Look at these prices...unreal right ?

[a_profile_name | 230]

So I wanted to buy pokemon yellow this month, and I was ready to say bye to like $30, which is the price I saw a couple of weeks ago. But now shitty copies go for $55 and nice copies go for $70. WTF?

I also looked up pokemon blue, same prices. This is insane, I bought a copy for $30 one month ago, and even then it seemed too high.

[Nesmaster | 402]

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

31 minutes ago, Nesmaster said:

Time to panic!?

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

Here's my own contribution to the what-the-hell pile: 

 

[Strikezone1 | 154]

$833 for Power Blade 2 cart only. Crazy. This game has really shot up in price.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Those pokemon prices are undeniably stupid.  I've got some duplicate/triplicate copies of some of the original carts and stuffed them up all on ebay.  They I think all sold other than one copy of yellow and red.  I asked closer to what @sg17 was basically wanting ($40 vs $30) to drop on them with the not as nice stickers they have, and I guess that's why they flew, because I wasn't going to be a thunderc**t about it and demand $50+ and potentially get it from the right panicked idiot.

I mean hell given the rates, the sticker is top faded from thumbs on it over time, but I could drop it a bit more to like $35+shipping.

[A_Feisty_Pickle | 244]

10 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Here's my own contribution to the what-the-hell pile: 

 

Best of Playstation Network, Folklore, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Puppeteer, Lollipop Chainsaw, Tales of Xillia 2, Tales of Graces F are all mid tier titles that have jumped past week or two. None as bad as your example though. Glad I knocked my PS3 games out already lol. 

[snes_collector | 56]

I don’t have much to add, but I think I understand how a lot of the old school collectors felt in 2009. This is just mind blowing all across the board for me. Seeing games I remember in stores when they were new sell for $100s or $1000 is just hard for me to wrap my head around. 

I’m basically completely priced out of the hobby with the exception of picking up new games, and I have came to terms with that.

[MegaMan52 | 2,445]

 

I believe a loose copy of Diddy Kong Racing is worth about $20-$30 U.S., or $30-$40 CAN. I also came across a loose copy of the PAL version for this much: 

 

 

So we've got two loose copies of DKR here that are only in "good" condition. Include shipping and import charges (at least in Canada), and it would cost close to $100 for the American copy and over $200 for the PAL copy. Now compare these to a CIB copy of the Japanese version in "very good" condition:

 

 

I know it isn't exactly uncommon to find Japanese versions of games for less, but dang...that's quite a difference.

Edited April 6, 2021 by MegaMan52

[Jono1874 | 144]

5 hours ago, snes_collector said:

I don’t have much to add, but I think I understand how a lot of the old school collectors felt in 2009. This is just mind blowing all across the board for me. Seeing games I remember in stores when they were new sell for $100s or $1000 is just hard for me to wrap my head around. 

I’m basically completely priced out of the hobby with the exception of picking up new games, and I have came to terms with that.

Give it time. I've been priced out of this hobby like 6 times already and things always change that whether it's my earning capacity or a drop / change in interest.

I think it will all stabilize. Don't give in to FOMO.

[Doctornick | 419]

I'm actually contemplating getting rid of a ton of stuff at these prices.  Real estate is much more tempting at this point than certain games I probably won't play again. 

[Tanooki | 4,933]

This high tier level of stupidity is actually something that used to infuriate me, but now I'm finding humor in such waves of idiots doing payout stunts like this like it's a deal or even a smart choice.

I've got stuff I won't let loose because of this, but damn I have some 2nd/3rd tier stuff that's looking pretty tempting.  Probably 6mo ago I looked at my pc engine stuff, which is far less than it was just before the dumb virus, so I can only imagine how it has shot up.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

14 hours ago, Doctornick said:

I'm actually contemplating getting rid of a ton of stuff at these prices.  Real estate is much more tempting at this point than certain games I probably won't play again. 

 

I'm looking for DK Math, FFF:AW, Chubby, Bonk's, Zombie Nation, and the big Taito 5 (F2, BB2, PB2, Panic, Samson) as long as they're all complete. Exception for Chubby, FFF:AW, and DK Math if they're half decent boxes with in tact hangtabs.

Maybe not all at once though...

