Retro game prices on Ebay
Is it me or has anyone noticed that auction price values on retro video games for any system has gone up in the last 3 yrs?
Snatcher fetched anywhere from $100 to 150 three years ago. Now it is $200-250.
A lot of SNES completely boxed games havegone up $50.
Super Metroid used to be around $50. Now averages around $90-100
Wonder why that is. Your thoughts
Just search here for ebay and prices and you'll find tons of threads. And no, you're not the only one, hundreds of people on various forums, this one included, have made the exact same observation.
It's supply and demand, simple. More people are getting into collecting thanks to their own nostalgia bolstered by seeing some of these rare titles at the ever increasing number of classic game shows around the world or YouTube videos.
Oh boy, the Supply and Demand Trap.
Wrong!, is because of the Speculator Epidemia we have now, and resellers, scalpers and even scammers who make counterfeit repros of games like Eartbound.
I got Super Metroid for 20 on BIN I think in 2009. I thought that was steep. TMNT Turtles in Time for 15 or 17 BIN. Won an auction for Atari Jaguar with 13 games a few good ones for 65 in 2008 I think. Im floored to see how everything went up so much. Im glad I started hoarding years ago. I blame it a lot on those guys with game chasing videos showing the value worth and what they paid for.
That's part of supply and demand. The supply is limited and the demand from resellers is great.Originally Posted by Gatucaman
Now if we're talking about the "Buy It Now" or high startig bid type sales I'd agree but for those actual auctions that get the big bucks, that's the bidders that did that. If someone wants it bad enough, they'll pay. All back to supply and demand.
Seems like there are more of those type of sellers than the actual auctions themselves.. jacking up the going price about 40%. I think it was quite the opposite a few years back. Hmmm.
Demand creates scarcity and leads to rising prices over time?
THE HELL YOU SAY?!
New Comics for the Week of 10-03-12
At least everyone can benefit fro Ebay by selling there stuff on there. A "mom and pop" video game store was at a video game convention with over priced garbage, asked if they would take a trade for my NES Contra and $5 for Space station silicon valley n64. He said he only gives $5 for contra so sssv would only cost me $20 instead of the $25 it was marked. Fucking people.
You're another in a long line of people who have caught on to the abuses going on in the old game market, and in particular with Nintendo stuff, though TG16 wasn't spared either yet so far.
There's nothing singular to blame on it. The trendy shit over the last five years to bring 8/16bit graphics up as an art form has made things a curiosity to the younger and a reminder to the kids of that time. You have those in their 30s/40s now who grew up with the stuff wanting to chase a memory or treat it like comic and card collecting of decades earlier. We have this shitty economy that's not being helped by the scumbag in chiefs policies which turns people even more who are unemployed, underemployed or just underpaid to alternate sources of income to pad the books. Economy or not, the popularity got there enough it pulled the dregs and shitheads of society out in droves who want to pray on the uninformed, impatient and stupid people to rip them off blind playing off desires and memories. As mentioned, you have the popularity of Youtube with all these assholes bragging about their cheap finds videos talking up the hundreds in value for pennies to the dollar, or the poorly acted attention whores like Pat the NES Punk, AVGN and the Mike Mattei flushing out games into the public eye driving demand. And all around that, it's simple economy of supply (which isn't being increased) and demand (which due to all that shit above and more) getting higher, so we all suffer for it.
It happened before if you were a kid in the 80s/90s having comics and baseball cards wrecked. Same stuff with stores opening up all over, people raising prices inching it into the more well offs pockets to the detriment of the child who that stuff was targeted to, and it imploded. The stuff always in time will implode to a point and re-correct itself where the real rarities have value, and the rest get set down back on the bench of reality. But that's another topic, when/if the bubble or whatever you want to call it may or may not pop and how.
All I know is this bullshit drove me largely away from old games and selling off shit I don't want to use anymore, yet due to the awful prices I do keep some stuff had it been still worth $20 I'd ditch. If it wasn't for my recent discovery of the unique games in style and substance on the Famicom I would be a lot less happy about it than I am now. If you know my ebay account or read on NA you'll know I've been parting with a good bit of stuff in the last few years.
