Current Events > Old video game prices are just silly....

(+) Yeah! (+)

Theyre literally for collectors and not for anyone just wanting to play the game.

Depends on how rare the game is.

Supply and demand, that's all.

Alternatives exist if you just want to play the game.

Ya, my Dreamcast collection would be worth well over $1000 at collector prices.

I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that Zoomers are tech illiterate and don't understand how emulation works. A lot of them legit think that downloading old ROMs is a punishable offense.

I saw old GBC cartridges for Pokemon Crystal going for $120+ on Ebay, which seems kinda insane. And that's just the cartridge.

If you want the original packaging, it's gonna be like $350

CRON posted...

A lot of them legit think that downloading old ROMs is a punishable offense.

It is. It's called piracy.

Mearcstapa posted...

I saw old GBC cartridges for Pokemon Crystal going for $120+ on Ebay, which seems kinda insane. And that's just the cartridge.

If you want the original packaging, it's gonna be like $350

It should be noted with the GBC Pokmon games, that the games become bricked once the internal battery dies (which, after 22 years, is a reasonable assumption to make)

TyVulpine posted...

It is. It's called piracy.

I mean "punishable offense" as in they think the feds are going to rappel down from helicopters and bust through the windows before hauling them off to ADX Florence because they downloaded some SNES or PS1 games.

FL81 posted...

It should be noted with the GBC Pokmon games, that the games become bricked once the internal battery dies (which, after 22 years, is a reasonable assumption to make)

Replacing the internal battery is a somewhat trivial thing though (just a common watch battery and a special screwdriver bit needed). Most of the listings I looked at stated the battery needed replaced, and they still sold for ~$100.

Apparently there are tons of counterfeit/bootleg carts out there though, so authenticity is key.

FL81 posted...

It should be noted with the GBC Pokmon games, that the games become bricked once the internal battery dies (which, after 22 years, is a reasonable assumption to make)

Thankfully batteries can be replaced

Mearcstapa posted...

Replacing the internal battery is a somewhat trivial thing though (just a common watch battery and a special screwdriver bit needed). Most of the listings I looked at stated the battery needed replaced, and they still sold for ~$100.

Apparently there are tons of counterfeit/bootleg carts out there though, so authenticity is key.

Yeah, I was looking at eBay the other day for Pokemon Crystal and it was an N64 cart with a Crystal sticker on it.

CRON posted...

I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that Zoomers are tech illiterate and don't understand how emulation works. A lot of them legit think that downloading old ROMs is a punishable offense.

Not in the slightest.

TyVulpine posted...

Yeah, I was looking at eBay the other day for Pokemon Crystal and it was an N64 cart with a Crystal sticker on it.

Hey, at least it's not the NES Gold bootleg!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kII2eoN-uEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfIkgOk1ID8

ellis123 posted...

Not in the slightest.

What caused prices to skyrocket for almost every platform? I remember a decade ago a local used game store would have Goodwill-tier prices and nowadays even shovelware goes for a lot.

CRON posted...

What caused prices to skyrocket for almost every platform? I remember a decade ago a local used game store would have Goodwill-tier prices and nowadays even shovelware goes for a lot.

Covid

I'm not joking. I've been collecting for years, and the two months after lockdowns hit were the biggest, fastest price spike I've ever seen. Across the board. But JRPGs in particular seemed to be hit the hardest as a genre. And games from the very late 90s through about 2010. And the spuke never settled; prices have been consistently high ever since.

Pokemon is a prime example. In 2019, paying $50 for a copy of soulsilver would be gearing fleeced for it. By 2020, you wouldn't see one for less than $150, loose cart only, on a good day. God help you if you wanted a case, even without the manual.

My theory is that with everybody stuck at home, they got bored, ended up pulling their old systems out of storage, and began trying to "recapture" some childhood memories. Pokemon, naturally, got hit especially hard, with the Paul Brothers making the TCG scene explode with their YouTube series buying packs.

Animal Crossing NH came out around that time, sold gangbusters, and suddenly old nintendo games exploded in price.

FFVII Remake came out at that time, and suddenly old JRPGs explode in price.

Persona 5 Royal comes out at that time, and damn near every Atlus game nearly triples in value within like a week.

Covid boredom completely upended the market, and got a LOT more people into the space.

What really throws me is the wild prices on games like Pokemon.

They are consistently the best selling games on some of the highest selling platforms in the history of the world. Like, they aren't rare. Not even remotely. Supply should, by all reasonable counts, far outstrip demand; and yet nearly everything from Emerald through BW2 is $100-200. Except DP, but that's just because everyone knows they're awful. Platinum is still $150-180, though.

(That said, the fact that all the most expensive games are consistently the ones with robust battle frontiers/facilities is not lost on me. And gamefreak pretends there's no market for that sort of thing).

DarkBuster22904 posted...

What really throws me is the wild prices on games like Pokemon.

They are consistently the best selling games on some of the highest selling platforms in the history of the world. Like, they aren't rare. Not even remotely. Supply should, by all reasonable counts, far outstrip demand; and yet nearly everything from Emerald through BW2 is $100-200. Except DP, but that's just because everyone knows they're awful. Platinum is still $150-180, though.

I agree. Ill conceded to rare games but common as hell ones?

