sp1nz

26 minutes ago, LostLevel83 said:

There was a Neo Geo game that we played on the arcade cabinet in Burger King (!!) back in the day. It was a first-person perspective and you could see your arm and knife when you moved room to room. 

I’ve tried to figure out what game it was and if there is a port of it, but with no success.

The Super Spy (1990) Arcade?

3 hours ago, RH said:

Unfortunately, when we get to the point where there are more of them than us, they will be setting the market prices and we will be the "silly" ones.

If clueless people will create most of the demand and pay whatever insane prices the sellers are putting out, then the new normal also means the games you got for cheap can be sold for insane price. It's not going to be sustainable though, hypechasers at large tend to get bored of x thing in a few years, a few will turn into long time collectors and investors shouldn't be so stupid to not scout the market before investing in it. Even the investor types are paying insane prices for weird items and undervaluing some other significantly more worthy items - many of them don't know what they are doing but it's affecting the market big time. There are many players that are making big bucks by hyping the market up, if you aren't long time sealed collector you shouldn't invest on something without population reports. Something like Pokémon is extremely common to uncommon max (for some prints I suppose) for the mainline series in non-sealed form and yet stuff can pull 4 figures. These two pictures from eBay's video game section speak volumes about the market: 

• Nostalgia (the spark I started my collection on).
• Love for the hobby - I turned 33 recently and been gaming for 29 of that.
• The dopamine hit of discovery and purchase. You could say I became addict when I had more money to blow and a hole to fill in my life, at least it wasn't drugs or something but the addiction part has lessened over time anyway.
• Physical items being tangible things that you own and not just digital files or rentals.
• I must have the collecting gene - I always had small or big collections of something since young age like games, pins, coins and cards, though I don't think I viewed them as collections at the time and even offloaded / lost / stopped caring about some.
• Something to work towards and learn about in my spare time. I also like fiddling with my spreadsheets.
• Having a library I can pull almost anything out of to play, admire or get lost in a manual (naturally those with the bells and whistles and not just a ton of text in multiple languages).

1 hour ago, twiztor said:

the most i've spent on a single game is like $250. i can't really imagine that there's a game that i want so badly that i'd break that anytime soon.  My original goal was to get all the games i wanted as a kid and complete my favorite series (i.e. i had Mega Man 3 and 6, so i needed 1, 2, 4, & 5). Sure, i'll never own a legit Samson, but i've accomplished what i set out for and SO MUCH MORE. 

a hard price cap doesn't really work though. if you have always had a $100 limit, what you can get now vs. 10 years ago vs. 20 years ago are astoundingly different. the market changes, your life and financial situations change, and you learn about things you never even knew existed but now have a lot of interest in. 

Maybe a bit contradictory to say "I'll never own a legit Samson" and "a hard price cap doesn't really work", of course it's on individual and situational basis but the modern prices are harder pill to swallow when you've lived through the way cheaper past prices. Also getting richer doesn't mean you should get rid of your money at a faster rate and getting poorer means you definitely won't prioritize video games out of all things. My limit is high but it keeps me humble and sure there are items that cost more than my cap but I rather spread the money out than get one 5 figure game. I've made peace with never getting specific really cool items, maybe even below my cap, but I'm open to breaking the cap if I see something that makes me go awooga. There are games I bought nearly 10 years ago that I wouldn't buy today that freely and I'd accept that I'm either being priced out or not interested to that extent - so many things I own have appreciated a lot, even when I already paid prices I considered quite high and that were usual market prices of the day.

On 4/19/2021 at 6:43 AM, Tanooki said:

He has a good point there, you're robbing yourself the easier and more halfassed hand out style of play you attempt.  At some point, sure you saw the end, but you beat nothing, it was handed to you.  Which leads to the other good point, spamming endless saves and on those Nintendo CEs, using the rewind each screw up, it means you did nothing, but cheated your way to the end.  There was no challenge, no victory, just an extreme use of the old rental store credo... be kind, rewind.

Indeed. Still I think a lot of the opinions on this rise from the wording and how people perceive the exact wording. For me the savestates / rewind etc. is "going through the game" but not "beating it", playing on default settings with no assists or cheats on original version is as devs intended (and the default settings are what they set up, no matter how easy or hard) and "beating it", and 1cc or no death just because you consider each life as a arcade quarter you put in or whatever is "mastering it". The arguments were made that "game over" is final, even with continues existing - people are free to think that, even more so in games with infinite continues but I don't think "to beat" carries the same weight for everyone, it's just the basic form of cheatless victory to some. But when you go to the options and change settings or make your own set of rules for what constitutes a completion or use modern digital / emulating / cheat engine perks then that's custom difficulty, even in the more challenging clears. Thinking that all games have to share the 1cc or no death to be just be beaten is just an opinion, just as much as the people who savestate and rewind their way into "victory" thinking they're on equal footing with their clear. I do have different levels of respect for different levels of clears and I expect the same towards my clears - merely going through a game any means necessary is like getting a participation award, sure it's called an award but everyone who tried got it. It's not skin off my back and I'm happy when someone has fun with their games (even if they don't like to be challenged) but some people think about their participation awards as gold medals.

