Game Hoarders on Ebay???

[turboexpress]

Hi guys! I keep reading here and there about the possibility of hoarders on Ebay designed to drive up prices on video games. Possibility of types out there that have dozens and even hundreds of the same game, designed to keep price very high and taking advantage of that by re-selling games for much higher profit. What is everyone's thoughts on this? I also saw some dude on youtube that has 16 Turbo Express units that you would imagine raises the price since so many units per/owner. Now is this type of behavior very common on ebay and other places or is this just me being paranoid?

[celerystalker]

You're not paranoid. It's real and a little depressing. It's perfectly legal, but it's sad to see a hobby designed very directly to be fun be exploited the way it is. It doesn't bother me that games get expensive, but these behaviors that artificially increase it do.

[FieryReign]

Hi guys! I keep reading here and there about the possibility of hoarders on Ebay designed to drive up prices on video games. Possibility of types out there that have dozens and even hundreds of the same game, designed to keep price very high and taking advantage of that by re-selling games for much higher profit. What is everyone's thoughts on this? I also saw some dude on youtube that has 16 Turbo Express units that you would imagine raises the price since so many units per/owner. Now is this type of behavior very common on ebay and other places or is this just me being paranoid?

I want to see this video of a guy with 16 turboexpresses... 16 units because it's a Turbografx16? I wouldn't call it hoarding though. Hoarding is hoarding. Douchebagging is douchebagging. Big difference.

[bb_hood]

Hi guys! I keep reading here and there about the possibility of hoarders on Ebay designed to drive up prices on video games. Possibility of types out there that have dozens and even hundreds of the same game, designed to keep price very high and taking advantage of that by re-selling games for much higher profit. What is everyone's thoughts on this? I also saw some dude on youtube that has 16 Turbo Express units that you would imagine raises the price since so many units per/owner. Now is this type of behavior very common on ebay and other places or is this just me being paranoid?

I cant see people succeeding in 'cornering the market' when it comes to buying up every copy of a single game. There are just too many copies of X game out there, and if people try and hoard games that are already expensive it would require a substantial investment and huge commitment. You would have to buy like thousands of copies and wait years before any return. You would have to buy like every copy of said game that comes up for sale on ebay & amazon.
I can see people doing it as investments, but owning 16 turbo express units aint gonna drive prices up, at least over the long run. I dont doubt that maybe some people do try to hoard game to raise resale values but its just a bad idea. It is unwise to view collectibles as investments.

[Rickstilwell1]

It all comes down to how many people are doing that hoarding with the same item. One person hoarding 16 Turbo Express systems is one thing. But if 20 people do that, now you have 300 less systems on the market than there should be if all 20 people only kept one system.

You know who is the most guilty of hoarding common game items actually? Retro game stores! Trying to keep them in stock! Imagine how many of them have 50 SNES systems in the back so they can keep the prices high. Waiting for somebody to spend $60 on the console...

[Flojomojo]

I think it's just an effect of having an always-open, world-wide store that sells everything to the highest bidder. You're literally always going to pay the highest possible price at an auction, because that's the way auctions work. Before eBay, we would see artificially LOW prices on rare collectibles at flea markets and yard sales because people had no other place to flip them. I have difficulty thinking of sellers as behaving badly when they're just doing what the market incentivizes them to do.

[Tanooki]

There's a concerted effort there that practice hoarding and hoarding for profit behavior, and it blew up greatly when ebay allowed X free listings every month a lot more. The influx of the high priced BIN and 'Make Offer/BIN' setup really went nuts with that. The amount of games up there for ungodly sums or maybe even just 20% over the real sales average got much more pronounced. With this you can have those who hoard but like to brag shoving up a game at 50+% of real value and they'll be happy showing off, but also happy to get a chump to buy it then they'll just go get another to feed their addiction while keeping the profit of the first too after re-purchase. Seen that happen on ebay before along with just the show offs.

It's not common though for someone to have a lot of a game to corner the market and try and screw with values but it does happen. IN Japan (forget name) a local over there will buy up any prototype of a game and as many of that one as possible to just have them, but also to keep them from ever being shared, dumped(ROM) or anything else...just locked away in a pile of trash in his home. For years there was this American(?) who bought up as many copies as possible of Magical Chase US for the TG16 and with so few of it as is, he alone helped screw the cost of that game up pretty badly. I think as the story went he'd buy up a bunch, on occasion sell one for a huge sum of dough to help drive up the demand and price...kind of a very uneven revolving door keeping them as an investment. And this was before the TG16 stuff exploded in the last few years so I'd hate to think what they're worth now complete vs what he paid which already at the time was fairly ugly. Also if you think about it, most the video game resellers, the primaries on ebay, they're hoarders in a way. They get in a bunch of stuff at below value rates, but then they use stock imagery on there or their companion .com websites and ask like 30-50% over the real value hoping someone will bite due to their rep. I'll see that junk sit on ebay for a LONG time, but it stays there as a kind of retailers hoard.

