🎮 Game Collector Pal - User Guide

Your personal assistant for organizing and managing your video game collection

📖 Table of Contents

  1. What is Game Collector Pal?
  2. Getting Started
  3. Main Features
  4. Account Management
  5. Collection Management
  6. Hardware Collection
  7. Barcode Scanning
  8. Custom Lists
  9. Friends System
  10. Game Session Tracking
  11. Physical Condition (Collectors)
  12. Reproduction Tracking
  13. Retro Shops
  14. Retro Events
  15. Homebrew Games
  16. Audio Descriptions (TTS)
  17. Official Manual Downloads
  18. Daily Trivia
  19. AI Search
  20. Languages
  21. Achievements
  22. Easter Eggs
  23. Tips and Tricks
  24. Keyboard Shortcuts
  25. Frequently Asked Questions
  26. Pal, the assistant
  27. Support
  28. Install the app on your phone (offline use)
  29. Filling in your collection data
  30. Quick review
  31. What game?
  32. Smart lists
  33. Loans
  34. Sharing a list
  35. Your collection valued
  36. Investment report as a PDF
  37. Importing a list of games
  38. Who sells your game
  39. If you run a shop

What is Game Collector Pal?

Game Collector Pal is a complete web application for video game collectors that allows you to:

Getting Started

1. Access the Application

Open your browser and go to: https://gcpal.javocsoft.com (or the URL where the app is hosted)

2. Create an Account

  1. Click on the "Login" button (top right corner)
  2. Select "Don't have an account? Sign up"
  3. Fill out the form:
    • Username: Your name in the application
    • Email: Your email address
    • Password: Minimum 8 characters
  4. Click "Register"
  5. Verify your email: Check your inbox and click the verification link
  6. Once verified, you can log in

3. First Login

  1. Click "Login"
  2. Enter your email and password
  3. Click "Sign In"

You're ready to start!

4. Your empty collection offers three routes

The first time you open My Collection you do not get a blank list but "Let's fill your collection" and three ways to start, so you can take whichever is least effort:

Below that is a reminder that you can install the application on your phone to browse your collection offline, which is exactly what you want at a flea market. See Install the app on your phone (offline use).

That screen goes away as soon as you have your first game.

Main Features

How to search for a game:

  1. Go to the "Search" tab
  2. Type the game name in the search box (minimum 2 characters)
  3. Optionally, filter by platform (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, PC, etc.)
  4. Results will appear in real time

Information you'll see:

View game details:

Account Management

Edit Profile

Click your e-mail, top right, and My Account opens. At the top are the things you do not edit — username, e-mail and the date you joined — and below them, each thing in its own box:

Section What is in it
Avatar Your profile picture
Friend card background The background image on your friend card
Social links The nine fields below
Customization Theme, language and how the app looks
Public shelf Your public page, if you have one
What your friends see Your e-mail and the value of your shared lists
European market Market, delivery country and price alerts
Change password
Danger zone Deleting your account

The collapsible sections open by clicking their title; they are saved closed so the profile fits on one screen.

Your account menu

Everything below hangs off your e-mail, top right. It opens with the hours played and games you have, and under that:

Entry What it is
My Account Your whole profile: see Edit Profile
My Achievements See Achievements
What game? Let chance decide: see What game?
My shop Only if you have a shop registered
Appearance The colour and wallpaper of the application, just below
User guide What you are reading
Administration Administrators only
Log out

Appearance

Appearance, in that menu, holds two things: the colour of the site and the wallpaper behind it. Both are previewed as you choose, so the window itself is the preview, and both are saved to your account and follow you to another device.

Colour

Nine colours, laid out in hue order like a spectrum: crimson, amber, lime, emerald, cyan, blue, violet — the original one — magenta and slate. They change the colour of the whole site: titles, buttons, borders, highlights.

Slate is the odd one on purpose. The other eight are strong colours; that one is a muted blue-grey, for anyone who would rather the site did not shout at them. Same structure, far less saturation.

What they do not change is the notices. An error is still red and a success still green in all six, because there the colour is not decoration: it is what tells "saved" from "not saved" apart. An accent changes the face of the application, not the meaning of what it tells you.

All six are prepared to read equally well against the dark background. Rotating a colour and preserving its contrast are not the same thing, and the second is what stops amber leaving text you cannot make out.

Background

Twenty patterns and a No Background for plain. They are geometric textures — grids, circuits, stars, hexagons — meant to sit behind the content without fighting it.

The application is dark and does not follow your system's light mode. If an earlier version of this manual told you otherwise, that was a mistake: what you choose here is the colour and the texture, not a light theme.

Currency

My Account has a Currency section, beside the European market and the delivery country. It picks the currency your amounts are shown in.

Two things worth understanding, because they are not what they look like:

What you paid is kept in the currency you paid it in. Changing this preference rewrites no copy: a purchase price is a fact about that purchase, not a preference. If you imported a VGCollect collection in dollars, those copies stay dollars underneath for good.

And what you are about to pay keeps its own currency. A shop offer at £38 is shown in pounds with the equivalent beside it, not converted: £38 is what you will be charged, and replacing it with "€44" would show you a price that exists nowhere. Converting is for comparing and adding up, not for telling you what something costs.

When a total mixes currencies it says so: you will see that it is approximate. And if one day the exchange rate cannot be fetched, you are told how many copies were left out of the sum rather than handed a smaller total with no explanation.

Change Avatar

  1. Click on the camera icon on your avatar
  2. Select an image from your device (max 5MB, JPG/PNG)
  3. The image will upload automatically

Your friend card background is changed the same way, in its own section: it is the image behind your card when somebody has you as a friend. It is darkened automatically so the text on top stays readable.

What your friends see

Two checkboxes, both off until you turn them on yourself:

What a friend never sees, whichever you turn on: what you paid for a copy, your notes, your personal ratings and your wishlists.

Add Social Networks

In My Account, open Social links. There are nine fields and they all work the same way:

Field Example
Website https://your-site.com
Facebook https://facebook.com/your-page
Instagram https://instagram.com/your-name
Twitter/X https://twitter.com/your-name
YouTube https://youtube.com/@your-channel
Twitch https://twitch.tv/your-channel
BitPlay https://bitplay.javocsoft.com/@your-channel
Wallapop https://wallapop.com/user/your-profile
eBay https://ebay.com/usr/your-name

Enter the full address, not your username. The fields expect a URL starting with https://, so typing @your-channel on its own will not save.

BitPlay accepts both shapes its site uses: the channel, /@name, or the creator, /creator/name. Since the link appears under its name and its icon, the address is checked to be genuinely theirs; one pointing elsewhere is dropped when you save.

They are stored with Save social links, and only http:// and https:// addresses are accepted. Whichever you fill in appear on your friend card, which is what people who have added you see. 3. Links will be displayed automatically in your profile

Log Out

  1. Click on your email (top right corner)
  2. Click "Log Out"

Delete Account

⚠️ This action is permanent and irreversible

  1. Click on your email → "Delete account"
  2. Before asking for your password, the screen tells you exactly what will be deleted. The list is worked out by the server, so it covers whatever hangs off your account and is not always the same.
  3. Enter your password to confirm

If you run an active shop, the account cannot be deleted from here. Deleting it would take your whole catalogue, your price history and your visit statistics with it — and the history cannot be recovered, because nobody can go back and observe what you were asking last month. The screen explains this and tells you where to write to close the shop first. Once the shop has expired you can delete the account, and you are told the catalogue goes with it.

What does not disappear when you delete the account, said plainly:

It is set out in the privacy policy.

Password Recovery

  1. On the login screen, click "Forgot your password?"
  2. Enter your email
  3. Check your email and click the recovery link (valid for 1 hour)
  4. Enter your new password

Interface Customization

What is it?

The Customization section allows you to configure which retro content tabs you want to display in the application. This is useful if you're only interested in modern games and want to hide the specific retro content sections.

How to customize:

  1. Click on your email (top right corner) → "My Account"
  2. Find the "Customization" section and expand it
  3. Check or uncheck the tabs you want to show:
    • ✅ Show "Events" tab - Retro events calendar
    • ✅ Show "Shops" tab - Retro shops directory
    • ✅ Show "Neo-Retro" tab - Homebrew games catalog
  4. Click "Save Preferences"

What happens?

Default: All tabs are enabled.

Public Shelf

What is it?

A link you can hand to anybody — over WhatsApp, on a forum, anywhere — so they can see your collection without an account. It shows your games, which machine each one is on, and their covers. Nothing else.