When Sam & Max Save the World was released on Steam I read some reviews and couple negative reviews said that the dev team marketed the script as unchanged up until launch and then came up with that excuse of a statement. Like Tabonga said, if it's not a big deal, why change it? They made it a point to say it's unchanged but somehow forgot that they did change it - right.

Well gravity can bend vinyl albums when stored sideways, so it could technically bend game discs over long time but probably depends on how much the disc is elevated on the spindle in any specific case. I checked some PS1 game that's been stored sideways in its case for years and didn't see any curve on it but those cases don't really have free space to bend into. I'm not too worried on the smaller size discs like CD/DVD/Blu-ray but my goal is to store them upright in any case.

The prices in real auction houses are real of course but it's more interesting to think about who the current buyers/sellers are and why. Who is to say whether it's genuine interest, cluelessness, money laundering, market manipulation, racket or whatever else - at least to me it seems like it didn't rise from organic demand but Wata/HA marketing quickly turning into twisted perception + all areas of collecting being hot due to American circumstances. The market prices aren't nearly settled and the generated hype of HA or even Pokémon cards has affected CL and eBay anyway, so it's no surprise if the prices are comparable when people are FOMOing all over, since who knows when the market settles or corrects itself. It's a fact that there are random collectors and investors who are sitting on shipping cartons or accrued stacks of certain sealed games and are trickling them into the market, waiting even more or just want to keep them in their collection. Without population reports and even with them, you can't predict the absolute rarity nor expected value at the current time unless you are someone who has been into sealed collecting before it was hot and knows about the movement of shipping cartons and singular sealed items within the market.

Sega Saturn is my pick.

10 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

A Sega Genesis Sonic 2 Wata 9.8 just sold for $21,600 (crazy high amount of money for that game!) on April 2nd at Heritage and a Sonic 2 Wata graded 9.4 sold for $5,520 on November 22nd, 2020. Yes, I know that everything in the hobby has supposedly gotten much crazier since late last year, but then I see a Sonic 2 Vga 85+ currently for sale on Ebay for $5,000 or best offer that hasn't sold yet. I know it is VGA, but you would think if a WATA 9.8 sells for almost $22,000 that someone would buy this copy and cross grade it with WATA and probably get at least a 9.6 and possibly the same 9.8 grade that just sold for $21,600. The buyer of the VGA 85+ copy, then could theoretically sell it at Heritage and make a huge profit from buying this VGA copy. How come nobody has bought it?!

With the Wata turnaround times, even if you knew you could make money right now, could you be so sure about one year from now? Either people are only being hype about Wata grade numbers and not understanding VGA scale in comparison or sealed specialists are expecting a market correction for the item before they could get their submission back to profit on. I guess people wanting to add a sealed Sonic 2 into their collection don't see that kind of value in it, neither do I but I'm no sealed collector either.

12 minutes ago, goldenpp72 said:

I define rare kind of based on who I'm talking to, like I don't consider Shantae rare, but it's rare in contrast to the demand and thus valuable. An odd one for example is Dragon Fighter on the NES, I bought that for like 30 bucks, according to GVN it's worth much more now, similarly stuff on the Saturn or N64, I think I spent on average of 20-50 bucks on most of that stuff and sprung big time for like.. Bomberman Second Attack which is worth far more now.

I suppose my logic is, if I end up with 50 games vs 1, and any number of them shoots up in price, I made the right move overall. A lot of what I own now was 'junk' to the common collector back then, now apparently my collection is 'prestigious' despite still missing those super rares, just because some peeps decided they want those games now.

Being ahead of the curve is really the best way to be, but if you can afford to nab those supers on the way too that's the best way.

 

My mistake, 19 American Keio CIBs in 2020 on GVN.

Yeah being ahead of the curve is the best way to put it, you can't be ahead of the curve if you buy what EVERYONE buys and don't buy the future spikers instead - I get a feeling you're very similar to me in what kind of games you collect and how widely you collect, so many games that we have bought are the kinds that tend to spike, mix of rare-, highly rated-, in demand-, hidden gem- and revered series- games and lot of that is just from having a wide taste and wanting the games that are weird and interesting instead of just some flavor of the month hype games. Also absolute rarity and supply rarity are of course different beasts but both mean price increases, if the demand exists.

1 hour ago, goldenpp72 said:

I personally feel gobbling up all the common stuff was the wise move to make for me. In hindsight I still never got a few of the super rares such as Little Samson, but I ended up spending low prices on games that also became very expensive. Stuff like Shantae which I spent 300 on, or Keio for Sega CD about the same, have increased 5-10x over where as the super rares, maybe they doubled, but I ended up with dozens of those games that blew up vs like, 2 games.

