Chapter 212: Checking the Units
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
"‘Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal,’ released in 1996, collector’s edition. I can’t believe we have a copy. Actually, during my childhood, I had a copy, but I didn’t take care of it and threw it away.
"‘Warcraft II’ was awarded the ‘Best Multiplayer Game of The Year’ by PC-Game, and ‘Best Online Game of The Year’ by CNET. Blizzard Entertainment started being successful from there…
"Look, behind the packaging, there’s a preview of an upcoming game. That would be ‘StarCraft,’ which would become a future hit. Oh, and there’s also a part promoting ‘Diablo’—but why is it so small?
"Seems like Blizzard Entertainment didn’t have high expectations for ‘Diablo.’ However, it turned out to be a dark horse. Eighteen days after it launched, it had sold one million copies."
When it came to these games, Potter was not shy anymore. He spoke with confidence, and was knowledgeable on every disc.
After flipping through them, he said, "Alright, sirs. I would like to buy these, with confirmation that it’s all the original discs in them."
"After negotiating the price," Hans said, "you can open them for validation."
Potter asked, "How much would you like for them?"
Hans placed down his coffee cup and said in a firm tone, "I believe 25,000 is a reasonable price. Look at how well they have been maintained. With the age—"
"Alright," Potter said amiably, "if they are the original discs, then 25,000 it is."
Hans was about to let loose of a wave of logic and arguments, but in the end, he bottled it all up.
Li Du couldn’t help but laugh; he had seen that look from Hans before.
When they had first started working together, they picked up a Harley Davidson motorcycle from a unit and sold it to Cylinder Head. He was also like this: when Hans had stated his initial price, the other party accepted it immediately.
In fact, that was a negotiable price. The lowest he would go was 20,000.
However, the higher the better. Hans shrugged to Li Du and said with a bitter laugh, "I should have just said 50,000."
Potter clearly was one of those born with a silver spoon in his mouth; one could tell just from his clothes.
He wore an Armani casual s.h.i.+rt; just this piece of clothing could possibly be worth the combined cost of all the clothes Li Du had worn in his entire life.
Potter opened the games and checked the discs. He had a laptop in his bag. After putting the discs in, it revealed that they were functioning properly.
He randomly picked a few, and after validating that none of them had any issues, he said, "Nice working with you guys—tell me your account number, and I’ll transfer the money to you now."
It was indeed a pleasant deal.
Hans shook hands with him and said, "Thank you, buddy. I’m happy to have found a suitable owner for these discs. Forgive my bluntness, but only a handful of people are worthy of having them, and clearly you are one of those few."
Potter smiled politely and said, "I like to collect games discs and comic books. If you have any comic books that are worth collecting, you can also come and find me. I’ll give you guys a good price."
"Deal!"
After selling the game discs, what was left for them to sell was the old Winchester gun.
For the gun, Hans had also found a few potential buyers. The early morning of the next day they went scout out the place where the storage facility was.
Hans spoke as they traveled. "Movie storage units don’t belong to a storage company. Every movie company in the whole of America has their own facilities, each holding onto a huge amount of useful and useless stuff. Our job, is to find the useful stuff, and profit from it."
Li Du nodded, and said, "This storage company belongs to who then?"
"Warner Bros."
Li Du laughed and said, "They’re a colossus of the entertainment world—I hope they leave some sc.r.a.ps behind for us."
Warner Bros. was Time Warner’s flags.h.i.+p company, with their headquarters in Burbank and New York.
They were a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, with several other large subsidiaries much like Warner Bros. They were a television company, they did animations, home videos, games, and owned the CW Channel cable company.
Li Du had watched several movies from Warner Bros. In fact, the movies from this entertainment company had a strong influence in China. As long as a movie had "WB" in the opening credits, it was one of their works.
After setting out, the large stretch of units that they saw twenty minutes later, was their destination. Although the storage units of this entertainment company didn’t establish its own storage company, the scale of it was still huge.
"A total of 118 storage units: the large ones are over thousands of square feet, while some of the smaller ones are only a few dozen square feet. However, the smaller the unit is, the more valuable it is: those are the ones holding the special items."
Hans continued explaining to Li Du, "This time, almost half of the storage units here are going to be auctioned. I heard that Warner Bros. is going to set up a new subsidiary, so they are clearing out their storage to raise funds for a movie on heroes."
"What movie about heroes?" Li Du asked. "Didn’t ‘The Lord of the Rings’ series earn them a fortune?"
"Who would mind getting more money?" Hans said. "I’ve seen the news—it seems that they are planning to change DC comics into DC entertainment and venture into the movie industry, television, and other media industries to go against Walt Disney."
While Hans spoke, he also shook his head. "That doesn’t concern us, but according to the info that I heard, there is stuff from Batman and Superman."
The units were surrounded by walls. A few cars were parked outside, while some people were trying to look inside with their binoculars.
Hans laughed, "Those in the same business as us have come. See? The early bird gets the worm; looks like everyone understands that."
Using the binoculars to peek, Li Du couldn’t see anything useful. After he alighted, he waved his hand to let the bug out, and started examining the first unit.
There were 45 units to be auctioned this time, in the ascending order of unit 1 to 45.
The first unit was huge, with thousands of square feet of s.p.a.ce. The inside was messy. After the bug entered, there was nothing in particular that attracted its attention.
There were some torn posters near the storage entrance. Li Du looked, and on them was a man with his arms outstretched, his head raised up toward the raining sky, his mouth opened in a scream.
This poster was famous. Without seeing the words printed on it, he knew what movie this was: "The Shawshank Redemption!"
Besides those posters, there was some other stuff from a movie set: wooden shelves, stone slabs, tables, chairs, doors, and windows. All of this was neatly organized, making it less difficult for the bug to examine everything.
After going around the unit once, Li Du finally found some things that seemed valuable.
On a shelf were a bunch of thin, plastic boards. There were patterns on them. Li Du knew these were all polystyrene splints, important props for "The Lord of the Rings."