Where do you see the value of video games at in the future?

[VG_Maniac]

I was thinking about how much games are currently worth, and I was pondering over whether they will continue to go up in value as the years go by, or if they will decrease in value. Will a game (let's say, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!) that's worth around $10 now, be worth $40 in 20 years, or will it drop in value and sell for only $1 or $2? Will the value of someone's collection double over the next couple of decades, or will it be cut in half? Where do you personally see the overall value of video games going in the future...up or down?

[The 1 2 P]

As discussed in another thread for sealed games, the value for sealed games from the 16 bit gen and up has been going down substancially(barring a few exceptions like Chrono Trigger). Loose games will go down too except for the rarer in demand titles.

As for your analogy, I can't see a loose Mike Tyson cart going for $40 twenty years from now. Around here people who list it for more than $20 never sell it and you can sometimes find them for $3-6 each. Demand and availibility will be the key factors in determining what games move up or down(in value) in the future.

[izarate]

I think that value will go down over the next decades. With digital distribution and the ROM kiddie generation few people will care about physical copies. At best they would retain the same value they have now.

[skaar]

Watch Back to the Future II - that one shop will set all prices in the future. Someone have a frame grab or two to check some pricing? ;)

[Clownzilla]

Emulators have destroyed the potential value of the vast majority of games. Although, those same emulators have vastly increased the interest of the retro gaming hobby. So I guess it's a double edged sword.

[otaku]

well as time goes by and games are destroyed, lost, die etc they will be more expensive assuming people want them. I mean think about buying a dreamcast or 360 10-20 years from now with all the ones that are killing over and consider how hard parts will be to find. And further imagine the really old systems and games 20 years from now.

[TheRealist50]

I will post my answer to this question in 20 years.

[ryborg]

I think the economy has a lot to do with it too. Discerning collectors, college kids, and families just don't have the money to throw away on games if they're struggling to pay their bills. If the economy rebounds, I can see sales jumping a bit. It'll never be the way it was 8-10 years ago, but I don't think the value of classic games are doomed simply because of the Virtual Console et al.

[Bojay1997]

I think there may be slow growth in prices of truly rare or really high grade stuff. The games that were produced in the millions, however, that are readily available in complete condition and have been available in emulation and re-releases will probably sharply decline in value. As I have stated in other threads, I believe there has been a lot of artificial price boosting and manipulation by a handful of Ebay resellers who have made some fairly common games seem very valuable. This economic downturn may have long-term impacts as people may change how they spend their money and people may be far less willing to ring up huge credit card debt or spend large amounts of their income on collectibles, especially when you can essentially play the same game for a few dollars as a download.

The fact that millions of people have gone from owning large homes to renting apartments or smaller homes makes the possibility of storing large amounts of stuff more of a luxury as well. I think overall, some items will maintain their value, rare stuff will go up and the vast majority of games and consoles will be next to worthless. That's how it is in many recorded media based hobbies like record collecting which have a far more established history than video game collecting.

[Tupin]

Watch Back to the Future II - that one shop will set all prices in the future. Someone have a frame grab or two to check some pricing? ;)

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/bttf/images/2/27/Blastfrompast.jpg

Can't read the prices, but it gives a great insight to what people in the future like from the past, specifically, crappy LJN games and Burgertime. LOL

[FxMercenary]

The prices for games will continue to rise.

Just like the current people entering their mid-life crises buy motorcycles, and record players, people that were kids in the late 80s early 90s will enter their mid-life crisis in about 10-20 years.

They will want what they used to have, so hang on to your games.

[Bojay1997]

The prices for games will continue to rise.

Just like the current people entering their mid-life crises buy motorcycles, and record players, people that were kids in the late 80s early 90s will enter their mid-life crisis in about 10-20 years.

They will want what they used to have, so hang on to your games.

Many of those kids have already reached middle age or at least their early to mid-30s which is the first bump of heavy disposable income in life, the second typically being after the kids graduate college but pre-retirement. I think that's one reason we have seen the value of NES stuff rise significantly in the past few years (although again, not to the levels you see some people on Ebay trying to sell stuff for) while older classic stuff has dropped in value. People collect what they remember and late 80s and early 90s kids are not necessarily going to be as interested in stuff from before they got into video games. On the other hand, the fact that many kids grew up with a collecting mentality with comic books, baseball cards, etc... all having assigned values and price guides probably means a lot more video games from the NES and later generations were saved and kept in nicer condition than earlier stuff. Ultimately, that means more supply and lower prices.

[Rickstilwell1]

The prices for games will continue to rise.

Just like the current people entering their mid-life crises buy motorcycles, and record players, people that were kids in the late 80s early 90s will enter their mid-life crisis in about 10-20 years.

They will want what they used to have, so hang on to your games.

I missed my real copies six months after I sold my retro games. I was 19 then, thinking that owning a laptop would be so much better.

I'm lucky that I couldn't spend more than six months without my real copies of old games. Or else it would have probably been harder to get them all back in better condition again. Some of those original systems were showing wear anyway though, so I don't think it was a really terrible move. The new stuff I bought off ebay worked better and I even got some of the exact same copies of things back from the local game store I traded them in at. They sat in there for up to a year and never sold, like my Game Boy Pocket and a few of the CIB games I traded in with it.

