Two discs on the same auction page. One has "Not for Resale" printed on its surface. The other has a rental-store sticker stuck across the middle of the cover, the shelf barcode still readable. Similar starting prices, equally bad photos. One of them is worth little more than the standard edition. The other, depending on what's inside, can be worth quite a bit more. The usual mistake is thinking the label answers the question. ## Two labels, two intentions A promotional copy is made for people who don't pay: journalists, retailers, award juries, store displays. Fewer are made, yes, but "fewer" doesn't mean "few." A rental copy is made to be mistreated. Hard case, a disc that passes through dozens of hands, a sticker that never comes off in one piece. In the United States, the 1990 law that curbed commercial software rental left console games out of its scope, which helps explain how stores were able to rent cartridges and discs for so many years without depending on the publisher's permission. ## Rare and sought-after are not the same thing It's the lesson that takes longest to learn. A promo can be hard to find and still interest nobody. The demo discs that came with video game magazines, for example, circulated for months and in large quantities. Having "not for sale" on the disc doesn't make them scarce, it just makes them fun. Anyone paying a premium for that is paying for the joke, which is legitimate, as long as they know that's what they're buying. What raises the price is a verifiable difference. Something the retail copy doesn't have. ## What a promo needs to justify the markup Different content: a version from before the final fixes, an altered menu, a track that disappeared from the store edition. Exclusive packaging tied to an event or a campaign. Numbering. Or a documented link to a person or a company. On a PlayStation disc there's a two-minute test: the mastering code etched on the inner ring. Compare it with a retail edition from the same region. If it matches and the only difference is the screen printing, you have a standard edition that looks important. Film screeners, those discs with a watermark across the picture, sent to awards voters, often fall into this category. They're curious. They're rarely worth much, unless they carry a cut that never came out anywhere else. ## And the rental copy? In most cases it isn't worth anything special, which is good news for anyone who just wants to play or watch. There are three exceptions worth knowing. Titles with a short retail run, where the store copy is the one that survived in numbers. Certain low-budget horror films reached VHS only through the rental circuit. If the film matters to you, the store copy is the edition. Japan. There, "rentaru ochi" (literally "fallen from rental") refers to anything that left the rental shelves for the used market, and plenty of people use those copies as a cheap way into Japanese titles, knowing the case will be beaten up. And nostalgia, which has nothing to do with the disc. Collectors of memorabilia from chains like Blockbuster buy the case, the sticker, the price tag. There the condition of the disc takes a back seat and the market is a different one. ## A map for the moment of purchase **The listing says "promo" and only shows the front of the case.** Ask for photos of the back and of the disc's inner ring. Without them, pay as if it were a standard edition. **It's a rental copy and the seller swears the disc "reads fine."** Reading fine isn't the same as being in good shape. Wear scratches tend to show up in the last stretch of a long game or the final minutes of a film. Ask for a photo with raking light, from the side, which is where fine scratches give themselves away. **The listing mentions a "prototype" or "development copy" and nothing else.** Until proven otherwise, it's a CD-R with something written on it in marker. Some are genuine, most are just a CD-R. Without provenance (where it came from, who kept it, what documents exist), the price is that of a CD-R. **The seller answers none of these questions.** The silence is an answer. ## Before you pay Look at completed sales, not asking prices. In a market where every seller believes their copy is one of a kind, asking prices measure hope, and only closed sales tell you what someone actually paid. And screenshot the listing. If it disappears after you buy, it's the only proof that the copy was what it promised to be.