CIB, sealed & loose

Three words do most of the work in a game's price. Here's what they mean and which one to buy.

Loose

The cart or disc alone — no box, no manual. This is the cheapest way to own and play a game, often at a fraction of the boxed price. For common titles, loose is the sensible buy. The trade-off: loose copies barely appreciate, because the box and manual are what got thrown away in 1994 and scarcity lives there.

CIB — complete in box

Cart or disc, original box, manual, and ideally the inserts (poster, reg card, tray). CIB is the collector's default: it's the whole object as sold, it displays properly, and it holds value far better than loose. Check listings carefully — "boxed" sometimes means a battered box and a missing manual. The manual matters; for many titles it's rarer than the cart.

Sealed

Never opened, factory shrink intact. Sealed is a different hobby: you're not buying a game, you're buying an artefact. Prices can be multiples of CIB — sometimes absurd multiples for grail titles — and the market includes graded slabs (WATA, VGA) where the case is the product. Two cautions: reseals exist (shrink-wrap machines are cheap — look for original fold patterns and seam style), and a sealed game you open instantly becomes an expensive CIB.

Which to buy

• To play: loose, or CIB when the premium is small.
• To collect: CIB with the manual, best condition you can afford. Buy the box, not the story.
• Sealed: only from established sellers with feedback and photos of the actual item — and be sceptical of any grail priced under the market.

Where a title has a current eBay listing, our page for it shows what that copy is actually asking today — the fastest way to sanity-check a tier before you bid. Start with your platform.