I always tell the story of the first time I seen CV. It was on the loading dock at Shaffer in Columbus. I was picking up several of the used route pins and it was a floor model that they were trying to sell. I played a couple games and my guy says "1600 cash, load it up, pay me whenever." I had to pass because no one was playing or buying them.

As you can see, they were going very cheap at auction.

cv auction (resized).png

It's not just a Circus Voltaire thing. I think a lot of people would be surprised to find out what games were considered flops. Indy Jones and TZ were horrible earners part of the blame was keeping them running. Operators back then didn't want to tweak and update like today. You bought a game and put it out. If the motor keeps burning up on the path of adventure, you didn't look for a rom update, you sold the game and bought something else.

Also, believe it or not, Lethal Weapon 3 dominated collections when it came out.

It was glorious. I was picking up next gens for 5 to 8 hundred. They did very well in the beginning. After a few years on route the opto would start failing. Right around 98 I was getting them all the time.

I remember plugging in a brand new Killer Instinct and the first thing after booting is an advertisement for the game coming out that Christmas on Nintendo. This was in late August and we were pissed.

Or end of July 2022