Depends on your scale but Shantae and Keio could be called rares, on my scale they fit around R6 (semirare) and R7 (rare) - GVN (not that you can trust it) shows American Little Samson CIB at 8 sales in 2020, Shantae CIB 8 sales in 2020 and Keio CIB 19 sales in 2020. In some circles the term rare means that only handful exists globally, so there's that. I bought mint CIB Shantae for AU$600 and PAL CIB (no spine card) Keio for £69.99, so I had my eyes on those early too even though they weren't as supply rare back then and were expensive enough already. I probably should've said the kind of items that are "undervalued" in terms of their rarity, future potential or how good they are on my mind but "most common and modern" games should still be lower on your list of time sensitive buys than "rarest of a platform", if you are after the rares for any reason. How you can, should or will go about it of course depends on many different things . But still leaving actually rare items 5 or 10 years into future is dangerous on your wallet too. While I have some great games for the NES I didn't go hard enough at it early on and now it has bitten me in the ass. Bottom line is that you should be alert on games that have eyes on them and you want, even when they're not absolutely rare or too rare at all.

17 minutes ago, goldenpp72 said:

A big part of collecting is choosing your battles. For me box condition is important as I display it, the carts and manuals should be at least pretty good but I can live with small stuff, and I rarely care about the other stuff unless it's like a cool map or something. That's part of the fun though, to establish your priorities and see where you can get to. I always knew I only wanted games I found interesting so going for Boxed/Manuals too added to the challenge, though I was surprised just how much I wanted in the end.. That's why it's good to have restrictions, you'll inevitably go beyond some goals as you learn about stuff and if your goal is just 'everything' it will become nearly impossible.

13 minutes ago, GPX said:

Choosing your battles is the key here. Some fields of collecting you can set limits where other fields you simply can’t if you want to delve deeper. There is no right or wrong, just make sure you pick a battle that you can “keep on fighting” (but still enjoy).

I thought more about what makes collecting hard and I think "choosing your battles" is a big one. When you have a ton of games you want, if you buy the most common and modern games first it'll bite you in the ass. I always had rares in mind first, so they don't become problematic at the end of a set. Obviously you still can't buy every rare for every system right away and you want to keep your eyes open for the good deals on commons and good games too. So it's goals, opportunity costs and order of operations that combine into this choosing your battles idea. Also gaining knowledge could be called hard, especially if others are stingy about sharing or you just don't ask.

5 hours ago, PrimeNL said:

Thanks for all this info @sp1nz! I thought I was almost there with my list

So for my list:

"Sports Illustrated: Golf Classic" change name to "Golf Classic"

Remove Klax
Add Crystal Quest
Add Quarth
Add Darkman
Add Hit the Ice
Add Robocop 2
Add The new Chessmaster
Add Lock 'n Chase
Add Tumblepop

Tom & Jerry has 2 covers/titles I guess yes. It's Der Film for Germany for example

Yannick Noah, is a FRA release, it's a cover variant indeed of Jimmy Connors, but it has a different code tho: DMG-JC-NOE vs. DMG-AYNP-FRA

I'm still not sure about super Off Road, and The New Chessmaster. Can you confirm they exist as a European release?

I'm not considering AUS releases in my list.

 

Your list already had Golf Classic but remove the extra yeah. Quarth and Crystal Quest are -USA coded except the manuals I think, so it's debatable if one wants to count those but they were at least sold in Germany in the olden days. Klax I'm not 100% if it exists or not but it was never on my radar, it was not on RetroCollect full set list when the site was still online and I didn't find any online proof of a round seal version with a quick search. GameFAQs does list Klax having European release but that info doesn't always hold true either, like the site having Jimmy Connors code same on Yannick Noah, while it apparently isn't the same code as per your proof. There's at least the title screen and the cover celebrity difference but not sure what causes the code change. I have variant of Track Meet called Litti's Summer Sports but those share same code, they also have different title screens as is logical. All covers I've seen of Frantic Antics / The Movie / Der Film etc. have the same cover art at least, so it should only have one entry.

1 hour ago, PrimeNL said:

Nice @sp1nz! Just what I was looking for! Do you also have the codes maybe?

Both are UKV coded box, manual and cart with extra Italian black and white manual, but they were sold by GiG Electronics in Italy as imports and maybe never in UK.

Also I was comparing your list to mine and noticed some discrepancies, left is unique to yours and right is unique to mine:

I added asterisk to Australian exclusives and weird imports I have.

From my collection:

18 hours ago, tidaldreams said:

With prices nowadays, almost anything decent will be in that high category or above.

Depends on the definition of decent and also I would have to not own it already. I've already accepted that most NES games are like medium price at minimum and I can see myself needing to spend the $100+ prices on most good NES games I would want going forward but that's not the line where I draw decent anyway. There are plenty of great games, maybe not always super collectable, that are in the very lows and lows for some systems. When speaking of Nintendo cardboard, yeah, things won't really get cheaper but the price scale is not just about Nintendo cardboard or American versions.

