Classic gaming market cooling down..

[Muscelli]

Anybody notice as of lately classic gaming related stuff is a lot cheaper then it was before? I can't sell stuff for a fraction of what I sold them for earlier this Winter. I know classic gaming is a fad to some people, but is it finally fading out?

edit: Whoops, wrong forum

[Steven]

wrong forum posted on accident? At any rate, I dunno. I think it'll pick up again circa Halloween time, when kids are back to school, darkening days (I love fallback hours!) and it's a good time for that nostalgic bug to hit ya. I haven't really kept up with the market much today to be honest, though. It might just be in a lull momentarily. I think this Fall will reveal just how far the classic gaming market has dropped, or hasn't, for that matter.

[bangtango]

I think the classic gaming market tends to be better when we are in a year where 2 new systems haven't launched in the previous 12 months. People still want to get their hands on the Wii and though they won't admit it on a message board, a few people here and there still want a PS3. A lot of the buyers have more important things to spend their money on at the moment, I guess. Just my theory.

[Kid Ice]

edit: Whoops, wrong forum

>punt<

[swlovinist]

I dont think that the classic gaming market has cooled, it has just changed. Instead of people collecting the classic classic stuff such as Intellivision, Atari, Colecovision, more collectors are now eyeing N64, SNES, Playstation, Jaguar, 3DO, and more. The Virtual Console for the Wii has been a big success. If anything, the classic gaming market has more products now than ever to choose from. I just think that people are getting more choosy on what to collect versus collecting anything anymore.

[Jumpman Jr.]

Just like swlovinist said. I don't know about "cooling," the market is just changing. NES games (especially complete and/or rare ones) are insane right now.

[Little Samson]

I have noticed that the market for common NES games has cooled down a lot since last fall/winter. As an example, a good price for Contra back then would have been about $25, whereas now it's closer to $10. I'm sure this will pick up a lot as the holiday season approaches, but I have no idea how much.

I definitely agree that the market for uncommon/boxed NES games is flourishing right now, however.

[DigitalSpace]

Classic gaming will never die. Like the others have said, it's summer and the market is changing. Also, a lot of collectors spend their classic gaming money at garage/yard sales during this time of the year.

I'd hold on the stuff you're trying to sell until the holiday season unless you really need the cash.

(And if it is cooling down, great - it'll lead to more cheap finds for me. :D )

[swlovinist]

Nes rares arent cooling, look at Stadium Events on ebay right now, say like $1200 dollars? Wow

[GameDeals.ca]

It's also a generational thing. People reach a certain age where they want to re-live their childhood, and thus "retro" is popular. NES Collecting has soared over the years past, but is finally dying out to make way for SNES collecting as the kids who grew up with SNES are now hitting the right age range.

But in the bigger picture... emulation (Virtual Console or pirated) is growing in popularity and a good chunk of casual gamers (i.e. not collectors) aren't buying old games anymore in a physical form, thus the customer base is shrinking, but the number of games in circulation remains fairly constant.

[smork]

For selfish interests, I hope the market has cooled a bit -- I haven't bought nearly anything classic in the past year or so, and I'm ready to get back into it. ;)

I think it is more of a mature market now. People who wanted to get into, say, VCS for nostalgia purposes did so already. Emulation is maturing, so people who just want to play the older games can get their fix. What's left is a bunch of collectors who have been at it for years now, so I think the market for games/systems older than 20 years is now looking alot like vintage record collecting, or book collecting.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Is the market cooling or self-correcting? :hmm:

I have pulled down a few games recently that I have passed on in the past for expense reasons. For example, I bought a Space Megaforce on ebay for less than $15 shipped. Not so long ago the bid would have been in the $20 to $30 range. It's a great game... if your a shmup gamer, not so much otherwise. The truly great games which appeal to a majority of gamers that also happen to be rare have been and will continue to pull down the green, which is the way it should be. If this keeps up perhaps I'll stop finding 2600 carts in the wild priced at $10. All I need is more morons that think their stuff is gold... or at the least low-grade silver. (Thx eBay :p ) The upside could be ignorant speculation is turning into "been there, done that... got burned" or even slight knowledge about the value of classics. :)

[Steven]

I think it is more of a mature market now. People who wanted to get into, say, VCS for nostalgia purposes did so already. Emulation is maturing, so people who just want to play the older games can get their fix. What's left is a bunch of collectors who have been at it for years now, so I think the market for games/systems older than 20 years is now looking alot like vintage record collecting, or book collecting.


