CDS Games Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Looking through some old AtariAge magazines, I was showing my son how the new games hovered around $30 back in 1982. I plugged it into an inflation calculator and got $77 in 2018 money. Crazy Climber was one of my favorite arcade games... I've just been balking at spending $70-$80 on a cart. But it's actually kept even with inflation. Guessing the wife won't buy that logic though, will she? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2600 Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 If you think that was bad, I remember "hot" NES titles fetching $65 away from big box stores, maybe 6-7 years later! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Games are a little cheaper than inflation, but you don't have to wait long to get great sale prices these days. Of course we had the $5 bargain bin back then after the crash too 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zwackery Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Yeah, but if the cart was $30 in February 1982, when the average hourly wage was $7.73, and you are adjusting for inflation to $77 in 2018 dollars where the average hourly wage was $22.40 in February, that makes 3.88 hours in 1982 to buy the cart but only 3.44 hours to buy the cart now. Also, your example assumes MSRP prices, and you are talking about a collectible here, which has a perceived value to collectors. Most $30 Atari games from BITD are sold at far less than original market value. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 More fun with calculations ... Crazy Climber, 1982 (Atari VCS) $30 for 8 kilobytes of data on a cartridge, $3.75 per kilobyte, $3,750,000 per gigabyte at launch Costs about $70 today, $8.75 per kilobyte, $8,750,000 per gigabyte to buy today Gears of War 4, 2016 (Xbox One, reportedly $100M in development costs) $60 for 116 gigabytes of data on a disc or download, $0.52 per gigabyte at launch Costs about $24 today, $0.21 per gigabyte to buy today 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recycled Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Yea, I was going to say.....look at how much you get today compared to then. I feel much better with my Super Mario Odyssey purchase, than say, compared to my early 80's Pac-Man. (I know...not a fair comparison, but still....) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skylark68 Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I felt pretty good about my $.99 buy of Space Cavern right after the crash. Those bins were great at Circus World and Kay Bee Toys! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 A totally unfair comparison, since we didn't have much to choose from back then. Still fun though. I like to keep the original prices in my mind when playing retro games. It is a great feeling to know I can fit the contents of the entire Electronics Boutique store from 1992, the whole Space Port Arcade from 1983, and the bargain rack from Kay-Bee Toys from 1984 (crash!) on a small portion of an SD card. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDS Games Posted March 20, 2018 Author Share Posted March 20, 2018 Ah, Space Port and Chew-Chew at the Oxford Valley Mall. I couldn't have a better Saturday than that in 1982. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDS Games Posted March 20, 2018 Author Share Posted March 20, 2018 I felt pretty good about my $.99 buy of Space Cavern right after the crash. Those bins were great at Circus World and Kay Bee Toys! I think about those bins alot, and how you coulda really cleaned up with some strategic guesswork on what would be collectible years down the road. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Yea, I was going to say.....look at how much you get today compared to then. I feel much better with my Super Mario Odyssey purchase, than say, compared to my early 80's Pac-Man. (I know...not a fair comparison, but still....) Whenever I see people complaining about being ripped off by the latest Star Wars Battlefront, I think back to my first Star Wars videogame purchase. Empire Strikes Back from Parker Brothers. 4K, gets old quick probably costs more adjusted for inflation than I spent on either Battlefront game 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I think about those bins alot, and how you coulda really cleaned up with some strategic guesswork on what would be collectible years down the road. I just grabbed everything I could afford, had heard about from magazines, looked good ... I would have very little nostalgia for the Intellivision had it not been for The Crash and all the deeply discounted software I was able to grab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recycled Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Wish I would of been paying attention during the "crash." I had lost interest in gaming sometime in '83. Didn't get interested in it again until the early 90s when a friend of mine showed me his new Genesis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accousticguitar Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Wish I would of been paying attention during the "crash." I had lost interest in gaming sometime in '83. Didn't get interested in it again until the early 90s when a friend of mine showed me his new Genesis. Same here but it was the PS1 that pulled me back in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I remember seeing the NES (which was rough in the early days) and XEGS in stores and thinking, pshaw, what are they playing at? Everyone knows video games are OVER. