For those of you who are avid watchers of my YouTube channel; you'll know that I quite like rare demos. The reason being is that usually there is a good amount of beta content lurking in early demos of games; more-so than in any final version.
So the other day I was casually having a cup of tea and watching telly; when I thought I would indulge in a couple of my favourite Ebay searches. These searches consist of 'Gran Turismo rare' amongst others. To my surprise; a new item had been listed that corresponded with my search; 'Gran Turismo Demo, from E3 1997.' I nearly required a change of underwear. To see any demos from E3 is quite rare; but what also made this listing interesting was that I had never seen this demo in any person's Gran Turismo collections before. There are quite a few extensive collections displayed on the internet too.
I decided to act - opening bid of £3.18, (equivalent to the starting bid of $5.00) with a maximum bid of £10.00. I thought I could potentially go past £10.00, but I'll keep an eye on things first. So a couple of days pass; no one else has bid. I'm getting a little bit excited now; but stopping myself from getting too excited in case I was outbid. I even devised a sniping strategy; in the circumstance that I was outbid. The auction was due to end at 2:40 a.m. Thursday morning, and I even toyed with the idea of staying up until the auction was over.
Two days from the end of the sale; I woke up only to find an email saying that the item had been taken down. I had my last exam of my masters course later that day; but it's safe to say that I could think about nothing other than the great injustice that had just taken place. Why had the item been taken down? If the seller had decided to keep the item, then I wouldn't blame them; but can a seller take down the item for that reason in accordance with Ebay rules? These were just a few of my thoughts as I rode the train back to Sheffield.
I then got another email, saying that I had received a message from the seller who had denied me the opportunity to own what I would consider; a rarity. The message was of a polite and apologetic tone; and he had listed the reason for the premature ending of the auction.
The disc was cracked.
He had noticed a crack on the cd case, and decided to make sure the disc was okay; only to find out that it wasn't. On one hand I was disappointed to learn that it was broken, but on the other I felt glad that I at least had closure. Me and the seller exchanged pleasant messages over the next day, and I decided to add him as a favourite seller; to see if he decided to sell any more interesting items like the GT demo in future.
Then last night, I had a quick Google just to see if a cracked CD could be fixed. I was sceptical of my own thought process, though I looked anyway. I was pleased to find that although a permanent fix wouldn't be possible, a temporary fix could be done to last long enough to get the data off a cracked CD.
I messaged the seller and I am currently waiting for a response. Worst case scenario would be that he has thrown it away, as it is broken. Anyway, we'll see what becomes of it...
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