[bb_hood]

The amount of games up there for ungodly sums or maybe even just 20% over the real sales average got much more pronounced. With this you can have those who hoard but like to brag shoving up a game at 50+% of real value and they'll be happy showing off, but also happy to get a chump to buy it then they'll just go get another to feed their addiction while keeping the profit of the first too after re-purchase. Seen that happen on ebay before along with just the show offs.

Yeah, well so what? If people want to list stuff with ridiculous BIN asking prices they have that right. Just because sometimes people list stuff more than current trending values does not mean every buyer is some brain-dead zombie who will just pay whatever. There is expensive, overpriced stuff all over ebay. Buying and selling collectibles on ebay is just a big game. Sellers are not obligated to sell anything at good or even reasonable prices.
I really dont think price increases on ebay are due to people hoarding games and making them more hard to find/valuable. I think its mostly due to the fact that so many more people are collecting than in previous years. Add in the factor that many of these games have been out of print for like 20+ years and it makes sense that prices continue to go up. The demand for original copies of retro games is there, and people like spending money on them.
Constantly bashing other collectors and sellers because they sell games on ebay is pointless. If people are just showing off then let them, nobody cares anyway.

For years there was this American(?) who bought up as many copies as possible of Magical Chase US for the TG16 and with so few of it as is, he alone helped screw the cost of that game up pretty badly. I think as the story went he'd buy up a bunch, on occasion sell one for a huge sum of dough to help drive up the demand and price...kind of a very uneven revolving door keeping them as an investment. And this was before the TG16 stuff exploded in the last few yearss

Thats a huge assumption that he took enough copies out of circulation in order to cause a serious increase in price. Magical Chase has always been rare and expensive, and if this seller you mentioned has been selling copies off here and there than thats not hoarding. Besides he would have had to buy like every copy of the game on ebay, and i dont see how that is possible. There is always gonna be someone else who has more money or wants it more.

[The 1 2 P]

I cant see people succeeding in 'cornering the market' when it comes to buying up every copy of a single game. There are just too many copies of X game out there, and if people try and hoard games that are already expensive it would require a substantial investment and huge commitment. You would have to buy like thousands of copies and wait years before any return.

This is what I was going to say. Hoarding goes beyond having a few copies of a title. As an example I use to have two copies of most of my expensive games(as well as many cheap/common games too), one opened to play and one factory sealed to sell in a few years for a big profit. And that strategy worked for me because when I started selling my sealed games I got anywhere from 4-20 times what I originally paid. But that wasn't because I had so many copies of those games, it's just that some people will always be willing to pay a little more for certain titles.

For retro games I typically use Goodwill, Craigslist, flea markets and yard sales. I still run into high prices but not nearly as much as I would if ebay was my only source. Regardless of how much prices have risen I've always managed to get what I want for a relatively affordable price. You just have to be a little patient.

[turboexpress]

this thread is not about people showing off their stuff. It's about getting opinions and possibly evidence of hoarding activity to raise prices on ebay. It's not a conspiracy or anything if some people understood the question wrong....anyways moving on....

Scenario: For example (lets take any game, I don't know exact prices but lets take Mario 3 just for example).

1. 50% of Mario 3 Buy it Now and auction ranges are established on Ebay. Let's say 50% of All Mario 3's are $20. So now you get this situation where the world just has the other 50% to play with, which is the open percent.

2. The open 50% lets say 25% of that are retro game stores and they also have their market prices based on hood, area etc. So after that you just have 25% to play with.

3. Lets say of the 25% left, 24% are inside actual collectors collections, NOT FOR SALE...

4. 1% left to play with...here is where anyone has that 1% chance of getting that Mario 3 for under certain price lets say that $20 on ebay.

You get where I'm going with this???? I think they are all screwing with us.

[Rickstilwell1]

I heard a rumor on facebook that some repro maker is buying every single copy of Cheetahmen II that he can find on ebay so people feel forced into buying his repro of the game instead of the original. Has anyone heard about that? At least Cheetahmen II is a game that is not worth playing.

[bb_hood]

I heard a rumor on facebook that some repro maker is buying every single copy of Cheetahmen II that he can find on ebay so people feel forced into buying his repro of the game instead of the original. Has anyone heard about that? At least Cheetahmen II is a game that is not worth playing.

Anyone with half a brain is not gonna want the cheetahmen repro.
The original is really rare. A repro made a few years back aint rare, and the people who made them can just crank out more if need be. The game itself sucks, so why would you pay 50$ for it?
Its just a crappy game hyped-up by the angry video game nerd. It doesnt deserve to be reproduced.

[Tanooki]

I remember that story, pretty sure it just is a story, but it wasn't someone random. It was the guy who made the original so that he could charge for those expensive new copies and collectors bundles he bankrolled. I remember some commentary and griping about that over at NA years back. No idea if that's true or not.

[Gameguy]

I heard a rumor on facebook that some repro maker is buying every single copy of Cheetahmen II that he can find on ebay so people feel forced into buying his repro of the game instead of the original. Has anyone heard about that? At least Cheetahmen II is a game that is not worth playing.

I heard someone was doing that with copies of Shaq Fu just to wipe out any existence of it.


And that guy with 270 copies of Jurassic Park SNES kept in a refrigerator. I'm assuming to protect them like in that Indiana Jones movie.

https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/...es-collection/