When Jason Brassard’s collection of rare, unopened video games was stolen, it was more than just a sentimental loss—it felt “like a tragedy for the video game community more than anything.”
best to forget about the safe. But when he has a few free minutes and is cleaning the pins of old Nintendo cartridges with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips, a little piece of him dies every time he thinks about how he could’ve been so naive. When he ran the place, he would man the counter from a swivel chair next to the cash register, a can of Diet Coke by the keyboard of his desktop computer, his palms at the edge of a Super Mario World mouse pad.
“Bubble Bath Babes. That’s really one that stuck out in my head. I thought it was a kid game. Apparently, it’s Nintendo porn.” The cash register was on the floor, though. And the dolly tracks went all the way to the vault door and into the back. The shelves seemed undisturbed, but his work desk was pushed aside, papers and documents strewn. There were unfamiliar tools on the desk—someone else’s. It took him a moment to process an empty space by the wall, to figure out what the crowbar would have been used for—or what someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to use it for, before they hauled off the safe anyway, still locked.
Two officers arrived soon enough and cordoned off the shop in yellow tape. One of them noted in the initial report that Brassard asked, “What do you think about this whole thing?” When the detective got there, he admitted, “Those games were my retirement plan.” The police report takes three pages to list the titles of every game, monetary values as assigned by Brassard next to each one.
“I know that he spent so long collecting these, that it made me feel terrible for him. Just to have that all wiped out,” Lunsford says. “If he ever wanted to sell, he’d have aShe’d never heard of any of the stolen games. Brassard talked her through the list: Chase the Chuck Wagon for the Atari 2600, made by Purina in the early 1980s, only available by mail-in proof of purchase from packages of dog food.
Not long after the theft, Brassard hired Chris Guilbault, a former customer and his friend and confidant, who had an archivist’s knowledge of video game history and the authority to make a deal on his boss’s behalf. The theft had forced all four men to start thinking about games in ways that polluted their childhood endearments, in ways they’d either never considered or taken seriously as enthusiasts, as fans.
When Voegele began to tell this man she didn’t have enough cash on hand and couldn’t make a deal without knowing his name anyway, he got pissed and began to shout.They didn’t break anything on their way out, which she had feared. But none of the games could be called cherry anymore. No, these games had the same titles as the ones Brassard lost, but they had been mauled or in some cases destroyed, as though the perpetrator realized the only way he could actually sell them without being caught was to cut their value.
“I paid [Jackson] in cash,” Merz says. “We posted the games on Facebook, and Jason came in with a police officer and said, ‘This stuff is’ ” So when Jackson called Merz and said he was going to return with more games, this time three undercover agents were waiting, dressed like civilians, idly rifling through Magic: The Gathering cards and NES cartridges. As Jackson was leaving the counter, the officers descended.
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