Tintin Forums

Hello everyone!

I have this rare piece of Tintin gaming history. It's a promo disc of the ultra-rare PS1-game Tintin: Destination Adventure.

It's said that only 20 copies of the original game was sold by the Tintin store in London before the game was withdrawn from the shelves. The promo might be a object that is even harder to find.

My question is, has anyone here seen the promo-edition of this game ever for sale? And would this be a piece in high demand by Tintin collectors?

Here is a picture.

Best regards
Christian from Norway.

I think that's probably because the game was appalling. Even for its 2001 release date the graphics were blocky and dated and the control system poor.
I certainly wouldn't think there would be any value in the game whatsoever. Possibly even for a collector.

I'd like to be proven wrong though. :-)

Well, the game is worth quite a bit. This is the UK release of the game. I am however very uncertain of the value of the promo. Look at the ebay source.

£159! That's quite a price.
Did anything else come with the promo, documentation wise?

No, I dont belive so. Usually the PS1 Promo games came in a thin jewel case and nothing more than the jewel case and the CD

I've got to say that I know nothing about games or gaming, so I can't comment on that aspect.
However, I think that there are some aspects of this tale which need a bit of clarification.
Firstly, the Tintin Shop in London isn't a games shop by any stretch of the imagination; are we to believe that it was the only outlet for the game when it was released? If so, no wonder it was a poor seller. Secondly, given that it isn't a game shop, I might suspect that selling 20 copies might be considered an achievement.
Thirdly, as the shop don't bandy about the numbers for anything that they sell, how did this figure reach the public domain? It's a purely speculative number, no source or corroboration offered anywhere, but it's being treated as a) fact, and b) evidence that the title is rare; it may be the fact that it is rare, but I've certainly seen enough copies on eBay to suggest that either someone is wildly circulating the same copies over and over again, or that there are more than 20 out there.
It also seems quite important to me that it be emphasized that, apart from the writing on the disk and the inserts, the game is identical in whatever edition you get; if you want to play the game, buying any disk that is compatible with your console will give you the same experience.
So, personally, I'd not use one sale as a measure of the cost of one of these disks, and think that the rarity issue is still open to substantiation.

Well, they usually do go for a high price. The English release and the Swedish one. The others from France go for nothing. This is a fact :)

I don't understand why the Tintin store in London would not sell the game.
The rumour I have heard is that it was only sold in that store before it was withdrawn from the shelves. I don't know why. But that would explain 1. the price 2. the rarity.

It was probably not planned that way. Things like this do happen all the time though.

But I'm not really after a debate on the Tintin store.
My question was: Is this something a Tintin collector would be interested in? My guess is no by the response so far.

Also please remember that this is neither the English, French or Swedish release. It's the promo.

Sorry you've not had much expert or very hopeful response so far, but it might just indicate that members and visitors who've been recently browsing this site don't happen to be avid collectors of Tintin computer games or experts on that area. (Some of us here aren't really even collectors at all, just enthusiasts of the books.) Whilst personally (as a non-collector and non-gamer) I agree with Jock's logic that if the game's the same in any edition it ought to make little difference owning the promo version, I guess if you found the right "completist" collector of Tintin games, to whom logic meant nothing, I guess they might just have to have it at any price!

Maybe someone will turn up here who's able to offer you a more educated opinion, or maybe you'd have to float it on ebay and find out that way!

Anyway, a warm welcome to the forums!

Yes, but there is a lot of work to be done to establish if this is justified.


Because they don't carry all varieties of Tintin merchandise by any stretch of the imagination - they are a tiny shop, and very selective in the lines they have. Experience shows that items which would be outside of their expertise to promote tend to take a back-seat - they don't have any way of demonstrating a game, such as screens. It's also not a place that someone would go looking for a game, so it seems unlikely that they would be the sole outlet for a product (I've not said that they wouldn't have had copies, or have sold some).


Indeed, that is certainly the rumour being put about, but what I'm looking for is corroboration of the rumour - the high prices commanded depend on the rumour being true, and the rumour is being promoted on sites like eBay to justify the high price being asked, and so far it just seems to be a circular route of the rumour feeding the prices and the prices shoring up the rumour. If we find out that 200 copies were sold, what then? What if it was 2,000 copies? All have an effect.


No, neither am I, but the points of Tintinological interest (which is why we are here) are, is it really rare, and are the high prices justified? The rarity/ value of the thing hinges on the Tintin Shop having been the exclusive outlet, and having sold few copies - that will inform the price/ value of the copies available, and may be indicative of the valuation of the promo disc you have.
We've seen speculators make hay from the "rarity" of books and items which are actually fairly common (e.g. mint Methuen first edition copies of The Shooting Star, which actually come from cases of the books discovered in a warehouse - a considerable number have sold at very high prices as being "rare", but without regard to the fact that there are now more on the market than ever before).
Promo discs get sent to retailers and reviewers, of whom there are probably more than twenty; the label on the disk is obviously a factory printing, again suggesting that a quantity greater than twenty was made to send out to the press, etc.
Were the "twenty copies" sold of the retail disk story shown to be true, it could mean that there are more promo discs out there than retail, and it would (one assumes) be worth less.

Yes, I understand all this and agree with you on most parts. I have not put a price on the promo as I have never seen a copy sold or for sale.
Thank you for all your answers :)