Game Crazy sale could cause game values to plummet

[Anthony1]

Ok, first off, don't panic. Not all prices are going to plummet and not all games.

But, when it comes to N64 loose carts, I expect the values to absolutely plummet in the coming weeks. The values of loose SNES and Genesis games could also take a huge beating. Same thing goes with loose Game Gear, Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Playstation 1 values could also fall quite a bit.

Ok, here's the theory:


I'm not sure how many Game Crazy stores are Nationwide, but I think it's a couple of thousand stores or so. When you consider that these thousands of stores are blowing out all their retro games for $5 each or less, well that Tsunami that's coming is going to have a ripple effect.

You can better believe that Ebay Profiteers will get word of this sale, and they will be all over it like flies to ish. Ebay will see an absolute avalance of Harvest Moon 64's, Ogre Battle 64's, Star Craft 64's, etc, etc, etc.


Now, things might subside after a few months, but believe you me, there is going to be a fall in values for everything that is affected by this sale.

Now there are lots of things that "aren't" going to be affected by it. Like TurboGrafx-16, Sega Master System, Atari Jaguar, Neo Geo and other systems that Game Crazy doesn't carry. Complete games for all systems won't be affected very much, since most of Game Crazy's stuff is loose cart and loose CD's, and tons of rental stickers, etc, etc.

I think these items are going to be affected the most, in this order:


1. loose N64 carts - If loose N64 games had any value before this sale, they won't in a few weeks. The market is going to be absolutely flooded with loose N64 carts. Anybody that makes lots of money selling loose N64 carts on Ebay is going to need to get a real job.

2. loose common but in demand SNES games - There are alot of loose SNES games that sell pretty good on Ebay. Games like Super Metroid and Mario Kart and Contra III and Legend of Zelda and Super Mario All-Stars, etc, etc. Most of these loose carts are only valued at about $5 in the DP guide, but they sell for about double that on Ebay, some even triple that, especially after you factor in the extra profit that people squeze out of the shipping and handling charges. Well Game Crazy's around the country have tons and tons of these types of games. Usually these games cost $12.99 or $14.99 or $19.99 at Game Crazy before this sale. Some even $24.99. Well all the Ebay Profiteers had to avoid buying these games at those prices, but at $5 a pop, they will buy them up with reckless abandon.


3. loose Genny Games - Genny games don't have much value loose as it is. For some reason it seems the Genny is the red headed stepchild of loose game values. But after this sale, it could get even worse. That sound you hear is a thousand Herzog Zweis and Shining Force II's hitting Ebay simultaneously.


I can go on and on about this, but I have to go to sleep.

Anyways, discuss amongst yourselves. My children!

[Leo_A]

Won't happen

[TheRedEye]

The N64 section of every Game Crazy I've ever been to is nothing but Goldeneye anyway.

[Nez]

Mr. 1 your crazy, I've been to about 20 gamecrazys in PHX AZ today, and to tell you the truth there wasn't any real rare titles.

No Herzog Zweis, Ogre Battles or anything of the sort, were found.

Almost all the playstation game I found were either loose or crap.

N64 has a good selection, but I don't think it will touch the market at all really.

As for the Ebay whores I didn't see ANYTHING they could make good money on.

So they only thing this sale will affect are the collectors and the Cheep ass gamers.

[-hellvin-]

I'm seriously doubting what you're speculating. I went to a ton of gamecrazy's today and was lucky enough to find super mario rpg and breath of fire II and those were the most expensive games I found. The rest was just stuff to help fill my collection. I've been to the gc stores so many times I knew which stores had what games and everything like FF2, FF3, CT, Lunar Box sets were either picked by the employees or gutted.

So, it mainly depends on what the employees decide to do with their games, because most of the gc's I went to today they all said they cherry picked the place before they opened. Most of the employees sounded like they were keeping their games, but you never know. As for the average ebay whore, I agree with Nez in the fact that there was honestly not a large supply of rare titles to stock up on and resell. They'd mainly be wasting their time if that was their purpose.

I don't think there will be much of a noticeable effect on the market. I really can't say what it was like when other people went, but as far as I noticed while looking through the finds, everyone got some good games, but nothing really easily resellable. They may have pulled in a few pricey rpgs or what not but I saw no one who pulled in like 3 copies of FFIII. In fact, I barely saw any square rpgs in the finds.