Excellent point. I remember the "Sega Saturn Boom" of roughly 1999-2002 where EVERYONE (it seems) was jumping on the "OMG IMPORT GOODNESS!" train. I think others have done similar things with systems like NES, Genesis and SNES. Most of us already own that Gunstar Heroes, that Kirby Superstar, that Little Samson (OK maybe not, some are still waiting for a decent price)... thus these games may end cheaper than they did when you had 20, 25 people actively hunting it down in say, 2004.

[XxHennersXx]

i've been retro collecting since before there was a market. so now that the prices have inflated i don't like it. if they go back down, good. I can buy more games still...and even more with the money i'll save

[Moo Cow]

i've been retro collecting since before there was a market. so now that the prices have inflated i don't like it. if they go back down, good. I can buy more games still...and even more with the money i'll save

Amen.

[smokehouse]

I started buying older games back in 1996. Back then most NES titles were $2 at local pawnshops and 2600 lots were fairly common finds at local garage sales. Hell, I got my 2600 with over 50 games and a mess of controllers for $30 back then.

eBay comes along and everything goes haywire. If you don’t believe me, go to an Internet archive site and look up pages from eBay back around 1999, event he most simple of NES titles were going for huge $$. Nobody knew what was rare and what wasn’t so everything went for high dollars.

The Internet craze has transferred to local pawnshops and just yesterday, I went to a local store and found they had this:

Castlevania- $10
Castlevania 2- $8
Mega Man 2- $10
Mega Man 3- $10
Contra- $12
Zelda (Gold, 2 copies)- $15/pc
Zelda 2 (Gold, 2 copies)- $15/pc
Crusty NES toaster- $50 no hook-ups

This is what the pawnshop market look like in my area. I have 5 local shops to chose form and all are like this. Any attempt to bargain with them get’s a “This is what it goes for on eBay” remark.






Basically DP is my only source of gaming sanity. We all try to charge fair prices for our stuff and I like buying from you guys. I’m tired of pawnshop gouging and eBay’s 300 fees attached to everything and getting bid-sniped.


The point is that people still seem to be paying overly high prices for most games at this point.

[Bloodreign]

If the price of NES carts do go down, I can afford to start picking them up as I go. I've been inconsistent on what system I pick games up for jumping back and forth between the 8 and 16 bit generation (and sometimes later), I'd love to start picking up more NES carts in the future, though I am picky about what I pick up (only stuff that I truly like to play).

[megamaniaman]

Yeah, I have noticed a downturn as well. Especially for common stuff for the Atari 2600 of which I collect. In fact prices for semi rare and rare loose cart stuff is lower than I have ever seen it. I have a theory besides Ebay as why this stuff is down at the moment. It has to do mainly with the fact that most of the people who grew up in the 80's are now raising kids. A few years back the collectors of the Atari 2600 were mostly single and had more desposible income. But with wife and kids in tow things start changing. Now your wife and your kids become priority number one. And right now a lot of people in their mid-thirties are heavily in debt trying to provide for the wife and kids. I do believe though that if we flash forward 10 years from now, you will start to see something different happen. Pretty soon this same people who were focusing on their kids and wife will start focusing again on their early child hood like they did when they were in their early twenties. When this happens stuff from the eighties will actually have a second boom of shorts. If you don't believe me just look at some items that came from the 60's and early 70's. You will see that some of this stuff while common like Amazing Spiderman is going thousands of dollars.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

eBay comes along and everything goes haywire. If you don’t believe me, go to an Internet archive site and look up pages from eBay back around 1999, event he most simple of NES titles were going for huge $$. Nobody knew what was rare and what wasn’t so everything went for high dollars.
Definitely...I distinctly remember seeing a complete copy of Texas Chainsaw Massacre for Atari 2600 sell for over $600 back then (goes for about $250 today).

I also remember people paying insane prices for Famicom Disk System stuff since it didn't turn up on eBay very much and people outside Japan thought the stuff was super rare. People were paying $100 or more for disk versions of Metroid and Zelda. Once the Japs noticed what was going on, tons of them started selling FDS stuff and the prices crashed. They've never gone back up since, and you can still find stacks of disks on eBay on any given day.

