Game Hoarders on Ebay???

[retroguy]

Kinda like George Lucas and the Star Wars Christmas Special

And the funny thing about that is that that special is precisely the reason he became such a control freak when it came to Star Wars. He let other people do it without any input from him and afterwards he wanted to be sure such a thing never happened again. That's why when he sold his company, he stipulated that he would still have a say in what was done even if the final decisions are no longer his.

[Tanooki]

For a first post jm9 very well said and done. I find it hard to disagree with that as it makes the most sense other than predicting when the bubble will blow as people have been saying peak for a year or two now already and it hasn't blown up in peoples faces yet.

[Casati]

The prices for older systems like the Atari 2600 bubbled because of the limited graphics and gameplay, but I think the NES prices will continue to rise over time due to its close association with 16-bit SNES and later Nintendo consoles. Many franchises started on the NES and the gameplay is actually superior to later consoles for some games such as Tecmo Super Bowl. Moreover, see the list in the previous post about reasons for growing demand such as the abundance of YouTube videos drawing new hobbyists.

From what I've seen on Ebay, it appears there are a lot people who take an investments approach to video game collecting and also hoarders although I'm not sure of the extent.

[camarotuner]

Yes, there are people with the resources to intentionally manipulate collectibles market. My best example is from hockey cards. P.K. Subban (defenseman for the montreal canadiens) his best rookie is the cup arp. Someone very early grabbed up the majority of the 3 color patch variations of that card and is sitting on them. So when one does come to market it commands MUCH higher prices than it would otherwise. So at anypoint he wants to raise funds he puts one up for sale and it'll get gobbled up at a huge premium. So yes it can work but the item has to be rare enough to begin with that you can actually accumulate a large enough percentage that it effects the marketplace.

[Koa Zo]

I've noticed a couple sellers who maintain two accounts and then list the same items at different prices.
One account will list at absurdly high prices, and then the other account lists the same item at a slightly less inflated price - thereby making the appearance of a bargain for the less inflated duplicate listing.

[Tanooki]

That with the hockey card is what the guy with the TG16-US Magical Chase did. He saw there weren't many so he started to buy them all up as much as possible complete and loose, whatever worked. I know a few piddled out when cash was needed and then others who legit did get one before the mass gobbling of it happened too and it drove it up. Manipulation in this stuff isn't by any means easy, but it is doable to a degree.

Primarily the entire problem, all of it, no matter what your need or desire in having the old games is, it comes down to one word on why it went north on the prices -- investment. It's a general term but it captures the mess. You invest to flip, invest to use later to profit, invest to keep it until you don't care anymore or die and hand it down. Before it was a hobby, even if you were invested in it for some reason (usually memories or enjoyment) but now that has taken a back seat to sellers for short term profit investors. It'll collapse in time for a vast majority of it, but anyone guessing when is nuts. Anything of a limited amount that gets spiked historically has had it happen too going back decades.

[Gentlegamer]

As far as hoarding goes, it doesn't need to be a majority of all the extant items, just the easily obtainable items. It became common for professional resellers to buy up all cheap to cheapish listings for certain games on ebay, removing them from circulation into their exclusive possession. This doesn't mean they obtained all the games, some are in the hands of original owners who cherish them, some in the hands of collectors who bought them before inflation, some few perhaps still in boxes in someones basement forgotten. The point is, the items that did make it "to market" so to speak were chased by hoarder/resellers who realized classic game collecting (not playing) was become trendy and attracting people with money burning holes in their pockets, the yuppy instant collectors.

[WCP]

I remember when I was trying to collect Die Hard GameFan magazines, and looking for them on Ebay, there seemed to be this one dude.... billmarioman, who seemed to be buying up every single Gamefan auction (at least it seemed like he was).

I always wondered about that, because I was thinking to myself.... " I wonder if this guy is basically trying to buy up all loose GameFan's to try to corner the market on Gamefans and being the only guy with any of them... "


If he was really trying to do that, I'm sure he learned pretty quickly that it was a bad idea, because that mag had a pretty good circulation, and there are enough issues floating around out there, to try to buy up all of them would probably be a foolhardy endeavor.

[SparTonberry]

Stupidest thing I've seen is someone trying to sell individual magazine ARTICLES. Like they just bought a copy of GamePro, ripped out say the Super Metroid review and put it on ebay for $5.
Later they got "better" deals like $10 for all a page with each of the TMNT ads they could find. :P
Poor magazines destroyed for this scam.

I have sitting around about three years worth of Nintendo Power (mostly N64 era) I think I bought for like $20 shipped. Are those days passed?

[wizardofwor1975]

I've noticed a couple sellers who maintain two accounts and then list the same items at different prices.
One account will list at absurdly high prices, and then the other account lists the same item at a slightly less inflated price - thereby making the appearance of a bargain for the less inflated duplicate listing.

Good eye, I've noticed this practice as well. Very crafty...