How we choose

Every page here answers one question: is this game worth owning in the flesh, what does a real copy cost today, and where do you get it.

The Attract Mode exists because digital libraries are rented, delistings are routine, and the games that defined their eras survive as objects — cartridges, discs, boxes and manuals. This is a reference for the ones worth keeping on a shelf, and for what the market actually charges for them.

Where the catalogue comes from

The backbone is Wikidata, the open, community-run knowledge base released into the public domain (CC0). We rank the catalogue by how widely a game is documented across the world's encyclopedias — a plain, honest proxy for the titles that endure — balanced era by era so the arcade age isn't drowned out by last year's releases. Synopses are drawn from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) and credited on each page.

What we leave out

This is a site about games you can hold, so a title only earns a page if a physical copy of it exists — a cartridge, a disc, a big box. Free-to-play and always-online titles that only ever shipped as a download are out, however large they loom: there is no copy of them to own. Phone and browser games are out for the same reason. Where a game had a physical release on one format and a download-only release on another, we index the format you can actually shelve.

How the prices work

Where a title has a current listing, its box image and "from" price come from live eBay listings at our last rebuild — real copies real sellers have, not book values. SEALED and CIB badges are read from the listing itself. Titles with nothing on the market keep their reference page without a price, which is itself worth knowing. The Amazon AU button opens a current search for the title, which covers modern releases and re-issues. Listings refresh weekly.

Where we're writing from

We're in Australia, so this is a PAL collector's view of the shelf: prices come from eBay Australia in Australian dollars, the Amazon button goes to Amazon AU, and where a console went by two names we use the one it wore here — Mega Drive, not Genesis. The games are the same everywhere; the boxes, the region codes and the going rate are not, and our PAL vs NTSC guide covers what that means if you're buying from further afield.

How we make money

When you buy through the eBay or Amazon buttons, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That's the whole model: no ads, no paywall, no sponsored placements. A game's position in the catalogue is set by its standing, never by what pays us. See the full disclosure.

Part of a small network

The Attract Mode is the third shelf in a physical-media network, alongside The Sleeve Notes (vinyl records) and The Slipcover (films on disc). All three are independent and run by one person who'd rather own the thing than rent the stream.