Dear everybody,

I was going to write to Patrick in person but I thought this subject was important enough to ask for everybody's opinion and help.

I am really worried about ebay's recent changes to their categories. The handheld section has GONE! This concern goes beyond just G&W but for all handheld collectors. We can no longer look at our own category and browse, like in a shop. People will have to be very specific in the way they give their games a title that people will find. I have spoken to a very well known seller of handhelds and he says he has hardly sold anything since this change. He has phoned ebay about it but they don't seem to want to do anything about it. They are a HUGE company as we know and we feel like small fish.

I have collected handhelds for 8 years (I have 55 of 60 G&W boxed). I also have a couple of hundred other handhelds boxed. I see these as an investment, as well as of course a source of great fun and a reminder of my childhood (being born in 1974). I am now able to have all those games I saw but could not afford when I was a kid. So anyway, what will happen if and when I decide to sell my collection? Will I not get the proper price for them?

Surely when we used to browse through G&W or other sub categories in the handheld section, we saw games we remembered, or discovered other ones we had not heard about. In this way, like going in to a shop, we were able to discover other items of interest and grow our collections. Without this ease of browsing, I am in fear that the games will not reach the same value.

Patrick , what do you think about this, and is your program able to adjust to these changes easily or are they going to cause you a big headache?

I wonder if enough of us complained to ebay that they might consider letting us have our own G&W category back (and more!).

What are people's reactions please?

Best wishes to all you retro gamers out there.......

Rik.
:GW2:

triket wrote: I am really worried about ebay's recent changes to their categories. The handheld section has GONE!

I suppose you are talking about eBay UK? There never was a G&W category on eBay CH and as far as I know not on eBay DE as well. But still it was possible to sell G&W for regular prices. The loss of a category "handheld" is not good of course. Did ebay give any explanation? :-k

triket wrote: So anyway, what will happen if and when I decide to sell my collection? Will I not get the proper price for them?
[...] Without this ease of browsing, I am in fear that the games will not reach the same value.

I'm sure you still will get a proper price for them. Just make sure you have the most important words such as "Nintendo Game&Watch" in the title.

triket wrote: Patrick, what do you think about this, and is your program able to adjust to these changes easily or are they going to cause you a big headache?

I'm not worried about it. People who used to browse categories will switch to use the search. As for my software, it does not give me a headache either. It's because I have saved over 200 different searches, just very few of them by category.

triket wrote: I wonder if enough of us complained to ebay that they might consider letting us have our own G&W category back (and more!).

I doubt this, but it's worth a try. Collectors of vintage handheld games is a small crowd. And not too many of them will complain, so at the end probably it will be just a few of them. eBay does not care about a few complaints, they get thousands every day...

Gawaleus wrote: I'm not worried about it. People who used to browse categories will switch to use the search. As for my software, it does not give me a headache either. It's because I have saved over 200 different searches, just very few of them by category.

Hi, which software are you talking about ?

For collecting all the auction data, I use BayWotch from www.baywotch.de