Has your game collection slowed down due to price inflation?

[swlovinist]

I have been collecting for 10 years now, but mostly got the bulk of my game collection in the past four years. Now that I am topping 3,800+ games, I am finding it harder and harder to purchase the games I want. This is for several reasons. 1)I am looking for things that only show up on the internet rarely 2)The things I am looking for are expensive. 3)Collecting popular games that date before or during 8-bit Nintendo are getting harder to find complete. 4)The value of games has skyrocketed in the last four years. While many out there are either collecting for the first time, or have some magic place that they can still find great vintage stuff, I was wondering on how many poeple out there are in the same boat as me, just slowing down their collecting and getting what they can afford?

[Cmosfm]

Four years? no, i'd say they skyrocketed in the last 1-2 years. Has this cut down my buying? yes, I havent bought anything in a long time due to the fact that 1) I can't find anything at all, and 2) when I do find it, they want too much.

But still I try, I got plans to hit the flea market in the morning. Wish me luck guys.

[undead455]

Oh yeah people are starting to sell SMB/DH for $10. O_O

[y-bot]

I am in the same boat as you. I only collect pre-NES consoles & cartridges. Most of what I don't have is expensive and/or very hard to find. Even at CGE there was only a handful of things I really needed for my collection. I don't have time to look for stuff on ebay and when I find something cool I hardly ever win anyway. I'm not serious enough about buying on ebay to pay for a sniper service and I have better things to do than be at my computer when auctions end. I did manage to get one Astrocade item I needed recently (old BASIC) and I am hoping to get another (Music Maker) soon.

y-bot

[Ed Oscuro]

I mostly buy imports, and when I do find domestic stuff at Goodwill, it's always $3.99 - in fact, I recently got a bag with four SNES titles, two controllers, RF adapter, and A/V cord, all official. Doubtless inflation has gotten bad for some folks, but I'm not one of them.

Plus it's still a good time to buy Atari 8-bit stuff, classic PC games, etc. - demand hasn't quite realized what neat stuff there was back then (well, in the case of the PC it's partly due to how darn hard it was to set those machines up correctly.

[hydr0x]

well not really, i started to collect in 2000, so i'm used to the prices ;)

but sometimes it's driving me nuts (also you can make a profit once in a while...), last flea i went to there was a woman selling her kids n64 games, she had a complete Super Mario 64 (i don't have than one :embarrassed: ) but she asked 25 bucks for it (not good shape) saying "this is one of the rarest games out there" oh yeah, sure..., she was also asking 15 bucks per lose game @_@

[Ed Oscuro]

she had a complete Super Mario 64 (i don't have than one :embarrassed: ) but she asked 25 bucks for it (not good shape) saying "this is one of the rarest games out there"
You shoulda knocked her over, stolen the game, and ran away yelling "HA HA!"

Like Nelson would, no doubt.

That's pretty hillarious, right there. Yep, omG R@R3!

[christianscott27]

i slowed down due to lack of sources not prices. gamestop dropped out of the old games biz and most of my local indy stores have gone under recently. i love to hunt games in the wild but i miss my "sure things". another factor is what i call "the final 30%", on most of my system collections i'm at or around 70% complete. so now when i do make a find, 7 out of 10 times i dont need it. as for the online buying arena, i quit that a few years ago when i saw it was a bad addiction.

[Cauterize]

Oh yeah people are starting to sell SMB/DH for $10. O_O

i noticed that.. its just taking the piss!

[tholly]

there is a local store where i get nes games at $4 a piece....that has actually sped up my buying because a lot of the time he will have some good stuff

[izret101]

there is a local store where i get nes games at $4 a piece....that has actually sped up my buying because a lot of the time he will have some good stuff
I get NES stuff half off so i have been averaging 5-6 bucks a piece for complete NES games. So far i picked up 30.

[-hellvin-]

I pay a lot for some of my game stuff but it still doesn't slow me down, it's pretty bad cause i way overspend and have to sell stuff off lol. All of the stuff in my ign list I have aquired through ebay or the wild in about 8 months. I'm also a completist freak so almost everything has box and manual.

[Nez]

I've only been collecting for about a year or so, the prices have gone a bit up during that time I've noticed. Plus the noncorparte stores are dying like flies in my area.

[Cmosfm]

Oh, by the way, looks like someone bought the 20.00 Genesis and 5.00 sports games at the local Salvation Army.

:roll:

Can't really blame people on jacking up the prices, just the fools that pay the inflated prices.

[RetroYoungen]

With GameStop no longer selling games prior to the Playstation, I haven't bought too many games lately. But I have bought the first new games I've bought in quite some time. I'm not big on new games, but I did have to buy Gradius V and Advance Guardian Heroes brand spankin' new, and pay full price. But I haven't bought too many older titles since CGE.

[Querjek]

It depends on what you specialize in collecting for... there has been great inflation on "classic" games, but there has, therefore, been great deflation on current-gen games.

[vincewy]

Hmm, I thought the economy is bad and people are broke, so how could the prices go up? I think it also depends on what you collect, thank god I finished my Neo-Geo in 2000 (except new releases afterward), I know certain games are impossible to find now, regardless of how much you're willing to pay.

In term of Saturn and Dreamcast games, I've been stocking up like mad house lately (I can't believe how low some of the games and hardwares yield), prices hit rock bottom and I also picked up many doubles to play (the most prestine copies stay sealed in my collection of course). So my answer to the QUESTION of the thread is, ABSOLUTELY, in fact, I buy games when prices bottom out in most cases, maximizing the bang for the buck.

[Jehuty]

It becomes annoying when the only games around your area happen to be over 40 carts of Mario/Duckhunt by the one seller at $8 a pop as everything else has been snapped up in some kind of retrogaming frenzy.

