Are video game prices getting to high for retro games or systems?

[skaredmask]

Do you think that retro games or systems are getting to expensive or not really?

Edited April 20, 2011 by skaredmask

[PsychoKittyNet]

eBay can overcharge, but if you look around you can still find them for a reasonable price.

[Galeforcerm]

The market is artificially inflated. Mostly by ebay sellers with huge buy it nows. Every once in awhile one of those 500 dollar robs sells to some moron who just has to have it right now. People also tend to confuse value with age. And now alot of pawn and thrift stores use ebay for pricing around here. And the prices are outrageous because they Never do a completed item search.

[HatefulGravey]

The market is artificially inflated. Mostly by ebay sellers with huge buy it nows. Every once in awhile one of those 500 dollar robs sells to some moron who just has to have it right now. People also tend to confuse value with age. And now alot of pawn and thrift stores use ebay for pricing around here. And the prices are outrageous because they Never do a completed item search.

 

Exactly this! Almost all price guides use eBay prices now as a judge of what they are worth too. If the game doesn't sell, the fact is someone asked for $45 for that copy of Frogger CIB so it must be worth it.

 

My favorite is on the rare chance that a lot of 10 games sells for $500 people assume each game in the lot was worth $50 so the next time you see Pac-Man its got a $45 price tag on it and they call is a sale price. If you don't know enough to know the price was that high because some R9/R10 game was there you shouldn't be jumping to conclusions like this.

 

I love to see PS1 games distroyed in a pawn shop for $25 each. They have been there since the PS1 was the console to have and the pawn shop has never adjusted the price. They over paid for it then and wont lose money on it, and that means they will never sell it.

 

Rule number one in the collectable world has always been "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing". Let them ask the moon, I know better. It does suck though when you see a game you need for your collection and they have an insane number on it. I run into this a lot looking for common NES/2600 titles to fill out the bottom of my collections.

[jesusc]

I don't think retro games are too expensive. I think nerds are too willing to pay too much.

Edited April 20, 2011 by jesusc

[raskar42]

I don't think retro games are too expensive. I think nerds are too willing to pay too much.

 

lousy nerds...

[Mirage]

True. And then at the same time, there's plenty who want everything for nothing.

[PsychoKittyNet]

 

lousy nerds...

[Stan]

There's always inflation, just takes the right person who wants something. If you're patient you'll wind up happy in most cases.

[gooch3008]

"There's always inflation, just takes the right person who wants something. If you're patient you'll wind up happy in most cases."

 

this.

Edited April 21, 2011 by gooch3008

[Underball]

True. And then at the same time, there's plenty who want everything for nothing.

Old, outdated, obsolete games that were mass produced to the tune of millions of copies should be worth next to nothing.

 

The only people who disagree are those who have come to rely on the OCD impulse buyers to provide them income for nothing but reselling someone elses garbage to obsessive with no self control.

[Mxyzptlk]

The prices have fallen on most of the Atari stuff that I buy. I mainly, at this point, am buying the few odds and ends to complete my collection, label variations and pirate stuff. And these for the most part are cheaper now than a few years ago. I have noticed that most of the r-9s and r-10s are WAY more expensive now though.

[Mirage]

True. And then at the same time, there's plenty who want everything for nothing.

Old, outdated, obsolete games that were mass produced to the tune of millions of copies should be worth next to nothing.

 

The only people who disagree are those who have come to rely on the OCD impulse buyers to provide them income for nothing but reselling someone elses garbage to obsessive with no self control.

 

There's a middle ground there. I agree with your main point, but I'm talking about the extreme lowballers who expect to get entire collections or items that were hard to find, repair, maintain, store, then ship for absolutely nothing. We all know who they are, or recognize them when they pop up. I am not talking about resellers.

Edited April 21, 2011 by Mirage

[HatefulGravey]

There may have been tons and tons of copies produced, but when you are talking about the 2600 the question isn't how many were made but how many are still around in good shape. The fact that we collect them is the only reason they have value at all. If no one wanted them they would be trash.

[Underball]

There may have been tons and tons of copies produced, but when you are talking about the 2600 the question isn't how many were made but how many are still around in good shape. The fact that we collect them is the only reason they have value at all. If no one wanted them they would be trash.

The "shape" metric really should only be:

 

Does it still work in a console? Yes? No? Done.

 

Anything beyond that is superficial nuttiness. To a huge majority of the population they are trash. The only people who get all picky about the labels, or the condition of the case, or whether it has the box and manual, and the condition of those as well, etc. are people who've let their OCD and nostalgia compulsions create a self perceived "value".