What is never shown:

How to share it:

  1. Click your email (top right) → "My account"
  2. Find the "Public shelf" section and expand it
  3. Tick "Share my shelf with a link"
  4. Press "Copy" to take the address, or "Open" to see exactly what the other person will see

How to stop sharing:

Untick the box. The link stops working immediately, for everybody, even for people who had saved it.

If you tick it again, the link is the same one, so anybody who already had it can get back in. That is what somebody who pauses and resumes normally wants. If you want the opposite — one particular link never to work again — use "Generate a new link and break the old one": the address changes and the old one is dead for good.

The address does not carry your name, just a random string. That is what makes it revocable: a username cannot be changed every time you regret having shared something.

Collection Management

Add a Game to Your Collection

  1. Search for the game you want to add
  2. Click on the game to view its details
  3. Click "Add to collection"
  4. In the window that opens, click "Add without a list"

The game will appear in your "My Collection" tab with no need to file it anywhere — you can classify it whenever you like, and the platform can be set or corrected afterwards from the game's own page. If you would rather put it in a list right away, the same window lets you; the details are in "Add Games to a List".

View Your Collection

  1. Go to the "My Collection" tab
  2. You'll see all your games organized by platform
  3. Use filters to:
    • Pick a list: the dropdown splits them into two groups, My lists and Wishlists, so they never get mixed up. Right below All games there is an Unfiled option: games you have not put by hand into any list. A smart list does not count as filing — it fills itself from its filter — so a game can appear in four smart lists and still be "unfiled", because none of those four is a place you chose for it
    • View only a platform: the dropdown only offers the ones you own, each with how many copies are on it — Nintendo Entertainment System (180)
    • Search by name or by barcode: type the code into the same search box — whole or just the last digits, four is enough — and the game shows up. Both kinds of code count: the one saved on your copy, and any the community knows for that game, so you can pick up the box and type what is printed on the back even if you never recorded it. Under four digits it searches names only, because "1942" is a game before it is half a reference
    • Filter by physical condition, Digital included

There is no status filter: in most collections nearly every game shares a single one — "backlog" — so filtering by it left almost the whole collection on screen. Platform splits the same copies into groups that are actually useful.

Above the grid there are two dropdowns. One changes how the games look, and they are three ways of seeing the same thing:

The other one sorts: by name, by release date, by date added, or by Valuation (highest or lowest). The last one fetches the market prices the first time it is used — it takes a second to apply — and if that request fails you get a warning and the order is left as it was. A copy with no market price is not treated as worth zero: it always goes last, whichever direction you sort in, because treating it as free would put it first when sorting lowest first, and it is not the cheapest, it is the one nobody knows the price of.

Picking a list shows a strip above the games with Valuation (what those copies are worth today) and Invested (what you paid for them), each figure with how many copies it counts behind it — "Valuation €3,084.92 151 of 154 · Invested €135.00 4 of 154". They are shown apart because they count different copies and neither covers all of them: valuation needs a region and a market price, invested needs you to have recorded what you paid. On a wishlist the strip does not appear: nothing in it is yours yet.

Edit Game Information

Click on a game in your collection to:

General information:

To score a game there are the five stars in the header, which are the community rating: see Rating a game.

Physical condition (for physical games):

Purchase:

What about games you do not own yet? They are not marked here: they go in a list marked as a wishlist (see Sharing a list). Its games count towards neither your total nor the number your friends see, which is exactly what you want from a game that is not yours yet.

The three tabs

The page is organised into three tabs, right under the cover:

It always opens on The game.

When something the AI wrote is wrong (administrators)

These buttons are only visible to an administrator, and each one costs a live AI call, which is why they sit where they do:

How it is saved

Everything you write about your copy — status, notes, condition, prices, loan, region and platform — is saved with a single "Save changes" button at the end of the editing area. While something is pending you will see an "Unsaved" mark beside it, and the button follows you down the page so it is always within reach.

Things that are actions do not need that button and take effect at once: uploading an image or a document, logging a play session, and marking a lent game as returned.

Folded sections

The parts almost nobody fills in start folded: Reproductions, Edition and condition notes, Selling, and Loan. Click their heading to open them.

If your copy already has that data — it is lent out, or it is a special edition — the section opens by itself, so nothing you have saved is ever hidden from you.

Images and documents of your copy

Yes, you can upload your own photos — and it is one of the most common questions, so it is worth saying where: they do not go on the game, they go on your copy. The game's page is the same for everybody and its images come from IGDB; yours live under My copy, which only exists once the game is in your collection or one of your lists.

Look there for the Images and Documents section:

How many Formats
Images 6 at most, 2 MB each JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP
Documents 2 at most, 10 MB each PDF, EPUB, MOBI, AZW3

What they are for, which is what decides what to upload:

Upload with Upload Images or Upload Documents; they are saved immediately and need no Save changes. Each has a bin icon to delete it, which asks first. Clicking an image opens it full size.

If you try to go over the limit or upload something too large it says so, and nothing is half-uploaded.

Putting your copy up for sale

Under My copy → Selling — one of the collapsed sections — there is a Selling Price and a For Sale checkbox.

The checkbox stays disabled until two things are true: a price is set, and at least one image has been uploaded. That is not fussiness: whoever sees the listing needs to know how much and to see which copy you mean, and a copy with no photo is not an offer, it is an intention.

Once ticked, your copies for sale carry a tag with their price in the lists you share with friends. It is the only circumstance in which a price of yours reaches another person: what you paid is never shown, nor are your notes. Unticking it removes the tag.

It is the same thing you could already do with hardware, with the added requirement of the photo.

Changing the cover

Above the cover art, on a game in your collection, there is a Change Cover button. It is for the cases where IGDB's art is not your edition's — a Japanese cover where you own the PAL one, a re-release — or where there simply is none.

Two ways:

Before it is saved you are told what it will apply to, which is the part worth reading: if your copy has a specific platform, the cover is for that platform only; if not, it applies to all your copies of that game that have no platform set.

Sharing a game

The Share button, in the page header, gives you a link to send over WhatsApp, Telegram or anywhere else. Whoever opens it sees the game with its cover art and description, with no account needed.

The same dialog offers a QR code you can download as an image — handy for showing from a phone or printing.

It shares the game, not your copy: what you paid, your notes, your images and your loan do not travel in that link.

Rating a game

Under the title there are five stars. Click them to vote from 1 to 5, and beside them you will see the average of every vote and how many there are. Your own vote is marked, and you can change it by clicking a different star.

This is what people here think, and it should not be confused with the other figure on the page: Rating, which is out of 100 and is the score IGDB brings from its own community. Two different audiences on two different scales, which is why they are shown apart.

You need to be signed in to vote; not to read them.

Remove a Game from Your Collection

  1. Open the game in your collection
  2. Click "Remove from my collection"
  3. Confirm the action

⚠️ Note: This will also delete all recorded gaming sessions.

Hardware Collection

What is it?

The Hardware tab allows you to manage your collection of gaming consoles and systems. Record detailed information about each piece of hardware you own, including physical condition, prices and personal notes.

At the top you'll see three figures: how many machines you have, how much you've invested in them, and how many are for sale. Invested shows how many machines that figure covers, as "14 of 33", and shows nothing when every machine has a purchase price.

Add Hardware

  1. Go to the "Hardware" tab
  2. Click "+ Add Hardware"
  3. Search for the platform: Type the name of the console or system
  4. Select from the results (you'll see a brief AI-generated description)
  5. Complete the optional fields:
    • Custom name: Give it a unique name (e.g., "My childhood SNES")
    • Image: Upload a photo or provide a URL
    • Physical condition: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor
    • What it still has: Check "Has its box" and/or "Has its manual" if you still have them. Leaving them unchecked and saving does count as an answer — you are looking straight at both boxes — so it records that it does not have them
    • Purchase price: What you paid
    • Selling price: If you plan to sell it
    • For sale: Mark it if available for friends
    • Share with my friends: Check it so this piece shows up on the Hardware tab of your profile, the one your friends see. It is a per-console decision, not a per-account one — off by default — so sharing one does not share the rest of the shelf. What you paid, what you ask for it and your notes are never shown, even when you share it
    • Notes: Any additional information
  6. Click "Save"

If your console is not there, that is no longer a dead end. The starting list is IGDB's, and it does not have everything: it includes Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color, but not the Game Boy Micro, a real Nintendo machine from 2005. When the search finds nothing, a button appears — "Look it up with AI" — and it goes looking on its own.