7 hours ago, GPX said:

I get the entire thinking in the post above. Though people can still be both a CIB collector and also be a sealed collector. And I think this is the growing trend, CIB collectors merging towards the sealed realms. 

Back on topic, if you’re dealing with high end items (even examples such as rare condition CIBs or genuine rare CIBs), then it’s too hard to place a price limit, as these items will likely increase in value over time. I can also imagine this will be the same dilemma for any other fields of collecting, be it stamps, coins or comics. Setting a limit will set your aims at a narrow field of collecting,  whereas occasionally indulging in a high spend will allow access to the more high end items. This though doesn’t make it a silly thing, as it then would depend if this indulgence is purchased at a fair market value or not. 

Fair but I'm not part of the trend and I'm more likely to shift focus when prices increase beyond my cap on certain items. I'm not that likely to pay €5000+ for something that used to be sub €500, even if it's the new "fair" value. It's not even that I can't possibly spend big bucks now and then but €5000 could be spent on dozens of other interesting items and I really don't know how much there is on my want list that could exceed that right now or in the future and be something I that desperately want. €5000+ doesn't suddenly become less of a blow to pay on one item, even if the market shifts - also €5000 is close to AU$8000. I can't predict that I will never own a sealed graded game but if I owned one I would probably want to sell it instead of keeping it, because if I would want a graded item then it would likely be an actual investment.

I already basically have the full regional CIB sets I really wanted to have from retro side of things (MD, SNES, GB [EUR+AUS exclusives for all, but maybe it's debatable on some weird grey area imports that I might miss, whether they belong to sets or not and for GB I have half of a SCN set too and maybe would like the full coded set eventually and that could be pretty expensive per item but I already have the top rarest SCN GB games too]), so I technically don't have to sweat about a rare item getting too expensive from my favorite sets and for anything else I'm fine passing on too expensive games anyway. EUR with AUS exclusives sets I might want to complete: Saturn, Dreamcast, GBC and N64, and EUR with AUS exclusives sets I will very likely complete: Master System, NGP, NGPC, Pokémon Mini, Vita and 3DS. I also have N-Gage full set but it's mostly German versions, I got it all for €500. Japanese MD set would be cool to complete but maybe not going as far as Mega Modem games and Tetris.

I guess for me it's exciting to get the games people will covet in the future for cheaper, before they covet them - like I bought an American sealed NES KickMaster for $87 with hangtab still on the wrap (I wouldn't have bid $500 for it back then or now but I'll gladly take sealed for the price of CIB or just little higher), it would be likely candidate for grading if I ever wanted to, even when not a first appearance known character game but just quite rare decent game - on my scale I'd call it R8 rarity with it being sealed and I'd argue I own some R10 CIBs. Or maybe I'd grade a sealed 3.5" floppy Wolfenstein 3D, if some grading company would grade PC games. If I'm not mistaken the grading companies won't grade all regions and systems either - also not that I am fan of CIB grading but doesn't the grading only take into account cart/disc, instructions and box/case in the completeness - also the market is mainly in America and mainly Americans care about graded games.

25 minutes ago, GPX said:

I think there is a general misconception that all graded- collectors are of the investment types. Whilst it’s probably fair to some extent, there are plenty who buy them for other reasons such as:

- the challenge of obtaining a rare condition

- a rare display piece.

The general mentality in collecting would be similar to CIB collecting though, in that you always aim to buy as low as you can (relative to market value). If anything, it makes it more a challenge to rationalize the spending you do at any given time. For a genuine sealed/graded collector to last the journey, there always need to be reflection on what to spend, how much to spend, and how much you can afford to spend? Because like any other commodities, without being self aware of your finances, you will hit a dead end in the hobby pretty quickly!

The difference to CIB collecting, is that I can’t really set a limit for sealed/graded games, as these are the types that likely increase in values over time. So taking all the points I’ve mentioned, limits set this year may change for next year, and so on. I can see myself going up to $5000-$10,000 IF I’m confident that this is a fair market value at the time of purchase and IF I can afford it at a time it becomes available to me.

TLDR - it’s not always easy to set limits in the realms of high end collecting; financial awareness is important at ALL times!

I hope none of this comes across as hostile to you and it's quite rambly, it's just a different viewpoint. I can respect that even "non investors" can enjoy graded games and I definitely assume too much about the graded collectors in general but I personally like my CIB games because I can read the paperwork and actually interact with the game, even if my collecting is often shelf collecting at least the option to peruse the whole thing is there and it isn't just an art piece that takes extra space. For sealed games kept sealed there isn't really lost functionality and what is lost as extra space is at least gained as "added graded value", so it's more understandable that way even if not my jive. Grading to me is just a thick barrier to protect the game and an appraisal by some person with whatever authority to do so.

