Tips For Buying Cheap Retro Games

[Magmavision2000]

Retro games seem to be getting more expensive by the hour, so it's becoming harder to find decent deals, and in turn, harder to amass a collection without spending an insane amount of money. Most people either go straight to emulation, or get flashcarts, but some people (including me, with some exceptions) are purists and look for cheap ways to buy games. 

 

My main way to get games cheap is to just import games. I've literally gotten games for pennies on the dollar by just importing the same game from Japan. Super Mario Bros. 3? Easily a $25-$30 game, but if you don't mind the minor differences in the Famicom version, you can get it for under $10, I somehow have two of them!

Before I sold my Super Famicom, I got Mario Kart and F-Zero in a lot for $13, that lot would've most likely been $50+ if I got it on the SNES.

 

On top of that, you'll find great games that never came out in your country if you import, I've gotten Yie Ar Kung Fu and a Sumo game both for under $1 (minus shipping, with shipping they were $3), and they're both pretty fun!

 

That's the only one I know. Do you guys know any tips on how to get games cheap?

 

[Tanooki]

Japan buys, china famiclone style buys, or domestically you buy a lot with many items, some notables, maybe a lucky WHOA thing in there and then get rid of what you don't care about to drop the price or negate the price.  A few years back, I got back into NEC stuff, seeing how disgusting the predatory antics are around the US stuff, I went with a Core Grafx2, then a Duo.  No need to take the heat when the JP stuff is notably less, very much less if you go the hucard only route on the non-CD style stuff.

[DragonGrafx-16]

Super Aleste on Super Famicom $40... Space Megaforce (the same game) on SNES $100+

Hoshi No Kirby 3 (Kirby's Dream Land 3) $20 on SFC $70+ on SNES

Super Bomberman 1 & 2 less than $5 each on SFC $30+ on SNES...

Gun-Nac $40+ on Famicom $500+ on NES

 

These are just estimates and based on what I had seen some copies go for... don't trust these as current prices.

[Tales from the Game Room]

I was lucky enough to amass and collect just about most of my collection [both import and domestic] early on.  I would purchase games during the life of a system if I really wanted to play them or if they came out of the gate at a low cost. 

 

I would also go to independently owned shops where, they may have understood the pricing more, but where I was a regular and bought more, the prices would be better for me. The fact that I was happy to purchase Madden 2001 off of the store for $2-5, became a win/win for both of us, and would create that bond between dealer and consumer that name brand stores just don't wish to bother with, much less pursue.

 

I would also visit the name brand stores from time to time, and when someone came in, looking to sell off their system for whatever they could get for it, I would hang out at the counterand see what the store was offering.  You could literally see the tears in a kid who was being offered $1 or $2 for a CIB game.  So, I would look to the parent and offer them $5 instead, explaining that I was purchasing the game untested and willing to take the risk, and that they were getting more money from me in the end.

 

I also cannot stress the importance of visiting yard sales and dirt malls/flea markets.  You are very likely to find some great treasures there that the owners are not even aware of.

To game collectors I say this.  Gaming is like any other investment.  You have to literally have a strategy in place, a firm final price, great eye contact, a firm handshake, a poker face, and some empathy as a gamer, and unless the game is a steal, always negotiate the offer.  Also, a difficult as it may be for some of us, you have to have the guts to walk away from a deal if it is not right, no matter how bad you want the game.

Die-hard gamers are like traders on the trading floor:  They can smell blood and flim-flam from a mile away.  Some will stick to their guns, some will be willing to bend if their goods are going to go to a good home, and some just want the money.

 

Happy hunting.

 

- Ash

 

[Steven Pendleton]

Easiest way to save money = don't buy them on the internet.

[Magmavision2000]

One thing I forgot to mention is that importing isn't always the answer, games with heavy text are almost impossible to play if you don't know the language. There are also some systems that either were released in limited quantities or just never came out in the country you import from. Besides that, importing is still the best way to get cheap games.

[AtariLeaf]

Don't buy from collectors if you want them cheap. We know what we have. ?

[digdugnate]

totally tongue-in-cheek and stirring the pot, but....

 

...emulators are free!

 

*ducks and runs away*

[spacecadet]

Saturn stuff especially is much, much cheaper if you buy imports. But yeah, the language barrier is a thing. Still, for action games like Panzer Dragoon or whatever, I don't know why more people don't just buy the import when it's like 1/5 the price.

 

If you've got time and patience, buy lots that have one or two games you really want in them, then individually re-sell the dupes you get of games you already have. You can often completely finance the purchase of the games you actually wanted that way, or at least bring the costs way down. I usually look for lots if I'm shopping on Ebay.

 

One big thing, though, for anyone just starting out especially, is to just buy cheap games! It sounds dumb and almost too obvious but I myself have been guilty of seeing a game on a shelf for $2 and thinking that must mean it sucks. I mean I don't know every game released for every system I own. But try to get to know the library of the system(s) you're collecting for as best you can. Every system has both a ton of dirt common games that are still fun to play, as well as usually a bunch of just not very well known games that people don't seek out but that are often unique and fun too - and all of these can usually be had for a few bucks.

 

I see a lot of especially new collectors who come in and just instantly try to go for the most expensive, rarest stuff, ignoring 90% of a system's library in the process, and then they complain about how expensive things are. Well, duh! Of course things are expensive if you only look for expensive things.

 

Relatedly, some systems are more expensive to collect for than others. The Saturn has gotten notoriously expensive unless you import. So are most Nintendo consoles. Conversely, I don't know if this is still as true but the Genesis was dirt cheap when I was collecting for it a few years ago. Like, almost every game for it was under $5, and that's complete in the nice clamshell cases. One of my current favorite systems to buy games for is the PSP, for the same reason. It has a huge library (about 1,000 US-released games) and about 90% of it can be had for under $10, in many cases under $5. And PSP physical games are really cool - the cases are nice, the manuals are generally full color and extensive, and the discs are unique. It's a fun system to collect for and very cheap. So just pick cheap systems.

[BassGuitari]

* Network, make friends, and build relationships in the retro gaming scene

* Be informed and knowledgeable about what you're looking for

* Buy in lots

* If MetalJesus, John Hancock, AVGN, or some other YouTube celeb makes a video about it, wait at least a few months before you try to get it

* Collect loose

* Depending on the system (SNES, Saturn, and NeoGeo Pocket Color come to mind), go import

* If condition isn't important, buy games in junky condition as long as they work

* If condition IS important and you don't mind don't a little legwork or incremental additional investment, buy games in junky condition and put nice new repro labels on them/replace shell from nonworking donor/etc.

* If you're into physical media, only collect the "greatest hits" (which will mostly be common) and what you actually want to play; use SD/Flash/multicarts for everything else

* There's no shame in repros

* Keep an eye out for targets of opportunity (things you're maybe not specifically looking for at the moment, but good deals for stuff on your radar that present themselves)

* When searching on eBay, try to use search terms that don't fall within commonly used retrogamer vernacular (try to think, "what would I call this thing if I was an Average Joe who found this in the attic?")

* Use broad, vague, or generic search terms

* Go back in time to 1998 and start collecting then

* Accept that you will not be able to obtain everything you want

[DJ Clae]

You can still sometimes snag some deals if you watch Facebook Marketplace. ...and you're willing to go meet some stranger in the suburbs.