It proposes up to three machines with the maker, the year and a link to the source where it found them. Open it before choosing: that link is what separates a real console from an invented one, which is why the AI cannot propose anything without citing where it saw it. Pick yours and it is added like any other, description included.

What you pick stays for everybody: the next person to search for that same console finds it straight away, spending no lookup at all. Consoles that arrived this way are marked with a 🧠 icon so they are never confused with an IGDB one.

Hardware Images

You can add images in two ways:

Upload file:

  1. Select "Upload"
  2. Click to select a file from your device
  3. Supported formats: JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP (max 5MB)

From URL:

  1. Select "URL"
  2. Paste the image address
  3. The image will be automatically downloaded to our servers

💡 Note: Images are always saved locally to avoid depending on external links.

A newly added console may show up with a photo already, even if you never uploaded one. This only happens when you add hardware, not when you edit it: as soon as you pick a platform that already has a default image, the Image section of the form shows a notice with a thumbnail of that photo and fills in the URL field with its path, so if you don't want to change anything you don't have to touch anything.

That photo is not copied to your record: if you save it as is, your hardware stays without an image of its own and keeps showing the platform's, the same one any other collector sees if they have not set their own either. That has an upside: if the console's default photo is improved later on, yours improves along with it — it does not stay frozen on whatever it was that day. The moment you upload your own photo, it wins and is shown instead.

Setting a console's default image (administrators)

This button is only visible to an administrator, and only appears when the piece being edited already has a photo of its own uploaded (not a URL, not one just picked and not yet saved). It sits in the edit modal, alongside the other fields.

Clicking it makes that photo the one everybody sees for that console if they have not uploaded their own — replacing whatever was set before, if anything was. It saves immediately, without waiting for the rest of the form to be saved: how you see your own console and what everybody else sees are two separate decisions.

View Detailed Information

  1. Click on any hardware in your collection
  2. You'll see a modal with all information
  3. Click "View detailed information" to get:
    • Console/system history
    • Technical specifications
    • Notable games
    • Trivia

💡 If you use a custom name, the AI will generate specific information for that name (e.g., "PC Engine Duo" vs "PC Engine").

Next to the physical condition you'll see whether it has its box and manual: green for what it has, greyed out for what it doesn't. That mark only appears once somebody has actually answered the question; hardware you catalogued before this feature existed shows nothing about it until you edit and save it, because leaving a checkbox unchecked is not the same as saying "no box".

Edit Hardware

  1. In the detail modal, click "Edit"
  2. Modify the desired fields
  3. Click "Save"

Saving takes you straight back to the card you just touched, which is highlighted for a couple of seconds so you can spot it at a glance — useful because the grid is sorted by platform and an edit can move a card around. A machine you just added always gets this treatment, even if it was already on screen.

Delete Hardware

  1. In the detail modal, click "Delete"
  2. Confirm deletion

Hardware Marketplace

If you mark hardware as "For sale":

To view hardware for sale from friends:

  1. Go to the "Hardware" tab
  2. Click "Friends Marketplace"
  3. You'll see available hardware with prices and seller

Barcode Scanning

What is it?

The barcode scanner allows you to identify physical games by scanning the UPC/EAN code on the box with your device's camera. An artificial intelligence (Perplexity) automatically identifies the game and its platform.

It works on phones and on desktop, but not equally well. A phone's camera focuses on the code by itself, so you take the camera to the game. A desktop webcam usually will not: the app checks for this and, where the camera cannot focus itself, drives the focus for it — but even then the code has to be held much closer to a webcam than to a phone. If you have a phone at hand, it is the faster option; see Desktop vs. phone below.

How to Scan a Game

  1. In the "Search" tab, click the "Scan barcode" button.
  2. Allow camera access when the browser requests it.
  3. Point at the barcode on the game box, keeping it steady and with good light.
  4. On a webcam that cannot focus by itself, the app spends a few seconds finding focus on its own — a "Focusing…" message appears while it works — and then shows a Refocus button and a tip to bring the code closer. On a phone this step is normally invisible: the camera focuses on its own and scanning starts right away.
  5. The scanner will automatically detect the code.

Desktop vs. phone

After Scanning

Once the code is detected:

  1. The AI searches for the game on the internet using the barcode
  2. Automatically detects the platform (PS2, Nintendo DS, Xbox, etc.)
  3. Pre-filters the search with the detected platform
  4. Shows IGDB results for you to confirm the game
  5. Select the correct game from the results
  6. The mapping is automatically saved for future searches

Japanese codes

A Japanese case carries a JAN-13, which is not another format: it is an EAN-13 with a Japanese prefix (450-459 or 490-499). The scanner reads them, the search understands them, and the region is filled in as NTSC-J on its own.

What is genuinely harder is getting the camera to see one, and that is the printing rather than the code: on a Japanese retro case they tend to be small, with very short bars. If it will not catch, type the number — it is looked up exactly the same way.

Manual Entry

If the camera doesn't work or you prefer to type:

  1. In the scanner modal, use the "Or enter the code manually" field
  2. Enter the 8-13 digit barcode
  3. Click the search button

This is the same path as scanning, not a reduced one: it searches the community database, asks the AI if the code is unknown, and saves the mapping just the same.

Scanner Controls

Community Database

Identified barcodes are saved in a community database:

Your best contribution is the platform. A barcode identifies one box: one game, on one platform, for one region. When you add a game you have just scanned and pick the platform of the box in your hand, that choice is saved with the code and corrects whatever the AI had guessed. The region is worked out from the code itself, whose first digits say where the manufacturer was registered.

A code becomes verified once three different people agree. Submitting the same code twice from your account counts once.

The platform, without hunting through two hundred

If a copy has no platform, the consoles that game came out on appear under the field as buttons, taken from its record. One click sets it — you will still have to save, like any other change.

When the record knows only one, it says so for what it is: "According to the game's record: Nintendo 64". When it knows several they are all offered, not ordered by likelihood, because which one is yours is something only you know: you choose with the box in your hand.

It is worth filling in: without a platform there is no price in either market and the copy does not count towards your collection's valuation.

Seeing what your copy is worth

On a game in your collection, under My copy, a United States market value block shows PriceCharting's prices. The See Price button in the header takes you straight there; if the price is still being looked up it says so — Checking the price… — and takes you there as soon as it arrives.

When there is no figure at all — a game that is not in your collection — a window opens explaining why, and offering two ways out: search it on PriceCharting (US market, closed sales) or on PriceTracker (European market, prices being asked right now). If the game is not in your collection the window invites you to add it: without knowing which copy you have — region and condition — nothing can say what yours is worth, because a loose PAL-Spain copy and a sealed Japanese one are different products at different prices.

And when the price is missing for a copy you do own, the block says so instead of disappearing: whether their catalogue does not have the game, whether it has no platform, whether it is a download, or whether the day's lookups are spent. When the reason can be fixed — a missing platform or region — the notice itself takes you to the field.

The one highlighted is the price that matches the state of your copy:

Your copy Highlighted price
Sealed Sealed
Marked complete, or with box and manual Complete in box
Anything else Game only

The other two stay visible in small print, in case you want to know what a complete one goes for while holding a loose cartridge.

Prices arrive in dollars and are shown in euros, with the original dollars beside them and the date of the reading. If the game it found is not yours — there are variants, re-releases and regional editions — press Not this game? and pick the right one: that choice is saved and never guessed again.

How many sales it rests on. Under the prices you will see "Based on N sales". A price with 600 sales behind it is not the same as one with 9, and below ten the block says outright that the figure is a rough guide.

Why this price? Opening it shows what frames the number:

Games their catalogue does not have simply do not show the section.

Where these prices come from. PriceCharting calculates them from completed sales on eBay and on its own marketplace, and quotes them in US dollars. They reflect the United States market, which is what the block's title says. Worth keeping in mind before drawing conclusions: the figure is shown to you converted, and the € sign invites you to read it as what a copy fetches where you live. The region is taken into account — in their catalogue a PAL copy, an American one and a Japanese one are three separate products with separate prices — but converting the currency does not convert the market.

As a way of comparing your own games against each other, it is solid. As a resale price where you live, it is a guide.

The price depends on what you have filled in, and the block says so when something is missing:

Collection health also tells you how many copies have those gaps and what they cost in valuation terms.

