Retro Game Price Gouging Thread

You can easily make an authentic looking 1:1 clone of a game case.

PS1 manuals are a bit harder but the binding is easily replicated if you have the right materials and equipment.
 
Wow I had no clue the prices had spiked like that. Just out of curiosity, what do you think I would get now had I hung on to the GameCube I sold back in like 2008?

Black GameCube
2 WaveBird wireless controllers
2 Wired controllers
1 Third party controller
2 Memory cards

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Pikmin
Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
Def Jam: Fight For NY
Super Mario Sunshine
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
Burnout 2: Point of Impact
Spider-Man 2
FIFA Soccer 06
NHL 2005
Madden 2005
Freeloader

I even found the picture I used for eBay lol (I sold the wavebirds and whatever games I could separately before listing the rest).

I think I got around 200€ for everything back then, but unfortunately that e-mail address is lost to time.
Hard to say... Nintendo prices for yuropoor products can be even WORSE than US ones, believe it or not, and i'm not immediately familiar with them.

What i can tell you; the gamecube, one controller and like a memory card, + Paper mario alone are worth more than what you got for the entire lot now. Def Jam, Mario Kart, Wavebirds, Sunshine, Pikmin and Harvest moon are also some very good gravy on top.
 
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Hard to say... Nintendo prices for yuropoor products can be even WORSE than US ones, believe it or not, and i'm not immediately familiar with them.

What i can tell you; the gamecube, one controller and like a memory card, + Paper mario alone are worth more than what you got for the entire lot now. Def Jam, Mario Kart, Wavebirds, Sunshine, Pikmin and Harvest moon are also some very good gravy on top.
So you're telling me is this is just like that time I gifted my friend 7 BTC I had "lying around" in my wallet?
 
I forgot about that.

The Dreamcast version is a classic, even getting re-releases and cameos in other Sega games, I don't really know anything about the sequel, and rarely hear of it.
there is legit nostalgia for that stuff,
Maybe, but is it enough nostalgia to justify the high price?

To expand on what I said, I own a game called Gotcha Force. It was a mediocre Pokemon knock off with toys instead of animals, and button mashing circle strafe combat. So imagine my surprise when a few years ago retro gaming collectors said it was one of the best games on the GameCube, or at least the game the most valuable game they own. I doubt there's much nostalgia for Gotcha Force because nobody played the thing, and because it is a sub par pokemon clone, but because it's rare and collectable, now it's taking centre stage in people's GC collections.

MUSHA is my go-to example because no one had heard of this game back in the day, at least where I live. I only heard of it after it became a rare collectable. At which point it was also given the status of "best game on the Mega Drive". It's like how Eldar Scrolls was only known by hardcore RPG nerds until it went mainstream with Oblivion, but everyone and their dog claims to have been playing since Daggerfall. (I just used the same example in another thread. Weird coincidence.)

I thought that was a joke about the CRT TVs. Who is buying these 30 year old nicotine stained TVs for $150?
I remember reading in another thread there was a YouTube trend where people were saying CRTs were "lost technology" and were paying exorbitant prices for them.
 
I remember reading in another thread there was a YouTube trend where people were saying CRTs were "lost technology" and were paying exorbitant prices for them.
Slight power level but I live in the rural US. I can think of at least 5 places within 15 miles that you could get a CRT TV for at most $20. All it takes is a little leg work and you can easily find one near you for $10. I'm sure they are even easier to find in metropolitan areas where hillbillies don't use them for target practice. I can't imagine the shipping costs on a 75 pound TV.
 
Maybe, but is it enough nostalgia to justify the high price?
supply and demand, how many cartridges are still around? so you get people buying them as "investment" and other stupid shit.
besides that people pay a lot of money for retro stuff right now, it's just priced accordingly, same reason an unknown little strider clone called run saber is listed for the same price as musha (doubt people really want it that much, it has a kickass soundtrack tho).

To expand on what I said, I own a game called Gotcha Force. It was a mediocre Pokemon knock off with toys instead of animals, and button mashing circle strafe combat. So imagine my surprise when a few years ago retro gaming collectors said it was one of the best games on the GameCube, or at least the game the most valuable game they own. I doubt there's much nostalgia for Gotcha Force because nobody played the thing, and because it is a sub par pokemon clone, but because it's rare and collectable, now it's taking centre stage in people's GC collections.