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

14 hours ago, Doctornick said:

I'm actually contemplating getting rid of a ton of stuff at these prices.  Real estate is much more tempting at this point than certain games I probably won't play again. 

Do it! Start with games you don't have much attachment to and don't think have a significant jump ahead of them. I paid off a 10K car loan in 2 months by only selling a handful of CIBs and I didn't even touch my bank account. I am also thinking of throwing some bigger titles up so I can potentially buy some land or a new (to me) 2nd car.

[Doctornick | 419]

8 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

 

I'm looking for DK Math, FFF:AW, Chubby, Bonk's, Zombie Nation, and the big Taito 5 (F2, BB2, PB2, Panic, Samson) as long as they're all complete. Exception for Chubby, FFF:AW, and DK Math if they're half decent boxes with in tact hangtabs.

Maybe not all at once though...

Haha unfortunately NES would probably be the only untouched system, also a DK Math box, you honor me .  I mistakenly dumped that years ago for a handful of N64 CIBs 

[Doctornick | 419]

8 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

Do it! Start with games you don't have much attachment to and don't think have a significant jump ahead of them. I paid off a 10K car loan in 2 months by only selling a handful of CIBs and I didn't even touch my bank account. I am also thinking of throwing some bigger titles up so I can potentially buy some land or a new (to me) 2nd car.

That's honestly what I'm thinking.  Certain games that I can always go back and enjoy are never leaving.  But do I care about Super Bowling, Sculptors Cut, stuff like that... I'm not so sure anymore due to what the hobby is becoming  

Edited April 8, 2021 by Doctornick

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

23 hours ago, Doctornick said:

I'm actually contemplating getting rid of a ton of stuff at these prices.  Real estate is much more tempting at this point than certain games I probably won't play again. 

Thats how i was. I cut loose almost all of my disc based stuff, and other stuff I knew was valuable but was hanging onto for fear of them not being worth more. 
 

Then I said fuck it, listed like 20 things and turned around 2k real quick. It was WAYYY easier for me after that Granted I still have more stuff than normies would imagine, but It felt good to focus my collection. 

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

 

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

7 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

 

Ive purposely have been avoiding looking at game prices for most things until Im actually back to actively collecting carts again. I keep hearing about the high prices but WTF with that Emerald. I figured “high” was like $80-$100 not near $200 for a loose pokémon game

[RH | 4,903]

3 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Ive purposely have been avoiding looking at game prices for most things until Im actually back to actively collecting carts again. I keep hearing about the high prices but WTF with that Emerald. I figured “high” was like $80-$100 not near $200 for a loose pokémon game

I got $80ish for an Emerald back in November. That was before round 2 and 3 of covid bucks so, I was a little surprised at that screen shot, but then after a second... not really.  Pokemon has gone insane.

[a_profile_name | 230]

Here is the trend I'm noticing: it looks like the prices are jacked up the most for games that were moderately expansive to begin with. There are a couple of games I've been looking forward to purchase one of couple of gb/a games that used to sell loose for like $40-$60 and I try to limit myself on purchases like these, which are the top of my personal price range. So I wait a lot before any such purchase and make them infrequent. Now I was looking to see if maybe I'll buy one of them and all of these games I wanted jumped 50% to 100% which is ridiculous.

On the other hand, anything that was reasonable (or almost reasonable) before (i.e. $20 or less for loose gba games) stayed the same. Was there some kind of stimulus money in the US or something? It looks like one day all the people got up together and made purchases they were holding off... At least that's what I make of this situation, were the more pricey stuff gets even pricier, and the rest stays unchanged.

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

21 minutes ago, sg17 said:

Was there some kind of stimulus money in the US or something? It looks like one day all the people got up together and made purchases they were holding off... At least that's what I make of this situation, were the more pricey stuff gets even pricier, and the rest stays unchanged.

Yes, there was a $1200 stimulus that went out a year ago, and then another one (was it $1400?) that went out a month ago. Plus, with people being stuck at home during lockdown, not spending their money on vacations and going out, and the federal government propping up every industry possible via the Paycheck Protection Program, a lot of people were able to move their money into buying collectibles just as the video game collecting hype was building considerably. So suddenly you had a steady stream of people posting "look at everything I picked up in the past month" and it's like, piles of stuff as opposed to the handful of games you used to see. 

