Revoking the Dreamcast Seal of Quality?

So, Stryker and I have been tossing around the idea of doing a “Revoking” project for the entire Dreamcast library, similar to what we did for the Sega Genesis. I know, I know, we still haven’t finished the Top 50 Genesis games yet, and we’re already in the middle of a similar project for the Super Nintendo. Still, the Dreamcast idea makes some sense, for a couple of reasons. First, it’s only 270 games, which would go a lot quicker. By starting off this blog with our Genesis project, we already have some –uh,  I don’t know what you’d call it exactly – “Sega credibility”. Which is to say that our fans tend to be a little more fond of that company’s products and seem to think we have some sort of expertise in the area. We’re a teensy bit established in the Sega community, is what I’m saying. And finally, the Dreamcast is considered absolutely sacred to most the hardcore and elitist gamers, and you know how much we enjoy messing with those guys.

Still, there are a few problems. What we’re hoping to get is some feedback from you, our loyal readers, on how to handle the following challenges:

1. We don’t know where to stopping cutting. Because the system was short lived, the library is much smaller than that of the Genesis (270 vs. 707). So do we do another Top 50, or a Top 25? I’m inclined to say Top 25, as that would mean a little less than 10% of the games for the system would receive our approval, which is kind of the high standard you’ve come to expect from two non-professional “writers” making sarcastic remarks about old video games. On the other hand, you could make an argument that we should stick with tradition, or that the Dreamcast was such a great system it has at least 50 games worthy of our approval despite the smaller library.
2. We don’t have most of the games. Stryker used to run a used game store. That’s how we came into possession of most of the Genesis and SNES games that we’ve reviewed. Unfortunately, he ran his store during the early 2000s, when the Dreamcast was still a new system, and the games were still valuable. Rather than hording the ones that came into his store for his personal collection, he resold them, instead focusing on silly things like “rent”, “staff”, and “utilities”. Between the two of us, we possess maybe 20-30 Dreamcast games, meaning we’re going to have to go out to obtain the rest. Which leads us to…
3. Obtaining all the games would be sort of expensive. In order to review these games, we need to play them. In order to play them, we need the game. And right now, we don’t have about 250 of them. If we could get them for an average of $10 a piece, that would still set us back $2,500. And since the Dreamcast is beloved by one and all yet was totally underappreciated in its time, a lot of the games are rare and sort of valuable, so the average price is closer to $20 each, or $5,000 total.  That’s going to be a bit of a problem since our annual budget for this website right now is “one pizza”.

So those are the obstacles we face right now, and we would love to hear your suggestions. Top 50 or Top 25 (or Top Some Other Number)? Know any place to score Dreamcast games for really cheap? Are you an eccentric DC collector willing to let us borrow your collection so we can make fun of it? Please, leave us a comment, or email us at revokingthesealofquality@gmail.com

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