MUSHA is my go-to example because no one had heard of this game back in the day, at least where I live. I only heard of it after it became a rare collectable. At which point it was also given the status of "best game on the Mega Drive". It's like how Eldar Scrolls was only known by hardcore RPG nerds until it went mainstream with Oblivion, but everyone and their dog claims to have been playing since Daggerfall. (I just used the same example in another thread. Weird coincidence.)
know what you mean, but this is nothing new. back when I was playing counterstrike, around beta 5 I suddenly met a lot of people who claimed "bro, I've been playing since beta1" - nigga back then there were 3 servers in the whole country, it's statistically impossible for all of you to have it played back then. of course they didn't know cs_desert nor about the shenanigans involving not-despawning weapons between rounds. never understood the notion to make shit up to proof how much of a "fan" you are (but them I'm not a stupid consumer either who wears nirvana shirts but doesn't know who kurt cobain is, so that thing isn't limited to niche circles for "nerd cred").

as for musha, aleste had 7 releases in 5 years, and that doesn't include other games by compile released around that timeframe. someone must have played them, same way there's probably stuff I don't know (or even remember) which had their own fanbase who remembers it.
"best game" is relative, lot of cult classics these days were outright bombs back then - nostalgia, marketing and public conscience are a weird thing, plus people are retards who like to regurgitate "opinions" about shit they have no clue about, most couldn't even tell what makes A better than B if it would hit them in the face.
not saying musha is the best game ever, but there must be a reason at least I remember it and the series got so many games (although gotta admit I better remember robo)
 
What does everyone think, is this a bubble and now's the time to sell off your unwanted retro junk before it pops, or will prices continue marching up to infinity?
I think it's a bit of both, probably something of a bubble, but with inflation I suspect it won't pop too hard from a cold numbers standpoint.
 
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This has gotten really bad in the last couple of years but I started to notice scam artists in the retro selling community starting about 2010. I personally know of someone who had hundreds of copies of Conker's for the N64 for the sole purpose of driving up the price. And that was just one I knew of who else is doing something like that?

It used to be that the actual physical games were not that bad unless they were truly rare like stadium events which I never cared about, and the people who just wanted to play the games would emulate them and leave us retro gamers alone. At some point it became a hipster thing and so-called investors have started to ruin the hobby with it. I know several people who are like this - they don't ever play games anymore alot of the time.

I think YouTubers have done the most damage, retro consooming about HIDDEN GEMS and there are a lot of viewers that will just buy whatever they're told.

I'm glad I have 99.9% of what I want and I mainly just buy custom carts for Homebrew that are coming out.
 
What does everyone think, is this a bubble and now's the time to sell off your unwanted retro junk before it pops, or will prices continue marching up to infinity?
Dump it and use the cash to have a good time, friend.
 
I'm glad I have 99.9% of what I want

You guys know that you can just download a "gamecube pack" from GazelleGames or Torrentleech that have every game ever published and they run at an 8x internal resolution in Dolphin far surpassing anything you could achieve on original hardware, right?
 
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Pokemon secondhand market before was pretty terrible but after the lockdowns I swear shit like HeartGold went from around $100 to $700+. Like I get people want legit copies but it's fucking Pokemon, one of the most common games to buy secondhand. At this point I just keep bookmarks for certain searches just to see prices reach insanity levels, one time I saw the fucking boxes sell for $500.

It also sucks trying to sell games now, I use the typical price checking sites and try to keep the prices reasonable within range, but shit just sits there because of course nobody is gonna buy the $20 sports kusoge despite everyone else selling it for the same price. But if you price too low people assume it's broken or lowball.

You can easily make an authentic looking 1:1 clone of a game case.

PS1 manuals are a bit harder but the binding is easily replicated if you have the right materials and equipment.
God imagine people selling cases only and it's just printed paper.
 
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I remember gamestop selling me a bootleg copy of Conker's bad Furday as official and I didn't realize it until months later that N64 bootleg carts were of much higher quality than the GBA ones and other known easily copied games. It was right when they first started coming out and only until I read a story about Gamestop not checking the legitimacy of their products in their retro program did I bother to go back and check everything.

I mean the game played perfectly and not all N64 carts had the same style of Nintendo logo on the back since finer cart details changed from year to year. Especially since the n64 bootlegs were able to refine the Nintendo Seal of Quality and match the ESRB logo much more exactly.
 
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You guys know that you can just download a "gamecube pack" from GazelleGames or Torrentleech that have every game ever published and they run at an 8x internal resolution in Dolphin far surpassing anything you could achieve on original hardware, right?