Karma you're also right about the 40% (or whatever) bump and a few years ago compared to now how sellers acted. Sure there were always rare games and their prices were justified like Little Samson(Lickle) was an easy $100 even going back 5+ years beyond what the video game price chart website shows, but notice I think it was maybe 3 years back now the game shot up more than double the price in months, under a years time, and if you track it back to ebay you can see this pissing contest of people with the gotta have it mentality and greedy resellers feeding those idiot beasts and it never fell back again after that. All it takes is some tipping point to trigger it and a game can go nuts in a matter of a week. Another one you can look up would be Zombie Nation on NES too which went crazy from cheapo obscurity.
Last edited by Tanooki; 04-23-2014 at 09:49 AM.
Well said tanooki. That explains it. Its a combination of all those things. I've been out of the game collecting loop for several years now so when I finally got back on it, I had to shake my head at some of the prices. I'm sure the bubble will burst at some point.
I don't think I could ever find a great deal like I did when I got sealed copies of Cosmic Fantasy 2 and Exile for TG-16 at $5 a piece..especially not in today's overinflated market.
Anyway since I'm a new member I can't post in the marketplace forum yet. If anyone is interested I have an eBay auction for Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition - Everything excluding the game. Starting bid @ $.99, and ends in less than 9 hrs. Only for the true collectors and those wanting to upgrade their existing standalone copies. USA buyer's only
http://m.ebay.com/itm/261458614999
or if the link doesn't work..
Look up item #: 261458614999
Sorry..shameless advertisement. just wanted to get it out there to as many interested collectors as possible.
Tanooki generally has it right. Interest in retro gaming increased just as the peer group started entering their 30s, similar to comics and baseball cards, and attracted the same resellers. This has been further exacerbated by ebay changing its listing policies to too heavily favor BIN. You should notice that there are very few actual auctions for retro stuff anymore, everything is BIN high price. There are pages and pages of the same stuff BIN for the same price because ebay doesn't charge for unsold BIN listings anymore, so there's no incentive to actually get the item to sell for a lower price. Sellers just keep it up hoping someone is impatient. Of course, even when there is an auction, they don't start at 99 cents anymore, usually at just under a BIN price, and then you have to worry about shill bidding. It's a big mess. The only real hope is a crash, which can be expected with any collectible community.
I bought Metroid with manual and box (the box had been cut up and pasted in a rental box since the owner's father ran a rental business in the 90s) for $45, auction one year ago. This was after it had already gone up about 100% from a about 6 months prior, when it was around $20-30. I guess it went up another 100% in a year's time. None of these prices are sustainable.
Another game: Golden Axe Warrior for Sega Master System. I bought it BIN for $20 in 2006. I didn't get around to playing it until I actually bought a SMS this past October (I just had a Power Base Converter until then). I posted about it at videogamecritic.com, and many replies remarked about how it was so rare and expensive... I checked, it was around $150! This is madness!
Last edited by Gentlegamer; 04-23-2014 at 03:01 PM.
Holy shit, it was just $50 two years ago!
Wow Golden Axe for that much? I sold it off for around $40-50 a year ago now. It was flat for a very long time, guess the SMS in select rarer cases is starting to get screwed too, but most Sega systems have a few that do that but a great majority are ignored playing back to Sega's treatment of their base and running them off.
I have no idea why I forgot to throw ebay under the bus in that thread of mine. They're largely the problem because if they were still pay to post the prices would be more accurate and lower because people would have to scratch and fight to get something. I'll admit I post a higher value, no incentive anymore not to whereas before that I started stuff at a dollar to five bucks just under the increase in price tier. I'm just slightly less filthy because I look what people pay at open auction and BIN, then start the stuff under what like condition sells and a BIN sadly too high after the greedy jerks made the 10% margin into 30% between start/bin.
