Box Stickers - Leave em on or tear em off?

o1s1n

For someone who is totally OCD about collecting and arranging games, I noticed that I do something that's a little out of sync with that. I always leave box stickers on. From prices labels to rental stickers to cart security stickers, they never come off.

I guess it must be some odd way of my brain tracking the history of games. Gives a little story of where the game spent its life. Or maybe I'm just a bit strange.

So what about you guys? Anyone else leave those stickers on? Or am I in a minority here?

Jack burton

Well im a bit wired too, i tear off all the lables from new games but for my retro games I like them to have a story and the stickers etc give them character lol

o1s1n

Yay! So I'm not a total freak

That's pretty much what I do too. It's interesting to see those old price labels in pounds on stuff. They were small too. Not like the huge stickers you get on stuff these days that obscure half the cover!

Jack burton

well just looking at some fo my games there, all my boxed games are fairly nice in condition but most of my carts have stickers, the wired thing is that on a lot fo them there are stickers from lots of different places and few of them have euro prices on them even :S

landsleaving

I'm the complete opposite, I get the stickers off as soon as I get the game home, then curse shops/companies that put stickers that leave residue on the box for wrecking my glorious collection. (Dear Gamestop. I hate you.)

I'm pretty sure collecting stuff like this is a bit obsessive compulsive either way, so might as well be comletely nuts.

Dark Savior

Jack burton wrote: »

Well im a bit wired too, i tear off all the lables from new games but for my retro games I like them to have a story and the stickers etc give them character lol

I'm exactly the same as you,I love looking at some of the old stickers and prices on my retro games but take off the stickers on any new games straight away;)

Augmerson

I take as many of the stickers off as I possibly can without leaving a mess on the case and sometimes wipe the case down too.

Zombrex

o1s1n wrote: »

Anyone else leave those stickers on?

Nope, I hate them, always tear them off.

polyfusion

Unless the sticker was specific to the game, it comes off.

Also cases would be taken apart, plastics immersed in warm soapy water for a couple of hours, rinsed and allowed to air dry. Manuals would be wiped down (insides too, if they felt "greasy" enough) with warm soapy water too. Controllers would be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned (some of the gunk you'd find within the button recesses and along the side-seams would make you throw up).

Stuff has to smell like me. Everyone else are dirty animals (except you bunch on here of course) and you never know what crevices the fingers that touched the last aquisition were.

"Hi, my name's polyfusion, and I suffer from OCD".

Jack burton

Well polyfusion I'm talking about removing stickers, cleaning is a toally different story.

Smelly games must be cleansed!!!

Atavan-Halen

The worst are the games with odd stains on the covers. Wth?!

I used to leave the stickers on everything but now not so much. I tend to leave the stickers on all the stuff I get from England as it's a remonder as to how cheap stuff is there!

Myrddin

Leave them on! As said above, it give retro games a little character. Todays pricing labels just reek of commercialism and thus arnt really alligned with nostalgia from my point of view. Receipts....now theres ocd!

Whats that approaching from the distance....looks like Ciderman....sorry Cider I cant hear you...burn all the boxes & stickers is that what your saying??

o1s1n

atavan-halen wrote: »

The worst are the games with odd stains on the covers. Wth?!

Still not as bad as stickers on cart labels. What moron decided to do that I'll never know.

I remember one of the first games I ever got for the Megadrive was The Revenge of Shinobi. They'd stuck a price tag on the cart. Of course, little young me decided to tear it off quickly. Took a load of the label with it.

I curse Quinnsworth every time I take the game out of the cart. Well they're all closed down now. I had the last laugh.

EnterNow wrote: »

Whats that approaching from the distance....looks like Ciderman....sorry Cider I cant hear you...burn all the boxes & stickers is that what your saying??

Hah! I was thinking that exact thought when I was writing my OP. Keep him away! He'll ruin everything

Xluna

o1s1n wrote: »

For someone who is totally OCD about collecting and arranging games, I noticed that I do something that's a little out of sync with that. I always leave box stickers on. From prices labels to rental stickers to cart security stickers, they never come off.

I guess it must be some odd way of my brain tracking the history of games. Gives a little story of where the game spent its life. Or maybe I'm just a bit strange.

So what about you guys? Anyone else leave those stickers on? Or am I in a minority here?

Most of my retro stuff either does'nt have a pric tag on it or in it's in bare catridge form. But I know what you mean about whether to leave the stickers on or not. I've gotten into the habit of taking them off now.
It's probably to do with the scene amount of stickers and packaging Game put on their stuff,especially their preowned games.

I mean,is it necessary to have that much stickers and stuff on a preowned game? The AVGN should do a "You know what's bull****?" episode on it.

CiDeRmAn

Great topic OP!
I used to tear them off as soon as, I still do for new releases, but for preowned stuff I don't and, like you, they do add a little something, be it a punt price on a PS game, an extortionate £50 on a megadrive game from back in the day, or some competition long since won in a comp with a long defunct magazine, it all adds to the retro charm somehow.