Some of us prefer original games. I also own a player piano that plays music I can listen to for free; I just like old tech. Also, I don't collect gamecube at all, I mainly do 8-bit stuff from when I was a kid.

Re: Bootleg games. I never saw bootleg N64 games, but GBA it was absolutely out of control. Probably at one point close to half of the games out there were pirated. And it wasn't even rare stuff, I remember years ago when I was looking at the entire library of GBA games, there were 10 dollar games no one cared about where the majority of the ones on ebay were fakes. In my experience, the pirates can almost never get the labels right, and usually don't try. They get seals/country codes/minor text wrong.
 
Some of us prefer original games. I don't collect gamecube at all, I mainly do 8-bit stuff from when I was a kid.
You're free to prefer whatever you wish. I'm just saying that the objectively best way to play these games isn't with original hardware. Not only is the emulation frame-perfect these days but the graphics look a hell of a lot better, the framerate never dips and you can have additional features like quicksaving if that's what you want (or not, you don't have to use them if you want the original intended challenge (but you have the option)).
 
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What does everyone think, is this a bubble and now's the time to sell off your unwanted retro junk before it pops, or will prices continue marching up to infinity?
I know I'm repeating the question, but I don't know. I think it's a bubble, but I don't think it will pop. It'll just stop growing. New old-games aren't being made, and they're easy to store, so scalpers can just sit on the inflated price until eventually someone buys it.

You're free to prefer whatever you wish. I'm just saying that the objectively best way to play these games isn't with original hardware. Not only is the emulation frame-perfect these days but the graphics look a hell of a lot better, the framerate never dips and you can have additional features like quicksaving if that's what you want (or not, you don't have to use them if you want the original intended challenge (but you have the option)).
I would say the best way to play them is as they released. While I can play Goldeneye with mouse aiming, HD textures, and 60 frames a second, but I don't know if that makes the game better. HD textures on low poly models tend to be ugly, and mouse aiming doesn't feel right and the game wasn't designed for it. 60fps is nice, but in some games like Resident Evil 4 and GTA Vice City, that can mess up the physics.

And even "perfect" emulators can have bugs, like one PS1 emulator I used that would not play the music on some games, and as for N64 emulators, forget it.
 
I know I'm repeating the question, but I don't know. I think it's a bubble, but I don't think it will pop. It'll just stop growing. New old-games aren't being made, and they're easy to store, so scalpers can just sit on the inflated price until eventually someone buys it.


I would say the best way to play them is as they released. While I can play Goldeneye with mouse aiming, HD textures, and 60 frames a second, but I don't know if that makes the game better. HD textures on low poly models tend to be ugly, and mouse aiming doesn't feel right and the game wasn't designed for it. 60fps is nice, but in some games like Resident Evil 4 and GTA Vice City, that can mess up the physics.

And even "perfect" emulators can have bugs, like one PS1 emulator I used that would not play the music on some games, and as for N64 emulators, forget it.
Actually new old games are being made, depends on how popular they are, but officially sanctioned reprints or special edition versions are made years after the fact.

There are still official printings of PS1 games that happen. Shadow Tower was one of those games that got new small batches of it made.

There's also stuff released on newer formats like HD releases.
 
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I know I'm repeating the question, but I don't know. I think it's a bubble, but I don't think it will pop. It'll just stop growing
We've had bubbles before, there was one around 2012 with NES games (which are now starting to see 'too old' to some), and I think there will be another with the covid bubble. Alot of these collectors are short term and are quick to drop games.
 
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A more apt comparison would be like a volcano eruption. There's not going to be a sudden pop, per se, just a very gradual cooling on games(though the legitimately rare ones will remain pricey imo). "Too old lmao" remains to be seen as to whether or not it'll apply to the more timeless stuff like snes, but it could be argued that the new generations would just ignore physical altogether.
 
Slight power level but I live in the rural US. I can think of at least 5 places within 15 miles that you could get a CRT TV for at most $20. All it takes is a little leg work and you can easily find one near you for $10. I'm sure they are even easier to find in metropolitan areas where hillbillies don't use them for target practice. I can't imagine the shipping costs on a 75 pound TV.
Honestly the people that pay extortion prices for crt's deserve it to be honest. It's especially stupid cause most of those crt's are pretty small. Nothing will ever beat having one of this big fucking crt's that took like 3 people to move though. Playing war of the monsters for ps2 on that was the fucking tits. That's the only crt worth paying more than $30 for.
 
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