Late last year I did a search confined to the US market, NES only, no other variables and I found the totals to be 85% BIN only items, the other 15% started at a level and did or didn't have a bin because that's how their filter breaks it up at the top of the listing of auctions per page. As it is I fall into the 15%. What I find mind blowing is that even with my score and account age, almost nothing of what I put up sells the first or even second go around. Lately getting rid of stuff due to this bs 'market' I've had 20+ items up for a few months now and I'll be lucky if 1-3 items sell while ebay store stoolies and the big feeder trolls like playeva and dkoldies who have a 30% mark up over reality sell in shittier condition. I can squarely blame moron mentality on paying more.
this is my first time selling on ebay and wanted to test the waters. wonder if it was a mistake setting the starting price at .99 cents and set the shipping cost at half price for buyers.. I like those 99 cent auctions where the bidders dictate price instead of the buyer setting the starting price almost as high as BIN price, there's no fun in that.
I know it's GTAIV.. big deal, and the set isn't complete..just missing only the game but the set is in great shape. if the auction ends at $2.75, i'll be paying the rest of shipping cost out of my pocket and not even make a $0.01 profit on it. I don't expect to get back much from it maybe $7 at the most but at $2 that is kind of insulting..probably better off not selling it lol
someone will be getting a good deal from it and who knows might even resell it next week for BIN price of $50 and make more profit than me.
i noticed there were similar auctions in the last two months, their starting price was $19.99 and ended up selling for $25-35 and buyer had to pay higher shipping cost so they probably spent $50 altogether. and one other BIN auction that sold the exact same set for $41.. i guess my auction was a little too generous and cheap.
good will and karma will only get you so far, and the price gouging sellers will continue to prosper.
The ironic thing is the guys who try to sell their stuff for outrageous buy-it-nows often end up selling for less than those who start their auctions at $0.99 because more people watch and bid on smaller starting auctions. It's science!
As to the growing cost of retro games, it's mostly due to the increased awareness of these games and the culture due to the popularity of youtube game reviewers, some of whom rant about these prices themselves even though they indirectly contributed to them (I'm guilty of this myself).
As a seller, it's so damn risky though to just put something out there at 99 cents and hope the bidding goes your way. I don't sell on Ebay anymore because of this. You have to have outrageously priced BINS to try to cover all the fees. That's all you see on Ebay now. BINS. That's why prices are so much higher. Ebay / Paypal started charging too many fees, and sellers are too afraid to end up losing money, so everybody has to overprice stuff.
It's a vicious cycle.
Also, Ebay is so anti-seller, and pro buyer, it's ridiculous. Sellers have to account for scamsters that take advantage of Ebay's guarantee policy.
There is something else affecting the value of SMS games, sort of. It used to be that nobody cared about the system except for serious collectors, only US games were selling for real value for completionists who needed US copies for a complete collection, European copies or Canadian copies of most games were near worthless or worth around $5 complete. Now most people buying SMS games don't seem to notice a difference or care about having Euro copies, they're selling for a decent amount as well. Now that Euro copies aren't dirt cheap, nothing is holding back prices on US copies, everything is rising in price.Wow Golden Axe for that much? I sold it off for around $40-50 a year ago now. It was flat for a very long time, guess the SMS in select rarer cases is starting to get screwed too, but most Sega systems have a few that do that but a great majority are ignored playing back to Sega's treatment of their base and running them off.
It's basically down to demand like everything else, it's just that with SMS games it really used to matter which versions of the games you had. Euro games were more common in Canada and those were always dirt cheap, now they're selling like US copies. People aren't noticing a difference between them anymore. It probably helps that there's no difference with the names of the console(unlike the Genesis and Mega Drive), the carts all look physically the same, and they're all just as compatible with either region as a whole.
I'm not exactly sure why people are looking more favourably towards the SMS now, the games were cheap because few people cared about the system. It used to feel like a crappy loser next to the NES. Now it's feeling more "nostalgic" than it used to. Even for me, and I used to hate it except for a select few games. It's sort of like how people are warming up to the Gamecube when it was the third place loser when it was current.
Are there different versions of Golden Axe Warrior? When I added it to my collection at RFgeneration, someone messaged me about buying it, asking if it had the UPC sticker on back. It doesn't, and I noticed it doesn't have any SEGA of America copyright on it, just SEGA Enterprises LTD.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
