely on production - especially for the rarest titles. For example, some really crappy games produced in the low 1000s and sold cheaply or given away might have been almost all destroyed, trashed, or lost, while some other cartridge with lower production might have almost all been saved, either by virtue of being a better game, or due to cost, distribution or other factors. I think if I was running a service center and paid $100 or whatever it was for a CBG, I sure as heck wouldn't lose or junk it!

 

Taking this into account, I think that for the present, rarity of NTSC Ikari Warriors and Motorodeo should be changed to , until it appears that the recently-discovered cache has run dry and a more accurate estimate of available quantity can be made.

 

Also, I believe that in order to be clear about what the rarity ratings mean, they should be defined in more concrete terms (at least for the less common titles, say rarity 5 and higher) , such as, "between x and y copies estimated to exist in the possession of AA members." Of course, the values of x and y for each rarity level will need to be revised as AA membership grows (or, God forbid, declines) too - a rarity guide such as this should be in a constant state of flux. A possibility to reduce the need for updates would be to define the rarity levels in terms of percentages (or ratios, such as 'cartridges per AA member' or even 'cartridges per 100 AA members'), but even this still requires recalculation (or at least the use of a spreadsheet) as the size of the member base changes.

 

I think what would really keep the rarity guide accurate would be a periodical member collection census. It could be limited to higher rarity titles for ease of management, and would not necessarily need to be conducted very often. Annual would probably be too much of a burden, but perhaps somewhere in the range of every 2-5 years would be a good rate.

Edited October 21, 2005 by A.J. Franzman

[davepesc]

While I wouldn't want to see the rarity guide based on what members here (relatively few people, but more hardcore collectors) have in their collections, I would love to see the results of a census.

 

I'd participate if someone wants to collect the data. Start countin' your combats!

[sku_u]

I think what would really keep the rarity guide accurate would be a periodical member collection census. It could be limited to higher rarity titles for ease of management, and would not necessarily need to be conducted very often. Annual would probably be too much of a burden, but perhaps somewhere in the range of every 2-5 years would be a good rate.

952196[/snapback]

 

 

While I wouldn't want to see the rarity guide based on what members here (relatively few people, but more hardcore collectors) have in their collections, I would love to see the results of a census.

 

I'd participate if someone wants to collect the data. Start countin' your combats!

952257[/snapback]

 

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15567

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17963

[A.J. Franzman]

I think what would really keep the rarity guide accurate would be a periodical member collection census. It could be limited to higher rarity titles for ease of management, and would not necessarily need to be conducted very often. Annual would probably be too much of a burden, but perhaps somewhere in the range of every 2-5 years would be a good rate.

952196[/snapback]

 

While I wouldn't want to see the rarity guide based on what members here (relatively few people, but more hardcore collectors) have in their collections, I would love to see the results of a census.

 

I'd participate if someone wants to collect the data. Start countin' your combats!

952257[/snapback]

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15567

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17963

952265[/snapback]

That's not nearly what I had in mind. The first link looks like a bunch of gibberish with no description or key, a bunch of extraneous info, etc. Looking at the second thread, now I see the header with month names and the all-important notation "ebay-2002", which tells me it's a tracking of sales. I was thinking of something completely different, with a condensed presentation more immediately understandable by the masses. It should be a well-organized survey, with an actual sitewide announcement (perhaps on the home page) and predetermined counting interval. Most of all, it should have results presented on a site page in a simplified clear and concise manner. A few posts in the "Rarity Guide" forum would seem to attract a rather small sample size; to get the best accuracy, advertising must be used to get the largest possible sample size - this tends to undo the lopsidedness caused by having mainly the most "hardcore" collectors as the primary data source, as would be expected in the RG forum.

 

While sales do generally have fair correlation to rarity, in some cases the figures are skewed - there are "collectors" and there are "players", with many of us being more or less of one or the other. I theorize that "players" tend to hang onto the games they most enjoy, while the less satisfying titles tend to change hands often. Obviously this would make the more universally liked titles seem rarer than they really are, and vice-versa.

 

@ davepesc: I really doubt that a majority of AA members are "hardcore" collectors. Although the set of "AA members who own one or more Atari VCS cartridges" likely has a higher ratio of hardcore collectors than the set of "non-AA members who own one or more Atari VCS cartridges", it's probably the best data source we have. You gotta start somewhere, and it's not going to be easy to survey the non-members...

 

Perhaps separate estimated rarities could be compiled from a member survey campaign, ebay and/or other transactions, production figures (where known or reasonably estimatable), and averaged together into a combined master rarity list, with some sort of notation made where the available data sources differ widely.