In case I wanted to have graded games then I would submit some sealed games I own. Currently I don't feel the need to grade sealed games I own and definitely not CIB games I own to reveal the "true condition" and for other reasons like not wanting to support that side of the hobby with my money and interest - same deal with buying graded games. "These are the types that likely increase in value over time", yes but value is not the end goal for me. My collection obviously has great monetary value attached to it and it's more interesting to collect when everything isn't a static mass of similar peanut values but at the same time I have no big interest in spending "inflated values" just from the virtue of something being graded and knowing its condition is presumably what is shown on the card. Of course sealed collecting adds extra layer of challenge to most games, but I feel like there are plenty of challenges even in CIB realm when you collect certain regions or platforms, like Korean retro CIBs or rare Game Boy CIBs, especially if looking for high end condition or maximum completeness. I'd say my collection is mostly good to very good condition but I don't aim for extreme completeness of inserts or anything most of the time. I do like to have maps/charts when applicable, also posters are nice to have but not mandatory for my taste. Heck I can even live with swapped Genesis etc. cases even if original is more desirable, it's quite hard thing to just get the game specific case after the fact when someone sold you a swapped copy. I also can accept more rough copy when it's way cheaper than the norm and not feel too much pressure about "upgrading the condition" later.

Going even deeper I guess we could ask the question "what even makes collecting hard?", since collecting simplified is: you earn money, you search and wait, you spend money on an item, you get said item. So the richest, the most well connected, the most ingenious searcher can get most everything they want, if people are willing to sell. The hardest part is arguably earning the money and choosing to spend it on video games and next hardest part is actually locating a game to buy, but this is double-edged sword too: too much time spent looking can be money and more productive time lost, and enough patience alone does not mean you're getting lucky. It's like if I could afford the most valuable game right now and I just paid that price, then I would own the "most sought after / most expensive thing". That alone isn't as interesting as amassing hundreds or thousands of interesting games or variants to me. I like having a vast and diverse gaming library compared to a small shelf of proverbial gold bars.

16 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

The only games I have and would break four figures for are the last couple NES CIB's I need for a full set, but like another poster mentioned, once I have that full NES set, those last items would forever be the record holders for highest paid items in my collection.  I have no intention of "stepping up my game" and getting into the flavour of the month WATA nonesense; I made a personal collecting goal over twenty years ago, and I'm gonna stick with it till the end (probably minus SE, sadly...)

Top end NES games are definitely doozies nowadays. They're not the rarest things ever but the demand pushes the prices far more than on many other platforms.

16 hours ago, Shmup said:

I collect Japanese Saturn...my bank account is always empty haha.

Nice, I like to collect JP Saturn games with Obis. Some have gone up in price for sure.

16 hours ago, TheGreatBlackCat said:

I'm the same. Sadly, $100 is nearing the average rate for a good-yet-obscure game. The most I've spent on a game must've been about $700 for a pristine copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga before the pandemic. Much of my most expensive titles were bought just before COVID-19 hit, for that matter, and I do not regret buying them one bit. Magic Knight Rayearth comes to mind when discussing this.

I certainly don't feel good after buying the few that I have for $500+, but being a longtime collector and letting CIB Little Samson slip by at $300 because it was "too much for a video game" back in the day taught me a hard lesson. With that in mind I made several purchases over the pandemic that proved to shake out in my favor.

Vintage video games are a bit inflated and the market is overheated. I hope that with things being the way that they are that it doesn't dissuade new collectors looking to enter the hobby.

Yeah $100 for "good-yet-obscure" game rings quite true to me. The current market can be a double-edged sword, some people are more interested to enter a hot hobby and some will be turned off by prices, still if we look at overall game collecting, it's quite affordable medium to collect on many platforms.

15 hours ago, Naked Warrior said:

I am a pretty boring collector...I like buying retail copies of games (although I always prefer CIB) and I'm not real condition sensitive, so that means (at least for now) 5 figures is a far-off dream (nightmare?).  Plus, I'd take ten $100 games over one $1,000 game any day of the week - Love the massive selection of great games to play rather than just a few great ones...$10,000+ games are for investors, prototype guys, and art collectors, not really gamers and nostalgia freaks like me.  Right now my most expensive game probably cost me about $1,800...and I might have spent over $1,000 on one other game...but I do have dozens of games that I forked over $500+ for, and probably hundreds that I paid over $100.  I'll probably break my record when I finally suck it up and buy Clayfighter to complete the N64 set, but I would guess there are less than 25 games on my want list that are more than $1,000, and none over $5,000...

I imagine the number of people who have paid 5 figures for anything gaming related is very low, whatever they would classify themselves as. Naturally anyone can abstain from buying cheaper items and pool the money for something more expensive if they really want it but that's all about opportunity cost and goals.

15 hours ago, attakid101 said:

in this hobby, I have more regrets about the stuff I didn't buy.
 

So no I don’t have a cap per se. I kind of play it by ear. 

