HOW TO IDENTIFY COUNTERFEIT GAME BOY GAMES : eBay Guides

Think your getting a good deal on that Gameboy Advance game your son or daughter has always wanted, well think again, as you may be receiving a counterfeit product when buying from an ebay auction!  This guide will help you to avoid purchasing a counterfeit game and will help you identify one if you do receive one.

Why you shouldn't buy counterfeits... you may think its a good deal but in the end it is not.  Most GBA (gameboy advance) games require a save function in order to play the game, the game will literately not be able to be enjoyed if this function is not present. Many times the first sign of a counterfeit game will be that the game is not saving or operating properly.  Even if it works for the first few days the save will probably wear out within a week and if you are extremely lucky it might last a month.  I do not think you would want to put 40+ hours into a game only to find that all your progress is gone and you have to start over from the beginning!  My advice would be not to post feedback for at least a week after recieving the game if you suspect a counterfeit, this will give you time to check over the game throughly to see if it is working properly.

Now onto the only proven way to check for a counterfeit game, this is for game boy advance games only (the small grayish black colored carts for those that dont know).  THIS STEP WILL DETERMINE IF YOUR GAME IS COUNTERFEIT OR NOT AND IS FULL PROOF!  It takes about 3-5 seconds to check for a counterfeit game and its well worth your time especially if its a game you plan on playing a lot.  All you have to do is flip over the gameboy advance game and look at the inside edge connector, it can be best seen under a light.  The game should have "Nintendo" printed on it, then some numbers that would be similar to "AGB-001", it does not have to have that exactly printed on it, as there are a few different types of  legit edge connector printing that i have run across.  Oh yeah, you want to look at the edge connector on the inside of the cart (the green circuit board inside the game), don't worry you can see it perfectly even if you don't open the game.  But the general rule should be "Nintendo", or the Nintendo logo, and some numbers.  Most also have a year printed on the edge connector.  IF YOUR GAME IS MISSING THE EDGE CONNECTOR PRINTING THEN YOU DEFINITELY HAVE A COUNTERFEIT ON YOUR HANDS.  Some counterfeits will have small numbers printed on the edge connector, so you should look for the word Nintendo or the Nintendo logo.

Don't be easily swayed by a sellers positive feedback, most of the people that buy game boy advance games just hand the game to their kid and then they never see it again.  People will leave positives as long as their kid is happy with the game and will not bother to check over the product to see what they are actually receiving.  This is how most sellers of counterfeit gba games make their money.  By doing the simple test as described above you can avoid an unhappy child when their game stops working and also avoid wasting money on products that do not work properly.

Another reason you don't want to buy a counterfeit gba game is that it could cause your game boy system to begin to malfunction.  Think about it you just spent 70-100$ on that expensive gameboy of the latest model only to find out the games you are purchasing are damaging it.  The reason the counterfeits can damage the game boy is because counterfeits are often the wrong size for the system, the plastic is a little bit thicker etc.  You can immediately tell if you have trouble inserting the game into the gameboy.  The game boy advance was designed for carts of a certain size, and putting something that is larger or smaller into the system is very bad for the edge connector inside the system, since it can bend the pins on the connector and eventually your game boy will be unable to load the games since the pins on the edge connector will have been stretched from inserting something of the wrong size into it. As we all know forcing things into electronic devices is BAD for them, this is essentially what you are doing to the game boy advance when you insert a counterfeit game into it.

Now i will describe some ways to spot an auction that advertises a counterfeit gameboy advance game for sale, to help you avoid the problem before it becomes one.

- Counterfeit gba games originate from other countries most of the time, if a game/seller is from Hong Kong, you probably don't want to buy it cause the risk of receiving a counterfeit is very high.  To be fair there are plenty of people selling counterfeits in the USA and other countries as well, but the majority will be from HK, China, Malaysia and so forth.

