Think your getting a good deal on that Gameboy Advance game your son or
daughter has always wanted, well think again, as you may be receiving a
counterfeit product when buying from an ebay auction! This guide
will help you to avoid purchasing a counterfeit game and will help you
identify one if you do receive one.
Why you shouldn't buy counterfeits... you may think its a good deal but
in the end it is not. Most GBA (gameboy advance) games require a
save function in order to play the game, the game will literately not be
able to be enjoyed if this function is not present. Many times the
first sign of a counterfeit game will be that the game is not saving or
operating properly. Even if it works for the first few days the
save will probably wear out within a week and if you are extremely
lucky it might last a month. I do not think you would want to put
40 hours into a game only to find that all your progress is gone and
you have to start over from the beginning! My advice would be not
to post feedback for at least a week after recieving the game if you
suspect a counterfeit, this will give you time to check over the game
throughly to see if it is working properly.
Now onto the only proven way to check for a counterfeit game, this is
for game boy advance games only (the small grayish black colored carts
for those that dont know). THIS STEP WILL DETERMINE IF YOUR GAME
IS COUNTERFEIT OR NOT AND IS FULL PROOF! It takes about 3-5
seconds to check for a counterfeit game and its well worth your time
especially if its a game you plan on playing a lot. All you have
to do is flip over the gameboy advance game and look at the inside edge
connector, it can be best seen under a light. The game should
have "Nintendo" printed on it, then some numbers that would be similar
to "AGB-001", it does not have to have that exactly printed on it, as
there are a few different types of legit edge connector printing
that i have run across. Oh yeah, you want to look at the edge
connector on the inside of the cart (the green circuit board inside the
game), don't worry you can see it perfectly even if you don't open the
game. But the general rule should be "Nintendo", or the Nintendo
logo, and some numbers. Most also have a year printed on the edge
connector. IF YOUR GAME IS MISSING THE EDGE CONNECTOR PRINTING
THEN YOU DEFINITELY HAVE A COUNTERFEIT ON YOUR HANDS. Some
counterfeits will have small numbers printed on the edge connector, so
you should look for the word Nintendo or the Nintendo logo.
Don't be easily swayed by a sellers positive feedback, most of the
people that buy game boy advance games just hand the game to their kid
and then they never see it again. People will leave positives as
long as their kid is happy with the game and will not bother to check
over the product to see what they are actually receiving. This is
how most sellers of counterfeit gba games make their money. By
doing the simple test as described above you can avoid an unhappy child
when their game stops working and also avoid wasting money on products
that do not work properly.
Another reason you don't want to buy a counterfeit gba game is that it
could cause your game boy system to begin to malfunction. Think
about it you just spent 70-100$ on that expensive gameboy of the latest
model only to find out the games you are purchasing are damaging
it. The reason the counterfeits can damage the game boy is
because counterfeits are often the wrong size for the system, the
plastic is a little bit thicker etc. You can immediately tell if
you have trouble inserting the game into the gameboy. The game
boy advance was designed for carts of a certain size, and putting
something that is larger or smaller into the system is very bad for the
edge connector inside the system, since it can bend the pins on the
connector and eventually your game boy will be unable to load the games
since the pins on the edge connector will have been stretched from
inserting something of the wrong size into it. As we all know forcing
things into electronic devices is BAD for them, this is essentially
what you are doing to the game boy advance when you insert a
counterfeit game into it.
Now i will describe some ways to spot an auction that advertises a
counterfeit gameboy advance game for sale, to help you avoid the
problem before it becomes one.
- Counterfeit gba games originate from other countries most of the
time, if a game/seller is from Hong Kong, you probably don't want to buy
it cause the risk of receiving a counterfeit is very high. To be
fair there are plenty of people selling counterfeits in the USA and
other countries as well, but the majority will be from HK, China, Malaysia and so forth.