[sku_u]

That's not nearly what I had in mind. The first link looks like a bunch of gibberish with no description or key, a bunch of extraneous info, etc. Looking at the second thread, now I see the header with month names and the all-important notation "ebay-2002", which tells me it's a tracking of sales. I was thinking of something completely different, with a condensed presentation more immediately understandable by the masses. It should be a well-organized survey, with an actual sitewide announcement (perhaps on the home page) and predetermined counting interval. Most of all, it should have results presented on a site page in a simplified clear and concise manner. A few posts in the "Rarity Guide" forum would seem to attract a rather small sample size; to get the best accuracy, advertising must be used to get the largest possible sample size - this tends to undo the lopsidedness caused by having mainly the most "hardcore" collectors as the primary data source, as would be expected in the RG forum.

 

 

If you think that, you didn't read the threads I posted or the dozen or so threads they were based on.

 

BTW, trying to track anything below a 9 is a complete waste of time. I tracked Nintendo carts when putting together a Nintendo rarity guide for another site along with quite a few others for 2 years and can attest to that.

[AtariAger]

 

 

[sku_u]

[A.J. Franzman]

That's not nearly what I had in mind. The first link looks like a bunch of gibberish with no description or key, a bunch of extraneous info, etc. Looking at the second thread, now I see the header with month names and the all-important notation "ebay-2002", which tells me it's a tracking of sales. I was thinking of something completely different, with a condensed presentation more immediately understandable by the masses. It should be a well-organized survey, with an actual sitewide announcement (perhaps on the home page) and predetermined counting interval. Most of all, it should have results presented on a site page in a simplified clear and concise manner. A few posts in the "Rarity Guide" forum would seem to attract a rather small sample size; to get the best accuracy, advertising must be used to get the largest possible sample size - this tends to undo the lopsidedness caused by having mainly the most "hardcore" collectors as the primary data source, as would be expected in the RG forum.

 

If you think that, you didn't read the threads I posted or the dozen or so threads they were based on.

 

BTW, trying to track anything below a 9 is a complete waste of time. I tracked Nintendo carts when putting together a Nintendo rarity guide for another site along with quite a few others for 2 years and can attest to that.

952358[/snapback]

How could I read the threads they were based on? Did you reasonably expect me to? I don't even know which threads they were based on! More importantly, why should anyone need to read all of that just to understand the data as presented? If it takes that much work to make sense of it, something is wrong with the presentation. Is knowledge of how cartridge rarities are derived for presentation on the site so specialized, that only an elite few should be permitted to know and understand where the numbers come from, and participate in the data collection, while the rest of us are left to believe that the numbers might as well have been pulled out of someone's @$$?!?

 

IMO, a simple survey, with results presented as follows would be useful:

total number of persons responding to survey ; this is the basis for the computed ratios

cartridge #1 - total number of copies reported presently owned - ratio: #copies/#persons (I call this the "surveyed rarity coefficient", SRC)

cart #2 - #copies - SRC

cart #3 - #copies - SRC

etc.

 

The survey itself would be extremely simple: merely a list of cartridge names (including maker or major variation if appropriate). Each respondent would only fill in a number for each listed cartridge.

 

"Presently" could be expanded to include a short enough period of recent time that respondents could reasonably be expected to remember what they had, such as "currently or within the past 3 days", etc. This will enable counting of carts recently sold, but by keeping the time period short, minimize double-counting where a cart is transferred from one AA member to another. "Owned" should be restricted to physical possession, and not include items "in the mail" or otherwise "pending" arrival.

 

A weighted averaging method could be used over several surveys (or between the first survey and the existing rarity ratings) to help filter out the noise. Rarity rating changes should only be made in the event of sudden appearance of increased numbers of a cart, or when a significant proportion of the surveys conflict with the established rating. When soliciting survey responses, it must be emphasized that all responses are wanted, even if a person only owns a single cartridge. In fact, those of persons with smaller or "beginner" collections from back in the day or found in the wild would be most relevant, as they should most closely represent what is really out there.

 

What do you mean when you say "trying to track" and that you "tracked" those Nintendo carts? If it's just trying to watch eBay for sales, I agree that it would be pointless for any but the rarest of carts. Also, I think I can understand how trying to conduct a survey over such a long time would be problematic. I would try to do the opposite: try to get as many people to respond in as reasonably short a period as practical: say, announce the impending census a week or two in advance, collect responses for an additional week or two (maybe up to a month, max.), then cut it off and compile the results. Has anyone ever tried to perform such a broad-based owner census/snapshot (not sales watch) as I'm proposing in this area of collecting before? If so, where are the results?