What Europe is asking today

Below the market value there is a second block, with PriceTracker's prices. They measure something different, which is why they are kept apart:

PriceCharting PriceTracker
What it measures Completed sales What sellers are asking
Where United States European eBay sites
When Historical Today

The difference matters: an asking price is an intention, not a sale. Nobody sells fifty games at the price the most optimistic seller of each is asking.

The median and the range of active listings are shown, never the minimum or the maximum: across the first 41 products measured, 38 had a listing extreme enough that those figures described an anecdote rather than the market. When prices are widely spread the label stops saying "The usual" and says "Range", which is the honest word.

The block warns you when a figure deserves care: very few listings, data that has not been refreshed in a while, or a collection that failed.

Choosing your market and where it ships

In My Account, under European market, there are two dropdowns. They are two different questions:

A Spaniard watching eBay Germany is the interesting case: rare PAL copies turn up there, and what it costs you with delivery depends on where it goes. Measured against the same listing, delivering to Madrid costs 51.97 € and to Rome 56.27 €.

If you choose neither, the service default is used and the price block says so with a note that disappears the moment you answer. Your postcode is never sent: only the country.

When you change them, your copies are registered in the new context overnight, so the prices take a day to follow.

Price alerts

There are two kinds, and they serve different purposes.

The automatic one. If a game on one of your wishlists gets cheaper in your market, a notification arrives. Nothing to set up. It only reports real drops — over 10 % and at least 3 € — and never twice in a week about the same game. And only for what you want: a fall in something you already own is not news you asked for.

It can be switched off in My Account → European market, with the Tell me when a game on my wishlist gets cheaper checkbox.

The one you set. Under the European price of any game there is a link, Tell me when it reaches a price. You choose whether to hear about it below or above an amount. The second makes sense for something you own: "tell me when mine is worth more than 60 €".

Whatever you have set shows in two places: in the game's own price block, which says what it is waiting for, and all together in My Account → Prices you are waiting for. Either one can cancel it.

All of this is asking prices, not completed sales. The price may move again.

Recording your copy's barcode

On a game in your collection, under My copy, next to the platform and the region there is a Barcode of my copy field. Type it, or press the camera button to scan it.

The bars are drawn underneath as you type. If the code does not check out — they all carry a check digit — the field turns red and says so, which almost always means one digit was copied wrong.

It is saved with Save changes like the rest of the page, and your platform and region travel with it to the community database. That is the most valuable thing you can contribute: you are the one holding the box.

If the code is already mapped to another game, your copy keeps it anyway, the community database is left alone, and you are told which game it belongs to.

Without typing anything. If the game already has known codes under More information, each one carries a Use this code button that puts it on your copy. It asks first, and if your copy already had one it tells you which is being replaced. It fills the field in: you still have to press Save changes, so backing out is as easy as not saving.

What the code does not decide. A code that "looks" foreign means nothing: the first three digits say where the manufacturer registered, not where the box was sold. Nintendo uses an American prefix worldwide, so their European boxes carry American-looking codes. Measured over 124 copies in this collection, the prefix contradicts the owner 80 times and agrees 43, so the application does not use it to argue with you: the region and platform of your copy are yours to set.

Seeing a game's barcodes

On a game's details, under More information, you will find the barcodes the community knows for that game: the code drawn out, its digits underneath, and the platform and region of each one.

The same game can have several, one per territory — Top Gun on the NES has an American code and a French one, and that is the only thing telling them apart. Games with no codes yet simply do not show the section.

Supported Codes

Tips for a Good Scan

  1. 📍 Good lighting - Avoid shadows on the code
  2. 📐 Keep steady - Don't move the camera while scanning
  3. 🔍 Bring the code closer - If it's small, bring it closer to the camera
  4. 🧹 Clean code - Make sure it's not scratched or damaged
  5. 📱 Horizontal or vertical - The scanner detects in both orientations
  6. 🖥️ On a desktop webcam, get closer than you would with a phone - close enough to fill about half the frame width; press Refocus if it looks blurry

Custom Lists

Create a List

  1. Go to the "My Lists" tab
  2. Click "Create new list"
  3. Fill in:
    • Name: E.g., "Horror games", "2024 Favorites"
    • Description (optional): Details about the list
    • Color: Choose a color to identify the list
  4. Click "Create"

Add Games to a List

Option 1 - From the game:

  1. Open a game
  2. Click "Add to collection" (or "Add to a list" if you already have it)
  3. In the window, pick one of the two paths:
    • "Add without a list" — puts it straight into your collection, and it is always available
    • A list from the dropdown, under "or put it in a list", and the "Add" button

If you have no ordinary lists — they are all smart, or you have none — the dropdown is replaced by a note explaining why, and a link to create one: you are never left with nowhere to go just because you have nothing to file into.

If the game is already in your collection, the first path disappears and a note takes its place: putting it in a list anyway creates an independent copy, as explained below, so it now tells you before you click instead of after.

A game cannot be both wished for and owned. If a copy is on a wishlist it cannot go into an ordinary list: it is something you want, not something you have, and the application relies on that difference in a dozen places — what you invested, both valuations, the series gaps. The rule works both ways, so you cannot wish for something you already have filed either.

It is not a dead end: buying something you wanted is taking it off the wishlist and putting it on a shelf, in that order. Try it the other way round and the message tells you exactly that.

Option 2 - From the list:

  1. Go to "My Lists"
  2. Open the list
  3. Click "Add games"
  4. Select games from your collection

A game in several lists becomes several copies. That is deliberate: each copy carries its own physical condition, price and notes, which is what you want when the NES edition is in one list and the Switch one in another. They therefore show up as separate entries in your collection.

Adding a game to a list it is already in creates no copy: you get a warning and nothing changes.

Smart lists take no games by hand — they fill themselves from their filter — so they are not offered in that dropdown. That is exactly why the "Add without a list" path exists: without it, someone with only smart lists would have no way to add a game at all.

Expanding a list in My Lists shows the same Valuation and Invested strip as picking a list in the collection filter, described in the "View Your Collection" section.

Each list also has its own sort dropdown, with the same options as the collection's — including Valuation — and the same behaviour, described in that same section.

Share a List with Friends

  1. Open the list you want to share
  2. Click "Share list"
  3. Select friend(s) to share with
  4. The list will appear in their "Lists shared with me" section

Friends will be able to:

Stop Sharing

  1. Open the list
  2. Go to "Friends with access"
  3. Click "Stop sharing" next to the friend

Export a List

You can export your lists in various formats:

  1. Open the list
  2. Click "Export list"
  3. Choose the format:
    • PDF: Document with covers
    • CSV: For Excel/Sheets, semicolon separated, which is what Excel expects in Spanish and most of Europe (commas would put the whole row in one cell)
    • JSON: Technical format
    • Plain text: Simple list

Importing a CSV accepts either separator, so a file you exported a while ago still works.

Recording the edition of a copy

Under Physical condition, unfold Edition and condition notes. Leave the Edition field empty if your copy is the ordinary one; write in it if it is a Collector's, Limited, Day One or SteelBook edition, or whatever the box says.

As you type it suggests, in this order: the editions IGDB knows for that particular game, the most common names in the catalogue, and the ones you have used before. It takes anything, though: a retro shelf is full of editions nobody catalogues, and there the box wins.

When your copy has an edition, its name also appears next to the title on the game page, so you see it at a glance.

Games with an edition carry a badge in all three collection views, can be set in bulk, and there is a smart-list filter for seeing only the special ones or only the standard ones.

When the play times or the price do not show up

Some games are known by another name outside this application. Castelian is Nebulus on HowLongToBeat, Mr. Gimmick is Gimmick!, and a sequel may be listed with a number where here it carries a Roman numeral. When the name does not match, those services return nothing at all: they want the exact title.

Under My copy → Edition and condition notes there is an Alternative name field. Put the name the game goes by elsewhere and it will be used to look up the play times and the market value.

Changing a game's platform

The Platform box in the header shows your copy's platform once you have set one, not whichever IGDB happens to list first. If the game came out on several machines, the +N badge beside it gives the full list.

Next to that label there is a pencil. Pressing it takes you straight down to Platform and region, with the field focused and ready to type in; if you were on another tab it opens My copy on the way.

Importing a list

Import list under My Lists only reads files exported from here: it finds each game by its IGDB identifier, which no file from another application carries. Use it to restore a list or move it to another account, with its physical condition and notes.

If what you have is a list of titles from elsewhere or typed by hand, the place for it is the other one: Import, in your collection's Tools menu, which looks each title up on IGDB. See Importing a list of games.

