Amazing Island (GC) New normal? Young collectors / speculators; or GD influencers

[monsterG | 17]

What causes a $20 game to spike to $100 in less than a month? I used to see this game top around $20-25 CIB less than a month ago.

Then it hit me, maybe somebody on Youtube covered it. Sure enough, there's someone with 10 million subscribers, whom I never heard of nor have seen their thumbs pop up while browsing, as having covered the game in the last month. People are such guppies. 

While there are a little over 10 copies available now, 17 sold in the last week at this new platinum on a pedestal price. I think it's a lack of patience--the microwave generation now microwaved a thousand-fold is the cellphone-3G-whatever generation. 

If it's young speculators, how smart is it to price high when so many copies are available? This is like what happened with PS3 last year, specifically games like Puppeteer. That was a bargain, clearance-sale, $10 game which slowly rose to $20. Dozens of copies jumped $100 overnight. 

Guess what? Some sellers became impatient with the stagnant market or obtained their copy way cheaper and did not mind selling Puppeteer for $80, $60, or $50. I guess in the course of this rant, I realize it's just something gamers have to learn over time and probably won't listen to an older person's advice about artificial inflation.

[Gloves | 11,843]

It's best to keep an ongoing list of the games you're looking to pick up. Always add to it.

Often all it takes to get me on ebay is someone saying "this game is fun!" on a youtube video, so I can see it. We don't all know every game out there, and playing games that are old yet new to us is exciting cuz you never know when you might find a new favorite.

Sometimes I see a video and go "OH I remember that game! I wonder if it's a reasonable price right now..." and I can't be the only one. I think it's just natural. 

[GetTheGreg | 105]

2 minutes ago, Gloves said:

It's best to keep an ongoing list of the games you're looking to pick up. Always add to it.

Often all it takes to get me on ebay is someone saying "this game is fun!" on a youtube video, so I can see it. We don't all know every game out there, and playing games that are old yet new to us is exciting cuz you never know when you might find a new favorite.

Sometimes I see a video and go "OH I remember that game! I wonder if it's a reasonable price right now..." and I can't be the only one. I think it's just natural. 

Having played roughly 5 hours of this game for nostaglia purposes just last month - this game won't be anyone's new favorite anytime soon haha.

Very funny to see it spike up, though.  A game I've never heard anyone ever think twice about.

[Tanooki | 4,953]

Well if you're right about it not being a good true favorite, once reality hits price should self regulate, at least outside of sealed copies because that one right now it about as stable as an arkham asylum resident.

 

I remember that game, remember it being disliked and fairly panned by people in general when it came out on the cube.  Problem is, the cube is one of the most nasty environments right now to buy in with volatility and spikes for any level of the game from loose to part to complete to sealed so there is no good explanation.  Maybe given that badness going on, the video maker did it on purpose to scare the value higher so they could dump it when they feel it could peek, like stock manipulators will do.

[monsterG | 17]

I hate to say it, but these influencers definitely affect the market. Scanning through the person's other videos, I see one mention Fossil Fighters (DS) in the title and show the logo in their thumb. That video corresponds exactly with a spike recorded on VGPC, starting in Feb 2020. 

I don't know what the magic number is: 100, 1K, 1M, or 10M subs, but there is a measurable effect on prices when these somebodies say anything about a game. That Fossil Fighters games has not dropped and continues to rise in price.   

 

All aboard the hype train!   

[G-type | 2,539]

yup... influencers in comics do this too. a big channel does an episode on a comic and every copy suddenly gets snatched up and the price spikes.

[phart010 | 1,708]

It’s also easy to manipulate the price of games. All it really takes is like 10 bogus sales to set the new market price on eBay. Someone could literally have bought 10 copies of an uncommon game, listed it through a few different accounts and had friends bid the price up to $100.
 

Then whenever people go to organically sell a game they look at sales price history, see the past 10 sold auctions and proceed to list theirs at that price. 

[Tanooki | 4,953]

Influencers have been ruining game prices for a decade now about purely doing it for personal self interest and financial gain.  The largest early one you can find, you tube it, would be when cinemassacre starting to gin up hidden gems and did one that had Hagane among others for SNES.  A game no one would drop more than $10 one went to like $400 over night, never retreated which VGPC line graphing can back up with a 10 year setting.  That was the standing racket to mess with the market, but it played out, now we're dealing with the double dealing behaviors the heritage/wata thread is beating to death at the moment as it's screw tactics 2.0.

[Sumez | 2,995]

@monsterG why are you changing the font of your posts? I don't want to derail this too much, but it makes it much harder to read than it should be.

[AnimalHouse | 117]

This topic reminds me of Bioshock Infinite Wata 9.8 A+ listing that sold on HA several weeks ago. Not sure if bidders (not gamers) confused this game for the original or the sudden popularity from influencers? caused the price to skyrocket but the ungraded version is widely available on ebay less than $15s.