[Haoie]

Don't collect games for resale. Simple as that.

[Cryomancer]

I see the value of games in the future exactly where I see them now, in the good times you have playing them.

I really don't think they will be a viable "investment" within one person's lifetime at all.

[XYXZYZ]

In 2020, a SMB/Duck Hunt cart will go for $35,000.00. Just a little less than the hourly minimum wage.

[kaedesdisciple]

I see the value of games in the future exactly where I see them now, in the good times you have playing them.

I really don't think they will be a viable "investment" within one person's lifetime at all.

THIS

I don't even start to think about the value of the games until I want to start doing a little shuffling/re-focusing of my collection (coming again soon, btw). I'll look up some fair prices for things I don't want anymore and sell them for that, end of story. I'm not going to sit and speculate that maybe I'll get a bit more if I wait another 6 months to a year.

[crom]

just like cards and comics the prices will go down but probably more so...

I never was arround to see hank arron or babe ruth play but I can sure as hell appreciate one of their baseball cards, I think most ppl could...

I never was around for the odessey, I can appreciate it, I wouldnt go out of my way to get one, and I think most ppl are the same...

so there you have it... systems will hold no value in the future

[jjgames]

First off I don't think you should collect games to make money. Collect them because you enjoy it.

That being said, I do think some games will go up in value quite a bit from where they are now. Some of that will be inflation which just makes stuff more expensive. But I think it will be a popular collectors item like comics and baseball cards are now. Regular games that have millions of copies won't all of a sudden be really expensive, but games that are rare and sought after will increase in value.

Just like comic books and cards, most will not be worth much but there will be some that are very expensive. Look at the difference between top card and comic prices today vs the most expensive video games. Games have a long ways to go to even get close.

[jdc]

Remember, not all people are rabid videogame collectors. Also, we're living in a time where the average person thinks out of their wallet, non-collectors and collectors alike. There is a trend towards increasing cheapness....disguised as thrift. People want everything for the lowest price, which is why Walmart, Ebay, Craigslist and Kijiji are popular.....and have managed to destroy the perceived value of everything. You might have that rare mint title, but not many are willing to give you what its true value may be. They want it "for a really good deal".....which is becoming the most irritating catchphrase of this decade. Even though not being able to afford it, people want to own everything....but don't want to pay true value for it anymore. The collecting of anything for future financial gain isn't a wise prospect anymore. Just ask my collection of rare mint comic books. Pretty sad when you can't sell a mint complete Star Wars series. Might as well let my kid read them.

[guitargary75]

Down, way down.

[The 1 2 P]

The lesson learned from comic books and baseball cards is that only the rarest of the rare games will retain long term value. Everything else will probably flatline if the prices don't approach more acceptable levels(meaning no more multi platinum hits like FF7 selling for $50-100 used).

[calthaer]

The other thing to note about Back to the Future Part II is the fact that, in the future, you will not use your hands to play video games. Old games will become antiques and may be worth a lot of money, depending on rarity. But nobody will play them.

It will be like the Antiques Road Show, except they will replace that "bling" sound with a Super Mario Bros. coin noise.

[Iron Draggon]

original ROMS will hold their value as long as the original hardware to run them holds up, but once working hardware becomes more scarce than the ROMS themelves, the ROMS will become much less desirable to anyone

[gdement]

original ROMS will hold their value as long as the original hardware to run them holds up, but once working hardware becomes more scarce than the ROMS themelves, the ROMS will become much less desirable to anyone

This will be a big problem for disc based consoles. Cartridge systems will last a lot longer, and even when they break they're far easier to repair than the newer stuff.
CDs also just aren't as interesting to look at in a collection.

So all in all, cartridges will probably hold a lot more value.

[plastic]

This will be a big problem for disc based consoles. Cartridge systems will last a lot longer, and even when they break they're far easier to repair than the newer stuff.
CDs also just aren't as interesting to look at in a collection.

So all in all, cartridges will probably hold a lot more value.Personally, I think CD based games look much better in a collection.

Regardless, I see value plummeting eventually. I think certain genres will maintain value better than others (Shmups, for example)

[Iron Draggon]

This will be a big problem for disc based consoles. Cartridge systems will last a lot longer, and even when they break they're far easier to repair than the newer stuff.
CDs also just aren't as interesting to look at in a collection.

So all in all, cartridges will probably hold a lot more value.

agreed on the hardware, and somewhat agreed on the software, but the art on alot of the picture disc CD's & DVD's is alot more interesting to look at than the art on cart stickers and boxes... plus the new clamshell cases are as pleasing to me as the Genesis clamshells were, and jewel cases still look nicer than cardboard boxes or loose carts to me... but I think it's best to have a mix of all of the above... you have to be pretty into gaming to have all those things in your collection... and it shows how much gaming has evolved over the years too... that makes a collection alot more interesting to admire to me

[GameDeals.ca]

With digital distribution slowly building a library or everything, I expect 95% of retro games to not only go down in price, but to fall to Atari 2600 levels. The concept of games on a physical medium will be lost on future generations, and very few (outside of DP) will want to track down a beat-up console to play a disc with a few scratches on it that may or may not work that they had to drive across town to find it, when they can download it for $10 on the machine they already have. I expect to have a store filled with $1-$2 games for everything, and only a few specific things holding their value (rare/mint stuff and stuff that hasn't/can't be emulated).