Delete a List

  1. Open the list
  2. Click "Delete list"
  3. Confirm

⚠️ Note: Games are NOT deleted from your collection, only the list.

Friends System

Search for Friends

  1. Go to the "Friends" tab
  2. Use the search bar to find by:
    • Username
    • Email

Send Friend Invitation

By email:

  1. Click "Invite friend"
  2. Enter your friend's email
  3. Write a personalized message (optional)
  4. Click "Send invitation"

Your friend will receive an email with a link to accept the invitation.

By search:

  1. Search for the user
  2. Click "Send invitation"

Accept Invitations

Option 1 - From the bell:

  1. When somebody invites you, a notification appears in the bell 🔔
  2. Open it and press "Accept" or "Reject" right there

Option 2 - From "My Friends":

  1. Go to "Friends"
  2. The page has three tabs — Friends, Received and Sent — each with its count. Received ones are in amber: those are the ones waiting on you
  3. Under Received you will see who invited you, their message and how long is left before it expires
  4. Press "Accept" or "Reject"

This page refreshes itself while you have it open, every half a minute. If somebody sends you a request or accepts yours, you will see it without reloading. It stops checking when you leave the page, to spare your data.

If whoever invited you withdraws the request, it disappears from your notifications and from the Received tab. If you had it on screen from before and press Accept, you are told the request is gone and the card is removed: no friendship is created. The same if it expired, or if you had already answered it somewhere else.

Option 3 - By email:

  1. Check your email
  2. Click the link in the invitation
  3. Log in if necessary
  4. Click "Accept invitation"

It makes no difference which one you use: answering in one place clears the request from the others.

Requests you sent

In "Friends", below the received ones, is "Friend requests sent": who you invited and how long they have left. "Cancel" withdraws the invitation, and you can invite that person again whenever you like.

Both sections only appear when something is waiting.

Invitations last 7 days. After that they expire and have to be sent again.

Notifications

You'll receive notifications when:

Notifications appear:

Manage notifications:

View a Friend's Collection

  1. Go to "Friends" → "My friends"
  2. Click on a friend
  3. You'll see their profile, with their stats at the top and two tabs below: Games and Hardware

You can see:

Shared Lists (Games tab)

Shared lists also appear in:

You can:

Shared Hardware (Hardware tab)

Only the consoles that friend marked "Share with my friends" when adding or editing them show up here — nothing is shown just because it is in their collection. If they have not shared any yet, the tab says so and stays empty.

For each piece you see the same thing you see in your own collection — name, image, physical condition, whether it has its box and manual, manufacturer and year when known — but never what they paid, what they are asking for it, or their notes: those three fields never leave their collection, even for a shared piece.

Remove a Friend

  1. Go to "My friends"
  2. Click on the friend
  3. Click "Remove friend"
  4. Confirm

⚠️ Note: This will also automatically stop sharing all lists between both of you.

Game Session Tracking

Record a New Session

  1. Open a game from your collection
  2. On the My copy tab, find the "Play time" section
  3. Click "Log session"
  4. Fill in:
    • Date: When you played
    • Duration: Hours and minutes
    • Notes (optional): What you did, progress, etc.
  5. Click "Save"

View Session History

  1. Open the game
  2. Go to "Play time"
  3. Click "Session history" to expand it
  4. You'll see:
    • Date of each session
    • Duration
    • Notes
    • Total hours played (automatic sum)

Edit a Session

  1. In the session history, click "✏️ Edit"
  2. Modify the data
  3. Click "Save"

Delete a Session

  1. In the history, click "🗑️ Delete"
  2. Confirm

Physical Condition (Collectors)

If you have physical games, you can track their condition:

Record Condition

  1. Open a game from your collection
  2. Go to the My copy tab, "Physical condition" section
  3. Check the corresponding boxes:
    • ✅ Complete: Includes all original components
    • ✅ Sealed: Factory sealed game
    • ✅ Has cartridge/CD: Physical media is present
    • ✅ Digital: No physical copy; you can filter your collection by it
    • ✅ With manual: Includes original instruction manual
    • ✅ With box: Includes original box/case
  4. Select the overall condition:
    • Excellent
    • Good
    • Fair
    • Poor
  5. Add notes about the condition (scratches, stains, details, etc.)

View Condition

Condition information appears:

Badges in list mode:

Reproduction Tracking

NEW - Especially useful for collectors who own reproduced items (repro).

What are Reproductions?

Reproductions (repro) are unofficial copies of retro game components:

Record Reproductions

  1. Open a game from your collection
  2. Go to the "Physical condition" section
  3. Click "Reproductions" to unfold it (it starts folded while your copy has none ticked)
  4. Check the applicable boxes:
    • ✅ Repro Cartridge/CD: The game media is a reproduction
    • ✅ Repro Manual: The manual is a reproduction/reprint
    • ✅ Repro Box: The box is a reproduction

Differences from Original Components

Original Components (main section):

Reproductions (subsection):

You can check BOTH if you have original + repro versions of the same component.

Display in Collection

In list mode, reproductions are shown as purple badges:

Original components are shown as gray badges for easy visual distinction.

Use Cases

Example 1: Game with original box but repro manual

Example 2: Completely repro game

Example 3: Original cartridge with repro box

Retro Shops

NEW - Discover and rate retro video game shops.

Explore Shops

  1. Go to the "Shops" tab
  2. You'll see a map with retro shops in Spain
  3. Each shop shows:
    • 🏪 Shop name
    • 📍 City and address
    • ⭐ Average rating
    • 🔗 Social and web links

View Shop Details

Click on any shop to see:

📋 Tab: Info

🗺️ Tab: Map

🔗 Tab: Social

🛒 Tab: Stores

Rate a Shop

  1. Open shop details
  2. In the "Your Rating" section
  3. Click on the stars to rate (1-5)
  4. Your rating will be saved automatically

Notes:

Search for Shops

  1. Use the search bar at the top
  2. Filter by:
    • Shop name
    • City
  3. Results update in real time

Benefits

Retro Events

NEW - Don't miss retro video game events.

View Upcoming Events

  1. Go to the "Events" tab
  2. You'll see a list of retro gaming events organized by date

Event Information

Each event shows:

View Details

Click on an event to see:

Filter Events

Add to Calendar

You can copy event information and add it to your personal calendar:

  1. Copy the date and time
  2. Copy the name and location
  3. Add to your favorite calendar app

Homebrew Games

NEW - Discover and follow modern homebrew games for retro consoles.

What is Homebrew?

Homebrew games are independent developments created for retro consoles like:

Explore Catalog

  1. Go to the "Homebrew" tab
  2. You'll see all available homebrew games
  3. Each game shows:
    • 🎮 Game name
    • 🕹️ Platform (GB, GBA, Genesis, etc.)
    • 💰 Current price
    • 📦 Status (Available/Out of Stock)
    • 🔗 Purchase link

View Game Details

Click on a game to see:

Follow a Game (Price Watch)

Want to be notified when the price drops?

  1. Open the homebrew game
  2. Click "Follow game 🔔"
  3. You'll receive notifications when:
    • The price drops
    • The game goes from out of stock to available

Stop Following

  1. Open the game
  2. Click "Stop following"

View Games You Follow

  1. In the "Homebrew" tab
  2. Filter by "Games I follow"
  3. You'll see all your followed games with:
    • Current price
    • Last update
    • Availability status

Price Notifications

When a game you follow drops in price:

  1. You'll receive a notification (🔔)
  2. The toast will show: "Price drop! [Game] now costs €XX.XX"
  3. You can click to view the game directly

Buy Homebrew Games

  1. Click "Buy 🛒" on the game
  2. You'll be redirected to the official store (usually homebrew-factory.com)
  3. Complete the purchase on the external site

Audio Descriptions (TTS)

NEW - Listen to game descriptions with generated voice.

What is TTS?

Text-to-Speech (TTS) converts game description text into narrated audio.

Download Game Audio

  1. Search or open a game
  2. Go to game details
  3. Find the "🔊 Download Audio" button
  4. Click to generate the audio
  5. The MP3 file will download automatically

Audio Content

The audio includes:

Available Languages

Audio is generated in the current interface language:

Official Manual Downloads

NEW - Download original game manuals from Archive.org.

What are Official Manuals?

Game Collector Pal allows you to download original instruction manuals for retro games directly from Archive.org, the world's largest digital archive.

