VAPS has a new home (here)

mclemore

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VAPS, the Video Arcade Preservation Society, has served the video-game collector's community for almost twenty years now. For the last ten years, Kevin Ruddy has been the "keeper" (administrator) of VAPS.

Kevin's time is limited these days and Greg McLemore, WebMagic, KLOV, and the International Arcade Museum were all interested in helping out. Kevin's still available to bounce ideas off and to give advice based on the years of experience keeping VAPS alive, but he isn't able to spend a lot of time to deal with some new challenges VAPS is dealing with. The VAPS web site has been moved to a WebMagic server and we are working on some significant upgrades.

There are a variety of new features we would like to add. Additionally, there are some issues that need addressing. VAPS membership has declined a little bit over time. This is due to a variety of reasons. One of them is the system that drops people if they don't re-validate their record. While it was a system that originally worked well, recently more and more VAPS reminder e-mails are getting stuck in various ISP's (and users's) spam filters (E-mail is a broken technology in 2005). People don't get the e-mail, don't remember to log-in, the get ungraciously booted from the Society, and the database shrinks. There are a few things that can help address this and Kevin and I agreed that it was important to temporarily pull the plug on the mandatory "data refresh or get dropped" functions.

As a first step, we recently rewrote the entire vaps site. What was a perl-based system last year has been moved to a PHP and MySQL solution. We intentionally kept the same look while we focused on database migration issues (and some non-vaps concerns). A couple hooks are being made to connect VAPS data with KLOV data and vice-versa. For example, KLOV game pages now state how popular a particular game is to the collecting community (an improved version of this feature is coming soon). And VAPS now has access to the KLOV database in real time instead of being updated infrequently.

Unfortunately, while we work on some data integration issues like allowing one password to work on VAPS.ORG, KLOV.COM, and the message forums, the ability to log onto VAPS.org has been temporarily turned off. We are trying to get the site fully back on-line as soon as possible.

VAPS has meant a lot over the years to quite a number of collectors. If anyone wants to help take VAPS 'to the next level,' please let me know.

Greg McLemore
 
I do have one opinion... I would remove the word "rare" in all it's versions and replace it with some type of "collectability" rating so that the ijits on ebay don't say "It's not worth $200! It says there are only 3 known to existance on KLOV and VAPS! I want $2000!!!"
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In the next version of that section, we will try to address 2 things. The first is that rarity and value are not the same thing. The second is that a game might be listed as "rare" just because people don't want the game --- operators might be sitting on a bunch of them waiting to send them to SuperAuctions.
 
Personally, the rarity information completely blows to have in KLOV. Vaps is simply too small of a sample to be used to imply rarity. Collectors are more likely to report ownership of a rare game than they are to report a ms pac man.. This alone skews the reliability of the word rare as the games that truly are rare are weighted heavily and thus seem common, while games nobody cares a lick about suddenly become rare.. It's hurting ebay big time, and quite frankly, it's inaccurate.

Just my 2 cents.
/b
 
The idea is to change the wording on KLOV, and to expand the size of the VAPS database. Of course common games are going to be under-reported. But their relative positions should be fairly accurate... a Centipede IS currently more common than a Frogger.

And the VAPS statistics page does provide information of interest and of value.
 
How about grading rarity (common, uncommon etc) on DEDICATED cabs only.. not conversions, not boards, not kits. True dedicated examples of the game.. My point being, Major Havoc is 'common' yet we all know it's one of the rarest out there in dedicated form. A converted tempest did not leave the factory as a major havoc and thus shouldn't count in calculations of how many of a specific game exists.. Take away just boards and go with cabs that are dedicated and conversions and the entire makeup of the top 20 shifts.. I think it's less about wording and more about using the right data points to accurately reflect what the data means. As it stands today, it really is meaningless to collectors and serves as a way to artificially sucker someone on ebay..

Just offering what is hopefully taken as constructive criticism.
 
As someone who is new to arcade collecting, I can't wait to enter my collection into vaps! I got my first game in nov. and now am up to 4! Hope it's up soon!
 
Ebay Link

This right here is exactly why the VAPS rarity ratings are bogus. This poor guy is thinking he's got a gold mine of a game because of it. In reality, he has a common as dirt and pretty much worthless machine but KLOV has him thinking he has a 'SCARCE' machine of which only 5 exist!
 
Ugh... that is HORRIBLE... $1k reserve not met, and the game doesn't even work!?! And he even paid to feature it!

The red font on the blue background is unreadable, so maybe people won't be able to read that it doesn't work though
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DogP
 
It will be another week or two, but it is still on the table to tweak the whole VAPS rarity thing. It's actually surprising to me that anyone would automatically think rare=valuable. Plus, as mentioned by others, collectible is not the same thing as rare.
 
Many people look for any source they can to trump up perceived value of something they have to sell
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NO, rare does not = valuable but it gives unsavory or uneducated sellers something they want. This particular example is one where everything is wrong all the way around based on VAPS data. The game is not rare, scarce, nor valuable. Unless the VAPS sampling either grows significantly to reflect somewhat accurately true rarity (the top 20 are obvious, but it's the other 1000 games that get skewed) OR vaps somehow takes into account production numbers to determine rarity it's a bad thing all around to be connected with KLOV.
 
I think that VAPS new association with KLOV will help increase the sample size. Seeing the stats on KLOV made me want to sign up with VAPS but I decided against it because it looked like VAPS was never updated. VAPS also suffered from a lack of press but now that VAPS and KLOV will be run through the same site I think many new people like me will want to sign up. It will be real convenient if VAPS and the KLOV board can be linked with the same sign in so that people will be able to keep their game lists up to date.

I don't know if there really needs to be a rating system at all because the sample is only of collectors and leaves out the millions that are still on location making money for operators. I think it would still be interesting to list the collection statistics though, I would just put them it in a table though. Something like this…..

Original Dedicated Machines......10
Conversions..........................8
Board Only...........................20

KLOV has been an invaluable resource to me and I am looking forward to seeing what great new ideas Greg and the others have come up with. Get it online soon please!!!
 
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