I'm actually thinking about (5-10 years from now) turning the store into a non-profit where people donate their worthless games and we sell them for Child's Play Charity. But that's still a long way away.

[duffmanth]

I think sites like Ebay, Kijiji, and Craig's List have devalued rare and common games and rare and common collectibles in general. Games and other items that were once considered rare and could only be found in retail stores at inflated prices, are now common place online and fairly affordable a lot of the time.

As far as games go, a lot of the local used game stores in my area sell rare (or what they consider to be rare) games at somewhat justifiable prices to insanely over priced. A few examples are Metal Gear Solid 3: Limited Edition (Red Box) is $200 CDN at one store. Most people will thinks that's too high, but this game is EXTREMELY rare at retail and on Ebay where it usually goes for $150 minimum. To me that price is a little high, but the right collector might pay that. However when I see a game like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes going for $60 with a beat up book and scratched discs, that's a little much. I think some games will hold or increase their value over time, but a lot will decrease mostly because they are so widely and cheaply available online.

A lot of people can't grasp the concept of supply and demand, and don't understand that rare games are going to be more expensive. Unfortunately video games appeals to some people who want to play them, but don't want to shell out the money and want everything for nothing or a little as they can get it for. Gaming has always been an expensive hobby and always will be.

[Bojay1997]

I think sites like Ebay, Kijiji, and Craig's List have devalued rare and common games and rare and common collectibles in general. Games and other items that were once considered rare and could only be found in retail stores at inflated prices, are now common place online and fairly affordable a lot of the time.

As far as games go, a lot of the local used game stores in my area sell rare (or what they consider to be rare) games at somewhat justifiable prices to insanely over priced. A few examples are Metal Gear Solid 3: Limited Edition (Red Box) is $200 CDN at one store. Most people will thinks that's too high, but this game is EXTREMELY rare at retail and on Ebay where it usually goes for $150 minimum. To me that price is a little high, but the right collector might pay that. However when I see a game like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes going for $60 with a beat up book and scratched discs, that's a little much. I think some games will hold or increase their value over time, but a lot will decrease mostly because they are so widely and cheaply available online.

A lot of people can't grasp the concept of supply and demand, and don't understand that rare games are going to be more expensive. Unfortunately video games appeals to some people who want to play them, but don't want to shell out the money and want everything for nothing or a little as they can get it for. Gaming has always been an expensive hobby and always will be.

I agree that supply and demand is important to consider, but contrary to many other commodities, just because a particular game or system is in low supply doesn't necessarily mean that it is in high demand and therefore the value is not necessarily tied entirely to the supply side. There are tons of very numerically rare games that people just have no interest in. Conversely, you have many games that are very common but demand still outstrips supply (or at least people perceive that it's worth paying more on Ebay or at a retail store for a particular game because they personally have had trouble finding one easily) and people pay far more than you might think the value would be when compared to the supply. I don't know how many times I have seen a game rapidly run up in price on Ebay, only to find it easily from another on-line vendor or locally at a far lower price. To some extent, Ebay has resulted in lazier or less sophisticated consumers paying too much for certain items. Video games and collectibles in general are not a good investment simply because there is no clear pattern as far as what goes up in value and what declines. As such, I don't think anyone can really expect or know what the value of video games will be five or ten or fifty years down the road.

[backguard]

i guess i'm a bit more optimistic than many in this thread. i think:

1. Just about any games that come with their original cardboard boxes will continue to increase in price.

2. Grails will pretty much always keep moving up.

3. Some limited editions, the ones that are actually truly limited (i.e. not GTAIV, Halo legendary edition etc), will continue going up, particularly if they are RPGs or from an established genre.

4. Sealed games will continue going up.

5. From this generation forward, only sealed games will increase in value.

6. Pretty much everything else is going to see a decline.

[The 1 2 P]

1. Just about any games that come with their original cardboard boxes will continue to increase in price.

ET for the Atari 2600? Superman 64 for N64? Aquaman on Xbox? Sorry dude but even if you throw in a free sandwich neither of those games(complete) will have a worldwide in demand price point of $10 or more.


4. Sealed games will continue going up.

Try telling that to sealed Snes games like Super Castlevania 4(used to get $100-200 sealed and now only gets $40-70 sealed) and Super Metroid(used to go for $150-300 sealed but now only gets $70-100). Those are just two examples of many other sealed games who's value continues to decline every year.


5. From this generation forward, only sealed games will increase in value.

Maybe "certain" sealed games but it's going to be a very small list, as in about 2% of sealed games this gen "might" increase in value. Games that sell millions of copies(Halo 3, Gears of War, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War 3, Call of Duty 4 and others like that) will never increase overall. All those games will continue to go down. Thats why you can find greatest hits for PS2 and platinum hits for Xbox brand new for $9.99 still in stores today.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade but I don't see the majority of video games(sealed or opened) greatly increasing in value. Something can be a hundred years old(like some of my coins) but if there isn't a great demand for it, then it's not worth the material used to make it. Just go compare the price of comic books and baseball cards today to what they use to go for in the 90's.

