So over the last year Ive gotten serious about cart colleting. Before I was all about accessories and older (ie, Pong) stuff. I frequent yard sales and thrift stores and often still find things. This makes me feel like there are still a lot of games floating in the wild that are yet to be uncovered. This also makes me feel like there are the people who didnt bother taking the stuff to thrift stores and threw them away. But how many are lost??

I just wanted peoples opinions on what percentage of what is where. You dont have to be precise on choosing the options to make them add 100% on your part, just ball park it.

~Collectors would be us. The people who go after them specifically to have them all nice and shiny on a shelf.
~Gamers is that guy down the street who bought one just because he thought it was cool and plays it every now and then.
~Reseller/Store, self explanatory
~Hidden Away is the stuff thats still in the bottom of someones basement or in the attic and they have no clue its even there really. Just waiting for that rainy day where they do some spring cleaning.
~Land Fill, well, is the saddest group. Gone and never to be played again.

I would say well over 90% are gone with more and more thrown out, destroyed or repurposed (repro, donor, parts, art, etc.) and then a large chunk of the remainder lies in garages, storages and warehouses across the world with maybe a tiny percentage in the hands of collectors, gamers, resellers and archives.

I'd imagine there's a lot more collectors than stores, otherwise stores probably wouldn't make much money.

And there's probably more gamers than collectors, but the collectors would have more games.

There's probably a lot of games that are hidden away, but this number is probably decreasing every day.

And who knows how many games are destroyed/permanently lost? Unfortunately, that number probably increases daily too, whether for old or new stuff.

I always wonder about the hidden away part when I see a hoarders show. Yes most of their stuff is gross garbage, but I wouldn't doubt with them keeping everything for years, there is a likely possibility that SOMETHING in their house is worth some collector value, be it games, sports card, etc. I just highly doubt the cleaning companies have anyone who would know, so most of it ends up in the land fill category.

I would say a majority are stashed away in attics, basements ect. Alot are sold at garage sales back in the day then stored away inly to be sold at a garage sale again....rinse and repeat.

The law of attrition (sp?) is 1% a year is gone for ever. Were already missing 25%.

Frick... I set all the options then remembered I had to do them one at a time... then I forgot to change the second two after I voted for the first... so my answers are a bit off, but not by much.

I think the majority are already in the hands of collectors or resellers. And a collector can be a reseller too, so that can skew things, depending on how you define such.

The majority are in the trash or in attics. SMB3 sold 18 million, think there are anywhere near that many collectors+gamers now? If only 1% survived that is still 15 copies for every person who has ever made an NA account.

I'd say a lot of the leading votes in the polls are wishful thinking. Only 0-10% of all carts are in landfills or otherwise destroyed? lol

I agree. Think of it this way:

Person A finds a box of NES games in their closet (ie, hidden away). They donate it to Goodwill (ie, reseller). Person B, who is a collector, buys it at a good price (ie, Collector). They then sell it for market value to Gamer (Person B is now a reseller) All this can happen in matter of days, maybe hours. So there is definitely a gray area in the poll but thats why you have the full spectrum choice for each catagory.


The polls are certainly leaning the way I thought they would go. A few stray votes but to each their own opinion.

My guess is that most of the Mario titles are either in the hands of gamers or are in storage. It depends on the title too; most people aren't starting BBQ parties with their RPGs so it goes to figure the titles that are both overprinted and junkie are going to suffer higher rates of attrition over time.

i'll add to the list the internet. up until about 10 years ago how many people were really collecting NES-XX-USA labed games if they were living in Europe? or NES-XX-CAN label carts in the States? just about no one. I feel thats why so many of the rarer games are getting harder to find, at least with the NES-XX-USA label. People are able to collect any region game now from anywhere around the world. that has to make a differance.

Resellers buying from yard sales (and beating me there, no doubt, because I tend to sleep in) to collectors who sell doubles to gamers who get bored and sell to Resellers who sell back to collectors

I wonder how long resellers will hang onto their copy of mario/duck hunt priced at $14 before they decide to just let it go?

I'm going with a spectrum of different types of games..

Stadium events

95% landfill (there had to be a full production run for it to make it to the few shelves it reached)
.5% resellers (any gamer would sell it, right )
1.5% attic
3% collectors

late rarities (Little Samson, F2, DT2 etc...)
20% landfill
5% reseller
10% gamers
50% Collectors
15% attic

uncommon (R5-6)
~35% landfill
8% reseller
10% gamers
15% collectors
~15% attic

common
~50% landfill
15% reseller
10% gamers
5-10% collectors
15% attic

The landfill statistics are depressing However, I'm clinging onto the hope of 1.5% of SE carts waiting to be discovered, and 15% of the very rares. 

In 1992 when grama threw out the Nes games I don't think she diferentiated between common uncommon rare or Stadium Events.

The poll is definitely interested but honestly, none of us has any clue what the real numbers are. We can speculate all day and night but we're all just making somewhat random guesses

My point still stands, most people here don't want to believe the logical fact that most games are destroyed...

i have my 15 plus 15 more for someone else

Wow, almost at 100 votes. Looks like the Collectors vote is the only one that doesnt have a true front runner.

heres where some are dangit http://www.etsy.com/shop/8BitMemo...