Modern rarities?

[theclaw]

Pokemon Box is a bit different. Exceptionally rare North America release to the point of being laughable. Yet common as heck in EU or JP format.

[Sothy]

kinda looks like the modern "rares" are just deluxe editions that cost 200 bux retail because it came with a geiger counter and lifesize blow-up Bea Arthur doll, so that normal people just bought the regular 50$ version of the game.

[portnoyd]

More or less.

[Icarus Moonsight]

What game came with the Bea Arthur sex doll!? Google isn't helping!!!

I'm assuming it would be an Atlus or NIS release?

[Sothy]

I believe it was cooking mama. You could actually use her mouth cavity to marinate pork.

[G-Boobie]

I believe it was cooking mama. You could actually use her mouth cavity to marinate pork.

That makes the whole "Don't worry, momma will fix it" thing read in a much different way.

[ianoid]

Wow, that took a while for the noise to settle. This thread exemplifies why I want to quit spending any time on DP message boards and why I don't want to leave (Portnoyd and Sothy being reasons to stay).

So I think that bonafide rarities are going to be hard to find for the current generations. Development costs and minimum production quantities are too high for very many titles to see less than 10,000 on the market. Whether it's sold at Gameslop or Office Depot or Big Lots, even the budget failures will see a good number hit the market. There has to be a story behind anything with less than 5,000 out there.

And let's remember high prices do not equal rarity. Most folks don't pay for rarity. They pay for games they want to play or collectibility. A preponderance of people paying too much for current gen games that are supposedly hard to get will eventually put those games on the market. The long term collectors are few. The speculators and horders are many. So those of we who keep in the game of collecting will probably have the chance to get most of this possibly rare stuff for the low low prices.

[Kyle15]

The Tales of Vesperia L.E. seems a bit on the rare side. Granted, you can probably find them used in GS if you're lucky, but I've never seen a physical copy before.

[The 1 2 P]

I just found copies of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition(PS3) at Toys R Us. I'm going to list them for "buy it nows" on ebay to see if they sell.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Wow, that took a while for the noise to settle. This thread exemplifies why I want to quit spending any time on DP message boards and why I don't want to leave (Portnoyd and Sothy being reasons to stay).

So I think that bonafide rarities are going to be hard to find for the current generations. Development costs and minimum production quantities are too high for very many titles to see less than 10,000 on the market. Whether it's sold at Gameslop or Office Depot or Big Lots, even the budget failures will see a good number hit the market. There has to be a story behind anything with less than 5,000 out there.

And let's remember high prices do not equal rarity. Most folks don't pay for rarity. They pay for games they want to play or collectibility. A preponderance of people paying too much for current gen games that are supposedly hard to get will eventually put those games on the market. The long term collectors are few. The speculators and horders are many. So those of we who keep in the game of collecting will probably have the chance to get most of this possibly rare stuff for the low low prices.

It's going to come down to the trifecta you've eluded to. When it comes to the "$Monie$ Games" they're going to be the ones that manage to maintain general high playability, desire/collect-ability among gamers and also have relatively lower than usual print runs. It all depends on where supply and demand intersect when the fog clears. Same as usual. What has the potential to introduce some change from the norm...

With the people that game being a growing demographic, the demand side can be affected if some of these people stick with their systems (rather than play Gamestop lick-spittle trade-in monkeys) and convert into our breed to some degree. Producing an incline in demand as an effect. I don't think that many people are counting on a sudden influx of fresh-meat retro-gamers, but stranger things have happened before for seemingly sillier reasons.

[TonyTheTiger]

I just think that people tend to overestimate the number of rare games that actually exist and also how much they tend to be worth.

Ignoring prototypes and homebrews which are in a different class, there are a total of 24 NES games rated R7 and up according to the DP Guide, R7 being the definitive "rare" qualifier. There's about 800 NES games in total. So we're talking about 3% of the NES library is genuinely rare if we take the DP Guide as gospel.