[Sniderman]

OH NOES!!1! TEH RE$ELLRS R GONNA FL00D EV1LBAY w/N64 CARTZ!!1!ELEVENTY_TWO!!1!!


LOL

Nope, I'm with everyone else on this one. No avalanche or "market drop" will happen.

[felix]

heaven forbid I find a copy of chronotrigger (snes) for under $20..

nothings going to change.... Honda Civics are sold by the hundreds of thousands, but their resale prices wont change cuz bob down the street bought a few for cheaper than retail.

[mr_pollock]

I found Ogre Battle for Playstation and Arc the Lad Collection for Playstation. The rest of my finds weren't that great.

But one can only hope that the prices of these "classic" games go down.

People are paying $30 for Final Fantasy 6 (US). Why?

Bah.

[Flack]

Let me throw out the fact that Gamerush has been blowing out all their carts over the past six months now ... first they all dropped to 99 cents, then they were buy one get one at half price (still at 99 cents) and now they are buy two get one free (still at 99 cents).

I think your tsunami won't even be a ripple.

[drummy]

I found Ogre Battle for Playstation and Arc the Lad Collection for Playstation. The rest of my finds weren't that great.

But one can only hope that the prices of these "classic" games go down.

People are paying $30 for Final Fantasy 6 (US). Why?

Bah.
They had a US copy of Final Fantaasy VI? @_@

[GunPanther]

[quote="Anthony1- Ok, first off, don't panic. Not all prices are going to plummet and not all games.

But, when it comes to N64 loose carts, I expect the values to absolutely plummet in the coming weeks. The values of loose SNES and Genesis games could also take a huge beating. Same thing goes with loose Game Gear, Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Playstation 1 values could also fall quite a bit.

Ok, here's the theory:


I'm not sure how many Game Crazy stores are Nationwide, but I think it's a couple of thousand stores or so. When you consider that these thousands of stores are blowing out all their retro games for $5 each or less, well that Tsunami that's coming is going to have a ripple effect.

You can better believe that Ebay Profiteers will get word of this sale, and they will be all over it like flies to ish. Ebay will see an absolute avalance of Harvest Moon 64's, Ogre Battle 64's, Star Craft 64's, etc, etc, etc.


Now, things might subside after a few months, but believe you me, there is going to be a fall in values for everything that is affected by this sale.

Now there are lots of things that "aren't" going to be affected by it. Like TurboGrafx-16, Sega Master System, Atari Jaguar, Neo Geo and other systems that Game Crazy doesn't carry. Complete games for all systems won't be affected very much, since most of Game Crazy's stuff is loose cart and loose CD's, and tons of rental stickers, etc, etc.

I think these items are going to be affected the most, in this order:


1. loose N64 carts - If loose N64 games had any value before this sale, they won't in a few weeks. The market is going to be absolutely flooded with loose N64 carts. Anybody that makes lots of money selling loose N64 carts on Ebay is going to need to get a real job.

2. loose common but in demand SNES games - There are alot of loose SNES games that sell pretty good on Ebay. Games like Super Metroid and Mario Kart and Contra III and Legend of Zelda and Super Mario All-Stars, etc, etc. Most of these loose carts are only valued at about $5 in the DP guide, but they sell for about double that on Ebay, some even triple that, especially after you factor in the extra profit that people squeze out of the shipping and handling charges. Well Game Crazy's around the country have tons and tons of these types of games. Usually these games cost $12.99 or $14.99 or $19.99 at Game Crazy before this sale. Some even $24.99. Well all the Ebay Profiteers had to avoid buying these games at those prices, but at $5 a pop, they will buy them up with reckless abandon.


3. loose Genny Games - Genny games don't have much value loose as it is. For some reason it seems the Genny is the red headed stepchild of loose game values. But after this sale, it could get even worse. That sound you hear is a thousand Herzog Zweis and Shining Force II's hitting Ebay simultaneously.


I can go on and on about this, but I have to go to sleep.

Anyways, discuss amongst yourselves. My children!


-----------------------------


Um..... I hope I can get some good games for a cheap price. Then it's all about CUC MAL...... BEEEEEAAAAMMMMM!!!!!


