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+--- Thread: If you collect games, be wary. (/showthread.php?tid=7332)
If you collect games, be wary. - Dark Jaguar - 23rd August 2021
This absolute legend has done the research. Those million dollar sales of Mario games that are absolutely and definitively NOT worth a million dollars? Yeah, that was open market manipulation. Don't trust WATA games. VGA seems better at it and don't have a motive to manipulate prices.
Anyway, the takeaway here is that there's no way us being smart about this is going to keep the general public from being fooled. If you're collecting old video games, take a break for a few years and wait for the bubble to burst. It's going to be ugly for a while.
RE: If you collect games, be wary. - A Black Falcon - 29th August 2021
Yeah, that's a great video and I hope Wata and Heritage get some serious attention because there is clear fraud going on there, in the name of ripping off people for potentially millions of dollars. They need to be stopped, but who knows if they will...
The other question is, though, how much does this bubble they are creating affect people who don't collect sealed graded games? Because as we all know, the classic game market has gone up significantly since Covid started. Between having to stay home more and stimulus payments, people started spending more on old games and prices went up across the board. But, those increases are nothing like THIS. This is a significant boost on top of that, but is it, or will it, have any significant effect on the rest of us, people who mostly buy games to actually play them or at least to open them? Yes, I own a lot of games I have played and too many that I haven't played yet, but I do not buy games intending to never open them. I buy games intending to use them at least some, more if I like it. My guess would be that this probably is having, and will have, some amount of spillover effect artificially raising used game prices across the board. That seems likely.
So yeah, sealed collectors mostly don't care about videogames. I mean, if you cared about them you'd want things you can actually use. They are mostly in it for the money, so some don't even care about Wata and Heritage's actions since it might make them some cash at more foolish peoples' expense. But even so, this is awful stuff both for the people potentially being ripped off and for the impact on this thing I love, videogames. It's easy to see why people would get tempted into doing this kind of thing, since it's so easy and helps make them money, but that's exactly why laws should exist, to stop this kind of behavior. And I hope that the lasting impact on non-sealed and graded game collecting is minimal.
RE: If you collect games, be wary. - Dark Jaguar - 31st August 2021
It's not likely, it's literally what happened. They're taking so many games off the market just to horde them and artificially boost their prices. I'm already seeing things like the grey version of Turok Rage Wars (and other SNES and N64 games) jump DRAMATICALLY in price. Seriously, look up Turok Rage Wars right now. Do it.
More to the point, having a high grade game "still in box" says very little about the quality of the game sealed inside. So many other factors could cause capacitors and other things to degrade that a solid plastic seal won't tell you about at all. Rating them like that doesn't help as much as one might think. I think if we're going to go with "grading", our system should allow for game boxes to be opened and the game thoroughly examined for things like component failure or (in the case of magnetic or optical disks) bit rot. Then rate accordingly.
I would also add one thing. It's a shame what happened to Nintendoage. I used to go there all the time and they provided so much information from other game fans.
RE: If you collect games, be wary. - Dark Jaguar - 17th September 2021
Let me show you an example:
Castlevania Legacy of Darkness is not a rare game. At any time there's around a dozen copies floating around eBay for example. It's price has skyrocketed in the past year or so though, and this one company seems to be the cause.
https://www.pricecharting.com/game/nintendo-64/castlevania-legacy-of-darkness
Take a look at this tiny site. Pay attention to the chart demonstrating it's price over time. It had a slow rise, that much is true. A natural progression upwards that charted well with inflation and the steady removal of copies from the market. At the very end, some time in 2019 or so, the price shoots up dramatically. Why did it do that? I can see no reason. Nothing else appears to have changed. It's not like everyone's suddenly had a change of heart that Legacy of Darkness is actually a secret amazingly good game. It's still got a pretty low reputation among Castlevania games, only just beating out Castlevania 64. I will note that there's actually fewer copies of 64 on eBay at the moment than Legacy.
This auctioning company is ruining game collecting as a hobby. Right now, steer clear of N64 games. It looks like it's their current target for price inflating after doing their damage in NES and SNES games. It may be a good time to start collecting for other systems. For my part, I've been collecting PC DOS games. Physical copies of some of those are FAR more rare than a lot of console games, yet I've been getting many on the cheap. I recently picked up an unopened copy of Star Trek Judgment Rites (the collector's edition at that, the one that came with a VHS episode of the show), for $19 exactly. I'm getting some amazing deals because these fools that don't actually care about games or their history have completely glossed over a whole set of rarities.
RE: If you collect games, be wary. - A Black Falcon - 23rd September 2021
It is interesting how (relatively) cheap old computer games are. Most people didn't keep them, but those that did aren't getting nearly as much for them as old console games often go for. Actually finding the game is often harder than paying for it, kind of the opposite problem old console games have, heh.
Part of that probably is the hassle of using them -- many need specific old computer hardware to work that most don't have... floppy drives, old PCs, etc. Sure, it's not THAT hard but there is a lot more that can go wrong and make your attempt to use the old game annoying. Some things are easy, others hard; it varies. Classic computer collecting is much more complex than old console collecting in some significant ways, so I do get why it's much less sought after.
As for my favorite console, the N64, yeah, its massive price increase over the last few years has been unfortunate to watch. I was expecting it, since the NES and then SNES had similar increases in years past, but some of those prices have gone up a lot! I'm pretty fortunate to have most of the N64 games I want and have had them for some time now. There are a few more to get here and there, but I have most of the ones at all worth owning.
RE: If you collect games, be wary. - Dark Jaguar - 26th September 2021
The important thing is that you have Buck Bumble. Tuck Tumble... Muck Mumble.... Duck Dumble... Wow there's a LOT of entirely valid words that work with that setup.