[duffmanth]

I agree with your statement, it's just some people don't understand that if a game is rare and there is still fairly high demand for it, odds are that the high price will reflect that. I used to work at a gaming retailer in a town with a Wal-Mart and Dollar Store mentality and most people just couldn't understand that rarer games that are still in demand usually have higher prices. Just as a quick example we used to sell a game like Diablo for PSone usually at $50 or more and people's eyes would pop out of their heads, at the same time someone else who comes along might pay that price b/c they know how rare it is.

And I agree that games and many other items are going for way too much on Ebay, but also at retail as well. I also agree that collecting games, comics, and baseball cards for future financial gain is risky b/c there is only a handful of these collectibles that either hold their value or increase in value.

[Bojay1997]

i guess i'm a bit more optimistic than many in this thread. i think:

1. Just about any games that come with their original cardboard boxes will continue to increase in price.

2. Grails will pretty much always keep moving up.

3. Some limited editions, the ones that are actually truly limited (i.e. not GTAIV, Halo legendary edition etc), will continue going up, particularly if they are RPGs or from an established genre.

4. Sealed games will continue going up.

5. From this generation forward, only sealed games will increase in value.

6. Pretty much everything else is going to see a decline.

I think none of these things will happen.

1) There are tens of millions of games with their original boxes out there. They are harder to find in many cases than loose cartridge games, but still not rare in all but a few unusual cases.

2) Grails are only grails to a very limited number of people. Do you really think a kid born well after the NES generation is really gonna care much about NWC carts or that most people who get into collecting will spend tens of thousands of dollars on grail items when they can get an entire collection for the same price? Heck no. It's just like comics or coins. A very small group of wealthy collectors own the rarest and most expensive stuff and the vast majority of collectors don't ever even try to find them. As a result, as the economy dips and climbs, so too do prices at the high end.

3) Limited editions are a completely manufactured collectible and have never been and will never be rare. There are some that are in demand because not enough were printed to satisfy demand, but they seem to hit a certain price level and then either fall or just remain stable.

4) Depends on the game. There are literally thousands of sealed games going back to the 1970s that are worth far less than they sold for back in the day. Even when I pay $40-$50 for a sealed game, I am paying the same as or less than the game sold for at the time and inflation means that I am actually getting a huge bargain on older games.

5) Again, depends on the game. If something truly rare and obscure comes along, complete copies will grow in value as well. Being sealed is a nice bonus, but a lot of people collect mint/complete stuff too.

6) I think it's safe to say all video games will see a decline in value over time. Being sealed, "limited", boxed or a grail really offers little or no protection from the economy and people just frankly moving on to other things. I would also add that this is one of the few hobbies that has literally had collectors since almost the very beginning of the industry, so it's not like comics or even toys where people threw them away thus sharply reducing the supply at some point. There are still millions of copies of even the earliest games out there in garages, thrift shops, attics, old warehouses, etc...You can also enjoy the actual experience or play value of the game through so many other sources now (emulation, downloads, remakes, reprints) that essentially what many of us are collecting is just a box and a shell. Anyone can basically own the games themselves for next to nothing. You can't say the same thing about many other collectibles.

[swlovinist]

This hobby is fairly new to others, so I predict that the value will both lower and rise over time like a yo-yo. As people of the Genesis, Snes, and Playstation start to get to an age of disposable income, I see those values rising, mostly on the rare stuff. I also agree that some ebay sellers have been hyper inflating the prices of this stuff, so common uncommon games will be lower. Craigslist is awsome if you know how to use it, and I feel that unless something is truly rare, that it will help be a balance check for prices in the future.

[backguard]

All of my assertions are based on the premise that more people will be entering into the hobby. Supply isn't going to go up for rare items (despite digital distribution, nobody collects e-copies of things), so if more collectors join the ranks, demand goes up, and prices go up accordingly. I don't think this is unreasonable - games are finally becoming more mainstream. I'm sure that will lead some people to join the ranks of collectors.

But if people don't continue entering the hobby, all bets are off.


I think none of these things will happen.

1) There are tens of millions of games with their original boxes out there. They are harder to find in many cases than loose cartridge games, but still not rare in all but a few unusual cases.

My thinking on this is that cardboard boxes inevitably get damaged/destroyed and become rarer over time. Overtime, people will have more difficulty getting them, especially in good condition.


2) Grails are only grails to a very limited number of people. Do you really think a kid born well after the NES generation is really gonna care much about NWC carts or that most people who get into collecting will spend tens of thousands of dollars on grail items when they can get an entire collection for the same price? Heck no. It's just like comics or coins. A very small group of wealthy collectors own the rarest and most expensive stuff and the vast majority of collectors don't ever even try to find them. As a result, as the economy dips and climbs, so too do prices at the high end.

I disagree on that. Grails are grails. Just like a rookie Mickey Mantle, high profile games of extreme rarity, such as the NWC, will continue to go up. Just like the baseball card market, things like the Mickey Mantles have continued to increase, but the market for commons basically has dropped out.