Now let's look at dollar value. Again taking the guide as gospel, there are a total of 14 items worth $100 or more. That drops to 7 if we go to $200 or more.

That means we're talking about 2% of the entire library that's both rare and of substantial value.

Let's look at the SNES.

We have about 20 items R7 or higher. About 5 items worth over $100. 2 worth over $200 and one of those happens to be a Japanese game.

There are about 720 SNES games in North America. About 2.7% of the library is rare with less than 1% worth anything significant.

I know the DP Guide is of limited use for monetary value since it tends to lowball things but I don't think these numbers will change all that much even if we use Ebay pricing. The number of games passing the $100 mark are few and far between with the $200 mark being pretty much a once in a blue moon kind of thing.

Now lets look at a more current console like the Gamecube. There are about 640 Gamecube titles across all regions. Using similar numbers, let's be generous and say 3% of the Gamecube library is an R7 or higher and worth over $100. That means about 19 games.

Let's be even more generous and say that every one of those games is worth $200. That's $3800 minus the initial investment of about $50 per game if you bought new. So the net gain on just those games is $2850. Let's say you buy used and get good deals on all of them for $25 each. Now your net gain is $3325.

What this means is under the absolute best conditions in this fantasy land with a higher than normal number of rare + valuable games in addition to every one of them being valued at $200, plus a speculator being granted the power to predict the future and spot each and every one of these games the absolute best result is going to net a little over three grand. Given that this is a fantasy land scenario, the actual results will be lower. Considering that the average hourly wage in the U.S. is $18, that amounts to less than a month's salary for the average American.

To summarize, under the absolute best conditions, Gray's Sports Almanac kind of conditions, a speculator stands to make less than a month working at your average American office or pretty much the value of a large plasma TV.

There's a reason we can count the huge games that get mentioned at CNN.com on one hand. They don't just have a story behind them. They have the story behind them. Or they're just games that got lucky and happened to be in the right place at the right time which is bound to happen two or three times out of thousands upon thousands of video games.

Now if somebody is going for a fullset then obviously everything I've said doesn't apply to them. But those people tend to be few and far between. Whenever I see people talk about rare titles they seem to be interested for the $$$$ potential.

[Bojay1997]

I just think that people tend to overestimate the number of rare games that actually exist and also how much they tend to be worth.

Ignoring prototypes and homebrews which are in a different class, there are a total of 24 NES games rated R7 and up according to the DP Guide, R7 being the definitive "rare" qualifier. There's about 800 NES games in total. So we're talking about 3% of the NES library is genuinely rare if we take the DP Guide as gospel.

Now let's look at dollar value. Again taking the guide as gospel, there are a total of 14 items worth $100 or more. That drops to 7 if we go to $200 or more.

That means we're talking about 2% of the entire library that's both rare and of substantial value.

Let's look at the SNES.

We have about 20 items R7 or higher. About 5 items worth over $100. 2 worth over $200 and one of those happens to be a Japanese game.

There are about 720 SNES games in North America. About 2.7% of the library is rare with less than 1% worth anything significant.

I know the DP Guide is of limited use for monetary value since it tends to lowball things but I don't think these numbers will change all that much even if we use Ebay pricing. The number of games passing the $100 mark are few and far between with the $200 mark being pretty much a once in a blue moon kind of thing.

Now lets look at a more current console like the Gamecube. There are about 640 Gamecube titles across all regions. Using similar numbers, let's be generous and say 3% of the Gamecube library is an R7 or higher and worth over $100. That means about 19 games.

Let's be even more generous and say that every one of those games is worth $200. That's $3800 minus the initial investment of about $50 per game if you bought new. So the net gain on just those games is $2850. Let's say you buy used and get good deals on all of them for $25 each. Now your net gain is $3325.

