Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
I agree, but if you look at what is commanding the highest prices on the NES right now, it's not necessarily the "rarest" games, it's common stuff in the mintiest sealed condition. I find it hard to believe that games of that type are going to continue to go beyond the thousands of dollars they are currently commanding. There are just too many copies out there and not enough collectors with those kinds of funds long term. Indeed, unlike comics and baseball cards, the combination of acidic plastics, metals and paper will likely result in even properly stored video games not having the longevity of comics or baseball cards simply because there is no real means of preserving a sealed game long term. I would suspect that people will be much more interested in mint complete copies over time simply because the components can be separated and individually preserved.

I would also note that video games started to be collected much earlier in relative terms than baseball cards or comics. Most of the research I have read indicates that serious comic book collecting didn't really start until the early 1970s, some 40 years after the "modern" comic books of the 1930s were released. It took another decade or so for comic collecting to go truly mainstream and by the 90s, it had largely slowed back down again to a fraction of the 1980s levels. In video games, it took maybe half as long meaning that for at least half of the history of video games, people have been collecting them and keeping them pretty well preserved. That means there is a lot out there in really nice shape even if there are fewer video game collectors than comic collectors overall.

I have no doubt that video games have had a significant societal impact, but that doesn't necessarily mean all or even most of those kids will grow up to be collectors. With digital versions of older games widely available and lots of other entertainment options out there, fewer people owning their own homes resulting in less space for collectibles and frankly, most gamers just not caring much about older games, the pump is primed for a pricing correction once this current bubble bursts.
No it doesn't mean all those kids will grow up to be collectors but I suspect there are more potential videogame collectors than there are for comicbooks and baseball cards. I would guess that more kids play Marvel Alliance than read Xmen combic books and do kids even buy baseball cards anymore?

A few of the NES black box games are common to find. Pinball and Golf for example could easily crash but some of those others with 1st pressings are insanely rare to find sealed. Any blackbox with a flagship character like Mario or Donkey Kong should be just fine no matter what the price is currently.

Check ebay right now and count how many copies of Amazing Spiderman #1 are for sale right now. It is fairly common with multiple copies for sale at any given moment. Still a top graded copy can break 100k and even lower graded copies do pretty well from year after year. An item doesn't have to be insanely rare if it is a desired item esp if in is in top condition.