How much is my game worth?
Unfortunately, probably not nearly as much as you're hoping.  Ever since the advent of Ebay, it is far easier for collectors to find what they're looking for than it's ever been.  In the old days (you know, the early 1990s) you found games by hitting yard sales, thrift stores and antique malls.  Serious collectors could find items at collectable shows or in specialty stores and periodicals, and were willing to pay more for the rare ones.  Nowadays, just about everything turns up on Ebay.  With that much supply, demand is satisfied pretty quickly and prices go down.  Truth is, the vast majority of games, even old ones, fetch less than ten dollars.  Many go unsold at any price.  There are quirks in the marketplace (the 70s versions of The Price Is Right and Match Game always seem popular) but for the most part, you're not going to get rich selling your old games, and every indication is that keeping them as an investment is a mistake as well.  I don't try to place a value on any of the games in my collection, and my suggestion is that you don't either.

How can I find the one home game I'm looking for?
Did I mention Ebay?  If the thrill of the hunt is interesting to you, hitting the antique stores and thrift shops is always a possibility.  But if you're looking for one specific game, that kind of searching can be frustrating and futile.  Ebay has created a global market for hard-to-find items of every sort, and even though some games are still pretty rare, virtually everything turns up there eventually.

If you're in a hurry, you might be able to find the game you're looking for from one of the few remaining game dealers who maintain a presence on the internet.  Here are links to four established dealers, all of whom list at least part of their inventory on their websites.  You'll probably end up paying a little more than you would if you found one at auction on Ebay, but if you don't want to bother with Ebay or just can't wait, maybe one of these sites can help you:

DON'S GAME CLOSET
PAUL FINK'S FUN AND GAMES
JEFF LOWE'S extravaGAMEza
LYLE RHODEBECK'S GAMES GALORE

Meanwhile, if it's a recently released game you're looking for, and you can't find it at a Target, Wal-Mart or Toys R Us near you, there are plenty of places to look online, includiong those retailers' own web pages and Amazon.com.

I have a home game without instructions.  Can you help?
I'll try.  I have virtually everything that's described on these pages, and I'll be happy to make you a photocopy of rules you may be missing.  In some cases, I might even have spare parts to help you complete a game.  There's no charge for this, just something I like to do to help collectors enjoy their games.  E-mail me at ottinger@acd.net

Why isn't my favorite game show mentioned on your site?
This site is not a definitive list of every game show ever seen on television.  Not even close.  This site only lists those shows for which there were home games, books or other collectable pieces of memorabilia sold directly to the public.  If a show you remember from your childhood isn't listed, it's not because I don't know about it, it's because there wasn't a home game for it.  If you've checked our list and you think I'm wrong, first make sure that the show you're thinking of wasn't a board game first and then adapted INTO a game show.  If you still think I've missed something, especially something from an older show, let me know. You're probably wrong (I've been doing this a long, long time), but I'd love to learn about something to add to the site.

How can I find episodes of a game show on video?
This is probably the most common question I get, and one of the hardest to answer.  The simplest answer is that the vast majority of game shows that aired before 1980 or so are lost forever, and even the ones after that are sometimes locked away or otherwise difficult to find.  In the early days of television, game shows were seen as disposable programming, and only a few producers (most notably the Goodson-Todman company) bothered to save any more than one or two sample episodes of any given series.

After 1980, most shows were preserved, but there's still a lot more to getting your hands on a copy than calling up the producer and asking nicely.  The cable channel that began in 1994 as Game Show Network (now officially known as GSN: The Network for Games) has aired reruns of many old series, and there are collectors who have amassed large personal archives of episodes. You could try Googling "game show collection" to find some, or you could put up a request on a game show collecting message board.  One such board is The Game Show Trading Post.