9.8 A+ Super Mario Bros. just sold for 2 Million Dollars

[Dumars2001 | 164]

6 hours ago, Aatos said:

My personal view on this: still nope!

First of all, it’s only an investment in the sense that buying dogecoin is an investment. No sensible financial institution would probably call it that or recommend it (since actually it’s just a game of hot potato). It’s just speculative.

Second, collecting miniscule subset of  videogames (aka ”popular sealed first print”) might be that (”investment” aka hot potato). Collecting videogames in itself certainly isn’t. There are still thousands of cheap games and even buying the more expensive ones (what constitutes expensive in itself is relative) doesn’t automatically qualify them being an ”investment” (game of hot potato).

Third, very personal opinion here but I don’t think buying 1/nth share on SMB1 in a acrylic box held somewhere counts as collecting videogames either. (Can you imagine in the future some dude coming to you like ”dude, you gotta see my awesome video game collection, it’s crazy!” then leading you to his filing cabinet and pulling out a dusty binder full of these ”shares” neatly organized inside ).

You make a lot of good points and I respect your opinions and thoughts on if video game collecting has evolved into an investment hobby or not these days with the influx of "new" (big & speculative) money rapidly coming into the hobby with each passing day. I guess, I actually fall somewhere in the middle with video game collecting still being a little niche hobby or becoming more of an investing hobby, like cards, comics, coins, etc.

I am seeing more video game videos and articles talking about collecting video games as an investment more than ever and I truly believe a lot of people are buying with an investment approach these days, when buying their games. Just my 2 cents. 

Below are 2 videos (many of these type of videos are popping up now on YouTube, talking about the investment aspect of collecting video games) of a well known card collector (he also has another very popular YouTube channel with almost 12,000 subscribers https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmDo-abIkL9ZtgqyqF68mBA and he just made this new channel to focus on video game collecting) and I have to say that I agree with most of his points in the video. 

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Dumars2001

[Dumars2001 | 164]

7 hours ago, Ricky Winterborn said:

I feel such a sense of gratitude towards my collection. It has the potential to convert into something life changing for my family.  I would like to give the much younger version of me a hug for having the wisdom of knowing to protect these games then for their value in the future.

I love reading these kind of stories. I am very happy for you and your family.

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

The only people who are going to win here are the auction houses and the graders. And the occasional lucky person who has the right game to sell. If you really want to make money from your collection nows  probably the best time to do it. This is not sustainable forever

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

15 hours ago, GPX said:

Can’t argue with the grade and the Mario NES being of genuine rarity. The debate should be the validity of the sale, particularly where it’s a sale on a private site for a select group. It seems quite sketchy, particularly why they haven’t advertised themselves to the general public?

 

i know these people love tyson. Here's a great one right to his face!

i love how you guys think there is this mystery group of masked billionaires when we're all right here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[OptOut | 8,890]

2 hours ago, SealedWholesale said:

i know these people love tyson. Here's a great one right to his face!

i love how you guys think there is this mystery group of masked billionaires when we're all right here

Hands up who's spent a million dollars on a video game?

....

Come on, we're all right here aren't we? No?

Okay, who here has spent a hundred thousand plus on a video game?! Must be TONS of VGSers done that, come on don't be shy, HANDS where we can see em!

...

How peculiar, I could have SWORN we were all right here!

Okay you posers, surely EVERY single person in this thread must have spent at least TEN thousand dollars on a single game? Right?! I mean, ten thousand shit, that's NOTHING right, probably most of us are spending that much on a game twice a month?

...

Oh you guys, so humble! They're just being modest, I'm sure, after all, WE ARE ALL RIGHT HERE... RIGHT?

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

16 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Hands up who's spent a million dollars on a video game?

 

there are atleast 20-60 of these games so we'll know over the course of time if that 1M-2M + figure comes to the market

 

a lot of collectors have SM 64 mint sealed

[OptOut | 8,890]

Just now, SealedWholesale said:

there are atleast 20-60 of these games so we'll know over the course of time if that 1M-2M + figure comes to the market

 

a lot of collectors have SM 64 mint sealed

The "masked billionaires" people are referring to are the BUYERS, bro! Do you see any of them coming around here showing off the FF7 they just bought for a hundred grand with a fruit fly stuck to it? NO, they would be LAUGHED off the site! 

No, the people who are RIGHT HERE are the SELLERS bro! There are a bunch of members here making BANK and I can assure you none of them spent a million dollars on a video game, lol!

I mean could you imagine ACTUALLY spending a million dollars on a video game? Or even a hundred thousand? Or Fifty thousand?  Or ten? It's patently ridiculous, frankly. 

[CorndogSTEVE99 | 157]

Listen up the new butterfinger tastes like garbage, bring back the old butterfinger

[inasuma | 1,203]

12 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

By your logic, Mario Bros. on Atari 2600 should be worth $3,000,000 and it isn't.

 

BuT It iSnT A niNtEnDO coNSoLe

Edited August 7, 2021 by inasuma

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

53 minutes ago, OptOut said:

 

No, the people who are RIGHT HERE are the SELLERS bro! There are a bunch of members here making BANK

i doubt it. regular auction platforms arent showing those numbers

when multiple platforms on multiple grades are 1M-5M that looks like when mint mario is worth  1.5M

[T-Pac | 7,577]

14 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

Wait until you hear how many video games some of the big new investors and dealers have played in their lifetime.