 

I don't care how rare a video game is to find in the wild. These are NOT art pieces. There's no intrinsic value in their uniqueness, or creative output. They're cheaply mass produced consumer products that have been mostly destroyed or trashed by uninterested people who've moved on in their lives to other, newer forms of entertainment. They're only rare to find because they're disposable to most people.

 

This is why I love things like the Harmony cart, emulations software, and the Flashback consoles. Preserve the games of the past, without forcing normal consumers to have to compete with eBay addicts and rich nutballs with too much time and disposable cash on their hands.

[skaredmask]

There may have been tons and tons of copies produced, but when you are talking about the 2600 the question isn't how many were made but how many are still around in good shape. The fact that we collect them is the only reason they have value at all. If no one wanted them they would be trash.

The "shape" metric really should only be:

 

Does it still work in a console? Yes? No? Done.

 

Anything beyond that is superficial nuttiness. To a huge majority of the population they are trash. The only people who get all picky about the labels, or the condition of the case, or whether it has the box and manual, and the condition of those as well, etc. are people who've let their OCD and nostalgia compulsions create a self perceived "value".

 

I don't care how rare a video game is to find in the wild. These are NOT art pieces. There's no intrinsic value in their uniqueness, or creative output. They're cheaply mass produced consumer products that have been mostly destroyed or trashed by uninterested people who've moved on in their lives to other, newer forms of entertainment. They're only rare to find because they're disposable to most people.

 

This is why I love things like the Harmony cart, emulations software, and the Flashback consoles. Preserve the games of the past, without forcing normal consumers to have to compete with eBay addicts and rich nutballs with too much time and disposable cash on their hands.

 

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics, and even disciplines such as history and psychology analyze its relationship with humans and generations.

 

Jean Giraud:

 

Fade to Black cover art (1995)<LI>Panzer Dragoon (1995)<LI>Pilgrim: Faith as a Weapon (1998)

Edited April 21, 2011 by skaredmask

[+save2600]

A guy here was asking recently what he thought an 'unused' TurboDuo might be worth. I was shocked as shit to see some regulars here project $400-$600 figures on something like that. I doubt anyone here would actually pay that, so where are these perceived prices coming from? No doubt price driving is a common everyday occurence on eBay, yet when it comes to "values", oft times, people look at eBay and not even question it.

 

Yes, certain classic gaming items are beyond incredulous to me and I think that's where Skaredmask is coming from.

 

Multi-thousand dollar NES games, certain TG-16 games (Magical Chase - LOL!), Battlesphere Gold, certain Neo*Geo titles and that kind of stuff. Reason I feel the way *I* do (and obviously other peoples mileage will vary) is because there was a time I was purchasing most of this stuff for next to nothing. TurboDuo's brand new in the box for $100 at Toys R Us and elsewhere, Magical Chase was a $20-$30 tops from TZD years ago, NIB TG-16's were $20-$30 as well. Guess it's just a matter of being "too close" to something to believe how times have changed and affected the value of these things. 32X's on closeout for $10. Web of Fire wasn't worth a hoot until all those Spiderman movies started coming out. Virtual Boy's NIB for $20 at Target, yada, yada, yada... hindsight being 20/20, I sure wish I had kept most of this crap. ROI can be much better in classic gaming than playing the stock market.

 

The phenomenon is what it is. I just shake my head at what some people are willing to pay for things. No different than anyone else in different hobbies though and that's what we have to remember. Stigma aside, classic gaming and collecting has become much more of a serious hobby and as such, has already started to command higher prices. I recognized this in the mid 90's thanks to the internet. Just think... if the internet (including BBS boards, AOL, Compuserve back in the day) didn't exist, hardly would the inflated values and hype that surrounds this hobby. Sure, you'd see the random ad in the back of a magazine asking to buy/sell/trade or whatever, but you think anyone would have valued an NES game for $10k without such awareness? How many would really care?

[Itchy Koala]

A guy here was asking recently what he thought an 'unused' TurboDuo might be worth. I was shocked as shit to see some regulars here project $400-$600 figures on something like that. I doubt anyone here would actually pay that, so where are these perceived prices coming from? No doubt price driving is a common everyday occurence on eBay, yet when it comes to "values", oft times, people look at eBay and not even question it.

 

Yes, certain classic gaming items are beyond incredulous to me and I think that's where Skaredmask is coming from.