Supported Platforms

We currently support 34 platforms with thousands of available manuals:

Nintendo:

Sega:

Sony:

NEC/Hudson:

Atari:

SNK:

Others:

How to Download a Manual

  1. Search for a game in your collection or in the database
  2. Open the details of the game by clicking on it
  3. Look for the "📖 Find Manual" button in the game information section
  4. Click on the button
  5. The application will automatically search for the manual on Archive.org
  6. If it finds the manual, a "📥 Download Manual" button will appear
  7. Click to download the original manual PDF

The system uses fuzzy matching search to find the correct manual, even if:

Search Cache

To improve performance:

Use Cases

✅ Digital Collectors:

✅ Physical Collectors:

✅ Restorers:

✅ Nostalgics:

Limitations

Use Cases

Limitations

Daily Trivia

NEW - Discover curious facts about video games every day.

What is Daily Trivia?

Every day, the application generates a random trivia related to video games using AI.

View Trivia

Trivia appears as:

  1. Notification (🔔) when logging in
  2. Popup toast with the curious fact
  3. In the "Trivia" section (if visible)

Types of Trivia

Customization

Trivia is generated in your preferred language:

Notable dates

Besides the daily trivia, some days bring a Special Date window: the anniversary of a release, of a console being born, or of something that happened that day in the history of games. It arrives as a notification and reads in one go.

There is nothing to set up and it does not appear every day — most days are not the anniversary of anything. A day with none simply had nothing to tell, not a failure.

Share

You can copy and share interesting trivia with:

When you search for a game that doesn't exist in IGDB, the application uses artificial intelligence (Perplexity AI) to search for game information on the internet.

How It Works

  1. Search for a game normally
  2. If IGDB has no results, you'll see: "Search with AI?"
  3. Click "Search with AI"
  4. The AI will search for information and show you:
    • Game title
    • Description
    • Developer
    • Release year
    • Platform(s)

Save AI Games

If the AI finds the game:

  1. Click "Add to my collection"
  2. The game will be saved to your collection

⚠️ Note: Games found by AI have less information than IGDB ones (no cover, screenshots, etc.)

Search Cache

AI searches are cached so that:

Languages

Change Language

  1. Click on the language selector (top right corner)
  2. Choose between:
    • 🇬🇧 English
    • 🇪🇸 Español

The application will change immediately without reloading the page.

Available Languages

Achievements

They unlock by themselves as you use the application: there is nothing to claim and no list to go through. There are 35, across 9 categories — collection, exploration, content, community, gaming, organization, profile, social and a final one — and four tiers: 15 bronze, 12 silver, 7 gold and 1 platinum.

There is a single platinum one, Platinum Master, and it asks for all the others.

How they are earned

By cataloguing. First Step arrives with your first game, Mega Collector on reaching 200, and several are tied to one machine: The Brain of the Beast wants 20 Super Nintendo games, Evercadian needs a single Evercade one. Others look elsewhere: recording the physical condition of your copies, making lists, logging sessions, adding friends, or changing the application's language.

Unlocking one tells you straight away, and your profile shows a progress bar for the ones you are part way through.

Games in a wishlist do not count towards progress: it measures what you have, not what you would like. And an achievement once earned is never taken away, even if the number goes down afterwards.

Seven of the 35 also grant a badge shown on your public profile, which your friends can compare against their own.

Easter Eggs

Bouncing Capybara

There is a capybara on the Search tab. Leave the pointer on it for a couple of seconds and it tells you itself: "Bored? Click me and jump with me!".

Play with space or click to jump, A/D or the arrows to move, and ESC to leave. Along the top are your score, your best, and the global record, which is the best anybody has managed. Getting your score into that global record needs you to be signed in; the game says so.

Text-to-Speech

If the feature is enabled:

  1. You'll see a 🔊 icon in game descriptions
  2. Click to hear the description read aloud

Tips and Tricks

Organization

Physical Collectors

Gaming Sessions

Friends

Keyboard Shortcuts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it free?

Yes, Game Collector Pal is completely free.

Do I need to install anything?

No, it's a web application. You just need a modern browser.

Does it work offline?

No, it requires an internet connection to search games and sync your collection.

Can I use the app on my phone?

Yes, the interface is responsive and works on mobiles and tablets.

Is my data secure?

Yes, we use encryption for passwords (bcrypt) and JWT tokens for secure authentication.

Can I export my collection?

Yes, you can export lists in PDF, CSV, JSON or plain text.

What happens if I delete my account?

All your data (collection, lists, sessions) will be permanently deleted. This action cannot be undone.

Can I recover deleted games?

No, once deleted from your collection, you'll need to add them again.

Do AI searches use my credits?

No, AI searches are free for all users and are included in the application.

Pal, the assistant

Bottom right, once you are signed in, there is a round button with a question mark. That is Pal. Ask it how something works and it answers.

It only knows this guide. It is not a web search and it knows nothing about games: the only thing it has read is the guide you are reading, all of it. That is why every answer names the section it came from, so you can go and check. And when something is not in the guide it says so instead of making it up.

It cannot see your data. Not your collection, your prices, your lists or your friends. Ask it how many games you have and it will say it cannot see that, and take you to the screen where you can. It cannot leak what it was never given.

It takes you there. That is what it does that reading the guide does not: when an answer has a place, a Go to… button appears and puts you in it. Not just a tab — it opens the actual tool or section too, even one inside another window. My Account › European market is three steps deep and it does all three, leaving the section open and marked.

A greyed-out button means that part is not available on your account — Valuation, for instance, does not appear until a price source is switched on. It would rather tell you than send you to a screen that will not open.

It answers in whichever language you have set, because the guide exists in both.

A couple of things worth knowing:

Support

Need help?

What is underneath. In the site footer, the see more link opens a window listing every service the application uses — IGDB for the catalogue, PriceCharting and PriceTracker for prices, HowLongToBeat for play times, OpenStreetMap for the shop maps, and the rest — each with its link and a line on what it contributes. It is there so you can tell where any given figure came from.

The legal pages, also in the footer and in both languages:

Install the app on your phone (offline use)

Game Collector Pal can be installed as an app on a phone or computer, with no app store involved.

What works offline

Once installed, your collection stays readable with no signal. That is the moment it matters: standing in a shop or at a flea market, checking whether you already own something.

While offline, an orange banner at the top says the data on screen is the last saved copy. It refreshes on its own once the connection returns.

For privacy, saved data is cleared on logout: on a shared phone nobody sees someone else's collection.

Filling in your collection data

Recording region, physical state or price one game at a time is unworkable once you own hundreds. Three tools handle it in bulk.

Multi-select and bulk editing

In your collection, press Select and tick the games you want (it works in all three views: grid, shelf and list). All selects what you are currently looking at, respecting the active filters.

With a selection made, Edit attributes applies the same values to every one of them: platform, region, status, physical condition, loan and the pieces you still have, including the Digital box for copies with no physical media.

Platform is especially handy after importing a list or scanning barcodes, when games arrive without one. And if you select several editions of the same game and give them a single platform, it applies to all of them: they stay as separate copies of that game on that platform. If any could not be changed, the final message tells you how many.

Every field starts at "No change". Saving without touching anything changes nothing.

With a selection made you can also add them all to a list or delete them.

Deleting several games

It is the only thing in the application that cannot be undone, so it behaves differently from everything else:

Adding to a list also covers the screen while it works, though there the same promise is not needed: if it stops halfway, repeating it fixes it.

Quick physical state

Ticking eight boxes per game is too much, so there are three shortcuts:

They fill the boxes in one click, and you can still adjust anything that does not fit.

Collection health

In My Collection, the Tools menu gathers the five things you do now and then: Import, Quick review, Health, Investment and Valuation. Search and filters stay outside, in plain sight, because they are used every time.

Health shows which data is missing and across how many games, worst first. Each line has a Fill in button that leaves only those games on screen, already selected, and opens the bulk editor. If it says "22 missing" you get 22 cards and 22 ticked — a notice at the top says so, with a button to bring the whole collection back.

It is the fastest way to go from "80% with no physical condition" to complete: a few passes, one platform at a time.

Digital games are not counted here. A download has no box to grade, no manual to record and no barcode to scan, so asking for them would point at gaps you can never close. If you ticked "Digital" but also recorded a box or a manual, the copy still counts as physical: that contradiction is yours to resolve, and nothing is taken away meanwhile.