 

If all of this is really utter nonsense which could never work or be accurate, then by all means ignore and delete all of my posts in this thread, and I'll just go away.

 

(BTW: Belated apologies for the thread hijack! Mods feel free to split it if appropriate.)

Edited October 22, 2005 by A.J. Franzman

[TunnelRunner]

Here's a thought: lower Motorodeo to 8 and raise Fun With Numbers to 10. How often do you see THAT one CIB?

[sku_u]

How could I read the threads they were based on? Did you reasonably expect me to? I don't even know which threads they were based on! More importantly, why should anyone need to read all of that just to understand the data as presented? If it takes that much work to make sense of it, something is wrong with the presentation. Is knowledge of how cartridge rarities are derived for presentation on the site so specialized, that only an elite few should be permitted to know and understand where the numbers come from, and participate in the data collection, while the rest of us are left to believe that the numbers might as well have been pulled out of someone's @$$?!?

 

 

Why should responding to all the questions you asked me if you can't even spend two seconds to read two threads that are doing EXACTLY what you suggest already?

[video game addict]

I kind of like AJs suggestion. For starters the links to Tony's threads are outdated. Besides I have never really understood what all the numbers are suppose to represent.

 

You're looking at 3 years of an on going thread, which hasn't been updated in nearly a year or more now, and half of the names listed on that list have sold what they had when it was posted. Honestly the names aren't that important, as the total number of carts are still accounted for, but it kind of makes the list even more archaic.

 

Just running down the list of R10 owners I see alot of names that I know have sold off some rarities, some of these guys have totally dropped out of the scene.

 

 

ed/joe siegler

bfstats

legeek

queen of the felines

fnd

esylvia

bloatedmonkey

robsbucs

simontemplar

cvga

atarizona

nmatheys

alex

frodis

 

 

Now their carts are still out there in collector's hands, but if the new collector doesn't say where his cart came from when they decide to post to the thread a year or two later, and the original collector never lets the OP know they've sold, then you've now counted the same cart twice.

 

I like the ratio idea that AJ mentioned too, You really only see the people who own the R10s & R9s post in Tony's threads, and there are alot more collectors out there, posting on AA who don't own these. Their input can be useful too. If the same 25-40 people have posted in a thread given ownership to say 8 copies of a particular R10 that's 8 out of 40, and a skewed ratio. If we create a new poll, where people can participate & add their votes as not owning, at least we get a better idea of how many collectors don't own the games too There could be 1000 people voting where only 8 copies are known to exist. I think it would give greater credibility to the numbers overall, if we had a better idea of how many people were actively participating in the polls.

 

I think it would work better if it was an anonymous poll, maybe something can be created in a survey form, with all the R9s & R10s on one page with checkboxes for Y/N ownership. Advertise it off the main page of the site for a few weeks or so, then run the poll for 60 days or 90 days or however, but set a date. Don't let it continue to run on for years at a time. Just redo it every couple or three years as needed to show trends. I think it would be more accurate this way, and maybe even more people would get involved if it were anonymous.

 

I think it should also be limited to AA members, just maybe some extension to the forum software, so you would need to login to view the survey & so we can not vote more than once. For the few collectors who own multiple copies of some R9s & R10s, maybe make them contact an admin to update the totals. Maybe also add an electronic signature to each survey so an admin could monitor the results of each, and see who is actually filling out. Just as a safegaurd against foul play.

[AtariAger]

I think it would work better if it was an anonymous poll, maybe something can be created in a survey form, with all the R9s & R10s on one page with checkboxes for Y/N ownership. Advertise it off the main page of the site for a few weeks or so, then run the poll for 60 days or 90 days or however, but set a date. Don't let it continue to run on for years at a time. Just redo it every couple or three years as needed to show trends. I think it would be more accurate this way, and maybe even more people would get involved if it were anonymous.

 

I think it should also be limited to AA members, just maybe some extension to the forum software, so you would need to login to view the survey & so we can not vote more than once. For the few collectors who own multiple copies of some R9s & R10s, maybe make them contact an admin to update the totals. Maybe also add an electronic signature to each survey so an admin could monitor the results of each, and see who is actually filling out. Just as a safegaurd against foul play.

953989[/snapback]

 

[CabaretVoltaire]

These games are almost impossible to find in the wild. Even collectors who have been at it for years may never run across one of these, and they often make up the showcase of an individual's collection. These rarely show up even on Ebay, and if they do there will most likely be a bidding war.

 

Does this apply to Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors?

 

If so then the rating of 10 is fine.

 

If not then either their ratings should be changed or the rarity scale should be changed.

 

Simple.