 

Multi-thousand dollar NES games, certain TG-16 games (Magical Chase - LOL!), Battlesphere Gold, certain Neo*Geo titles and that kind of stuff. Reason I feel the way *I* do (and obviously other peoples mileage will vary) is because there was a time I was purchasing most of this stuff for next to nothing. TurboDuo's brand new in the box for $100 at Toys R Us and elsewhere, Magical Chase was a $20-$30 tops from TZD years ago, NIB TG-16's were $20-$30 as well. Guess it's just a matter of being "too close" to something to believe how times have changed and affected the value of these things. 32X's on closeout for $10. Web of Fire wasn't worth a hoot until all those Spiderman movies started coming out. Virtual Boy's NIB for $20 at Target, yada, yada, yada... hindsight being 20/20, I sure wish I had kept most of this crap. ROI can be much better in classic gaming than playing the stock market.

 

The phenomenon is what it is. I just shake my head at what some people are willing to pay for things. No different than anyone else in different hobbies though and that's what we have to remember. Stigma aside, classic gaming and collecting has become much more of a serious hobby and as such, has already started to command higher prices. I recognized this in the mid 90's thanks to the internet. Just think... if the internet (including BBS boards, AOL, Compuserve back in the day) didn't exist, hardly would the inflated values and hype that surrounds this hobby. Sure, you'd see the random ad in the back of a magazine asking to buy/sell/trade or whatever, but you think anyone would have valued an NES game for $10k without such awareness? How many would really care?

 

 

 

But that is part of the fuel to my collecting addiction. I get excited when I see a normally expensive game in the wild for cheap. Thats what makes me want to go out and shop thrift stores and idiotic game stores that think they're all junk games with no exceptions. If all retro games were dirt cheap, there'd be no fun in collecting. Thats why you don't see people collecting broomsticks or empty cans.

 

 

[+save2600]

Thats why you don't see people collecting broomsticks or empty cans.

I know lots of people that collect old tin cans. Pop, beer, oil, etc. One guy even decorated an entire wall out in his garage with 'em!

 

Can't seem to pry his Kay-O can off him though. That was a favorite drink of mine back in the day. Yoohoo doesn't compare!

 

...and no. I'm not willing to pay a "collectors" premium for a can that I've thrown tons away in the past, just because I feel a little nostalgic about today. I know I'll find one out in the wild someday for cheap. Same with 2600 Chase the Chuckwagon! lmao

[AtariLeaf]

If all retro games were dirt cheap, there'd be no fun in collecting. Thats why you don't see people collecting broomsticks or empty cans.

 

 

You've never watched Hoarders have you?

[RedTank]

I don't think retro games are too expensive. I think nerds are too willing to pay too much.

 

I don't mind paying a little more if it saves me months of fruitless trips to every thrift store and flea market in the area. Don't forget to factor that wasted time into the equation.

[Underball]

I have never, and will never pay more than the original retail asking price for any video game, regardless of age or rarity. I've played most of the "very rare" games people laud about here and elsewhere through emulation or multicart/roms. Ona pure enjoyment/gaming value, not a single one of them was worth the inflated ePay values they can fetch on occasion. None of them.

 

There's a reason why most of these games weren't as heavily mass produced as more popular and well received titles, and mostly destroyed or thrown out. They suck.

Edited April 21, 2011 by Underball

[GKC]

The answer to this question probably depends on if you're buying or selling

Edited April 21, 2011 by GKC

[skaredmask]

lol

 

 

Edited April 21, 2011 by skaredmask

[+Sargon]

The "shape" metric really should only be:

 

Does it still work in a console? Yes? No? Done.

 

Anything beyond that is superficial nuttiness. To a huge majority of the population they are trash. The only people who get all picky about the labels, or the condition of the case, or whether it has the box and manual, and the condition of those as well, etc. are people who've let their OCD and nostalgia compulsions create a self perceived "value".

 

I don't care how rare a video game is to find in the wild. These are NOT art pieces. There's no intrinsic value in their uniqueness, or creative output. They're cheaply mass produced consumer products that have been mostly destroyed or trashed by uninterested people who've moved on in their lives to other, newer forms of entertainment. They're only rare to find because they're disposable to most people.

 

This is why I love things like the Harmony cart, emulations software, and the Flashback consoles. Preserve the games of the past, without forcing normal consumers to have to compete with eBay addicts and rich nutballs with too much time and disposable cash on their hands.

Wow, you really have an ax to grind against collectors.