Hindsight 20/20, I have missed many items I might not see for sale again but I don't actively regret those when the price at the time or time window for the sale didn't quite line up. My cap is to keep me humble and I just don't feel certain games are worth the insane sums some people are paying currently. In general what I collect doesn't really ever even come close to my cap and I can live without things that would exceed it because very few of them interest me on that price level.

15 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

I remember scrolling through pages of Little Samson and Flintstones: Surprise At Dinosaur Peak for $400 each and thinking I would come back to them after I built up cheaper areas of my collection.

I still don't have them.

I feel you, I postponed buying certain games when they were sort of expensive and now they are just too much for my taste for what they are. Like I'm content with my PAL FRG CIB Little Samson, even when it's naturally not nearly as collectable as American or even SCN version.

9 hours ago, GPX said:

I consider myself to be a random collector as I collect on multiple platforms Sega, Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation. I also collect from CIB to new to sealed and also graded. My maximum spend on an item so far is around $4000 AUD, this being 5 years ago, which is a considerable luxury spend relatively speaking, for its time.

Thankfully though, I rarely spend that much often, and there would be months I'd happily buy items less than $100 without the need to buy something overly rare/expensive. On the other hand, I do plan on continuing with my sealed/graded collecting, and I expect the maximum purchase will continue to rise in time, but no rush and no timeline when or if it happens. 

I find it more thrilling to think “what will be my next purchases?” Instead of “how many digits will I spend maximally?”

I'm quite omnivorous collector too, I have couple full sets and might go for a couple more, I don't do graded though because I don't usually buy things to sell them later. I do have some duplicates or lesser versions of games for various reasons that I will sell or trade eventually but that's just generally CIB stuff anyway. I mean my cap isn't carved in stone but I don't consider the possibility of breaching it thrilling or not thrilling, it's just something that might happen if something really amazing presented itself, like my example of MD Tetris, but I still wouldn't go nearly market price for it, so it kind of defeats the possibility of even needing to breach my cap. To use the word opportunity cost again, buying a really cool thing that would breach my price cap would very likely feel worse option to me than spending that same money across many cool things.

7 hours ago, portabello said:

My cap on a single game is around $500. I’ve bid more than that on some eBay auctions and lost out, but I didn’t mind. I wouldn’t consider myself cheap as I’ve purchased many pieces of boutique gaming equipment in the $200-$400 range... (Ultra HDMI N64, Framemesiter, modded XBOX, everdrives, etc). I will say that while I’m a relatively modest collector and am curating a small collection, I could see myself pulling the trigger on items $500-$1000 if I have disposable income down the road.

I think your $500 or even up to $1000 is quite reasonable cap. For me it's harder to spend big money on hardware compared to software for some reason but the things you listed are nifty for sure.

5 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Umm, I don't know.  Some low numbers.  My paycheck goes basically 100% into the mortgage, bills, private school tuitions, personal kid swim lessons, kid bikes, kid skateboards, kid scooters, kid skis, kid dirt bikes, kid ski lessons, HSA, 401K, vacations, keeping my checking account at a safely padded level, etc.  So I really only spend what I get from selling other stuff.

Something like:

0-20: free to impulse buy

20-50: usually some deliberation or attempts at get it cheaper

50-100: Something I'm confident is gonna be a permanent addition, or something where I know it's easy to recoup or profit off the order (ie LRG)

100-200: I specifically need something to sell in this range to counter out the expense, or I need to limit other purchases for a bit

200-500: only happen every few years.  It would have to be pieces that are instantly.some of the cream of the crop.for my collection, or a very good deal.

500+: Only happened once

You have your family priorities in order good sir.

4 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

My price scale is probably like your original post @sp1nz. A couple years ago when I was one of those people saying games are a bad investment, that was my attitude. I didn't really think twice about buying a game under $20 but it would take me some serious reflection before I would be spending over $100. Hence there's some games I didn't buy because they were out of my price range (and today I think... maybe I should have). 

But now that my perspective has changed, I don't think this way anymore. It's all about: 

• Is it within my budget of what I can spend right now?
• Is the price fair or a discount compared to what it could sell for right now? 
• Is it something I think could be worth more in the future? 
• Would this be a good purchase compared to something else that might be a better investment? 

Hence, interestingly enough, one behavior change is that now I don't mindlessly buy cheap games just because they are cheap. There was a time when I was collecting DS bargain bin games for fun and I would just spend $5 or $8 or whatever to buy games without really thinking about it because they were cheap. Looking back I realized, if I do that 10 times, I've spent the kind of money that I could have put into one game that would have been a good addition to the collection. So now I only pick up cheap stuff if I'm buying a lot and setting aside stuff that doesn't cost me anything. Otherwise I'd rather focus on trying to score the high value stuff I'm wanting if it's not an insanely good deal. 