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 I was deep into the colecovision when it all came crashing down. I will always remember buying a butt ton of carts in the bargain basket at the front entrance to Camelot Music for between $2.50 and $5 each. Got my first dual game Xonox carts then, and a bunch of stuff I wouldn't have thought of buying at regular price. It beat the hell out of paying the $75 bucks I paid for Zaxxon on colecovision when it first came out. I was also tickled to buy Star Raiders for the 2600 with the DTMF controller included for $2. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy B. Coyote Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 (edited) It sure does feel nice to be able to walk into a used game store and pick up loose Atari carts with nice condition labels for a dollar or two each, knowing that they originally cost twenty or thirty times that much when they were new. It makes me wonder if games for systems that are considered "highly collectible" right now like the SNES and Genesis might be that cheap someday when they're 40 years old too. Probably not, but hey, I can dream. Also, today I learned that "DTMF" stands for dual-tone multi-frequency signaling. I always just called it a Video Touch Pad. Edited March 21, 2018 by Jin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason_Atari Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Would have loved to have bought a load of these games back then at these prices. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Kinda off topic, but you know what sucks. On one of those trips to Sears to buy an Atari cart for $2 or less, I came across a Sears Star Wars cantina play set on discount. It had the blue Snaggletooth that was made too tall. I could have got that for $10, but passed. That sucker became worth a lot more than any Atari stuff I've ever owned. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 I remember seeing the NES (which was rough in the early days) and XEGS in stores and thinking, pshaw, what are they playing at? Everyone knows video games are OVER. The part that really confused me was when all my friends started buying NES's. I had been assured that videogames were "uncool" and "nerdy" for several years prior. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Would have loved to have bought a load of these games back then at these prices. "Not all tapes available in all stores" obligatory 1984 --> 2018 prices $1.88 then, $4.51 now $3.88 then, $9.30 now Ten bucks including tax is nothing to sneeze at, and would be considered a "premium priced" App Store game nowadays. I still would have snagged as many of these as possible. Good memories. Has anyone set foot in a Sears lately? They're likely not long for this world. This project is likely to be worth a little something someday. His "no one wants to play Sega with Harrison Ford" is a modern classic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Kinda off topic, but you know what sucks. On one of those trips to Sears to buy an Atari cart for $2 or less, I came across a Sears Star Wars cantina play set on discount. It had the blue Snaggletooth that was made too tall. I could have got that for $10, but passed. That sucker became worth a lot more than any Atari stuff I've ever owned. We all had the catalog too, and could have ordered as many as we wanted. The thing was butt-ugly and made of cardboard, and didn't have the "real" (short, red) Snaggletooth, so we weren't interested. Had we all jumped on it, it wouldn't be rare or valuable today. Just like how the common VCS games are generally better and more fun than the rare ones. Don't feel too bad. At least you aren't a speculative toy-hoarder! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recycled Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 The part that really confused me was when all my friends started buying NES's. I had been assured that videogames were "uncool" and "nerdy" for several years prior. Yep. Even when a friend of mine was all gung ho to go to the mall arcade to play the "new" Star Wars game....I was pretty much done at that point. I played it, but just went through the motions. Didn't give a second look to my 2600 by then as well, which is unfortunate, because many great games for it came out around then. Seems like I bought all the wrong games for it, then when Colecovision game out, which I wanted, but didn't get....I was like "Why bother?" I didn't pay attention to the NES at all, except I was intrigued that it looked like there was a good Donkey Kong port for it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Yeah, but if the cart was $30 in February 1982, when the average hourly wage was $7.73, and you are adjusting for inflation to $77 in 2018 dollars where the average hourly wage was $22.40 in February, that makes 3.88 hours in 1982 to buy the cart but only 3.44 hours to buy the cart now. I am not an economist, but if we're going to factor in average hourly wages, I think you missed something important. If you got your figures from here (they match, in any case), there's another column for CPI Adjustment (consumer price index) that factored in the cost of goods and services at the time. Wages are a lot more stagnant than the raw numeric comparison would have you believe, and our buying power is slipping even as the numbers in our paychecks go up. CPI adjusted average hourly wages would be $16.08 in Feb 1982 and $17.57 in Feb 2018. 1982: 1.86 hours worked to buy a $30 game cartridge 2018: 4.38 hours worked to buy a weird $77 collectible when you could just download the minuscule 8K ROM if you just wanted to play the game. Some people make more than others, and $80 (for the Classic SNES Mini or a modern game with a season pass) seems to be the new $30. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 All I can say is I was making $3.35 an hour like most people that worked anywhere in the mall during high school in the eighties. After 3-6 months, they'd give ya a big 15 cent raise if you were lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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