PC game collecting community rocked by game forgery scandal

pcgamer.com:

The boxed PC game collecting community is in an uproar over the discovery that a prominent trader has allegedly been selling forged copies of rare, expensive videogames, some of which were purchased for thousands of dollars.

According to a timeline posted on Big Box PC Game Collectors(opens in new tab), a Facebook group with roughly 6,100 members (of which I am one), the issue came to light when group administrator Kevin Ng received copies of Akalabeth, Ultima creator Richard Garriott's first game, 1979 dungeon crawler Temple of Apshai, and the Japanese edition of Mystery House from another well-known collector and now former group moderator, Enrico Ricciardi. A close examination of the games revealed that they were likely counterfeit. When confronted, Ricciardi reportedly «alluded» that Akalabeth was indeed fake, and suggested it be destroyed.

Ng contacted other members of the collecting community and found that the problem was widespread: An «exhaustive investigation» revealed that a number of other group members had received what appeared to be counterfeit games from Ricciardi.

Ricciardi denies ever knowingly selling forgeries.

Dominik R., one of the Big Box PC Game Collectors members who believes he was sold fakes, shared images of his Ultima collection, now believed to be counterfeit, on Twitter:

This used to be the center pieces of my collection. Rare and expensive old games.Now it turns out I‘ve been scammed and sold forgeries by a well known figure in the Ultima and tetrogames community. Along with many others#ultima #akalabeth @RichardGarriott pic.twitter.com/wuiAQPSuG2May 30, 2022

This isn't a minor argument across a table at the local swap meet. Copies of rare games can sell for a lot of money to deep-pocketed