3) Limited editions are a completely manufactured collectible and have never been and will never be rare. There are some that are in demand because not enough were printed to satisfy demand, but they seem to hit a certain price level and then either fall or just remain stable.

Some limited editions are actually rare, and those are the ones I expect to continue to increase in value. Mana Khemia LE was limited to 1000, MGS3 LE was quite limited. The Mega Man 9 press kit was very limited. Digital Devil Saga LE was very limited. These continue to go up in value or at least hold their own. I agree though, so many LE's are not really LEs (GTAIV!!), but I think the ones that are truly limited will continue to go up.


4) Depends on the game. There are literally thousands of sealed games going back to the 1970s that are worth far less than they sold for back in the day. Even when I pay $40-$50 for a sealed game, I am paying the same as or less than the game sold for at the time and inflation means that I am actually getting a huge bargain on older games.

Agreed, but I don't think we are talking about sealed games purchased at retail. Sure if you purchased a NES Hoops at retail and hung on to it, you'd have lost money. But you can't do that anymore. Everything from previous generations is basically aftermarket and not determined by MSRP.


5) Again, depends on the game. If something truly rare and obscure comes along, complete copies will grow in value as well. Being sealed is a nice bonus, but a lot of people collect mint/complete stuff too.

My thinking here is that mint/complete stuff from at least ps1 on is too common to really increase substantially. The only way rarity plays into games past this generation is if they are unopened. Tons of examples out there - Silent Hill 1 approx 40 opened vs 150 sealed, Kingdom Hearts, 10 used 100+ sealed.


6) I think it's safe to say all video games will see a decline in value over time. Being sealed, "limited", boxed or a grail really offers little or no protection from the economy and people just frankly moving on to other things. I would also add that this is one of the few hobbies that has literally had collectors since almost the very beginning of the industry, so it's not like comics or even toys where people threw them away thus sharply reducing the supply at some point. There are still millions of copies of even the earliest games out there in garages, thrift shops, attics, old warehouses, etc...You can also enjoy the actual experience or play value of the game through so many other sources now (emulation, downloads, remakes, reprints) that essentially what many of us are collecting is just a box and a shell. Anyone can basically own the games themselves for next to nothing. You can't say the same thing about many other collectibles.

I don't think you can say all games will decrease over time. I tried to identify some cases where I don't think that is true. Sure the market is affected by economic fluctuations; so is basically any other investment vehicle. But even despite all of the stuff going on right now, games prices have remained relatively stable and have certainly outperformed the S&P. I think that demonstrates the strength of the overall game collecting market.

[Bojay1997]

All of my assertions are based on the premise that more people will be entering into the hobby. Supply isn't going to go up for rare items (despite digital distribution, nobody collects e-copies of things), so if more collectors join the ranks, demand goes up, and prices go up accordingly. I don't think this is unreasonable - games are finally becoming more mainstream. I'm sure that will lead some people to join the ranks of collectors.

But if people don't continue entering the hobby, all bets are off.



My thinking on this is that cardboard boxes inevitably get damaged/destroyed and become rarer over time. Overtime, people will have more difficulty getting them, especially in good condition.



I disagree on that. Grails are grails. Just like a rookie Mickey Mantle, high profile games of extreme rarity, such as the NWC, will continue to go up. Just like the baseball card market, things like the Mickey Mantles have continued to increase, but the market for commons basically has dropped out.



Some limited editions are actually rare, and those are the ones I expect to continue to increase in value. Mana Khemia LE was limited to 1000, MGS3 LE was quite limited. The Mega Man 9 press kit was very limited. Digital Devil Saga LE was very limited. These continue to go up in value or at least hold their own. I agree though, so many LE's are not really LEs (GTAIV!!), but I think the ones that are truly limited will continue to go up.



Agreed, but I don't think we are talking about sealed games purchased at retail. Sure if you purchased a NES Hoops at retail and hung on to it, you'd have lost money. But you can't do that anymore. Everything from previous generations is basically aftermarket and not determined by MSRP.



My thinking here is that mint/complete stuff from at least ps1 on is too common to really increase substantially. The only way rarity plays into games past this generation is if they are unopened. Tons of examples out there - Silent Hill 1 approx 40 opened vs 150 sealed, Kingdom Hearts, 10 used 100+ sealed.



I don't think you can say all games will decrease over time. I tried to identify some cases where I don't think that is true. Sure the market is affected by economic fluctuations; so is basically any other investment vehicle. But even despite all of the stuff going on right now, games prices have remained relatively stable and have certainly outperformed the S&P. I think that demonstrates the strength of the overall game collecting market.

Just to clarify a few points, while you may be assuming that more people will enter the hobby, you also have to account for the fact that many will leave it as well, especially when they get married, get older, lose interest, etc...I think it's very hard to know just how many people collect now and what those numbers will look like in the future. The number of comic collectors and baseball card collectors fell off a cliff in the mid to late 90s and has never recovered.