There was already a rush to buy up sealed games when the Wata / Heritage hype was building... I remember an article maybe 1.5 years ago about a retro games store owner who was discouraging his customers from buying every sealed game in sight just because they were cheap. Then COVID lockdowns hit and people started buying up consoles and games as a way to keep their kids and themselves entertained while stuck at home. Which was surprising to me... all these people didn't have the stuff already? But I've heard from people that they did just this - they went and bought a bunch of stuff as soon as they got the news that they would be stuck at home for an extended time. 

Then with people not wanting to trade in their games at used game stores and a whole summer of garage sales / flea markets / etc basically not happening, "perceived scarcity" seriously set in. Not just retro games stores, but online sellers and even GameStop were struggling to find supply to keep their inventory up. I remember going to GameStop stores 8 or so months ago and being shocked at how the shelves for used games were almost empty. 

Anyway I could go on and on but there's multiple factors that made this mania possible. 

Also, yes it's expensive but also high-demand stuff that has gone full rocket emojis, but also even cheap stuff has gotten a little more expensive. You might not notice it because it's still in a whatever-price-range, but some games that used to be $10 are now $15 or $20 and some games that used to be $20 are now $30 or $40. 

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I started watching the stupidity of pokemon buyers once someone tipped me off to what the original generation games had hit, but also crystal, and then gba emerald last year.

Things have split and diverged even more (worse, depending on taste) because now even games where the damaged original sticker are ripped off and replaced with a nice new clean similar if not cloned sticker get more cash than a battered or sticker-less copy of a pokemon game because they want their expensive purchase to look pretty too.

I tested the waters a bit in the last month as I had a small stockpile of red, blue, yellow I put up and one blue was naked, the other like the reds and yellow had some variable of sticker wear towards the top, and I had a silver with a small ripped out on the right bar side of the label gone.  It like phased no one.  Stuff people would have been crappy and picky about a year ago because it wasn't shiny and purty were getting pretty high (30-40) values on those.  My faded blue someone BIN'd for the minimal 30% price boost so it was around $50!  All I did was put new batteries I already head into each one evening where I heated up the iron and did the whole lot of them.

I hadn't seen emerald get well over the $100 mark, that's junk, last I saw it was $80+.  And if you're not just a fan feeling the burn, but a rabid one, collector level of fine goods, it's asinine if you take a dip into sealed, not just graded sealed, but just sealed.  Pokemon Gen1 can buy you a car at this point, used, a few years old but still in great shape, but a car none the less.

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

Even tangential Pokemon spin-offs are expensive now. Pokemon Art Academy is pushing $100.

And collectors are starting to drive up the price of Japanese DS Pokemon games now too. 

[a_profile_name | 230]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I started watching the stupidity of pokemon buyers once someone tipped me off to what the original generation games had hit, but also crystal, and then gba emerald last year.

Things have split and diverged even more (worse, depending on taste) because now even games where the damaged original sticker are ripped off and replaced with a nice new clean similar if not cloned sticker get more cash than a battered or sticker-less copy of a pokemon game because they want their expensive purchase to look pretty too.

I tested the waters a bit in the last month as I had a small stockpile of red, blue, yellow I put up and one blue was naked, the other like the reds and yellow had some variable of sticker wear towards the top, and I had a silver with a small ripped out on the right bar side of the label gone.  It like phased no one.  Stuff people would have been crappy and picky about a year ago because it wasn't shiny and purty were getting pretty high (30-40) values on those.  My faded blue someone BIN'd for the minimal 30% price boost so it was around $50!  All I did was put new batteries I already head into each one evening where I heated up the iron and did the whole lot of them.

I hadn't seen emerald get well over the $100 mark, that's junk, last I saw it was $80+.  And if you're not just a fan feeling the burn, but a rabid one, collector level of fine goods, it's asinine if you take a dip into sealed, not just graded sealed, but just sealed.  Pokemon Gen1 can buy you a car at this point, used, a few years old but still in great shape, but a car none the less.

I was planning on playing Leafgreen this summer and now it's like $100+

Guess I'll wait for next summer lol

It might take some time for prices to drop but I really can't imagine it being sustainable at these prices