Hey guys. Got a question to those resellers here.

Bought Zelda CE and OOT / Master Quest today, paid $45 for the pair. They are mint condition.

The guy told me that he had 18 more of these zelda games for sale. Now when looking at them, they look correct. Paper on manuals / artwork seems correct etc. Checked graphics on disc and they match up with a copies of my own personal collection.

Would you be wary of making a deal of buying them in bulk? If I were convinced they were legit copies id have no problem dropping a couple hundred on them. And if he hadnt told me he had 18 more copies I would have zero doubt.

He said he buys games and resells every now and then, and trades for current gen stuff too. He asked if there were any other games in particular I was looking for, things Ive heard resellers say.

I am playing through OOT / Master Quest atm. I see a couple of glitches every now and then, things like audio repeating for half a second. I saw a small discolored bar for half a second at one points. Things Ive seen before and not thought twice about.

Would you feel comfortable trying to make a deal in buying them up in bulk? I just dont like selling anything I think might be counterfeited.

Originally Posted by Artrigis Hey guys. Got a question to those resellers here. Bought Zelda CE and OOT / Master Quest today, paid $45 for the pair. They are mint condition. The guy told me that he had 18 more of these zelda games for sale. Now when looking at them, they look correct. Paper on manuals / artwork seems correct etc. Checked graphics on disc and they match up with a copies of my own personal collection. Would you be wary of making a deal of buying them in bulk? If I were convinced they were legit copies id have no problem dropping a couple hundred on them. And if he hadnt told me he had 18 more copies I would have zero doubt. He said he buys games and resells every now and then, and trades for current gen stuff too. He asked if there were any other games in particular I was looking for, things Ive heard resellers say. I am playing through OOT / Master Quest atm. I see a couple of glitches every now and then, things like audio repeating for half a second. I saw a small discolored bar for half a second at one points. Things Ive seen before and not thought twice about. Would you feel comfortable trying to make a deal in buying them up in bulk? I just dont like selling anything I think might be counterfeited.

As long as they are legit, I would have no problem buying in bulk, hell maybe you can get a better deal if you buy them all. But if I have any idea in my head that something is counterfeit, I wouldn't buy it, cause I would never want to be caught selling fake stuff, bad for business

Originally Posted by robwhois As long as they are legit, I would have no problem buying in bulk, hell maybe you can get a better deal if you buy them all. But if I have any idea in my head that something is counterfeit, I wouldn't buy it, cause I would never want to be caught selling fake stuff, bad for business

Yeah exactly my thoughts. I am only concerned of a counterfet due to him telling me that he had 18 more copies of the same game. That aside, everything looks fine to me. Ugh, ive bought counterfeit pokemon games before, luckily was only $60 worth but would hate to drop $350 + on these and find out theyre fakes.

Take the insert out and give it a really good look over. Counterfeit inserts are usually slightly different paper, not as glossy, and the image is usually slightly lower res. If that checks out to the best of your knowledge, then it should be fine.

Advertisement

Register for free to remove this ad

I can see why you'd be worried. These games sell for $40-50 each... this deal seems like it's way too good to be true, though sometimes even I get rid of things at far less their value because I'm too lazy to do so otherwise.

If you have a legit copy other than the pair you bought from the guy, then I would take them with you (mark them so you know they're yours) and then compare them. Some things to look out for on bootlegs is that they'll usually have misaligned printing on the manuals and inferior print/paper quality. Also, both discs had a glossy finish, which is hard to reproduce.

Upon closer inspection I did see an irregularity between OOT / Master quest copies. The new copy I bought today, in the tip of the sword where it is slightly red I see "CM" which is on the disc. My personal copy doesnt have that "CM".

I think that is good enough for me to call it a bootleg, seems to play find though. Guess Ill add this one to my collection. I have 3 of these in my collection now. Wont be contacting him to buy more games.

I think what I need to take from this, is if someone tells me they have 20 copies of the same game I need to walk away lol

Is there a lot of counterfeit Gamecube stuff? I thought the discs were proprietary media and hard to reproduce?

I've actually heard of people having several copies of games like this - especially OoT since it was a preorder bonus. When Wind Waker came out stores either threw out excess OoT discs or gave them away for free.

