Game Hoarders on Ebay???

[turboexpress]

this thread is not about people showing off their stuff. It's about getting opinions and possibly evidence of hoarding activity to raise prices on ebay. It's not a conspiracy or anything if some people understood the question wrong....anyways moving on....

Scenario: For example (lets take any game, I don't know exact prices but lets take Mario 3 just for example).

1. 50% of Mario 3 Buy it Now and auction ranges are established on Ebay. Let's say 50% of All Mario 3's are $20. So now you get this situation where the world just has the other 50% to play with, which is the open percent.

2. The open 50% lets say 25% of that are retro game stores and they also have their market prices based on hood, area etc. So after that you just have 25% to play with.

3. Lets say of the 25% left, 24% are inside actual collectors collections, NOT FOR SALE...

4. 1% left to play with...here is where anyone has that 1% chance of getting that Mario 3 for under certain price lets say that $20 on ebay.

You get where I'm going with this???? I think they are all screwing with us.

[Rickstilwell1]

I heard a rumor on facebook that some repro maker is buying every single copy of Cheetahmen II that he can find on ebay so people feel forced into buying his repro of the game instead of the original. Has anyone heard about that? At least Cheetahmen II is a game that is not worth playing.

[bb_hood]

I heard a rumor on facebook that some repro maker is buying every single copy of Cheetahmen II that he can find on ebay so people feel forced into buying his repro of the game instead of the original. Has anyone heard about that? At least Cheetahmen II is a game that is not worth playing.

Anyone with half a brain is not gonna want the cheetahmen repro.
The original is really rare. A repro made a few years back aint rare, and the people who made them can just crank out more if need be. The game itself sucks, so why would you pay 50$ for it?
Its just a crappy game hyped-up by the angry video game nerd. It doesnt deserve to be reproduced.

[Tanooki]

I remember that story, pretty sure it just is a story, but it wasn't someone random. It was the guy who made the original so that he could charge for those expensive new copies and collectors bundles he bankrolled. I remember some commentary and griping about that over at NA years back. No idea if that's true or not.

[homerhomer]

Why i think the prices are going up.

1. Everybody has internet everywhere and it makes it very easy price check games
2. Retro gaming is growing, hell there's retro inspired movies this summer
3. Reality tv shows making people think retro games are worth a mint.
4. Youtube has a tons of retro video game shows ( and growing )
5. Ebay tells you if you selling your item for to little.

and probably hoarders too

[jm-9]

There are definitely people hoarding to make a profit. In fact, I think it's not particularly inaccurate to say that at this point, a significant proportion of people who buy retro games, particularly Nintendo games, are doing so to make a profit in the future. This is quite often either the sole or at least the primary motive. Many people describe themselves as collectors, but in reality should be described more as investors. I saw a thread on Nintendoage a few weeks ago that asked if people would still collect if their games would be worth nothing in the future. Many of people who responded would be totally uninterested if they couldn't make money. This has been a huge problem for the last few years, and the starting point can, I think, be pinpointed to the 2010 sale of Stadium Events for $41,000 (even though the sale didn't go through). That made people think that NES is worth money, and brought hoarding resellers into the market. It only got worse from there.

As has been noted above, one person hoarding games will not make a difference, but many people hoarding games can make a significant difference to the price. The hoarders' investments are paying off now, but the question must be asked, what will happen if people are no longer willing to pay the asking price?

The intrinsic value of many of these games is not what they are listed for on eBay. The artificial inflation of these games' worth is what makes the current situation an asset bubble. As much as we all enjoy these games, the reality is that retro gaming and collecting (other than for money) is very niche. Most people really don't enjoy the gameplay of NES games, other than maybe the Mario games. Furthermore, the higher that prices rise, the smaller the potential market becomes. The bubble is due to burst, and I think we are near the peak now. Anyone hoarding these games is going to lose a lot of money and will have to liquidate stock at a fraction of what they paid for them. Personally I think the sooner the better.

[Gameguy]

I heard a rumor on facebook that some repro maker is buying every single copy of Cheetahmen II that he can find on ebay so people feel forced into buying his repro of the game instead of the original. Has anyone heard about that? At least Cheetahmen II is a game that is not worth playing.

I heard someone was doing that with copies of Shaq Fu just to wipe out any existence of it.


And that guy with 270 copies of Jurassic Park SNES kept in a refrigerator. I'm assuming to protect them like in that Indiana Jones movie.

https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/...es-collection/

[Atarileaf]

I heard someone was doing that with copies of Shaq Fu just to wipe out any existence of it.

Kinda like George Lucas and the Star Wars Christmas Special

[retroguy]

Kinda like George Lucas and the Star Wars Christmas Special

And the funny thing about that is that that special is precisely the reason he became such a control freak when it came to Star Wars. He let other people do it without any input from him and afterwards he wanted to be sure such a thing never happened again. That's why when he sold his company, he stipulated that he would still have a say in what was done even if the final decisions are no longer his.

[Tanooki]

For a first post jm9 very well said and done. I find it hard to disagree with that as it makes the most sense other than predicting when the bubble will blow as people have been saying peak for a year or two now already and it hasn't blown up in peoples faces yet.

[Casati]

The prices for older systems like the Atari 2600 bubbled because of the limited graphics and gameplay, but I think the NES prices will continue to rise over time due to its close association with 16-bit SNES and later Nintendo consoles. Many franchises started on the NES and the gameplay is actually superior to later consoles for some games such as Tecmo Super Bowl. Moreover, see the list in the previous post about reasons for growing demand such as the abundance of YouTube videos drawing new hobbyists.

From what I've seen on Ebay, it appears there are a lot people who take an investments approach to video game collecting and also hoarders although I'm not sure of the extent.

[camarotuner]

Yes, there are people with the resources to intentionally manipulate collectibles market. My best example is from hockey cards. P.K. Subban (defenseman for the montreal canadiens) his best rookie is the cup arp. Someone very early grabbed up the majority of the 3 color patch variations of that card and is sitting on them. So when one does come to market it commands MUCH higher prices than it would otherwise. So at anypoint he wants to raise funds he puts one up for sale and it'll get gobbled up at a huge premium. So yes it can work but the item has to be rare enough to begin with that you can actually accumulate a large enough percentage that it effects the marketplace.

[Koa Zo]

I've noticed a couple sellers who maintain two accounts and then list the same items at different prices.
One account will list at absurdly high prices, and then the other account lists the same item at a slightly less inflated price - thereby making the appearance of a bargain for the less inflated duplicate listing.

[Tanooki]

That with the hockey card is what the guy with the TG16-US Magical Chase did. He saw there weren't many so he started to buy them all up as much as possible complete and loose, whatever worked. I know a few piddled out when cash was needed and then others who legit did get one before the mass gobbling of it happened too and it drove it up. Manipulation in this stuff isn't by any means easy, but it is doable to a degree.

Primarily the entire problem, all of it, no matter what your need or desire in having the old games is, it comes down to one word on why it went north on the prices -- investment. It's a general term but it captures the mess. You invest to flip, invest to use later to profit, invest to keep it until you don't care anymore or die and hand it down. Before it was a hobby, even if you were invested in it for some reason (usually memories or enjoyment) but now that has taken a back seat to sellers for short term profit investors. It'll collapse in time for a vast majority of it, but anyone guessing when is nuts. Anything of a limited amount that gets spiked historically has had it happen too going back decades.