Golden Age of Importing

[Standing On The Roof]

It's a lot easier and cheaper now thats for sure.

But it 'felt' better before. Yes that makes us sound like elitist assholes, but who cares? You bragged about it because back then it was quite an achievement. It's like when you beat a game on hard rather than easy. You get a better feeling inside that you really accomplished something. And having the commuinity as tight as it was back then was great too.

But I'm not bashing the present day. Especially on my budget.

[Tom Salter]

I think the prices of games back then made me value each import game I got more. I got FFVIII on US release and didn't leave the house for a week. But I've got FFX-2 which I got to the last boss on, and couldn't be arsed to go and level up enough because I had another game pop through the door.

Suppose I only have myself to blame

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

I think its more to do with getting older and gaining apathy for much of which you used to cherish.

[Shoju]

Are import games really cheaper than PAL versions when they first come out? Most of em seem to be ?10-20 more expensive. I used to play imports back in the 16 bit days and got a few imports for PS1 and DC but nowadays I would only import if a game were never to be released here or if it had a bad 50hz mode with no 60hz option.

Most games I get today usually dissapoint so theres no way I could do without Game's 10 days returns policy hence importing seems to be far more expensive and risky on top of the language problems with JP versions.

[James Harvey]

Wassup with the staff members changing their screen names too? A credibility thing?

They're all trying to copy me.

Every day they wake up and think 'I wish I could be more like that James Harvey bloke'. Getting rid of their nicknames is a step in the right direction, but it's not a very big step, guys

Tom, you should have changed your screen name to Boog as it's what everyone calls you. Unless you were starting to get pissed off with that nickname in which case fair play.

[Tom Salter]

Yes, that's the case :P

It's even worse when you meet these people, and they still call you by that name...

[Ginza]

Yeah Electric Boogaloo i can see that would be a real problem

[buster_broon]

Id say the SNES era, or should I say, the StreetFighter era. The best time for gaming Ive ever had.

i would agree

its really until now the only time i imported games - but i imported megadrive games

i got splatterhouse 3 and sent of the passwords to each level the month megadrive mag reviewed the game (chun li cover)

i felt great - i used dream machines 2 a ot back then, stopped importing once loaded consoles aka lee dobinson ripped me off for neo and megadrive stuff

[MJ]

I felt a golden age of R1 DVD importing died at the beginning of the year when customs cracked down hard on the likes of CD-WOW, DVD Pacific and DVD Soon forcing them to declare the full values of packages. They had all become too popular for customs to ignore anymore. I hope the day never comes when our favourite import gaming retailers end up being asked to do the same.

Which Xbox retailers' games get through customs unnoticed?

[Salsa Party Animal]

So how do the custom know which one to crack down apart from obvious branding on jiffybag.

[Papercut]

Some shipping companies deliberately put every item through customs, in order to slap their own charges onto the fee.

as you say, in other cases customs get wise to certain company names.

[nips]

It's even worse when you meet these people, and they still call you by that name...

I'm definitely going to the next meet, Boog.

[MJ]

I've used VG+ a couple of times without any problems. They charge around ?2 for shipping and I've had them arrive within seven days.

Ninja Gaiden was just under ?25 and Metal Gear Solid: Substance (preplayed) was just over ?10 (had free shipping). I've just ordered Chronicles of Riddick and Psi-Ops from them, both are slightly more expensive than Ninja Gaiden so I'll have to wait and see what happens when they arrive.

I believe the UK import limit without any charges for games, CDs and DVDs is up to the value of ?18.

[buster_broon]

I felt a golden age of R1 DVD importing died at the beginning of the year when customs cracked down hard on the likes of CD-WOW, DVD Pacific and DVD Soon forcing them to declare the full values of packages. They had all become too popular for customs to ignore anymore. I hope the day never comes when our favourite import gaming retailers end up being asked to do the same.

try movietyme

i got a good tip from a friend that all his stuff comes from inside the uk

i normally use play but everything over ?18 gets stung so when i wanted simpsons season 4 i used them for a trial

and it arrived today without charges - so all my dvd's over ?18 will be from movietyme and to be honest they are generally cheaper than play for most titles

[Abhisara]

So how do the custom know which one to crack down apart from obvious branding on jiffybag.

Importing DVDs is much more commonplace than importing games so it's not surprising they quickly caught on with the volume of packages they would have been dealing with - especially at the current exchange rate. Also DVD Soon and DVD Pacific used to mark every package with a fixed value under ?18 ($12 and $20 respectively) which would look suspicious. Customs apparently also checked popular boards like The DVD Forums to find out which retailers were dodging customs.

try movietyme

Yep, I've used them before (Craig at MovieTyme once kindly organised a few discounted bulk co-buys for a group of us on another forum). I find them a bit expensive for most of stuff I usually buy though.