The GC does use proprietary discs so I'm honestly having a hard time believing it's a bootleg. I'm not calling OP a liar, but I would be suspicious in this case too. I was thinking that the seller OP ran into found a bunch of disc only copies for which he got reproduced cases/manuals, but I've never heard or seen a GC disc with "cm" on it.

In all my years of gaming, I've never seen or even heard of bootleg games for home consoles. Most consoles have much better protection against bootlegged games... vs portables, where exploits of some games can be used to bypass security.

I have seen people try to sell bootleg games with a modded system (otherwise, the games wouldn't work) but that's a completely different issue than the one here.

I'd love to see pics though...

Originally Posted by Vinny The GC does use proprietary discs so I'm honestly having a hard time believing it's a bootleg. I'm not calling OP a liar, but I would be suspicious in this case too. I was thinking that the seller OP ran into found a bunch of disc only copies for which he got reproduced cases/manuals, but I've never heard or seen a GC disc with "cm" on it. In all my years of gaming, I've never seen or even heard of bootleg games for home consoles. Most consoles have much better protection against bootlegged games... vs portables, where exploits of some games can be used to bypass security. I have seen people try to sell bootleg games with a modded system (otherwise, the games wouldn't work) but that's a completely different issue than the one here. I'd love to see pics though...

Ill get some pics up tomorrow.

I got a bootleg mario kart wii game awhile back. Compared it to my own copy, manual / cover art were lighter colored. Disc was matte not shiny. Played perfectly fine though, also have bootleg pokemon games fire red and leaf green. Have matte labels instead of shiny.

I know cart games are easy to counterfeit, but I've never heard of counterfeit discs before. At least not ones with decent artwork. I'd like some pictures for personal reference.

Yeah I've heard of counterfeit GBA and DS games but never disc based bootlegs.
Do these bootlegs discs boot on a retail Gamecube/Wii?

I just don't see how it's possible. Unless the bootleggers have the capability to press identical copies of the retail disc.
If they are just burned to discs they would not pass security checks.

Another possibility is that they're a batch of factory defectives; it's hard to say though without knowing more about the seller you are dealing with here. Many of the Gamecube Zeldas used to be more widely available at lower prices--so there's a slim chance your seller is bad about updating prices in his inventory.

Here is the pic of the zelda game. As far as I know, every disc game should be completely 100% identical correct?




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The way that artwork is printed on the disc just doesn't scream bootleg to me. The bootleg discs I've found in the wild always have really awful and obvious fake disc art. Gamecube discs had ink directly applied to the CD, which would be pretty hard for someone to replicate unless it was being done on a large scale.

From quick research, it doesn't look like there is a lot of bootleg Gamecube games coming out of Hong Kong. It's very easy to find and order bootleg GBA and DS games from Hong Kong - but I can't find anything about Gamecube games. Also, outside of the Dreamcast I've never heard of self-booting disc based bootlegs.

Is that "CM" you see on the disk reflective, like the bottom of a disc? I think the artwork might have been chipped off a bit and that's what you're seeing there.

Originally Posted by Doomstink The way that artwork is printed on the disc just doesn't scream bootleg to me. The bootleg discs I've found in the wild always have really awful and obvious fake disc art. Gamecube discs had ink directly applied to the CD, which would be pretty hard for someone to replicate unless it was being done on a large scale.

I don't think that's an indication of it being bootleg either... I thought OP meant that CM was printed on the disc but it's just a reflective holofoil.

A lot of discs have these reflective holofoil prints on them, to indicate the discs are legit. There's a chance that when the artwork was pressed, it just happened to fall in that empty (unprinted) area. Chances are, that cm just means centimeter... as in 8 cm, the size of GC discs.

I wouldn't be too skeptical I have many games I have 20+ copies of. You find things on sale/clearance, new version of game comes out, etc. and you can get overloaded with multiple copies of the same game. Hell after Black Ops 2 came out I had over 30 people bringing me copies of Modern Warfare 3 to buy.

I've also bought things in bulk like this - about a month ago I bought a store's worth of inventory from someone. Turned out they were a big time flipper and built up this big huge inventory with a relatively small investment, just moving credit from store to store so they had a personal emergency and sold it to me for far cheaper. Sometimes people will cut deals on bulk because they have too many, they need the money or they're just lazy. Hell he could have another 18 copies of it for himself to sell and he just bought too many for the demand of the game.