- Auctions that say "the box is flattened to avoid damage to the box",
this is not necessarily an indication of a counterfeit game but can be
one. A lot of times sellers of counterfeit gba games state that
the box will be folded, this is because the box comes straight from a
printing factory of counterfeit games and they do not want to be
bothered to fold the box into the right shape. Other sellers will
fold boxes that are genuine (to avoid damage from the post
office) you can always tell which boxes have been folded by a
human and which have come right out of a factory since the boxes folded
by a person will not be completely flat.
- Pictures pictures pictures! A good seller will always include a
picture of the product offered, either a scan or a digital
photograph. Scanners can be purchased cheaply and its usually
really easy to scan a game into one (if you don't have a digital
camera). After all ebay offers you one picture on each auction
for free, use it! If a seller doesn't have a picture of the game,
be wary. Also be wary of stock photographs, they do not always
indicate what you are getting.
- Release dates of games. Check with a gaming site (there are
many out there) to find out when a game is released, if a game is being
sold on ebay before the release of it in your country, then it is
probably counterfeit. For example lets say Pokemon gba game x is
going to be released in the USA on May 10, 2005. If you see a
bunch of auctions for the USA version of pokemon gba game x 2 months
before may 10, 2005 then they are probably counterfeits.
- Pokemon games come in different colored carts, i will even list them for you!
Pokemon Sapphire - clear royal blue
Pokemon Ruby - clear red
Pokemon Emerald - clear green
Pokemon Fire Red - milky red color, but lighter than pokemon ruby
Pokemon Leaf Green - milky green color, but lighter than pokemon emerald
Note: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon for the GBA and Pokemon Pinball for the GBA both have the normal gray colored carts, this is normal and does not indicate a counterfeit.
ALERT!!!: The games POKEMON CHAOS BLACK, and POKEMON QUARTZ ARE COUNTERFEIT GAMES!! These are games for the Gameboy Advance system that are being sold in order to trick you into thinking there is a new pokemon game out. You will NEVER find a legitimate copy of these games!! These games were not made by Nintendo, what you will be getting if you buy one of these games is some game that is not even really a Pokemon game, it is likely a rough translation of another type of game. People are paying outrageous amounts of money for these games, please please please, do not get suckered into buying one of these games, as they are COUNTERFEIT!!
These games should ALWAYS come in the color listed above for the
outside of the case, if you have seen a pokemon game you know what I am
talking about. This is not just the color of the label on the
cart but it should be the color of the actual cart. ANY POKEMON
RPG GAME IN THE GRAYISH BLACK STANDARD GBA CART COLOR IS A
COUNTERFEIT. Use caution when purchasing pokemon games as they
are one of the most demanded titles for the gba and therefore one of
the most counterfeited.
Certain games also come with a tilt sensor in them, this is a device
that detects when you move the gameboy advance around, its pretty cool
and you certainly wouldn't want to miss out on this feature in the
game. The games that have the tilt sensor when bootlegged usually
are not bootlegged with the tilt sensor in them, they are bootlegged as
a standard gba cart. The tilt sensor also makes the game cart
much much larger than a normal gba cart, so if you see one of the gba
tilt sensor games in a standard sized cart then you know its a
counterfeit automatically. The tilt sensor was only used in 2
games recently, Wario Ware Twisted and Yoshi Topsy Turvy. Yoshi Topsy Turvy also comes in a green-tinted cartridge, so anything else is counterfeit for this game.
Mario, castlevania, and all games made by Nintendo are some of the most popular counterfeits, use caution when purchasing them. Also children's games such as Avatar: the last Airbender, Dora the explorer, Barbie, Lizzie McGuire and many other popular titles are also heavily produced by counterfeiters simply because its very easy to turn a profit on games targeted towards the younger members of society.