[Bojay1997]

I think a lot of what we are seeing is a combination of a natural correction as more items have become available on Ebay (and therefore people are less likely to get into bidding wars since they know similar items will show up eventually) and the fact that many of the "hardcore" collectors have obtained a lot of what they are looking for. I don't think prices have collapsed, but many items go for less than they did a few years ago. It's kind of interesting, but I was thinking about this same thing when I saw the post about "who had items worth more than $1K". I think that truthfully, it's hard to say if any of us have items worth $1K on any given day.

[cyberfluxor]

I think that truthfully, it's hard to say if any of us have items worth $1K on any given day.

Well, the market is one thing but whatever something is worth to an individual can drastically change a particular value for one purchase. So although someone was ready to drop $8000 on a cartridge, when it finally popped into the market you might see a raised market due to the demand scare. Some of us laugh because we see the $8000 as some insane buyer but to those really seeking that particular game will either say screw it and go into hiding for awhile or raise their bid next time around.

But then again, things can just be pure insane and unpredictable but this is why you must take your chances to get something you want but within reason. :)

[wrldstrman]

Loose stuff has evened out but complete stuff still comes at a pretty price.

[Barbarianoutkast85]

Hot topic is at a partial-fault for this "old-school" fad. If they would stop making stupid shirts, and selling them to 15 year old kids they all wouldnt want to buy NES games. Then I could find some games for a decent price. Them kids and there meddeling dog.

[XxHennersXx]

Hot topic is at a partial-fault for this "old-school" fad. If they would stop making stupid shirts, and selling them to 15 year old kids they all wouldnt want to buy NES games. Then I could find some games for a decent price. Them kids and there meddeling dog.

um, it might be the opposite. Kids buy those shirts because nes games are selling. I know i buy hot topic video game shirts. why? some of them are cool and i like them. do i love nintendo? yes. Did nintendo come first? yes.

don't blame hot topic. Blame the stupid ass sellers hawking prices up.

[boatofcar]

My $.02:

There is a limited range for most people when they get into retrogaming. From about the time they enter college to the time they get married. Let's say, 18-30. We are entering the final years of people who grew up with the Atari 2600 that fit in that group, so prices for that system are decreasing. Before too long, the same will happen to NES, SNES, etc.

Of course, there are exceptions, but this is what I think has happened to the stagnant 2600 market and my prediction for the future market of games.

[s1lence]

Seems to me that we have a thread like this every single summer. Its summer, the game market is ALWAYS cool this time of the year.

[deaditeash2]

Personally, I don't really see why the market would be "cool" in the summer over any other time - there are just too many factors on both sides... I'll often hear - oh it's cool because kids are on summer break, etc. But if you think about people you know into classic gaming - how old are they on average? Mostly 20+ in my experience - they had to grow up playing the systems to create the whole nostalgia factor which often drives the need to collect/play/relive... Some others have touched on this with the generational age groups reaching new stages in their lives. This is exactly what happened to me - after college and even post marriage but PRE-kids I was collecting big-time with huge disposable income and then double disposable income (the golden years I think). First came marriage, then came the baby, then came the wife's crackdown on every penny leaving my pocket! Now the kids are getting to be 5-ish and I'm back in for the most part. Trouble is now all the frickin' NES games are insanely priced to me! Only real scenario's I hope for now with a more limited budget is the possible system score at a thrift or garage sale - even if I managed to win an ebay bid - the shipping would be ridiculous these days...

[Rob2600]

Nes rares arent cooling, look at Stadium Events on ebay right now, say like $1200 dollars? Wow

I've never played Stadium Events, but I remember seeing pictures of it in issues of Nintendo Power years ago. It didn't look like anything special, none of my friends and I were interested in it, and nobody I knew bought. What's so fascinating about it that people are paying over $1,000 for it now?

EDIT:

I just looked up Stadium Events on wikipedia.org. I didn't know that it's identical to World Class Track Meet, except for the title screen. I've played World Class Track Meet and thought it was decent, but have always preferred Konami's Track & Field and Track & Field II.

It turns out I was thinking of a different, family-oriented competitive sports game for the NES. What was the game I'm thinking of?

EDIT 2:

I figured it out. I'm thinking of Athletic World and/or Super Team Games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic_World

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Team_Games