- Auctions that say "the box is flattened to avoid damage to the box", this is not necessarily an indication of a counterfeit game but can be one.  A lot of times sellers of counterfeit gba games state that the box will be folded, this is because the box comes straight from a printing factory of counterfeit games and they do not want to be bothered to fold the box into the right shape.  Other sellers will fold boxes that are genuine (to avoid damage from the post office)  you can always tell which boxes have been folded by a human and which have come right out of a factory since the boxes folded by a person will not be completely flat.

- Pictures pictures pictures!  A good seller will always include a picture of the product offered, either a scan or a digital photograph.  Scanners can be purchased cheaply and its usually really easy to scan a game into one (if you don't have a digital camera).  After all ebay offers you one picture on each auction for free, use it!  If a seller doesn't have a picture of the game, be wary.  Also be wary of stock photographs, they do not always indicate what you are getting.

- Release dates of games.  Check with a gaming site (there are many out there) to find out when a game is released, if a game is being sold on ebay before the release of it in your country, then it is probably counterfeit.  For example lets say Pokemon gba game x is going to be released in the USA on May 10, 2005.  If you see a bunch of auctions for the USA version of pokemon gba game x 2 months before may 10, 2005 then they are probably counterfeits.

- Pokemon games come in different colored carts, i will even list them for you!

Pokemon Sapphire - clear royal blue
Pokemon Ruby - clear red
Pokemon Emerald - clear green
Pokemon Fire Red - milky red color, but lighter than pokemon ruby
Pokemon Leaf Green - milky green color, but lighter than pokemon emerald

Note: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon for the GBA and Pokemon Pinball for the GBA both have the normal gray colored carts, this is normal and does not indicate a counterfeit.

ALERT!!!: The games POKEMON CHAOS BLACK, and POKEMON QUARTZ ARE COUNTERFEIT GAMES!!  These are games for the Gameboy Advance system that are being sold in order to trick you into thinking there is a new pokemon game out.  You will NEVER find a legitimate copy of these games!!  These games were not made by Nintendo, what you will be getting if you buy one of these games is some game that is not even really a Pokemon game, it is likely a rough translation of another type of game.  People are paying outrageous amounts of money for these games, please please please, do not get suckered into buying one of these games, as they are COUNTERFEIT!!

These games should ALWAYS come in the color listed above for the outside of the case, if you have seen a pokemon game you know what I am talking about.  This is not just the color of the label on the cart but it should be the color of the actual cart.  ANY POKEMON RPG GAME IN THE GRAYISH BLACK STANDARD GBA CART COLOR IS A COUNTERFEIT.  Use caution when purchasing pokemon games as they are one of the most demanded titles for the gba and therefore one of the most counterfeited.

Certain games also come with a tilt sensor in them, this is a device that detects when you move the gameboy advance around, its pretty cool and you certainly wouldn't want to miss out on this feature in the game.  The games that have the tilt sensor when bootlegged usually are not bootlegged with the tilt sensor in them, they are bootlegged as a standard gba cart.  The tilt sensor also makes the game cart much much larger than a normal gba cart, so if you see one of the gba tilt sensor games in a standard sized cart then you know its a counterfeit automatically.  The tilt sensor was only used in 2 games recently, Wario Ware Twisted and Yoshi Topsy Turvy.   Yoshi Topsy Turvy also comes in a green-tinted cartridge, so anything else is counterfeit for this game.

Mario, castlevania, and all games made by Nintendo are some of the most popular counterfeits, use caution when purchasing them.  Also children's games such as Avatar: the last Airbender, Dora the explorer, Barbie, Lizzie McGuire and many other popular titles are also heavily produced by counterfeiters simply because its very easy to turn a profit on games targeted towards the younger members of society.