LOL




:rockets: GunPanther :2gunfire:

[anagrama]

In the extremely unlikely situation you describe, the only people who are losing out are eBay profiteers. I fail to see a problem here.

[squidblatt]

Why wouldn't you want values to plummet? The less games cost, the less money we'll lose building our collections. Nobody is ever going make more than they've spent collecting these things.

The financial rewards of this hobby are very few and don't even begin to make up for the expenses. I'm all for plummeting prices.

[gamegirl79]

Why wouldn't you want values to plummet? The less games cost, the less money we'll lose building our collections. Nobody is ever going make more than they've spent collecting these things.

The financial rewards of this hobby are very few and don't even begin to make up for the expenses. I'm all for plummeting prices.

EXACTLY. I am totally fine with plummeting values. My g/f and I spent around $80 yesterday and got 17 games. Not crappy games either, games that we'll actually play. While there's nothing ultra rare that we got, I'm fine with that. I'm just happy to add to my collection!

[vintagegamecrazy]

Actually, if you want to know. There are between 450 - 600 GameCrazy stores in the U.S.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Ok, first off, don't panic. Not all prices are going to plummet and not all games.

Patrick: Should we panic?

Spongebob: No..

Patrick: should we panic now?

Spongebob: I don't know... :(

Patrick: Ahh ahh ahh ahh PANIC!!!! @_@

Spongebob: *screams*!! AHH! @_@

[dan2357]

who is to say that all of there retro games are on sale?
We just see whats out on the floor. There has to be a point where these types of stores (stores that take trade ins) get flooded with crap. Sports games, commons, etc. They have to get rid of them some how. It's harded to charge more for a rare game when its surrounded by 50 common to uncommon going for a few bucks each. When ever there is a sale 3 for or similar im allways weary. Most of the time theres only a couple of games worth picking up and then you fill out the rest of the sale with anything just to buy 3 or such.
Most of these stores are built into hollywood videos ( if not all) so a large group of shoppers will be parents with kids not so much collectors that know whats worth what. So after little jhonny picks out the game he wants mommy has him pick 2 more Just to save money?
So my point after all the crap is gone that never would of sold anyway, they will bring out the better titles, and they will be that much more rare, now that theres not 100's of carts for that system thrown in a bin like yesterday laundry.

So will the value go down, yes on common crap that nobody was going to buy anyway.

Have they said they are no longer taking trade in for these systems?

[goatdan]

Even if GameCrazy has thousands of stores with thousands of games, the games that are the most highly sought after usually aren't found in these types of stores.

I have never walked into a GameStop, EB or GameCrazy and seen more than one copy of any rare SNES, NES or Genesis game. They'll have, at most, one copy of some things. To have a "flood" of eBay profiteers, you need to actually have places that have been sitting on 20 copies of Chrono Trigger and 30 copies of Ogre Battle and 10 copies of Harvest Moon 64. Those stores don't exist because the games were in high demand before, and they still will be now.

Now, if there is a total of 10 of each of these games that gets added to the eBay pool, prices may drop for a week or two... but at this time, they are lower than the pre-Christmas rush anyway.

I don't think it is even somethng to think about.

[Ed Oscuro]

My dear children!

Well, at most it's just an even better reason why you should be patient buying N64 games!

[Avatard]

No one decides for me what i'm willing to pay on games. I set a decent price and if no one sells then I'll find it for cheaper at a garage sale, no big deal. If games get cheaper, then I can buy more ZOMG! I guess I'll just have to live with that.

[Arcade Antics]

Lisa: "Do you even HAVE a job any more?"

Homer: "I think it's pretty clear that I DON'T."

LOL

[unbroken]

the prices might change a LITTLE bit, but i dont see anything big.

[GrandAmChandler]

A couple thousand GameCrazys? No way. Not even close. They have 720+ stores. None in Delaware :angry: Anyways dont panic, you will just see more common carts floating around, nothing special except for those extremely lucky finds..

EDIT: The above statistic was brought to you by gamecrazy.com

[kainemaxwell]

Doubt this armageddon of plummting prices will happen as you predict.

[Push Upstairs]

So.....what exactly is the problem here?