Interesting perspective. I won't say if games are good or bad investment, I just don't consider mine as investment even if it has great value. When buying games though you are completely right that buying metric ton of cheap junk is not too great of a strategy for enjoyment of your own collection or gaining profit from it. I remember the one Guinness game collection of 11000+ games but most of it was bottom of the barrel stuff for low demand consoles, though it must've been cheap to acquire and the guy made out like a bandit on the sale of his collection regardless. like I would've valued his collection at up to 7x lower than the sale price. Having the "Guinness" badge of "largest collection", when it's just due to submitting being pain in the butt, is similar to the badge of hype that Wata/VGA grade case is to games.

4 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

For a CIB game: +$3000 would be in the 'insane' category.

$1-3K very high

$500 - 1000 high

$250 - 500 medium

$100 - 250 low

<$100 very low.

Mine have definitely gone up over the years. Even $100-$200 on a CIB in like 2012 would have been in the 'very high' category for me but that's not gonna get you very far these days outside of filler titles.

I don't actually disagree with those ranges having those terms, like my list might benefit from having one or two more upper ranges and changing the terms in the lower ranges but that would also mean overhauling my entire collection sheet again, which is too much work for too little gain, $500+ is uncommon enough and I could only make use of your version of insane range 3 times. Then again American CIB collecting perspective is way different compared to European.

1 hour ago, Bonanza125 said:

I already got everything I want for my collection 20 years ago so I didn't have to pay the high end prices for games in my collection. 

Lucky you! Even though I joined the hardcore collecting scene quite late, I got majority of my stuff for prices I can agree with. I don't know how enthusiastic I would be if I started from zero in today's market - at least my scope of collecting would be way more narrow.

39 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

>_> if $500 is the insane level then I have a lot of introspection to do right now.

Hehe, well that's how I set it up when I started collecting and I have no plans changing my ideals even if the market has shifted, still quite a bit of playroom between my €500+ "insane" classification and my €5000 cap. I just feel that the insane level is costly enough barrier to cross for me to call it that.

40 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Anything I want under 500$ I dont really hesitate. These days there isnt much I want at  that price though.

Sub $500 for something you really want is not too bad indeed.

35 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Generally by now the stuff I am buying is really rare / obscure, items you can't really put a price on easily. But I do have a very good sense of what will become worth more in the future, upon which it helps me set my price.

There are items that I own that could sell for less than €100 or €1000+ depending on where it's sold and who sees it, so I fully get that. Sometimes there is no real sales data for x years, if at all, and you have to make an offer or calculated bid that you can stomach and that doesn't hopefully end as a big dud.

41 minutes ago, OptOut said:

I WILL have to start considering breaking into the 4 figure range soon, based on where my goals are going, but only for a very specific handful of items, which once purchased will probably forever hold the record in my collection of most spent.

Yeah 4 figures is a good place to stop at, unless you're investor type or really adamant full set collector on some specific platform(s) that demand deeper pockets.

40 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

As for limits meh they change pretty regularly depending on what im after. I'm loose guy so luckily the nutty prices don't apply to me. I've got some 4 figure games left for NES that recently became 4 figure apparently so that'll be my limit for now. I'm good knowing I'll never own stadium events. 

I'm amazed how some retail carts have gotten into the 4 figure prices. I understand the Outback Joey cart or some competition carts having gotten there but something like Little Samson cart being 4 digits just feels crazy to me. 5-6 figure carts are insanity sauce. I have a few cart only games that never were in CIB form to begin with but that's the only time I will collect carts basically. 

25 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

I would sell a chunk of my collection and pay $20,000 for OOT or SM64 if I had to. I think there are some games like that people will literally pay anything for if they have to. Look at Chrono Trigger prices.

Thankfully, actually must-have games are common as hell and usually $1-200 tops. I can’t think of anything I don’t already own that I would pay car money for like a comic nerd who has to own AF15 or FF1.

Mega expensive stuff is usually just popular and rare and almost always there is rarer or cheaper stuff I can get with research or specialized knowledge instead by just not buying the most obvious/hyped/popular rare thing. Games like SE and Myriad are mostly interchangeable tokens of rarity and status. They’re sweet and I want them but essentially meaningless outside the hobby. You can’t replace OOT with anything comparable.

Yeah, when the market goes crazy in one direction it's better to deviate from the hype and make good buys elsewhere.

13 minutes ago, Nesmaster said:

2k is probably my limit, unless it was something over that and a no brainer deal.

It's definitely gone up though, My first $440 purchase made me feel kinda ill for the day dropping that much.

I remember when I was super excited to bid on Majora's Mask Adventure Set and was panicking from my maximum bid thoughts of few hundred and then climbing into €600-800 range plans or whatever it was, because it was the first game I really planned to go hard on. I think the game climbed above my max before the end and before I even placed a bid of my own. Before that auction even crossing €100 was biggie for me but maybe it was some sort of awakening moment even if I didn't get to place my bid, so things quickly snowballed for me and we have the price scale I use now.

With all the price shenanigans going on I got curious if other people got a system on how they view prices for single items.

My personal price scale for single items as a CIB collector is:

X being technically for € but £ and $ (and maybe some others) work too, since they are quite comparable currencies and what I encounter the most beyond euros.