I can still find things but that is becoming uncommon.

A while back I came accross a woman selling piles of StarWars games at $35 each most of which were SuperSW carts, the reason given "because they are collectors items". But inbetween all of them was a boxed complete copy of Guardian Heroes, I thought it would have been insanely priced but all she wanted was $5

Some people haven't a clue of an items worth.

[98PaceCar]

I've been having some good luck lately, but it's only because one of the local stores is going out of business. Since I've been a customer for about 8 years now, they are willing to let me see the good stuff they have. So, in the past week and a half, I've added over 200 games and several systems to my collection. Mostly NES and Genesis, but some others as well. A lot of good games though, mostly R5 and R6 that the manager had put back for himself. Getting them for anywhere from .50 to 3.00, except for the 2 Shining Force games which were 10.00 a pop. The most I've spent on any single item so far is a boxed Japanese N64, which was 30.00.

Once this run is over though, I don't have a lot of sources. Even the local classic game store is high on most stuff. They are a good source for really oddball stuff, but I rarely buy stuff there. The local flea markets are a waste so it's pretty much just blockbuster after that.

Makes me remember why I do arcades. Much easier to get a hold of!

98PaceCar

[tynstar]

nopehasnt slowed me down that much. Just look harder for deals.

[GarrettCRW]

I'd say it's slowed me down quite a bit, as I have no real "wild" here in Vegas without Gamestop selling older games. Of course, with my NES collection, the remaining games to buy are things like Crystalis-games that were rather poorly distributed at the time, but have a high reputation amongst the collectors. But with my Atari, since there's no "wild", my attempts to build a decent collection have been practically nil since I have to deal with eBay (which I generally use to fullfill purchases along a common goal, so as to help keep my expenses down). And the less said about how my Super NES and N64 collections are growing, the better.

[buttasuperb]

my collection has slowed because i sold a lotta stuff i didn't need. :)

[briskbc]

I'm taking a very strict hiatus from collection until this time next year. I have to get my finances in order, like fast. I am only picking up the odd white UK demo disc for the DC right now. I am a little concerned about what things will be like in as little as a year. Right now when I go into a pawn shop and guys have ebay on their computer. I ask to look at their Genny games behind the counter and the guy asks if I sell on eBay (I lied and said no). Antique stores sell common Atari games for $7.

That's the way collecting goes I guess. Everything I have ever collected was hot for some period of time, then it died off creating a buyers markeat (AKA heaven). The unfortunate part is I don't think it's gotten hot yet.

[dreamcaster]

My game collecting has slowed down for two reasons:

1) I haven't had a job since March

2) I've become more specialised in my collecting.

I've moved into collecting for only Sega, which means I'm passing up a lot of other stuff I would've gotten a while ago.

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

Nope, my collection has been growing rapidly over the past year or two.

[MarioAllStar2600]

My retro has slowed up terribly. For so many reasons
- GameStop stopped selling NES
- Game prices have gone up drasticlly on classic

I am still buying 2-3 cube games a week though. They are easy to get, plenty of raritys, and rather cheap. Just an overall fun system to collect for.

So yea, my retro collecting has slowed down a bit but im collecting cube like crazy.

[jan112850]

I've collected ps1 for 3 years, have every game and only need 70 sealed, those are open. Its been a trip but glad i started 3 years ago.

What amazes me is I started crossing platforms and am into snes games.
Here's a sealed game without even a factory bar code or anything to prove its sealed. The top 40 are going for $400 or more at times. It blows me away. Top ps1 games are $150 and there are few of those. Ok ff7 will go for $300 sometimes.

But the huge difference in price is astounding. SNES seems to be going crazy.
Dreamcast and Saturn still seem reasonable.

Any thoughts on why snes is ballooning? (besides skiier addict?)

God protect me from looking at any nes games. I'd be bankrupt.
S

[tritium]

I find that most places no longer carry dreamcast games. The selection at Gamestop is becomming sparse since they no longer accept trade ins from Dreamcast and stuff older than psOne.

EB prices are higher than gamestop for stuff like Genesis and snes games, at least here in Miami. Newer stuff is more reasonable at EB Though.

I don't buy nearly as often b/c I usually end up buying single titles from Ebay or Import stores and end up paying high prices for DC games. ($40 for Record of Lodoss War, the same for Bangai-O, at least they were new)

-Tritium

[vincewy]

Unlike cart based games, Dreamcast games are very sensitive and if there're a few scrathes, games stop working., for the very same reason I only get new DC games, even the doubles I play. Other disc based games can be polished but not Dreamcast (polish it and it can no longer read), an indication that new Dreamcast games will command high prices in the future.

[FooFighter]

The game craze isn't that strong here in Wyoming yet so I still find good deals.

The problem I have run into is I will go to a place and find a game for like .50. Well this might go on for awhile, but one day I go in, after they figure out that someone is interested in them (even if its just me) and all of the sudden the same thing is $5.00 :angry:

Anyone else see this?

[ubersaurus]

I've picked up a lot of stuff for older platforms this year. Just cuz the prices are higher online doesn't mean nothing to me, since EB, Game Rush, and Game Crazy cover my "sure things", and there's several flea markets to check out, and to top it off, garage sale season isn't quite over. Hell, I'd say as far as yard sales go, this has been my best year in a while. There's still thrifts too, but as anyone from SE michigan can tell you, those get picked clean real fast.

[calthaer]

The only reason my game collecting has slowed down a bit is because I have more games than I can reasonably play. I only collect games that I want - not all of them or "complete" system collections...so the higher prices are sometimes worth it if the game is indeed worth it. I won't pay it however if I don't think I'm going to get a chance to play it.