Shocking ebay prices! 2

[Ghost]

Nah, I honestly think it will.

There are people who, during the pandemic, acquired quite retro large game collections, because they had to be indoors a lot and retrogames are comforting for many people.

But wait until this is behind us, and those people look at those shelves being taken up by PS1 games they hardly use.

I’m not so sure about that, most of the people buying up all the retro games are either hardcore collectors who never sell any of their stuff and will just have it on display on their shelves or people who have no interest in games at all and are just trying to make a profit. The people who actually want to play the games are the ones getting screwed over.

If gaming publishers actually did reprints of their games this would be a non-issue. Is it even still possible to get PS1, Saturn and PS2 games printed officially? In japan you can still pick up most of the PS1 final fantasy games new in store.

[Asura]

If gaming publishers actually did reprints of their games this would be a non-issue. Is it even still possible to get PS1, Saturn and PS2 games printed officially? In japan you can still pick up most of the PS1 final fantasy games new in store.

Usually it's impossible due to licensing. Similar reason to why some PS1 games never showed up on PS3 PSN.

[speedlolita]

I think only recently they stopped printing US Greatest Hits copies of the FF games and Chrono Cross. Those CDs don't have the usual black bottom. Certain PS2 games got reprinted until recently too over the pond.

Tend to agree with Ghost's post.

[wakka]

I remain sceptical that retro prices will fall significantly. Demand seems to keep growing, and the increasing cartel-izing of pricing via eBay BINs keeps prices steady.

If there is a post-pandemic reality check where we see a bit of sell-off from people who built collections they've lost interest in, I think prices will only be marginally affected at most and will bounce back quickly.

Just my two cents. It's an absolutely bonkers market.

[speedlolita]

Lots of prices have retraced already, but nowhere close to previous levels.

[monel]

Quite a few markets have speculators buying up everything. I read somewhere else that limited edition releases are often purchased just to show off online on blogs and stuff. What a time to be alive.

[Hirst]

My opinion is that the “sealed/graded” market will crash, because it’s quite clear now that it is a manufactured pump and dump scheme. Even the vast majority of serious game collectors have completely ignored it from the outset. Anyone jumping on it now as an investment has missed the boat and is almost certainly going to lose their shirt (good). It’ll probably continue to exist for select weirdos only, the sort of people who order Dambusters commemorative coins off the TV as an investment and plan to retire off the back of their Tetley Tea Folk figurines.

I think general old game prices will probably drop a bit as a reaction to the above, but it’ll probably just follow the usual path of era-specific collectables – right now many are in that peak when folks are at the age where they want to recapture their childhood, which gradually drops off as they get older and lose interest (or die). Look at the slow descent of the Atari scene.

Can imagine there’ll be a bit of a value drop-off when optical media starts degrading too. I’m sure some folks will be quite happy buying dead Saturn games for display purposes, can’t imagine everyone will.

[Sketcz]

I've just been checking prices on some PS2, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. I found something interesting when I checked the bidders on a few of these games. It also shows the postage price, and despite these all being PAL games, it looks like it's Americans buying up sealed PAL games as well now.

Not sure if it's just my account showing it, but does this show £31 postage to USA?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bfl/viewbids/...p2047675.l2565

You've found a rabbit hole. You need to now follow it to its dark conclusion. Fedora and trench-coat optional but recommended.

How deep do the lies go?

(It's Yankee speculators obviously looking to make a short-term investment.)

I did the same in Japan in 2000. I bought a few sealed Saturn games for like £10, then flogged them for £40 a piece on eBay back home. They're probably worth billions now.

[Ghost]

My opinion is that the “sealed/graded” market will crash, because it’s quite clear now that it is a manufactured pump and dump scheme. Even the vast majority of serious game collectors have completely ignored it from the outset. Anyone jumping on it now as an investment has missed the boat and is almost certainly going to lose their shirt (good). It’ll probably continue to exist for select weirdos only, the sort of people who order Dambusters commemorative coins off the TV as an investment and plan to retire off the back of their Tetley Tea Folk figurines.