Most people could care less about grails. While a Mickey Mantle card may be valuable, it doesn't go up an automatic 10-15% per year since there are only a limited number of people who can afford it and only a few that get sold annually. Most people don't even own any real video game grails since there are literally a handful of those, so unless your collection is all grails and you plan on holding them for ten years and then selling them for profit, it doesn't really matter whether they go up in value or not. Frankly, some are so overinflated in value now that I doubt they can go any higher unless very rich people get into the hobby.

The US version of Mana Khemia in the LE box was printed in a quantity of 10,000 units, not 1,000. I think you are confusing the fact that Rosenqueen only sold 1,000 copies with the fact that the same box set was available from Amazon and local independent retailers, as well as many Gamestop locations. MGS 3 LE was apparently 15,000 units. While that doesn't sound like much, it's still enough to satisfy hardcore collectors who absolutely must have it while keeping the price under a few hundred bucks. There is very little chance those prices will continue to rise as they have been stable for the last year or so.

I only mentioned the retail example because a lot of what I buy factory sealed from Ebay or in the wild was once purchased by the seller at MSRP or maybe a slight discount. When I buy someone's 20 year old sealed game at $40, they are actually losing money on the deal when you factor in inflation, storage costs, etc...So, if I had been a collector who started buying games at full MSRP 20 years ago like a lot of collectors do for modern games, I would have lost a significant amount of my "investment".

Silent Hill and Kingdom Hearts are great examples of why I think the sealed logic is flawed. There are probably tens of thousands of sealed copies of both games still in homes, attics, storage units, warehouses, etc...They sold in the multiple millions each. They are not and will never be worth more than MSRP despite the fact that foolish Ebay buyers are paying premiums for them now. This is exactly what happened in comics and baseball cards before they crashed in the 90s. People don't understand that it takes a little time for the secondary supply of things to trickle out from wholesalers, forgotten stock, individuals who have unwanted gifts, etc....

Game prices have absolutely not outperformed the S&P, unless you are just talking about during the last year of the financial crisis. Many games have gone down significantly in value over time. Some have maintained and a few have increased. That's not a market that people should be speculating in.

[backguard]

Game prices have absolutely not outperformed the S&P, unless you are just talking about during the last year of the financial crisis. Many games have gone down significantly in value over time. Some have maintained and a few have increased. That's not a market that people should be speculating in.

I was just talking about the last year or so. Notwithstanding that, you make me want to sell my collection. :)

[GameDeals.ca]

RE: Supply & Demand.

In spite of the DP forum populace, most gamers aren't hardcore collectors and will accept a digital version of the game that plays on their current console, and Digital Distribution creates infinite supply. Demand will never exceed infinite, so prices will come down.

[duffmanth]

I would say that games that come with their manuals and boxes will always be worth more than ones that don't. I would also agree that RARE games and sealed will always be worth more and will probably at least hold their current value and possibly increase in value in the future. I disagree that only sealed games will go up in value while everything else will decrease.

I think the biggest thing that's going to drive up the value of rare and common games both, is if there is still demand for them.

[Octopod]

Im with the down crowd. Protos and the like ofcourse will stay valuable but games that have copies in the thousands and hundreds of thousands or more have nowhere to go but down.

[The 1 2 P]

For those that buy games purely for investment, there are much better ways of investing your money. Like playing the lottery.

[Fuyukaze]

I think there will always be a demand for a phisical copy. That said, cart based systems have proven to be the longer lasting systems. Games get re-released all the time and making them d/l doesnt always hurt the value to any great detail. Sure, for most of the more common stuff it's not as easy to demand a premium but normaly prices bounce back half a year after it's released on a newer system.

All that said, with the economy in the craper as it's been going the past 6 months, people wont have the money to shell out like they used to. Prices will drop when people have to pick between that old rare game and groceries for the week.

[Ed Oscuro]

I know I've argued against investing in games in the past, but then I did it.

Games won't lose all their value permanently in the way a stock can. Choosing wisely is the way to go. It's hard to make a killing off some game unless you know how to manipulate the market or something (that'd take some money though; the pattern would be to find some amazing old game that nobody's heard of and hoard all the copies you see, proselytize the heck outta it, then slowly leak it to the market. Of course, I doubt this will happen anytime soon, and the only reason people will be interested in a game is if something like AYB happens...which only looks set to happen once, and doubtless anybody could make a "killing" off that anyway).

Stick to CDs if you need the money...you'll take a hit if you withdraw early but it's better than going "dang I can't sell this now at the price I need to" (i.e. my quandry with a lot of items).

[Ed Oscuro]

Actually, a number of CD-ROM systems are quite easy to repair, if they use some kind of standard laser assembly. Not "even your dog can do it" but it's worth considering that either some old CD systems will become emulation only, or rereleased, or somebody is going to make some money servicing them.

The major obstacle to prices of CD-ROM games that were printed in the millions, but whose numbers steadily decline as copies are opened or destroyed, is reprints; piracy is also a distinct possibility (always an issue at the forefront of a person's mind when looking at a copy of Dracula X for PC-Engine, although probably highly overstated).

Ultimately we have to deal with the fact that these are consumer goods meant to be mass-produced, but unlike baseball cards (which have been getting along nicely) or coins, the hardware to produce some of the old stuff exactly as it was originally made may not be available. It's probably easy to make a very convincing copy though; you'd just need to pay attention to detail and machining, molds, and the like.