Two of the gaps cannot be filled in bulk, and carry Show them instead of Fill in:

Its button says Show them rather than Fill in, because it cannot be filled in bulk: a barcode identifies one particular box, and writing the same one across several copies would put false data into a table everyone else searches. What it does instead is leave only those copies on screen, with a notice above and a button to bring the rest back, so you can open them and type the codes one at a time.

It is the only field on the list that does not stay in your collection: once saved, whoever scans that box — you next year, or anybody else — finds the game straight away.

Quick review

Another way to fill gaps, faster than the bulk editor when what is missing is a handful of fields per copy rather than one field across the board. It opens from Tools → Quick review.

First you choose what to complete: Box, Manual, The game itself (whether you have the cartridge or disc), Region or Physical condition. The menu tells you how many copies are missing each one, worst first, the same way Health does.

From there copies arrive one at a time: its cover, a single question and the buttons to answer it. No forms: one tap and it moves on.

Box and Manual have three answers rather than two: Yes, the original, Yes, a repro and No. A reproduction is not the piece, it is a stand-in, so it is recorded separately: your copy is on the books as having a repro box, but it does not start being valued as complete in box, because the "complete" price is quoted against original boxes. Region and Physical condition offer four buttons instead of the usual dropdown.

A copy marked Complete — or Sealed — is not asked about its pieces. Ticking Complete already says it has everything that game came with, so asking again piece by piece would be asking the same question twice.

And what it came with depends on the game: a 1990 cartridge shipped with a box and a manual, while most current releases are complete with the box alone, because they never had a manual. That is why Complete is an answer in its own right rather than a shortcut for ticking two boxes — and why a complete copy with the manual set to "no" is not a contradiction: there may have been no manual to tick.

Region and physical condition are still asked: a complete copy can just as easily be a battered Japanese import, and nobody has said otherwise.

You can leave any of them unanswered with "Not sure, next". That is on purpose: forcing an answer is the fastest way to fill a database with guesses, and region and physical condition are exactly the fields that decide whether a copy is valued as complete or as loose.

Each answer saves immediately, not all together at the end: if you close halfway through, whatever you already answered stays saved.

Digital copies and anything only on a wishlist never show up here, the same as everywhere else in the app: one has no box to check, the other is not yours yet. When nothing is left pending for that question, it says so and stops.

What game?

Let the app decide what to play tonight. It opens from your avatar menu, top right.

Only pending games enter the draw. One you have already finished, one you are already playing, an abandoned one, or anything you only have on a wishlist are all left out — the old roulette did not tell those apart, so it sometimes offered something there was no point starting, or that you did not even own.

You can tell it how long you have: A short one (up to 3 h), An evening (2 to 8 h), Something long (6 h or more), or Anything. It is matched against HowLongToBeat's main-story time, so a copy with no known time only shows up under Anything — there is no way to tell whether it fits a timed slot. You can also filter by platform, if you only feel like a particular machine tonight.

The draw is not even: a copy that has been waiting for months comes up with up to double the odds of a recently added one, so the forgotten corner of the shelf turns up more often without the result stopping being a surprise.

The result says why it was picked — "It has been waiting its turn for 9 months.", "One sitting: about 3 h." — and shows the playing time next to the platform when it knows it. Clicking the cover or the name goes straight to that game's page.

Two buttons:

Reopening the window starts over: no platform or time slot chosen, and the button back to "Find me a game".

Smart lists

When creating a list you can tick Smart list. Instead of adding games by hand you save a filter, and the list keeps itself up to date.

Useful examples:

Ordinary lists keep working exactly as before; this is a new option, not a change.

A smart list does not count as having filed a game: it is a saved query, not a shelf you put it on. That is why it is never offered as a destination when adding a game — see "Add Games to a List" — and why the Unfiled filter in My Collection can include games that, at that very moment, show up in one or more of your smart lists — see "View Your Collection".

To change the filter later, edit the list with the pencil: the dialog comes up with its criteria filled in. Untick "Smart list" and it stops filling itself and ends up empty, because its games came from the filter and were never stored.

Loans

If you lend a game to somebody, write it down: in the game's detail view, under Loan, put the name of whoever has it and since when. Leave the date empty and today's is used.

From then on:

A loaned game is still yours: it counts in the collection, in the statistics and in the investment summary.

Sharing a list

In My Lists, the Share button opens a dialog with two independent checkboxes. Tick either, both, or neither.

Visible to my friends

Only people you have accepted as friends see the list on your profile, and only inside the application. No link is created: nobody outside can reach it. This is the option for sharing privately with your circle.

Generates a link you can paste into a chat or post publicly. Whoever opens it needs no account and sees only the game's name, its cover, the platform and the year. They never see what you paid, your notes, the physical condition or the hours played.

Untick this box and that link stops working for good. Publish the list again later and you get a different link; the old one stays dead.

The two boxes do not affect each other: you can have a public link without your friends seeing the list on your profile, or the other way round.

Wishlist

When you create or edit a list you can mark it as a wishlist: what goes in it are games you would like to have, not games you own.

That has two effects:

They do not count towards achievements either: progress looks at what you have. Badges you have already earned are never taken away, only the progress bar moves.

A game in a wishlist does not count even if it is also in another list. The rule is that blunt on purpose: any other one would be impossible to explain in a sentence.

If you also publish the list's link, the page whoever opens it sees reads as a gift list. You can change that from the sharing dialog on a list that already exists.

That gift-list reading is a sub-option of the link, so it is only available once you have published one: it changes how the link page reads, for sending to whoever wants to buy you something for your birthday. Ticking it without a link would do nothing, which is why it appears greyed out.

Your collection valued

An entry of its own in the Tools menu, separate from Investment, and deliberately so: they are two different questions and mixing them confuses both.

Inside Valuation, each source gets its own block with its total, its coverage and its link. There are two today, and they are not two versions of the same figure:

Each block says how many of your copies it has a price for, which is almost never all of them and almost never the same ones.

Only copies with a region set are counted. The same game is worth different amounts as a European, American or Japanese edition — a complete Super Mario World runs from about $18 to over $600 depending on which — so without that field there is no answer, and a short true figure beats an inflated one that gets your hopes up. The panel says how many were left out and takes you to fill them in. If your machine has no regional editions — a Famicom, a PC game — the region is not needed and the copy counts anyway.

Games in your wishlists do not count: you want them, you do not have them, and adding them would say your shelf is worth more than what is in the house. Their price is still stored and still shown on the game page — knowing what the game you are hunting costs is the point of a wishlist — but it stays out of the total.

Coverage matters and always comes first: "322 of your 370 copies have a price". It fills in on its own — opening a game page stores its price, and a weekly refresh keeps them current — so the figure grows with use.

Inside there is a comparison, Where we know both, which takes only the copies where you know the purchase price and a market price exists, and subtracts there. The number of copies comes first, because it is not your collection's balance: with 51 copies priced by you and 141 priced by the market, subtracting the two totals would show a loss that never happened.

The entry only appears when valuation is switched on for your account.

What cannot be valued, and why

If any copy is left out of the total, the valuation says so and offers to fix it: "Another 19 copies are not counted because they have no region", "another 12 because they have no platform", each with its own button. A short total that does not explain itself leads you to believe it; one that says how many are missing and why leads you to fill them in.

Investment report as a PDF

The Investment summary has a Download PDF button. It produces a report with the total recorded, the breakdown per platform and a game by game listing with physical condition and price. Only what you paid: the market valuation has its own screen and does not appear here.

Your browser's print dialog opens: pick Save as PDF as the destination. It works the same way on a phone.

The report states plainly that these are amounts you recorded, not a market appraisal. It is fine to keep on file or show to an insurer, but it is not an official valuation.

Importing a list of games

In your collection, Tools → Import first asks where the games are coming from: you can paste a list or bring a file from another site.

Bringing your collection over from VGCollect or CLZ

If you already catalogued your collection somewhere else, there is no need to type it again. Export it there and upload the file:

Once uploaded you get a column mapper: which column of the file becomes which field here. When the source is recognised it comes filled in, and you can always change it — CLZ, for instance, lets whoever exports pick which columns come out, so no two files are alike. Underneath, the first three rows are shown exactly as they would land, which is the quickest way to spot something going somewhere it should not.

Besides the title and the platform, these are brought across when the file has them: region, purchase price, purchase date, notes, and whether you have the cartridge, the box and the manual.

Three things worth knowing:

From there it is the usual review screen: you see what was found, fix what was not, and decide what gets added.

Pasting a list

You paste the titles, one per line. They are looked up on IGDB and you review the matches before anything is added.

