While setting up his video game store in Nebraska more than two decades ago, Mark O’Dorisio thought about what to do with the hundreds of games that weren’t on the shelves before the store closed. Your best options are to sell it or keep it for the future.
“Forget the sell-outs,” Mark recalls, recalling that period in 1998. “I’d rather take a chance, these games might be worth a lot.” [no futuro]”.
Mark put more than 300 sealed toys into boxes and took them to a storage unit in Omaha. Over the course of 23 years, Mark lost the value of the toys and decided to pass them on to his nieces and nephews.
However, in 2021, Mark’s older brother, Tim, finds old toys in a warehouse and becomes interested in their value. 90s era games incl Chrono trigger that it Mortal KombatIt was still in almost perfect condition. He sought guidance at a video game store in Omaha, where the employees were shocked by what Tim brought them.
They ended up evaluating the video games, with about 170 of them deemed rare and in good condition. Gameroom, the store where Tim took the toys in 2021, is helping sell the collection, which was recently made available for sale online.
Mark expects the toys to sell for nearly $1 million, much more than he expected when he stocked them.
“I didn’t think these things were worth anything in my life,” Mark, 62, said. Washington Post.
Mark opened Game Street in Omaha in 1994, primarily selling Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games. But his store started losing money after a few years, so he closed it in 1998 and moved into book and magazine distribution.
In the summer of 2021, Tim was in a storage unit checking the value of his old basketball cards — Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce — when he saw boxes of video games and looked for some titles. Connected. Open versions of Mark’s games were selling for a few hundred dollars each, Tim said, and that fall, Tim took a box of the games to the Gameroom.
A few weeks later, Tim said he spoke with employees at Watta, a rating company based in Santa Ana, California. Tim recalls estimates: Toys could sell for about $1 million if they were graded, a process that involves inspectors rating the toy between zero and 10 based on its condition. Games with higher scores generally sell for more money.
After this meeting, Mark told Tim that he thought the toys could be sold for $100,000.
“You might have to add a zero to that,” recalls Tim, now 71.
In November 2021, Gameroom owner Chris Thompson visited the storage unit and recorded a video stock. The plastic surrounding the toys glowed against the room lights. Thompson showed copies of Chrono trigger, Final Fantasy III that it Sunset riders.
“I bet you’re wondering where all this came from? Where are we?” Thompson asked in the video. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
When Thompson posted the video to YouTube in February 2022, he thought viewers would criticize the video weak Video quality. Instead, Thompson said he saw an increase in views until he fell asleep around 4:30 a.m. When he woke up about five hours later, he said the video had been viewed nearly 200,000 times, and his inbox was full of requests to buy games.
“A lot of people wanted to travel with a suitcase full of money and buy the whole suitcase Thompson (40 years old) said.
They haven’t decided what to do with the games yet, so they asked to remain anonymous as the group has gained attention in the gaming community. Thompson outlined their options: accept the offer now, sell the games after they are graded, or wait to see if the value of the games increases.
In April 2022, Mark loaded about 15 boxes of toys into his truck and drove approximately 2,500 miles to the classification company’s headquarters in California.
One of the most valuable toys in the collection Chrono triggera Japanese game role play Which follows characters who travel through time to prevent the destruction of the world. According to demographic reports from rating company WATA, only 26 copies of the 1995 Super Nintendo game have been rated.
Wata didn’t even rate nine games from Mark’s collection, including… Uncharted waters, Fire battle that it Fighting tribes.
Scott Endsley, owner of a video game rating company in Kansas City, said: the post What Chrono trigger Alone it can sell for over $50,000. Other games can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, he said.
“There aren’t a lot of copies of these things out there,” Endsley said. “When you buy a video game, you open it up and play it, right? Owning sealed video games is pretty rare anyway, but getting one of these types of games is pretty unusual.”
Mark returned to California last summer to collect toys. Many of them are rated 9.0 or higher, including the best games Chrono trigger, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Street Fighter II: Hero Edition that it Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in TimeAll of them received a rating of 9.8. Mark returned to Omaha and stored the toys in a safe.
Thompson agreed to sell the toys in hopes of showcasing his store. The group was announced last month. Tim said an auction house has offered to buy the toys for about $500,000, but he and Mark hope to sell the collection for at least $700,000.
In addition, they are considering waiting for the games to sell, anticipating their value will increase – a decision that Endsley believes could pay off. “There will always be people who want to relive their childhood,” he said.
For the past two decades, Mark has dreamed of living in a lakefront home in the Midwest where he could fish and relax by the water. If he sells video games soon, he plans to make that dream come true. “I’m starting to fantasize about it a little bit,” Mark said.
Exclusively in general/ Washington Post
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