[monsterG | 17]

On 8/25/2021 at 10:33 PM, Sumez said:

@monsterG why are you changing the font of your posts? I don't want to derail this too much, but it makes it much harder to read than it should be.

Really? I thought monospaced type font is more legible. That's one reason newspapers use them. It gives my posts a unique voice, the voice of the op, so it's clearly understood who is "talking" without needing to reference username or icon and most importantly without being overly dramatic such as using Comic Sans or the SEGA font.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

47 minutes ago, monsterG said:

Really? I thought monospaced type font is more legible. That's one reason newspapers use them. It gives my posts a unique voice, the voice of the op, so it's clearly understood who is "talking" without needing to reference username or icon and most importantly without being overly dramatic such as using Comic Sans or the SEGA font.

I don't think it makes it easier to read.  But I'm also not against you changing it.  It adds a bit of personality to your posts.  It'd be annoying if everyone did it, but for one or two people, whatever, who really cares.

I think the question was asked as a serious inquiry though, not as anything saying "don't do this."  I say if the option is there, use it, have fun with it, and express yourself

As for the actual topic, this has been asked countless times in the last 15 years or so...pretty much at the point of the Angry Nintendo Nerd (before James realized that he'd have to go multiplatform to survive long-term).  He'd put out a video, prices on the game(s) covered would spike, etc.  Rarely did those spikes last, so if anything, sell your copy now and buy it again cheaper later on when shit settles down.  But yeah, with more people doing YouTube videos, these kinda spikes are more frequent than ever, but they rarely result in a lasting price hike.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Also, if anyone wants to pay a massively inflated price, I happen to have a sealed Puppeteer

[guitarzombie | 927]

We should call when some influencer/popular person pumps up again (willingly or not) the Sky Kid effect.

[GetTheGreg | 105]

EDIT: Ignore me.  I see OP said this already but didn't link the source material.  Well, here's the video as well if anyone actually cares haha.  I still don't recommend anyone actually pay for and/or play this game:)

So I think I randomly found the source of the Amazing Island boom.  Video was released Aug 8.  6.6M views.  July price: $19.98.  August Price: $44.51    Just using the numbers on Price Charts.
 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Maertens29

[guitarzombie | 927]

I'm always baffled by people who have millions of subscribers and i've never heard of em.

[Californication | 1,490]

On 9/8/2021 at 9:41 PM, the_wizard_666 said:

Also, if anyone wants to pay a massively inflated price, I happen to have a sealed Puppeteer

Sealed!

[Tanooki | 4,953]

So a troll video perhaps seems to have helped cause word to spread and double the price of Amazing Island?  Sounds like more of the trend cinemassacre started when they caused Hagane and others to get ugly like 9-10 years ago and it's a shame people haven't caught on to the manipulation.

[twiztor | 855]

@monsterG

it doesn't bother me, but your posts are impossible to read with the Dark Mode theme activated.

[LinkLoZ | 13]

On 10/2/2021 at 6:02 AM, Maertens29 said:

EDIT: Ignore me.  I see OP said this already but didn't link the source material.  Well, here's the video as well if anyone actually cares haha.  I still don't recommend anyone actually pay for and/or play this game:)

So I think I randomly found the source of the Amazing Island boom.  Video was released Aug 8.  6.6M views.  July price: $19.98.  August Price: $44.51    Just using the numbers on Price Charts.
 

 

 

Holy shite, is she also responsible for Fossil Fighters Champions on the DS going up!? She has a vid from last february on it and sure enough the spike was later feb/beginning march.

[GetTheGreg | 105]

5 minutes ago, LinkLoZ said:

 

Holy shite, is she also responsible for Fossil Fighters Champions on the DS going up!? She has a vid from last february on it and sure enough the spike was later feb/beginning march.

haha damn, I would greatly assume so, then!  All it takes is a wave of new interest to immediately drive price up, especially when we are only talking about $20 to begin with

[goldenpp72 | 1,237]

Part of collecting for all of us at some point is discovery. This is made worse by people who like to collect just to collect who go against people who might actually really want the game, so you have a combination of speculative buyers vs people who find out about a fun game, often through the same source, and it can just create a big impact that has an everlasting impact. In my mind, all fun games that are obscure are prone to this problem, it's just a matter of people going on the hunt. It's why I try to generally be secretive with what I'm hunting unless I'm dealing with sellers since my list is actually very curated despite how large it is.

In the end, it's all about knowledge, taste and timing. People who are just getting into things now are going to be in for a very unpleasant run, at least most of us can recollect on the good times

[Hammerfestus | 3,891]

0/10 illegible font in dark mode.  Would not read again.