I used to work in a retro game store and yes it is very bad. All retro games are out of print so if Mario 3 is a hot seller, you have to hope a customer had traded it in previously or else you lose a customer. Since there is no way to control your incoming inventory through trade, you have to search for game lots on ebay for good prices. If you do find a good lot, you are then stuck with 5-10 bad sports games that don't sell and take up shelf space.

Brutal. Makes me glad I own so many retro games already.

Its worse when youre old enough to remember seeing it even on sale in stores.

There was a time GBA micros, the gold famicom one, was like $30 or less in stores cause they didnt sell. I wish i got one. Not a huge deal but i definitely regret that one.

Lairen posted...

Its worse when youre old enough to remember seeing it even on sale in stores.

There was a time GBA micros, the gold famicom one, was like $30 or less in stores cause they didnt sell. I wish i got one. Not a huge deal but i definitely regret that one.

I bought Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for $15 in a bargain bin, when it was still in print.

$200+ today. You just never know.

I pity any sega Saturn owners who sold off their collections early. By far one of the most valuable libraries on the market, these days. The sega fucking saturn

Lairen posted...

I agree. Ill conceded to rare games but common as hell ones?

There are more copies of Pokemon games, but there are also vastly more people who collect Pokemon. It's nowhere near as niche as collecting obscure rarities.

That number is expanding as new fans want to try the old games.

Lairen posted...

Its worse when youre old enough to remember seeing it even on sale in stores.

There was a time GBA micros, the gold famicom one, was like $30 or less in stores cause they didnt sell. I wish i got one. Not a huge deal but i definitely regret that one.

I bought Crusader of Centy from a mom and pop store about three years ago.
They sold it to me for $30. I honestly still feel pretty bad about that one.

Whos to say people arent playing those on the original consoles? Some people just prefer doing it that way rather than buying / renting digitally on modern platforms or pirating.

The average price is like $100-150 a game now depending on the rarity and bias (Pokemon). Its almost 3-5x higher than retail value on them. I think the problem is people are buying them at those prices. Even at auctions on eBay you still see people bidding early on a game up past $100. Ive seen a game in its last 5 seconds go from $150 to $800 because people got greedy and were willing to pay way above the games market price (it was $550 at the time). That resulted in every new listing wanting $800 minimum on the game for a while lol.

Cant solely blame the people buying them though. Cause for every game a collector tries to get for a great price there is always a reseller outbidding them to keep that price high.

Mearcstapa posted...

I saw old GBC cartridges for Pokemon Crystal going for $120+ on Ebay, which seems kinda insane. And that's just the cartridge.

If you want the original packaging, it's gonna be like $350

Try $600+

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Supply and demand, that's all.

The issue though is that most people selling know that some collectors will pay top dollar for this crummy NES game that used to go for two bucks at a garage sale.
Sort of like chicken wings. Back in the day they were cheap bar food. But at some point they became trendy bar food and the price sky rocketed.
Makes me curious if 2600 games are still cheap or if all of them have gone up.
Maybe I'll visit garage sales this winter and see.

Lairen posted...
Lairen posted...

Its worse when youre old enough to remember seeing it even on sale in stores.

There was a time GBA micros, the gold famicom one, was like $30 or less in stores cause they didnt sell. I wish i got one. Not a huge deal but i definitely regret that one.

I always wanted one of those, but could never justify it since I had the original GBA and an SP. I kind of regret not getting one too. Oh well, I'd much rather use a modded original GBA these days or an emulator anyway.

The prices are insane these days. I have all my old consoles running off sd cards now so I don't have to bother with that mess.

DarkBuster22904 posted...

I'm not joking. I've been collecting for years, and the two months after lockdowns hit were the biggest, fastest price spike I've ever seen.

It's a combination of that and WataGames running there grading scam to inflating game prices.

I dont even go to conventions or garage sales anymore. Resellers hunt garage sales like theyre a sport and the ones with good games usually look at eBay for their prices. Same with conventions. Sellers at conventions look at eBay too and wont lower the price despite eBay being higher because of fees lol. The market is trash right now.

I read a while back the old game market is a big pump n dump.

Shamino posted...

Makes me curious if 2600 games are still cheap or if all of them have gone up.

Not really. Anything older than the NES is still dirt cheap. You could buy a bundle of every 2600 game worth owning for like $20. Only exceptions are extremely small print runs, games with some crazy story behind them, or both. Like Waterworld.

Even for NES, it's rare for games to get TOO wild. Little Samson is the one $2500+ exception that everybody knows. Dragon Warrior 3 I know can get to the $500 ish range. Other than that, it's rare to see anything get past $50, with most in the $5-20 range.

Buying old games used to be great. But yeah its probably mainly a collectors market now so the fun is mostly gone

Ive been looking for a good price on the first Twisted Metal game on PS1 and this seller on eBay had it at $115. Today they raised the price to $250 because the show premiered. Scumbag.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Buying old games used to be great. But yeah its probably mainly a collectors market now so the fun is mostly gone

There was a huge wave of youtubers that ruined it imo. It was a cool idea at the time but those same youtubers are done with it cause the prices are crazy.

Verdekal posted...

I read a while back the old game market is a big pump n dump.

There's a grading service, Wata, that conspired with an auction house to jack up the market prices on a bunch of games and then Wata employees sold their own graded games at the inflated prices.

That's not the whole retro game market, of course, but it's a big scandal and there's an ongoing class action lawsuit over it.

god should have never let pokemon players have the internet

ArsGoetia posted...

god should have never let pokemon players have the internet

Really? I heard Zeus loves Zapdos.