What this means is under the absolute best conditions in this fantasy land with a higher than normal number of rare + valuable games in addition to every one of them being valued at $200, plus a speculator being granted the power to predict the future and spot each and every one of these games the absolute best result is going to net a little over three grand. Given that this is a fantasy land scenario, the actual results will be lower. Considering that the average hourly wage in the U.S. is $18, that amounts to less than a month's salary for the average American.

To summarize, under the absolute best conditions, Gray's Sports Almanac kind of conditions, a speculator stands to make less than a month working at your average American office or pretty much the value of a large plasma TV.

There's a reason we can count the huge games that get mentioned at CNN.com on one hand. They don't just have a story behind them. They have the story behind them. Or they're just games that got lucky and happened to be in the right place at the right time which is bound to happen two or three times out of thousands upon thousands of video games.

Now if somebody is going for a fullset then obviously everything I've said doesn't apply to them. But those people tend to be few and far between. Whenever I see people talk about rare titles they seem to be interested for the $$$$ potential.

Probably the best post I have ever read on the topic of "rare" games.

[skaar]

Probably the best post I have ever read on the topic of "rare" games.

I agree. Tiger wins.

[Griking]

In order to know that "virtually nobody playes 2D shoot 'em ups anymore", wouldn't you have to know "virtually everyone that plays video games?" You must have access to the vast compendium of video game knowledge past and present with a guarantee like that.

Just sayin'.

My guess is that the developer would probably disagree as well. Nobody makes games that they don't at least believe people will buy.

[g00ber]

PS2 - Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence Limited Edition

http://shop.ebay.ca/?_from=R40&_trks...All-Categories

If you want to gauge pricing for games on any number of platforms, and their going rates, try:

http://www.videogamepricecharts.com

[portnoyd]

With 14 copies up at any time, you'll have no issue picking it up. It's not rare.

And VGPC is run by JJGames, a member here (some would say with questionable motives).

[TonyTheTiger]

Another issue is that the market tends to be really fickle, even as far as "rare hunters" and speculators are concerned. Just look at Mana Khemia 2: Alchemic Art Collection, a special SKU of Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy.

Rosenqueen (now NISA Online Store) is selling a special edition of Mana Khemia 2 that was limited to 2000 units. They've had 500 units remaining for the past year according to their old site. Nobody wants this thing even though 2000 units probably qualifies it as actually rare. Not even speculators want to touch this.

[Oobgarm]

Another issue is that the market tends to be really fickle, even as far as "rare hunters" and speculators are concerned. Just look at Mana Khemia 2: Alchemic Art Collection, a special SKU of Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy.

Rosenqueen (now NISA Online Store) is selling a special edition of Mana Khemia 2 that was limited to 2000 units. They've had 500 units remaining for the past year according to their old site. Nobody wants this thing even though 2000 units probably qualifies it as actually rare. Not even speculators want to touch this.

But is really a limited edition? Or is NISA just throwing a bunch of gashapon and/or other leftover Japanese crap in a box along with a copy of the game that you could just go buy at retail? They've been known to do that often, thereby not making it a really "limited edition", more like "here's a bunch of extra shit to get you to buy it from us".

[portnoyd]

But is really a limited edition? Or is NISA just throwing a bunch of gashapon and/or other leftover Japanese crap in a box along with a copy of the game that you could just go buy at retail? They've been known to do that often, thereby not making it a really "limited edition", more like "here's a bunch of extra shit to get you to buy it from us".

It's limited only in the sense that they put a concrete number on the production total. :P

Rosenqueen is the perfect example of pandering to an audience. They know there is a stable of idiots like us who will buy anything under the pretext of it being hard to find and/or expensive in the future. They just keep shitting stuff out but it seems the well is starting to run dry. I know I gave up after the first Mana Khemia.

In some ways, it's no different than homebrew/repro releases with "limited editions". While genuinely limited, they are made specifically for the purpose of making the creator more money by creating rarity out of thin air.

[General_Murdock]

My English is not perfect but according to Bojay post, with less them 4k you can complete a NES collection ? or SNES collection ?