 

14 hours ago, OptOut said:

Is it ZERO?! It's zero isn't it!

 

11 hours ago, Aatos said:

Third, very personal opinion here but I don’t think buying 1/nth share on SMB1 in a acrylic box held somewhere counts as collecting videogames either. (Can you imagine in the future some dude coming to you like ”dude, you gotta see my awesome video game collection, it’s crazy!” then leading you to his filing cabinet and pulling out a dusty binder full of these ”shares” neatly organized inside ).

You know something’s wrong if your high-score in a game is lower than the price you paid for it.

-CasualCart

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

Nothing really surprises me at this point, but this still seems crazy.

[Caliboy24 | 47]

The game sold.. Move on, it is what it is.  50% will agree that the price is warranted, the other half will disagree.  Can't please everyone. if someone wants to spend $2 mil on a video game, so be it. It's their money... Whether it'll be a great investment in the future, who knows. Time will tell.

[Californication | 1,478]

I had no idea sealed wii games are selling in the thousands. 

The Halo 2 graph in price charting is pretty funny too.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Californication

[vb337 | 13]

This is the economic principle of reflexivity at work (wiki: reflexivity refers to the self-reinforcing effect of market sentiment, whereby rising prices attract buyers whose actions drive prices higher still until the process becomes unsustainable).

I don't know when the process will become unsustainable. It could be six months. It could be 50 years. I don't see it happening while video games are such a significant part of the cultural zeitgeist.

The new buyers entering the video game market include large financial institutions and billionaires. These recent prices, which seem unfathomable to gamers, are a drop in the ocean to these folks.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

On 8/6/2021 at 11:21 PM, OptOut said:

 

Rationally speaking there should NOT be only a 33% price premium on a Mario 1 over a Mario 64. It's not rational in terms of rarity, availability, or cultural significance.

Rationally speaking -- I would expect there to be a lot more crypto-millionaires who won that lottery, that grew up on N64 than grew up on NES.

So I would expect much more "irrational pricing" of premium N64 items compared to NES.

[GPX | 1,371]

17 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Rationally speaking -- I would expect there to be a lot more crypto-millionaires who won that lottery, that grew up on N64 than grew up on NES.

So I would expect much more "irrational pricing" of premium N64 items compared to NES.

Rationally speaking, rational no longer exists in the rational state. I think I’ve just confused myself.

[OptOut | 8,890]

17 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Rationally speaking -- I would expect there to be a lot more crypto-millionaires who won that lottery, that grew up on N64 than grew up on NES.

So I would expect much more "irrational pricing" of premium N64 items compared to NES.

Without knowing who the buyers are, it's not possible to know how old the buyers are, where they got their money from, or what their motives are for purchasing these games at such ludicrous sums.

I'm as big of an N64 fan as anyone, but I understand the relative importance and rarity of N64 games when compared to NES.

Whoever paid 1.5 million for Mario 64 is obviously not particularly informed about the items they are purchasing. That much should be obvious to anybody.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

13 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Without knowing who the buyers are, it's not possible to know how old the buyers are, where they got their money from, or what their motives are for purchasing these games at such ludicrous sums.

 

Sure - but if we're talking about someone spending $1MM+ with what we assume is relatively little knowledge/research -- I would think it makes a whole lot more sense that they are some young, dumb, got-rich-quick type of person.

Maybe it's not crypto money.  Maybe it's some wave of high earning sports stars, that in a previous generation would have pissed it away on supercars. Who knows.

I just think it is more likely, than not, that they're too young to have grown up on classic SMB.

[Nintegageo | 582]

On 8/7/2021 at 5:34 PM, Caliboy24 said:

The game sold.. Move on, it is what it is.  50% will agree that the price is warranted, the other half will disagree.  Can't please everyone. if someone wants to spend $2 mil on a video game, so be it. It's their money... Whether it'll be a great investment in the future, who knows. Time will tell.

I agree with your post, except that I do not think 50% agree the price is warranted.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:34 PM, vb337 said:

The new buyers entering the video game market include large financial institutions and billionaires. These recent prices, which seem unfathomable to gamers, are a drop in the ocean to these folks.

I doubt that "Large financial institutions" are spending their time buying a video game for $1MM+ at an open auction.

Because you're right -- it's a "drop in the ocean" to them, and not remotely worth their time to pursue, because it doesn't scale, at all, even if they were right in their valuation.

 

The only involvement "large financial institutions" likely have in the hobby are when private equity buys out an existing company like CLCT.  They're making their money selling the proverbial shovels for the hobby, not participating in it directly.

Edited August 9, 2021 by arch_8ngel

[Caliboy24 | 47]

3 hours ago, Nintegageo said:

I agree with your post, except that I do not think 50% agree the price is warranted.

Yeah I was just throwing a % out there as just an example.  The exact % would be impossible to know. But yeah the majority would disagree. 

[twiztor | 855]

On 8/7/2021 at 11:27 AM, CorndogSTEVE99 said:

Listen up the new butterfinger tastes like garbage, bring back the old butterfinger

 

On 8/7/2021 at 11:28 AM, inasuma said:

BuT It iSnT A niNtEnDO coNSoLe

i really wish the second quote was in response to the first.