Originally posted by: Xerxes
Originally posted by: CZroe
The rental stickers were sometimes used on non-rentals as security to keep people from claiming that the wrong game was in the shell after a board swap and exchange attempt. Also, mom & pop rental stores that accepted trade-ins would sometimes add a game they don't have to their rental library. Some even commingled their used games for sale with their rental games where any rental was also available for purchase. Even Blockbuster did that for a while, though they didn't source their rental inventory from trade-ins. Heck, I've seen a public arcade that operated a similar way (any machine set up for public pay-to-play also had a price posted on the corner), so any mom-and-pop operation could have received a prototype, slapped on a rental sticker, and put it up for rent.
Now, are we sure it's a rental sticker? All those by-mail trade-in services slapped on similar foil stickers for security but they usually just had their name and number: "Game Time 1-800-555-GAME" or "Play It Again" or whatever. Rental shops that also deal in used games would do it to their used non-rental inventory for the same reason. Just like they would use the "Please Rewind" security stickers on rentals, they would use rental security stickers on non-rental used inventory.
Though it's easy enough to see how a prototype could end up in a mom and pop rental store's inventory, it's also not hard to see how one could end up looking like a rental that wasn't.
Now my experience was largely with Game Crazy, but didn't they have different sets of stickers for each store? Like, looking at a Game Crazy cart you cold tell a rental from a trade in. A trade in would have Game Crazy stickers and a rental would have both.
Not sure what you mean. A Blockbuster Video store might have a "Property of Blockbuster" sticker, another sticker with the address of the particular store it belonged to, and a couple foil stickers around edges or over screw posts to keep you from opening it. Very often the foil stickers would not be store-specific and even when they were they were not necesarily *only* put on rentals: they also needed to defend against board swappers who attempted to exchange used games. Heck, for many stores their foil stickers doubled as their "Please Rewind" stickers on VHS tapes, which is why you see so many cartridge stickers asking you to "rewind" your game.
I've seen planty of foil stickers that just say "Void If Removed," "VOID," "Tamper Seal: Do Not Remove" or something like "Full Purchase Price Due if Tampered/Removed." It's especially rare to see a store-specific foil seal sticker at a mom and pop store with commingled rental/used inventory... even though they almost universally had such stickers.