Atavan-Halen

I actually left the price sticker on that multi-tap that I got a while ago. It's been there since '02 and it'll tear the box if I take it off so shure why not :P

corblimey

It depends. I got a load of DC games from eBay a few years back, and all of them had a multitude of stickers on them. I removed the ones that told a sad tale ("buy 1 get 2 free", "99p!!!", "bargain bin price", etc) and left the others

o1s1n

Can't be leaving any stickers on that make you look like a cheapskate!

I wish my Virtua Racing still had it's 70 odd pounds sticker on it. I'd feel well posh.. :pac:

o1s1n

Argh, just got my boxed, booked copy of Streets of Rage 3.

There are two stickers on the spine, the front and back of the booklet were covered with a protective laminate. Sounds cool, but there's a big sticker on the back with warnings about not returning the booklet with the game. You can't take it off as the whole laminate will have to come off.

Then, worst of all, there's a sticker on the cart.

:mad:

The one on the cart just has to come off. That's going to be traumatic!

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

Argh, just got my boxed, booked copy of Streets of Rage 3.

There are two stickers on the spine, the front and back of the booklet were covered with a protective laminate. Sounds cool, but there's a big sticker on the back with warnings about not returning the booklet with the game. You can't take it off as the whole laminate will have to come off.

Then, worst of all, there's a sticker on the cart.

:mad:

The one on the cart just has to come off. That's going to be traumatic!

Cart stickers are the worst. And they always leave a layer of crappy adhesive residue behind. Warm soapy water time o1s1n...

CiDeRmAn

o1s1n wrote: »

Can't be leaving any stickers on that make you look like a cheapskate!

I wish my Virtua Racing still had it's 70 odd pounds sticker on it. I'd feel well posh.. :pac:

That game was so expensive, I bought an unboxed copy for around 50 quid from Gamesworld when they were still based in the back of Chapters on Abbey st, they were the days!

defenderdude

I reckon leave em on - I've an old 2600 which I still have the price on.
Keep in mind this would have been late 70's or early 80's - the flippin price of the carts - :eek: "PAC-MAN WORTH £49.95" (OUCH!)

That said - I took all the prices off the GB, GBA, DS, MD,ps1,ps2,ps3, wii etc games currently about the house - not thinking about the future...:rolleyes:
(something to do with Santa...)

Atavan-Halen

I left the original price sticker on my Gamecube box. €149.99 in XtraVision apparently. I paid €20

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Cart stickers are the worst. And they always leave a layer of crappy adhesive residue behind. Warm soapy water time o1s1n...

I may just leave them on. Will stick up some pictures later and let all of you decide!

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

That game was so expensive, I bought an unboxed copy for around 50 quid from Gamesworld when they were still based in the back of Chapters on Abbey st, they were the days!

50 unboxed! My god. I can remember holding a copy in Tesco as a kid and just thinking it was the most expensive thing I've ever seen.

defenderdude wrote: »

I reckon leave em on - I've an old 2600 which I still have the price on.
Keep in mind this would have been late 70's or early 80's - the flippin price of the carts - :eek: "PAC-MAN WORTH £49.95" (OUCH!)

That's brilliant! And we think games are expensive now.

KeRbDoG

I always attempt to take them off, but if they look like they are gonna leave a mess I either put them back or take out a cloth and try again

Umm, I must have OCD after reading the posts - I have been known for stripping down consoles to clean them of crap/spouge/sticker-goo. Remember a mate was happy his console was all clean but then a bit pissed off that I had stripped his Sega Saturn down to clean it :P

o1s1n

Right guys, I'm not sure what to do with this one. As I said, I normally keep stickers on..but these are just taking too much away from the game!

Cover is fine..needs a new box though



But ah, then the stickers begin -



I actually quite like this for some reason -



Not so much this -



And then the horror -



They really have to go, don't they?

Myrddin

They do indeed. They take too much from the look of the game/box. The one on the back of the manual is cool though

Jack burton

Well you could get a fresh laser printed cover if you wanted, but the only thing is that it wouldnt be genuine

o1s1n

Jack burton wrote: »

Well you could get a fresh laser printed cover if you wanted, but the only thing is that it wouldnt be genuine

I've done that with a few games I had no cases for. It does look good alright. Actually I also saw another guy making his own cart labels too. They really looked the business.

I'm going to try and remove the one from the cart anyway as that's really bothering me.

Will report back when I'm done. Pray for Mojo!

o1s1n

An hour later and I am seriously considering traveling to Australia to go to that rental store and slap whoever put these damn stickers on! That was a nightmare. They were determined to take the labels with them.

The spine came out fine -


The cart label though, ack! Stupid sticker started lifting some of the Megadrive logo. Had to rebuild in with glue.



Virtua Fighter 2 provided a nice replacement fresh clamshell with hanging tag -



Not as shabby any more. I'm happy enough. Going to leave that Australian censorship tag on the cover. I've never seen one before.

batari

Nice job, Megadrive games/carts are the worst for stickers.

Stickers always off for me.