Adding a platform to each line

You can name the platform after a semicolon:

Super Mario World;SNES
Sonic the Hedgehog;Mega Drive
Castlevania

Each game is searched on that platform, and on the review screen its selector already shows it. Lines with no platform fall back to the "Platform for all" dropdown, if you set one.

You do not have to write the official name: abbreviations and alternative names work (SNES, Super Nintendo, NES, Famicom, Mega Drive, Genesis, PC Engine, PS1, GBA, Switch…). Case, accents and hyphens do not matter.

Short collector shorthand works too, including the Japanese-market ones no catalogue carries:
Nintendo FC SFC Super NES VB GCN NSW NSW2 GB DS
Sega MD Mega-CD MCD 32X SS SAT GG Pico
Sony and Microsoft PSX XB1 XSX XSS Xbox Series S|X
NEC PCE TG-16 PCE-CD Super CD-ROM SGX
SNK NGCD HNG64 NGP NGPC
Atari VCS Jaguar CD JagCD
Others WS WSC O2 Intv CV CD32 SV

SCD is deliberately not recognised. Some collectors mean the Sega CD by it and others NEC's Super CD-ROM², so the row is left without a platform for you to choose. Write MCD or Sega CD for Sega's, and PCE-CD for NEC's.

Nine machines are not in this catalogue at all, so their shorthand leads nowhere: 2DS, SC-3000, XEGS, FM Towns Marty, PV-1000, GP32, GP2X, Wiz and Caanoo.

If what you write does not point at one platform — say "sega" or "nintendo", which fit many — none is guessed: that row's selector is left empty and outlined in orange for you to choose. A wrong platform is worse than none, because it decides where the game is filed and whether its manual can be found.

Adding a region to each line

After the platform you can write the region, with one more semicolon:

Super Mario World;SNES;PALESP
Sonic the Hedgehog;Mega Drive
Metroid

The two fields are independent: you can give a platform without a region, leave the platform blank and give only a region (Metroid;;PALESP), or write neither, exactly as before.

Any of the catalogue's eleven codes works (PALESP, PALUK, PALFRA, PALITA, PALDE, NTSCUC, NTSCJ, NTSCK, NTSCHK, REGIONFREE, EU), written with hyphens, spaces or neither, in any mix of upper and lower case (pal-esp, PAL ESP, NTSC-J), and so do a handful of names that can only mean one region: Japan, USA, Korea, Hong Kong, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain.

Bare PAL and NTSC do not work — the first names five PAL territories and EU at once, the second means either America or Japan — and neither does Europe, because a Spanish game may be a national release (PALESP) or part of a pan-European one (EU), and picking one would be making it up.

If you write something that is not recognised, the review row shows it in orange with a warning and the text exactly as typed, and the copy is added with no region rather than with a wrong one. This matters: a region the app does not recognise would make the copy look answered — it would stop showing up in the health panel as missing a region — and still be left out of the valuation, with nothing pointing at the problem again. That is what happens today to 129 copies in this database that have a PriceCharting product and count for nothing because they have no region.

The ⬇ Download platforms and regions button, under the format hint, saves a text file listing the eleven region codes and their names, every platform in the catalogue, and the collector shorthand the importer recognises — including the ones IGDB does not publish, such as SFC, PCE, MCD or NGPC. SCD is deliberately absent: some collectors use it for the Sega CD and others for NEC's Super CD-ROM².

The file opens with a couple of commented example lines, so the format does not have to be inferred from the list that follows. It is the same file a shop downloads from its own panel, with two extra sections that only matter there — so the platforms and regions cannot say different things in the two places.

The ones that are not found

Two nets catch them before they are given up on.

The wrong platform. Write Sonic the Hedgehog;ZX Spectrum and the game exists but never came out on that machine, so searching with that filter finds nothing. It is retried without the filter and the row is marked "Other platform", with the selector left empty for you to pick the right one.

Evercade cartridges. There what you collect is the cartridge, not the games inside it. They are identified against the official cartridge catalogue, so they come in with their real release date and box art — even the ones not out yet — and show up marked "Cartridge". If one were missing from that catalogue, you are offered it under the name you wrote, marked "Unverified".

The AI search. For whatever still does not appear there is a Search with AI button. It finds real games IGDB lacks or names differently — Spanish and European classics above all — and adds them with their summary, year, genres and studio, not as an empty entry. It takes about 3 seconds per title — each row says Searching… while its turn comes up — and only works on rows that have a platform. It never runs on its own: importing a long list still costs nothing unless you press the button.

For a typo the AI honestly returns nothing, so whatever is left is the only part you have to fix by hand: the notice carries an Export CSV button that downloads them in the same format, with the platform you had written. Fix the file and paste it back.

Who sells your game

On any game's page, right under the title, a notice appears when a shop has it for sale: "N shop(s) have it · from €25.00". It is different from the Shops tab: that is a map of shops you explore; this is the shop finding you, inside the page of the game you are already looking at.

You do not need to be logged in to see it. That is deliberate: a registration wall here would throttle exactly what shops are paying to appear, and it would turn anyone who just wants to see a price into a fake demand signal.

Clicking it opens a list with one row per shop, region and condition — never an average. A shop holding a PAL copy and a Japanese one holds two different products, not two prices for one, and the same goes for a sealed copy against a loose one: the gap between those two is usually wider than between two regions. So they are listed separately, each with its condition — loose, complete or sealed — and, when the shop has said so, how well kept it is.

That is why the summary above says what the price is for: "from €18 (loose)". A shop's cheapest is almost always the loose one, and seeing that figure bare next to a cabinet of sealed copies is the easiest way to make a wasted trip. Rows run cheapest to most expensive, and an offer with no price set is always last: it is not the cheapest one, it is the one nobody can act on yet.

Each row reaches the shop one of two ways, depending on how it sells:

The notice reads differently depending on your relationship with the game:

A shop whose catalogue has not been updated in 45 days stops appearing. That is so you are not sent chasing something that sold months ago.

If the lookup fails — a dropped connection, a busy server — the notice does not appear, and if you had already opened the window it tells you instead of leaving you waiting. A silent gap and "nobody has it" look identical on screen and mean opposite things. Close it and open it again to retry: a failure is not remembered, so the next attempt asks afresh.

If you run a shop

A section only for people who run a retro shop. It is switched on from administration — write in if you are interested — and then My shop appears in your menu. Without it, that entry does not exist.

What it does is simple to say: your prices appear on the page of the games you sell, alongside everybody else's. What the shop gets is being seen by people who were already looking at that game.

When it expires, and what happens then

Access runs by date, not by a switch. You are e-mailed a month before, a week before, and on the day it expires. Three notices and no more.

When it expires your items stop appearing on game pages. Your catalogue is not deleted: it stays exactly as it is, and when you renew it shows again just as you left it. The My shop entry stays in your menu, greyed out, telling you when it expired.

And one consequence worth knowing: while the shop is active you cannot delete your account from the application, because that would delete the catalogue and the history. Write to us to close the shop first.

Uploading your catalogue

One line per item, by uploading a file or pasting the list:

game;platform;region;purchase;sale;for sale;condition;wear

Game, platform and region are required; the rest can be left out. Region is required because a PAL copy and a Japanese one are different products at very different prices, and an offer without a region is an offer for nothing in particular.

There is a button to download the format with the regions and platforms that are recognised, so nothing has to be guessed.

Before confirming you must choose between two things, and it cannot be guessed for you:

The review screen tells you how many items it is about to withdraw before you confirm, because getting this wrong empties a shop window.

Matching is exact or rejected: whatever is not found comes back with the reason so you can fix it, and no AI is used to guess. A near miss would put your price on somebody else's cartridge.

Your catalogue, afterwards

Each item has three switches — For sale, In stock and Visible — and a tag saying whether it is shown or is not shown, so nothing has to be inferred. You can search within it and sort by name, condition or price by clicking the column.

A catalogue untouched for 45 days stops being shown. The panel warns you long before, with the number of days. It is so nobody turns up at your shop for something you sold months ago and blames you for it.

What the panel tells you

If you do not sell online, whoever finds you gets your contact details and a reference to mention on the way in: "I'm here for Castlevania · PALESP · 25.00 €, seen on Game Collector Pal". It exists so you can check with your own eyes that the panel's figures are real.

No buyer's name, address or telephone number is stored. This puts people in touch; it does not handle orders.

Enjoy organizing your video game collection! 🎮✨

Last updated: September 2026