Is now a GOOD or BAD time to buy?

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

People might be viewing it wrong.  It's not video games in totality that's a rising and falling stock,  it's each individual game. SMB and Pokemon might crash eventually,  but others will be on the rise. The answer to the question is: both. Good time for some games, bad time for others. 

[doner24 | 1,195]

1 hour ago, AdamW said:

Ah, well, then that's a bit of a different topic! As @Naked Warriorsaid, this was posted in the sealed forum, so I figured that's what we're talking about in the thread.

The market outside of hyped-up sealed games is a different one, with lower stakes and less of a ridiculous recent runup in prices. So it certainly seems less risky in several ways.

As long as the sealed/Wata games collected stay relevant, I.e Nintendo, Mario, Zelda, Pokemon are still industry leaders, I think these sales will continue to rise. More people play video games now, than ever read comics, and the comic collectible market of early releases hasn’t done too shabby. 

[AdamW | 713]

I think some of them will hold value long term. But based on my Pokemon research, I'm sceptical they all will because there seems to be a huge deficit of information in the market. In more mature collectible markets, that's not much of a factor. There isn't a lot comics people don't know about the real high-value comics. Book collectors are not in the dark about whether that copy of Harry Potter or The Fellowship of the Ring is really a first print. They know.

This current hyped sealed game market...not so much. There's a LeafGreen second print on eBay right now which the seller and probably most of the bidders (it's getting tons of bids) think is a first print. Most people still don't know about the "Red text" vs. "Blue text" thing for Pokemon Blue boxes; also I'm currently compiling evidence that some "Sandshrew" Pokemon Red and Blue boxes were printed in 1999, and you can't tell the difference between a 1998 one and a 1999 one from the outside...but the guys who just did a trade that valued a "Sandshrew" Red at $195k didn't know about that.

Heck, at least for SMB, WATA has that guide on their site that most people seem to know about. And AFAIK that's pretty authoritative. But for other games that are starting to get serious money thrown at them...both buyers and sellers seem to flat out not know about a ton of stuff that's likely to turn out to be quite important in the long run.

And as people have long pointed out here...even ignoring finer details of prints, people are paying lots of money for "the only known 9.8 X" or "only known 9.6 X" or whatever. But WATA and VGA still aren't actually posting population reports! I sure would not want to be spewing five or six figure sums around based on assumed rarity of a given game in a given condition without any hard data at all, just "no-one posted another one on Instagram yet"

so, yeah, I do agree that long term, some games will hold extremely high valuations. Probably higher than even that $650k SMB. But I would be worried about trying to be certain which games it will be.

Edited May 17, 2021 by AdamW

[doner24 | 1,195]

6 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I think some of them will hold value long term. But based on my Pokemon research, I'm sceptical they all will because there seems to be a huge deficit of information in the market. In more mature collectible markets, that's not much of a factor. There isn't a lot comics people don't know about the real high-value comics. Book collectors are not in the dark about whether that copy of Harry Potter or The Fellowship of the Ring is really a first print. They know.

This current hyped sealed game market...not so much. There's a LeafGreen second print on eBay right now which the seller and probably most of the bidders (it's getting tons of bids) think is a first print. Most people still don't know about the "Red text" vs. "Blue text" thing for Pokemon Blue boxes; also I'm currently compiling evidence that some "Sandshrew" Pokemon Red and Blue boxes were printed in 1999, and you can't tell the difference between a 1998 one and a 1999 one from the outside...but the guys who just did a trade that valued a "Sandshrew" Red at $195k didn't know about that.

Heck, at least for SMB, WATA has that guide on their site that most people seem to know about. And AFAIK that's pretty authoritative. But for other games that are starting to get serious money thrown at them...both buyers and sellers seem to flat out not know about a ton of stuff that's likely to turn out to be quite important in the long run.

And as people have long pointed out here...even ignoring finer details of prints, people are paying lots of money for "the only known 9.8 X" or "only known 9.6 X" or whatever. But WATA and VGA still aren't actually posting population reports! I sure would not want to be spewing five or six figure sums around based on assumed rarity of a given game in a given condition without any hard data at all, just "no-one posted another one on Instagram yet"

so, yeah, I do agree that long term, some games will hold extremely high valuations. Probably higher than even that $650k SMB. But I would be worried about trying to be certain which games it will be.

Good points, but I’m also heavily into another collectible market where there are population reports available for everyone (sporting cards) and what I’ve noticed is that low population is mostly a marketing term, not something that determines absolute value. It’s still more about the player/card than it is the population of the grade. For example, there are tons of PSA 10 Jordan Rookies, Trout Rookies and Lebron Rookie, but the price keeps rising, because there are still more people that want them, vs what’s available. I don’t think that’s any different than these sealed games of A1 titles. 

[AdamW | 713]

Oh sure, I think that's an important factor too. There's always two sides to supply and demand But it's just the overall picture of huge amounts of money being thrown around in the face of very incomplete knowledge that would make me nervous if I were thinking of buying in. It's hard to point at any one specific issue and say "that right there is why that game won't actually be worth anything in ten years". It's not that clear-cut. It's more just the overall thing. Especially when if you poke around this forum for the folks who are actually experts on any given game or system, they tend to be looking at the sales and going "but...but..."

[doner24 | 1,195]

11 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Oh sure, I think that's an important factor too. There's always two sides to supply and demand But it's just the overall picture of huge amounts of money being thrown around in the face of very incomplete knowledge that would make me nervous if I were thinking of buying in. It's hard to point at any one specific issue and say "that right there is why that game won't actually be worth anything in ten years". It's not that clear-cut. It's more just the overall thing. Especially when if you poke around this forum for the folks who are actually experts on any given game or system, they tend to be looking at the sales and going "but...but..."

Being an expert on a system, and understanding/accepting the market are 2 completely different things. I agree, there are risks to these prices, but my point from the beginning is that there is in anything, especially the stock market. There are plenty of people speculating/investing in these collectibles for future purposes, but just like cards and comics, there is also a group of people buying them to “buy back” their childhood, and don’t care much about the pricing. 

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

This is a weird question because it is wholly inherent to your own bias.

 

For me it's simple. Games I want to own, I save up until I can afford them. I might get lucky and find one for cheap or I might not but that doesn't matter. I can pay retail for a game and find it for half price the next day, I'll buy that copy also and flip it.

As far as investing, other people here would give better advice on games as vehicles for wealth.

One thing you and anyone can invest, however, is time. If I'm buying a game to flip it, it doesn't matter one bit what the price is. I'm looking for 30% (or less, of course) under market, hoping to make bank at retail price. But this means scouring classified ads, yard sales, flea markets, collector circles, hanging out in certain shops building rapport with the employees/owners. It also means gaining a bit of knowledge about what items will sell and how to make the most of them. I would'nt buy NHL/NFL/PGA/NBA games if they were a dime each. Well maybe I would just to keep the cases if they're clean lol.

tl;dr if you buy cheaper than you can sell you will make money given the appropriate amount of time and effot and that's a guarantee.

Edited May 17, 2021 by WhyNotZoidberg