Collector's glossary

Disc, original case and manual all present.

The most common condition claim you will see, and the one that moves a copy’s value most. It does not promise the case is unscratched or the manual uncreased, only that all three parts are there. Shops vary on whether inserts and maps count, so a CIB claim is worth reading alongside the shop’s own photos.

On this site: shown under the shop’s name when the shop states it, never inferred.

The game itself, with no case or manual.

Perfectly playable and usually much cheaper. Worth checking whether the shop mentions the disc’s condition separately. A disc-only listing tells you what is missing but nothing about scratches.

On this site: shown under the shop’s name; a listing whose shop claimed no completeness says nothing there at all, rather than guessing.

Whether a console will run a disc from another part of the world.

Most consoles of the disc era only run discs from their own region, so a Japanese copy will not boot on a local console without a modification. A few systems ignore region entirely. Region is a fact about the copy, not a judgement about it. Plenty of collectors buy imports deliberately.

On this site: recorded per listing where the shop’s own title stated a region, and never guessed from the platform. It is what builds the imports shelf, and it is shown under the shop’s name where a shop stated one. A shop that stated nothing is left blank rather than assumed to be local stock.

Never opened, still in its factory wrap.

The strongest condition claim there is, and the hardest to verify from a photograph, because reseals exist. A sealed copy of a common title is often worth many times a complete one, which is exactly why it deserves scepticism.

On this site: recorded at one shop. Mad Elf Games publishes Sealed as a real Condition value alongside New and Used, and it reads as an ordinary condition, the same way every other condition reads, not a dedicated sealed marker or shelf. Every other shop we poll does not distinguish it, so most sealed copies still read as whatever else that shop called them.

Physical decay of the disc’s reflective layer, which makes a game unplayable.

Affects some pressings of the CD era more than others, and it is invisible until you hold the disc to a light and look for pinholes or a cloudy edge. It is the one condition problem that cannot be cleaned off, so it is worth asking about on any disc-era purchase.

On this site: not something we can detect from a listing, and not something a listing here will tell you. A listing row shows only what we could parse from what the shop published (its completeness, condition, grade and edition) and never the shop’s product description. The shop’s own wording for a copy is a tap away on its own page; the “Also listed as” line lower down quotes the names shops use for this game, but not which shop used which.

A shop’s own letter or number for how worn a copy is.

There is no shared standard between shops in New Zealand. One shop’s Grade B is not another’s, and a grade from a third-party grading company is a different thing again. Read a grade as that shop’s shorthand, not as an industry rating.

On this site: shown as that shop’s own letter, under that shop’s name, and never converted to a scale shared with another shop. Exactly one shop we poll publishes letter grades, so an ungraded listing means its shop does not grade, not that the copy was not assessed.

A cheaper re-release of a game that sold well, usually in different packaging.

Identical to play, visually distinct on a shelf, and generally worth less than a first pressing. Collectors often want the original release specifically, which is why the distinction matters even though the game is the same.

On this site: parsed as an edition and shown under the shop’s name; it does not affect which canon item a listing matches, because the label is stripped from the title before matching.

A copy a shop had and no longer has.

Still useful information. A sold listing is evidence that a title turns up in New Zealand at all, and roughly how often, which for a scarce game is often the only signal available.

On this site: sold listings stay visible and are marked sold; they are never hidden. A game a shop is taking orders for but does not have yet is marked pre-order instead, because it has not been sold. A copy at a shop that stopped being polled is not shown at all. Nobody has looked since, so calling it either sold or in stock would be a guess, and that shop is off this site entirely.