- Feedback! ALWAYS check a seller's feedback when buying
video games. Rule of thumb: if the seller has even one comment relating
to the sale of a counterfeit game, then they probably sell ONLY
counterfeit games. Most bootleggers do not own an original copy
of any game, they only sell bootlegs. Some comments seen that
typically indicate the sale of a counterfeit game is "game is good but
is a copy" "game plays but will not save", "we had trouble fitting it
into the gameboy", "game has trouble playing", "game has logos at
startup that it should not have" "game does not have proper English
(the text in games should not have a lot of grammatical errors)"
etc. Just because someone has 100% positive feedback doesn't mean
they aren't selling counterfeits.
- Listing a lot of games of the same title at the same time. If
someone lists 20-30 or even 15 auctions of a Spyro the dragon game for
example, you have to wonder where the games are coming from especially
if the games are listed at 9.99 each and its a recently released game
that is selling in most retail stores for 29.99. There is no way
to make profit on something that you have to buy for 29.99 in a store
if you sell it for 9.99. Most people who sell honestly will list
only a couple copies of the same game at once if that. The MSRP
(manufacturers suggested retail price) and the release date of most
gameboy advance games past and present can be found on Nintendo's
website.
- Nintendo's website has a list of known counterfeit sellers on ebay. If you go to the forums/message boards on Nintendo's
website you will find a list of sellers that are known sellers of
counterfeit games, this will help you to know if you are buying from a
counterfeiter right off the bat. In order to find this information you can search from Google or another search engine using the keywords "Nintendo eBay Piracy". The list of sellers is located on Nintendo's Forums under the "The Bulletin Board" section. I am sorry but ebay will not allow me to post a direct link to the forums on this guide. You can contribute to the list
by reporting the auction to Nintendo if you receive a known counterfeit
game, you can either call the toll free number or send them an
email, the information on how to do this is on the forum post that I described above. Just because a seller is not on this list does not mean they are not selling pirated games, the list is just a helpful tool in identifying counterfeit game sellers so you can avoid before you get ripped off.
PLEASE if you have received a counterfeit game, report it to all
authorities that you can think of, also report it to ebay. The
only way to stop the insane amount of bootlegs on auction sites like
this is if people start taking action against the counterfeiters.
I wrote this guide so everyone would know that counterfeit games are
bad and will most likely not work properly, so you should avoid buying
them.
Hopefully this guide will help you to save money and not be ripped off by sellers that are offering a dishonest product.
I would also like to mention that ALL multiple game in one carts (aka
100 games in 1, 1000 games in 1, 10 NES games on one cart etc) are also
counterfeit games. This applies to original gameboy, gameboy
color, and gameboy advance games (and most other systems as
well). It has been brought to my attention that ebay is
displaying ads from other sellers to these auctions on the page where
you are now viewing this guide, so I wanted to bring that to my readers
attention.
Please note that I have no control over the ads that display on this
guide page, the ads for games that display on this page are from other
sellers, and are not my listings, these ads are displayed by
ebay. Also sometimes the ads that display on this guide page are
for counterfeit games, please beware of this when buying on ebay.
This also applies to all other guides and reviews, no one has any
control over the ads that are displayed on their guide page.
If you want to view my items for sale please click on my name then view items for sale. Thank you.
The only gameboy games that are legitimate that have more than one
game
on a cart are the 2-in-one packs such as spyro and crash 2-in-one, Scooby Doo 2-in-one or Spongebob double packs, the Castlevania double
pack is also another legitimate one. The pokemon
games or any Nintendo produced game NEVER come 2 to a cartridge, so any game
stating that it has more than one pokemon game on it is a counterfeit
for sure. However even the legit 2-pack games can be
counterfeited, so please check them using the above guide.
UPDATE MARCH/07 - Fixed spelling errors and made sure all content was up to date. Updated Information on how to find list of ebay sellers that are confirmed to sell counterfeit games and information on Pokemon Chaos Black and Pokemon Quartz.
Finally now that you are done reading my guide, please put in a "yes"
vote for it, the more people that vote, the more people that see this
guide, and the more people that are educated about the possibility of
receiving a fraudulent game on ebay or anywhere else!
Orignal From: HOW TO IDENTIFY COUNTERFEIT GAME BOY GAMES
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