The other thing to note about Back to the Future Part II is the fact that, in the future, you will not use your hands to play video games. Old games will become antiques and may be worth a lot of money, depending on rarity. But nobody will play them.

It will be like the Antiques Road Show, except they will replace that "bling" sound with a Super Mario Bros. coin noise.
Hear, hear - why can't we have three Calthaer posts on the page instead of three ridiculous ones from L2P?

Personally, I'm putting the lack of hands-on gaming to Biff's baleful influence corrupting the morals of American youth. The real future will be brighter and happier, I'm sure.

[drogosan]

I see long-term prices going UP. My reasons:

1. The advent of ebooks has done nothing to dent the prices of "first edition" collectible and antique books. People buy the real book over a virtual one for the simple pleasure of handling a genuine, organic product, and perhaps using them as a sort of "trophy".

2. Physical original games will go the way as any other antique. Generally, antiques do not depreciate over time and neither should physical games.

3. The supply of original physical games, especially in mint condition, will only decrease over time. But residual demand from the gaming population will, at worst, remain the same.

[cheesystick]

Although I agree with many of the main points already stated in this thread, there is one variable no one has mentioned yet: how sheik this will all be in the coming years.

Let me preface this with a small antidote. I spent the last five years in Eugene, Oregon, going to school. There is a great store there called CD/game exchange,and I would pick games up there all the time. Some games would sell for over-inflated ebay prices, but most were quite reasonable. This is not to say that they were dirt cheap, (like a thrift or wild find), but you can still find good stuff there and think to yourself, "Well, at least I beat Ebay by a little bit, and I bought locally." The last time I was there I bought TMNT IV for SNES and Psychonauts for Xbox for $5.00 a piece.

One week later I tried to match that shopping experience with going to another Cd/game exchange in Portland. This store is part of the same chain and they price their games in the same manner, (cross-checking with amazon.com, I believe). Even so, it is common knowledge that Portland is overflowing with young hipsters right now. Even with my opinions aside, there is a huge influx in the town of people ages 20-35, and the culture there matches the populous with a young, “trendy” spirit.

So imagine my lack of surprise when walking into the Portland location to find Turtles IV for $18.00. This sort of trend is all over the town. You can find NES Little Nemo in Eugene for $5.00 in a variety of places, but you'll pay no less than double that in Portland. Find SNES Super Metroid for $10.00 in Eugene? We'll your bound to pay $20-25 in Portland for it. This is everywhere – pawn shops, game shops, thrift stores, resellers, etc.

Buying “retro” games has become quite fashionable among the young crowd. All the indie hipsters think that old NES and SNES carts are really cool right now, so they are willing to shell out the big bucks for those carts. Record collecting is the same story there. Common pricing seems to go out the window, and people are still paying Ebay+ prices even though supply is actually really high. People are walking out of these places with a $30 loose NES Zelda cart thinking that they got a really good deal. I see stand alone NES units sell for $70-$90 all the time.

More than just insane prices, all these young people are infatuated with the retro culture. In Eugene, people found my collection lame and geeky. In Portland, people find fashionable, (funny, right?). You can see the cultural infatuation in more than just high prices; you can also see it by going to Hot Topic. People are running around with Donkey Kong shirts and Mario socks. Girls are making their own purses out of Mario sheets, (while turning me on immensely in the process.)

Now this is a subculture, and I am aware about the extremely fickle nature of the people at hand, as well as their retarded, uneducated buying practices. Even so, I see this trend as more that just a facet of the transformers/80's resurgence. These indie cats will see my roommate playing Cod4 and think, “Man, this guy is a total loser,” and then they will see my playing Mr. Do and think, “wow, that's cool.” A lot of it stems from a gravitation back to simpler game play with shorter leaning curves, and as more modern games gravitate towards realism, the more this crowd will become fascinated with the games of old. Keep in mind that these are NOT the types of gamers that are big on downloading old games. Its only cool if you do it old school.

I digress, but my point is that it if retro gaming or collecting becomes sheik and fashionable, the prices will go UP, as they clearly have in this sub-culture. Now before you say, “duh,” I also think that this trend is likely to stay current, and the prices for NES and SNES will go up and stay up.

We grew up on the cusp of a very important time in gaming history. The NES/SNES eras seem to be a pretty important springboard to the modern gaming era. As more people see gaming culture as being incredibly huge, (in that and people are noticing how games generate more money than even movies nowadays), people will look back to the cartridge days as the golden ages of gaming.

More than just nostalgia, people see these carts as being pivotal in the era of transition form 2D to 3D. Those older games could only get so far on graphics, and had to have good gameplay to match. The Psone and N64 eras really got the snowball rolling on the modern focus on graphics and the “game play experience.” This is a huge generalization, and I am not even saying that this is bad, but a fairly large portion of people are not on board with this modern shift in gaming. Tons of people out there prefer the games of old, (preaching to the choir), and have no interest in any modern games, but will shell out big bucks for the old ones, just as they do with old records.