If you aren't trying to pay the rent by selling off rare games why should this be a problem?

[PapaStu]

The rare games are RARE for a reason. There arnt alot of them in the first place (as in made) not because some chain store has some wicked capability to suddenly horde thousands of copies of hard to get games. Wow a few rare PS games get bought (which would have been bought already if their selling price before wasnt above what market allowed them to sell for) along with the other systems.

Stop running for the hills the Tsunami isnt coming and even if it did, it would be little chops in the Bay by the time landfall happened.

[Anthony1]

Let me throw out the fact that Gamerush has been blowing out all their carts over the past six months now ... first they all dropped to 99 cents, then they were buy one get one at half price (still at 99 cents) and now they are buy two get one free (still at 99 cents).

I think your tsunami won't even be a ripple.


but how many Gamerush stores are there in the U.S.?

None in my city, possibly none in California. I'm not sure. But I do know that there are like 2000 + Game Crazy stores in the U.S.

[Leo_A]

30 seconds of work showed me this.

"Game Crazy is the nation's fastest growing video-game retailer in the industry with over 720 locations across the country."

[LAGO]

Why wouldn't you want values to plummet? The less games cost, the less money we'll lose building our collections. Nobody is ever going make more than they've spent collecting these things.

The financial rewards of this hobby are very few and don't even begin to make up for the expenses. I'm all for plummeting prices.

EXACTLY. I am totally fine with plummeting values. My g/f and I spent around $80 yesterday and got 17 games. Not crappy games either, games that we'll actually play. While there's nothing ultra rare that we got, I'm fine with that. I'm just happy to add to my collection!

Thirded. If prices do crash, I find this as a good thing. That's mainly because I am in this hobby for the enjoyment of playing the games and not reselling them. All the value is sentimental to me.

[Anthony1]

Well, now that one day has passed, I've had time to reflect on this, and I've come to the conclusion that I probably overreacted in a big way.

I was talking to a Game Crazy manager and I asked him how many stores they had and he said over 2000. The guy was an older man manager, so I thought that he knew what he was talking about. Guess not.


Anyways, the question has come up repeatedly on why anybody should care if the price of games drops. Well, personally, yes I like collecting games, but I hope that they kind of hold onto their value or maybe rise a little bit in value. It appears that I seem to be alone with that sentiment.

If the prices did drop quite dramatically, it would affect me a little bit. I go to flea markets and garage sales and thrift stores and places like Game Crazy looking for valuable games. Alot of times these are games that I want to add to my personal collection, but many times I find games that I have no interest in, but they happen to be relatively valuable. So I either sell them on Ebay or try to trade them with people.

If the prices did drop dramatically, then that would affect the amount of money I would get for them or what I would get it trade. So it would affect me a little bit, especially because all I find are loose carts.

Also another factor that needs to be considered, is that even if Ebay Profiteers don't buy these games, and if fans of retro games buy them, that will affect prices somewhat too, because you might have had retro gamers that were looking for particular games and would have bought them on Ebay for some good money, but then they got them dirt cheap from Game Crazy, so now they no longer need those games.

But again, I must admit that I probably overreacted with this whole thing. Now that I think about it, Game Stop got rid of all their SNES and Genny games, and there are tons of Game Stops and that didn't drop values.

Anyways, for those of you that live on Ebay, you might want to keep an eye out for how many loose N64 games start showing up in the next several days. It might be a temporary blip, but I do think there will be an awful lot of N64 games showing up on there soon.

[Fuyukaze]

I realy could care less about the long term or short term value of the games as I am only interested in getting the games I have either owned or have wanted for years.

I do on the other hand forsee a short term value loss in the market of clasic games due to an overflow of titles being available on ebay. Only short term though as once the quick sellers burn thru their stock, it will quickly revert to a waiting game.

[legov8]

Just because they are having a very good sale doesn't mean value of the games will drop.

[bargora]

I realy could care less about the long term or short term value of the games
You could care less? So...you actually care...a lot?

[tylerwillis]

What about the laws of supply and demand? The fact is that most the expensive games aren't common - the odds that those will be on sale at a gamecrazy is slim. Sure, there might be a few who find rares and resell them, but enough to cause a price drop? I personally think not.