With the sheer number of games that release only in Japan every year, it's a given that some U.S. gamers feel jilted about the how selective companies are about domesticating titles from overseas. This is where dealers like Carlson Stevens, founder of Mad-Gear Games, comes into play.
Selling imports on Ebay since 2000, and showcasing his wares at conventions since 2004, Stevens was on hand at this year's East Coast Gaming Expo to vend imports ranging all the way from the Famicom system up to current-gen titles for the Playstation 2.
"It originally started as a side business," he said. "I did it on Ebay for years to make a couple extra bucks and subsidize my collection. I recently started doing it full time."
Stevens' table not only featured home console games but also portable games for systems such as the Game Boy Advance and Wonderswan. He said he gets major help importing the games through friends he has in Japan.
"I've always liked the more obscure stuff," Stevens said about getting into the business. "I always enjoyed reading the features in DieHard GameFan (magazine) on games from Japan and the Turbo Grafix 16 was my favorite system. I really like systems where the best games were never released in the U.S."
While Stevens gets a lot of traffic to his exhibition, he noted the people who come up to his setup always react to what he sells on two different extremes.
"I either get the people who take one look, say 'I can't play this,' and leave or I get people who take a look and say 'Explicative, explicative, I can’t believe you have this,'" he explained.
While he still gets the people who believe they can’t operate or enjoy playing imports, Stevens noted gamers have a lot more assistance with the Internet than importers had even a handful of years ago.
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