Now, no one can really predict when and what will be cool, so this whole post could be a waste of time, but I just have a strong feeling that NES and SNES games are going to go down particularly well in history, eclipsing comparisons that we can make with Atari carts and comics and so on. I can see my future kid, 20 years down the road, looking at my collection and saying, “so this is where it all started....” Now of course he would be wrong, but he would be partially right. Many people will view this era as being particularly important to gaming, and these games will age better than some other, older counterparts in the “mass public eye.”

I think that even with re-releases, this era of gaming will go down in f*cking history, and prices will reflect that. I see consumer after consumer buying SNES Mario Karts for $20-25, when the GBA version sells in the same store for $8-12. Millions of copies of that game are around, but the people still find tremendously high value in that nostalgia, and that era seems to touch more mass market nostalgia than any era proceeding it. And as most of us would agree, far less people are going to go back to Psone games and think, “awesome!” Even if they do, they aren't go to shell out the same for it.

So in short, I think that NES and SNES games are going to retain and increase in value over time because they will symbolize one of the most “mass-market-ly” respected eras in gaming, and people will pay to get a piece of that history. I see people “oowwing” and “ahhing” at a big collection of NES or SNES at the Smithsonian 50 years from now, where as I don't see them giving much of a damn over a PS2 or gamecube collection, or even an Atari collection.

Demand for these items will grow, even if the young crowd loses interest in it. The reason that the Ebay guys are getting away with murder is because the common, unexperienced collector/“common man” naturally sees some sort of collectors value in these games. Even a know-nothing bumpkin from Wasilla, Alaska, is going to dig these games up somewhere and think to themselves, “Oh damn Skeeter, these are worth pure gold!” Even if he is wrong, a similar country bumpkin ig going to buy his games at ridiculous prices because he is under the same perception that the stuff is worth billions. Check the craigslist thread for examples of this idiocy, ($100 for a loose SNES system with no games – yeah right!). Could this lead to a crash like with comics? Thats a different discussion...

More people like us will start collecting and prices will go up and stay up, in my opinion. My advice is to collect while you can, because I don't think that collecting any other generation is going to be this worthwhile, valuable, noteworthy, and as appealing to the mass public as the NES/SNES generation(s), trend or not.
-Chris

[Joe West]

A good game that is hard too find, the price will only go up in the future, unless 3rd party company's start too remake the games......................

[j_factor]

For the past 8 years the trend has been upward. I think it'll continue to go up. ROMs have been around for a long time now, and they haven't lowered the price of games. Hell, I've been seeing certain old strategy guides going for $40 and up. I never thought they'd be worth anything.

[drogosan]

What's everyone's opinion on collecting PS2 games ATM? The price of second-hand PS2 games here in Aus have crashed, today I scored Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and Champions of Norrath for about US$7 each from EB Games. Dirt cheap IMO, considering that the Aus eBay price for Champions of Norrath is 5x as much...

[Auzlander]

I collect nes games for the fun of it and the fond memories that they have produced. I don't see "value" of my collection in $$ but I measure it in "remeber the time when..."

I only care about $$ when I buy these games and I check price lists just to make sure I don't get ripped off.

[backguard]

What's everyone's opinion on collecting PS2 games ATM? The price of second-hand PS2 games here in Aus have crashed, today I scored Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and Champions of Norrath for about US$7 each from EB Games. Dirt cheap IMO, considering that the Aus eBay price for Champions of Norrath is 5x as much...

IMO, the market for used PS2 games is on the decline due to people transitioning to playing other systems. Simply put, the "fun" premium is disappearing. This will (and already is) being replaced by a "collectibility" premium, but that premium basically applies to sealed games and rarer limited editions. I don't think common sealed games have hit bottom yet, but rarer sealed games, sealed non-greatest hits games from established franchises, sealed rpgs and certain sealed limited editions, are stable and will continue increasing over time as more collectors enter the PS2 market.

[cityside75]

I'd like to hear from someone knowledgeable in the historic trend of record prices over the years. I hear all of these comparisons to baseball card price trends, but I think there are some important distinctions between cards and game collecting.

First and foremost, cards are created with the sole purpose of being a collectible. They do not serve any other function or purpose. Games obviously have other uses than just collectability and will always have some appeal to "non-collector" types that are just looking to play some old games again. Only in the last couple of generations have the game companies caught on to the collector mentality and started releasing limited and collector editions of games in large numbers.

Secondly, cards are intrinsically tied to the sport that they represent. If the interest level and enthusiasm for the sport goes down, the number of potential collectors goes down with it. I don't think it's any coincidence that the baseball card crash occured at the same time that baseball interest in general was at historically low levels, back in the late 80's/early 90's. Games aren't so closely tied to any other industry that they can be so heavily influenced by changing interests.

I think looking at record prices makes a lot more sense than card prices because they also were not created for collecting purposes alone, have uses outside of collecting, are on an obsolete but fascinating media format, and have their content available on newer formats, including digital distribution.

In regard to the original topic, I think that people treating gaming strictly as an investment are in for disappointment; and if there are many people out there buying up new games at retail or paying collector prices for older games and hoping to profit one day, that's just silly. Those of us out scouring the wild, that typically don't pay more than a few dollars for most of our finds should be in better shape, since we're usually buying at rock-bottom prices anyway.