My price cap for a single item is 5000€, I haven't broken this cap yet but if there was like "extremely good deal" on legit MD Tetris, maybe I'd raise it. Even breaking 1000€ is rare.

I think Wata grading submissions being backed up has a lot to do with how the market prices are evolving. When the submissions aren't released at the same time and put on sale en masse, the market has time to adjust, conserve money and analyze the market - also the market won't be shocked with countless duplicates that might stall the enthusiasm of many hype bidders because the perceived rarity is lessened. So potentially slower turnaround is making more money for submitter and grader here, so I'm not sure if Wata would want to change anything even if they could meet the demand and have snappy turnaround times. It is very amusing though how the market can shift enormously between your submission and getting the game back.

1 hour ago, final fight cd said:

but is WATA and heritage changing what’s desirable to collect?

so if it’s a first, related to a popular move franchise or comic, and featuring a sports legend the money is gonna be big, right?

has these sales influenced anybody on what to buy?

Yes the perception of masses and investors is molded by Wata/HA, they go by the rules they know from comic books or whatnot and it MUST mean that it applies to video game desirability. When something has larger mainstream appeal then it'll most likely rake money on HA because big money low game market knowledge people are hopping on the train (the random German guy just bidding crazy amounts on random PS2 games is good example of an even more clueless bystander to those that have made the market get this far this quick and even he might be making money on his willy nilly 0 knowledge 0 care investment *deep bro*). Like for long term "investing" it makes sense that characters or series with staying power will be known to more people and therefore they are safer bets further into future but at the same token the hot characters are million sellers, so you have to squeeze some "legendary" print run status from them or get into OCD condition scales, because 0.2 more grade must mean thousands and thousands of more value. Still the hype market is largely North America based although the ripple effect will affect all regions to varying degrees. First print is misleading term and can't be evaluated on outer box alone in many cases, DefaultGen has a good on the nose parody video about this and some other issues:

Again like I said before, the market hasn't formed organically but is more of a manufactured one, doesn't mean that the market will suddenly crash or go away though. You see the great marketing power on full display with this takeover. "You had your fun peasants but we will make the market now" (I mean if this isn't elitists in other fields just carpet bombing another field, then what is). It's probably inevitable for a popular material based sector to be "exploited" like this when it gets more and more mainstream, yet I'm not sure if this has happened with physical movies for example albeit their popularity, maybe they have too large prints (yet million seller games get valued in hundreds as CIBs) or movie buffs just want the props and other associated paraphernalia. I don't know how the game supply and demand on larger scale will work or be affected by all of this but I'm guessing a lot of people are gonna pay out the ass from FOMO or accept being priced out. All collecting is on the up and up but game collecting value increases exploded onto the scene in the past couple of years. I'm just glad I never started collecting with money or returns in mind.

I haven't been buying too much retro in the past couple years and I'm mainly European and CIB collector, so I'm not sure how much I'm affected on European front, if I ever want more of those American imports though, yikes. But even when things become more expensive, not every game ever is going to go into nutso price territory, especially CIB only.

3 hours ago, RH said:

I think it's fine doing this here, but the regulars at reddit.com/r/tipofmyjoystick are ninjas at helping people answer these questions. In fact, that sub might have been the one that got me to join the site. You'll often have an answer to even obscure stuff in an hour or two.

Good tip, I don't own a reddit account though and trying to bring some life here as well. I'll edit the subreddit in my opening post though.

6 hours ago, AstralSoul said:

There was this game I played on PC many years ago, early to mid 90s, might've been on DOS. It was a point and click adventure and for years I couldn't remember the name of it but I always had it in my head it was Milon's Secret Castle because I remember a castle and a wizard, but I know that's definitely not the game, that's a totally different game.  I thought it had something like Milo or Merlin in the title. You play a little kid, and of I remember correctly he looked like a little wizard, and some of the puzzles were like mixing potions and stuff. It has cartoony graphics. I don't remember it being an edutainment title but it might've been. No amount of Google Fu has helped me apparently, as there were a few results under similar game names that weren't the game I'm thinking of. As soon as I see a screenshot of it I'll know.

Scooter's Magic Castle (1993) PC?

1 hour ago, MiamiSlice said:

Doesn’t Heritage have some responsibility to curate worthwhile items in each lot? Why would they accept an average CIB copy of Sonic the Hedgehog??? It should have been rejected...

43 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Responsibility? To who? Why? They're a business. Their job is to make money. They'll sell whatever they reckon will sell for enough money to be worth the effort of selling.

I gave that example but mentioned it was eBay sale and someone mentioned 5.5 Wata Sonic selling for $300+ also on eBay but the prices are symptoms of Heritage hype nevertheless. Would've been more fitting for the "Look at these prices...unreal right ?". No idea if how low grades Heritage sells on their auctions but the Thunder Force II on last page was some overgraded poopee.