First of all, the acronym was basically a joke, but if it sticks, that’s cool with me. Another reasonable option is to name it after whatever site is going to host the list (like the Mobyscale.) But if we do go the acronym route:
- Imaginary is meant for games that are only rumored to exist. For example, Mt. Drash before any of us had one. Or the fabled green-box Ultima VII (I just made that one up). Suspended is not Imaginary. - Oddity is a bit of a stretch. I don’t even know if it’s useful, but it could be used for bad production runs, etc. Maybe it is a modifier. - Unique means one of a kind. This would apply to a master disk/cart or if there was only one known copy of a game in the world. Lets avoid saying a game is “more unique” or some similar designation. I, O & Unique would be very rarely used. These would just be used to account for weird stuff out there. 99% of all games would be C, U or R. I like “S” standing for “scale.” Makes sense although CURIOUS Scale would be redundant as Dan points out. One more note – this is a rarity scale. It is not meant to imply value. It is just meant to designate rarity. Value and rarity do not necessarily go hand in hand. Of course, one of the benefits of having a scale is that “worthless” games designated Rare might go up in value if the market grows and pays attention to the scale. Production numbers aren't needed, but could certainly be helpful if known. Having this integrated into eBay would be awesome. Of course, if it were going to happen it would likely be a feature for other (more popular) collectibles first – comics, baseball cards, etc. If we have our act together, we could certainly apply the feature to games as well. In the meantime, it would be great to see people on eBay regularly referencing the Mobyscale for condition and the CURIOUS Scale for rarity just in the text of the ad. Hugh -----Original Message----- From: Dan Chisarick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Jan 28, 2004 5:54 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Rarity Scale I love the idea. While a clever acronym I'm not sure what is more rare than 'unique', let alone what word starts with 's' that embodies that. I'd suggest just letting 's' stand for 'scale'. Of course then you run into usage like "ATM Machine" (where if you expand the acronym the sentence sounds silly). As for rarity assessment wouldn't production numbers be needed? I mean there are loads of worthless games out there that you never see on ebay because no one would buy them, not that they are uncommon. Also the effect of one game selling well tends to 'scare' other copies up for auction. Someone commented that its hard to find "Black Magic", but I found it in the first 30 days of looking. But its possible that if one or two of these sold that others may follow. Still, I don't think that stops us from taking a swing at it. Start with a list, and amend it over time. Its bound to be a little off until it gets some feedback into it. I'd humbly suggest the original Akalabeth and Mt. Drash would be "Oddity". Stuff like Starcross and Suspended would probably be "Imaginary". What'd be *incredibly* cool would be to get the grading scale and the rarity scale integrated into ebay :) They have drop-downs for lots of other things, why not this? On Jan 27, 2004, at 11:44 PM, Hugh Falk wrote: > Hey guys, > > > > This group has tackled the issue of a condition grading scale. Does > anybody think it?s worth trying to put together a rarity scale? You > know?to judge how common a game is. I?d recommend we call is the > CURIOUS scale: > > > > Common > > Uncommon > > Rare > > Imaginary > > Oddity > > Unique > > Shameless placeholder to complete acronym > > > > > > Seriously, there are a few sites that do this specifically for > cartridge-based media, but wouldn?t it be nice to have one for our > hobby? How would we judge rarity? We could poll the list of > collectors for starters. A place like Brad?s computer game collector > site (http://www.computergamecollector.com) would be ideal for > tracking this info if it was supported by most of us. We could then > add more subjective info like the number of times a game was spotted > on eBay. It would be great if we could actually track this as part of > the DB. > > > > Anyway, I know this is ambitious?a lot more ambitious than the > condition grading scale, but what do you think? > > > > Speaking of ambitious, I?ll be looking into hotel conference rooms > this week. > > > > Hugh ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
