A Reddit post in the GameBoy subreddit caught some eyes. It showed a fake yellow Game Boy Pokémon cartridge displayed at a GameStop. The post received many comments, pointing out the poor quality of this bootleg Pokémon game.
There’s just no way you could reasonably expect retail employees to verify games. There will need to be an automated system that is more difficult to bypass than it’s worth, and that will likely be more expensive than it’s worth.
We are getting to a point where there are fakes out there that are 100% identical to the real thing, and aren’t all that cheap. It’s an interesting situation.
Perhaps the solution here is to buy only from reputable sellers?
You know like with literally anything that’s a commodity, someone’s going to try and sell you a fake.
Someone buys fake on eBay. Plays it. Sells it to Gamestop. Minimum wage employee does not spot that it’s fake and it ends up on the used game shelf.
None of this is new.
Is the image of the post in the article not the actual thing they’re talking about? It says it was obvious because instead of “GameBOY” it just said “GAME” along with other issues that the image of the reddit post included doesn’t match at all.
The only thing in the image included in the article that is gnarly is the fact they are trying to sell it for nearly $50.
The image from reddit seems to be a mix of Japanese and US yellow edition? Not sure but here are both in comparison:
Original:
Version from reddit:
I’m surprised that they don’t take even a minimal amount of effort to clean those things up before selling it. A little dab of isopropryl alcohol does wonders.
That cartridge looks like it spent the last 20 years in a butt.
The funny thing about that is the game store I really like also sells fake cartridges/ROM hack cartridges that are clearly fake and not labeled as the real deal. Don’t know how they source them, but I could probably buy something like Shadow the Hedgehog on Genesis.
Also, I really don’t expect anything even slightly good to come of this GameStop retro games thing considering the fact it doesn’t matter whether the game is legit or rare, they’ll buy at as low of a price as possible then sell at least 2x the going rate online. That, and their workers probably aren’t gonna be given any training whatsoever to spot even the most obvious fakes and will probably get severely reprimanded over buying a fake.