- Feedback!  ALWAYS check a seller's feedback when buying video games.  Rule of thumb: if the seller has even one comment relating to the sale of a counterfeit game, then they probably sell ONLY counterfeit games.  Most bootleggers do not own an original copy of any game, they only sell bootlegs.  Some comments seen that typically indicate the sale of a counterfeit game is "game is good but is a copy" "game plays but will not save", "we had trouble fitting it into the gameboy", "game has trouble playing", "game has logos at startup that it should not have" "game does not have proper English (the text in games should not have a lot of  grammatical errors)" etc.  Just because someone has 100% positive feedback doesn't mean they aren't selling counterfeits.

- Listing a lot of games of the same title at the same time.  If someone lists 20-30 or even 15 auctions of a Spyro the dragon game for example, you have to wonder where the games are coming from especially if the games are listed at 9.99 each and its a recently released game that is selling in most retail stores for 29.99.  There is no way to make profit on something that you have to buy for 29.99 in a store if you sell it for 9.99.  Most people who sell honestly will list only a couple copies of the same game at once if that.  The MSRP (manufacturers suggested retail price) and the release date of most gameboy advance games past and present can be found on Nintendo's website.

- Nintendo's website has a list of known counterfeit sellers on ebay.  If you go to the forums/message boards on Nintendo's website you will find a list of sellers that are known sellers of counterfeit games, this will help you to know if you are buying from a counterfeiter right off the bat.  In order to find this information you can search from Google or another search engine using the keywords "Nintendo eBay Piracy".  The list of sellers is located on Nintendo's Forums under the "The Bulletin Board" section.  I am sorry but ebay will not allow me to post a direct link to the forums on this guide.  You can contribute to the list by reporting the auction to Nintendo if you receive a known counterfeit game, you can either call the toll free number or send them an email, the information on how to do this is on the forum post that I described above.  Just because a seller is not on this list does not mean they are not selling pirated games, the list is just a helpful tool in identifying counterfeit game sellers so you can avoid before you get ripped off.

PLEASE if you have received a counterfeit game, report it to all authorities that you can think of, also report it to ebay.  The only way to stop the insane amount of bootlegs on auction sites like this is if people start taking action against the counterfeiters.  I wrote this guide so everyone would know that counterfeit games are bad and will most likely not work properly, so you should avoid buying them.

Hopefully this guide will help you to save money and not be ripped off by sellers that are offering a dishonest product.

I would also like to mention that ALL multiple game in one carts (aka 100 games in 1, 1000 games in 1, 10 NES games on one cart etc) are also counterfeit games.  This applies to original gameboy, gameboy color, and gameboy advance games (and most other systems as well).  It has been brought to my attention that ebay is displaying ads from other sellers to these auctions on the page where you are now viewing this guide, so I wanted to bring that to my readers attention.

Please note that I have no control over the ads that display on this guide page, the ads for games that display on this page are from other sellers, and are not my listings, these ads are displayed by ebay.  Also sometimes the ads that display on this guide page are for counterfeit games, please beware of this when buying on ebay.  This also applies to all other guides and reviews, no one has any control over the ads that are displayed on their guide page.

If you want to view my items for sale please click on my name then view items for sale. Thank you.

The only gameboy games that are legitimate that have more than one game on a cart are the 2-in-one packs such as spyro and crash 2-in-one, Scooby Doo 2-in-one or Spongebob double packs, the Castlevania double pack is also another legitimate one.  The pokemon games or any Nintendo produced game NEVER come 2 to a cartridge, so any game stating that it has more than one pokemon game on it is a counterfeit for sure.  However even the legit 2-pack games can be counterfeited, so please check them using the above guide.

UPDATE MARCH/07 - Fixed spelling errors and made sure all content was up to date.  Updated Information on how to find list of ebay sellers that are confirmed to sell counterfeit games and information on Pokemon Chaos Black and Pokemon Quartz.

Finally now that you are done reading my guide, please put in a "yes" vote for it, the more people that vote, the more people that see this guide, and the more people that are educated about the possibility of receiving a fraudulent game on ebay or anywhere else!