I think general old game prices will probably drop a bit as a reaction to the above, but it’ll probably just follow the usual path of era-specific collectables – right now many are in that peak when folks are at the age where they want to recapture their childhood, which gradually drops off as they get older and lose interest (or die). Look at the slow descent of the Atari scene.

Can imagine there’ll be a bit of a value drop-off when optical media starts degrading too. I’m sure some folks will be quite happy buying dead Saturn games for display purposes, can’t imagine everyone will.

Sealed market definitely will drop, graded games going for over a million are obviously a scam. But the more obscure games, especially from series that are now becoming more popular such as Fire Emblem and Persona, I don't think those will drop. If you look at Nintendo's games, especially the SNES era, prices haven't really dropped at all and certain games like Earthbound just continue to go up in value.

[fuse]

I think the sealed games market could still continue to go either way for some time yet. There's a lot of people prospecting on the market getting bigger, and a lot of badly-researched news pieces doing just what those folks want by gawping at the numbers and not digging into the underlying concerns. I wasn't a fan of VGA, and am even less a fan of WATA, but if they're exploiting the market as openly as has been suggested, then hopefully there might be some kind of thing that shakes some legality into them along with some sense into their users, but until then I still see lots of folks either individually, or in groups, buying into this market as an investment. On the plus side for me personally, I've got no interest in collecting sealed games (certainly not in keeping them sealed forever), and at least it's not trashing the environment, like the whole NFT business - which seems to be everyone else's other favourite take on pyramid selling of late.

The standard market for retro games on the other hand, I don't see as going any way but up. Generationally we're not even at a point yet when the first young game-enjoyers are dying out, and lots of people who grew up in the 80s and 90s loving games now have plenty of disposable income, and the internet makes buying things (not to mention: informing you about them) very low-effort. Some games in particular had small print runs, but even those that didn't are finite in number given how badly most physical games get treated, and how averse the industry is to reprints. Sure, people do sell up for a range of reasons, and some games might prove to be an outlier here and there, but I think game collecting is now prominent enough that anyone expecting the price of older games to go down across the board is wildly optimistic.

Can imagine there’ll be a bit of a value drop-off when optical media starts degrading too. I’m sure some folks will be quite happy buying dead Saturn games for display purposes, can’t imagine everyone will.

This is an interesting take though - but I think requires a very loud, co-ordinated, communal set of actions to acknowledge a point in time where buying games for a particular system is risky and comes with a very limited life span. Until then I think sellers just have to accept that the longer they hold onto stock, the higher the likelihood that it degrades and becomes increasingly worthless.

Here's a question: let's say Panzer Dragoon Saga gets a digital re-release next week on all formats for £10. What do we think happens: does the newfound attention on it drive further appreciation, and demand for people to have a copy on their shelves? Or does the availability suddenly cause an influx of collectors to sell up who were holding on to it as the one legit way of playing it previously?

[phillv85]

I’m not even convinced degrading media will drop prices. Amiga games on floppy disk seem to be higher than ever and we’re starting to see them fail now in reasonable quantities.

[S3M]

I’m not even convinced degrading media will drop prices. Amiga games on floppy disk seem to be higher than ever and we’re starting to see them fail now in reasonable quantities.

The Amiga prices are going up sadly at least in the short term, can't seem them holding that seeing the games are falling apart. In the end the price will just die for old formats like this as 30 years from now we will all be retired or dead and the kids from today won't want to play or collect Amiga games. Likely Fortnite will be the in thing to collect. If you follow antique markets, you will know they rise and fall over time case and point: https://reaction.life/why-has-the-bo...tiques-market/

It's not a case of if, but when, however when could be 40 years from now. Sealed collecting might not be the best investment either, I've started to find quite a few games included sealed titles where they sweat inside the box so the staples of the manual start to rust and slowly cause mould to form inside the box as well. I've seen this happen now on a range of formats which isn't great. Only fix is to clean it up and off, unseal them and remove the stables, remove any trace of rust and put in new staples.

[cutmymilk]

Prepare yourself... they are called staples.

[importaku]

[monel]

Look, when spending hundreds on old games, you want them to be stable. Why would you want them to be unstable?