Questions About Rarity Calculations

[Nature Boy]

I do think we get hung up on rarity too often sometimes, but I do find the idea and the numbers interesting. But how are they gathered? Do you have print runs of games and compare them that way? Or Is it just a feel for how many are still around and not in the dump (like for older systems?)

I'm wondering because I bought two Genesis games last night. They looked interesting, and being EA games I thought I'd give 'em a go. They were "King's Bounty: The Conqueror's Quest" and "Centurion: Defender of Rome."

I'm anal about my lists so I've entered them into my db already, and checked the online DP guide for rarity. It has Centurion at 2 and King's Bounty at 6. I find it hard to believe that a game like Centurion would've been produced *that* much less than King's Bounty and would be that much less rare. It looks incredibly complicated - moreso than I'd guess King's Bounty to be. And I've never seen either of these two before now (which doesn't mean much), so that's partly why I grabbed 'em (and I like collecting RPG like games even if I don't always play 'em to the finish).

Comments?

(In an unrelated brag of sorts, I also *finally* found a non Greatest Hits copy of Final Fantasy Tactics which I scooped up immediately).

[kainemaxwell]

I belive it has to do with print/press runs, any reprints along with how often you can find them in the "wild" nowadays if I remember correctly.

[digitalpress]

Sorry Kaine, I don't know WHERE you got that info. None of us here have any real information regarding print runs. Our research is based entirely on personal experience of dozens of collectors, gathered, rounded, debated upon, and finally listed. Then later, tweaked.

Maybe this will help:
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1840

This type of thing is NOT a science, it's an art. And it's NOT perfect, it's a guideline. That's why we don't go around calling ourselves the Bible (in fact that's been stated quite clearly on every book we've ever done).

Hope that helps! There are a few more topics regarding pricing and rarity in the Collecting Forum here as well.

OH yeah! BELIEVE that difference between Centurion and King's Bounty. I see Centurion pretty frequently (I just got another one in a lot I won), but I very very rarely come across King's Bounty. Now that could be because King's Bounty was very limited in number, or it could mean that people are hanging onto them, but there's a fair difference in the frequency that those two games turn up in the wild. OK... over and out.

[maxlords]

I do think we get hung up on rarity too often sometimes, but I do find the idea and the numbers interesting. But how are they gathered? Do you have print runs of games and compare them that way? Or Is it just a feel for how many are still around and not in the dump (like for older systems?)

I'm wondering because I bought two Genesis games last night. They looked interesting, and being EA games I thought I'd give 'em a go. They were "King's Bounty: The Conqueror's Quest" and "Centurion: Defender of Rome."

I'm anal about my lists so I've entered them into my db already, and checked the online DP guide for rarity. It has Centurion at 2 and King's Bounty at 6. I find it hard to believe that a game like Centurion would've been produced *that* much less than King's Bounty and would be that much less rare. It looks incredibly complicated - moreso than I'd guess King's Bounty to be. And I've never seen either of these two before now (which doesn't mean much), so that's partly why I grabbed 'em (and I like collecting RPG like games even if I don't always play 'em to the finish).


Well, Centurion IS a lot harder to find that Kings Bounty, on the average. I've never seen a Centurion in the wild but I've passed up maybe 5 copies of King's Bounty, possibly more. It did have a much higher print run than Centurion. As for the rarities themselves, as Kaine said, I believe they were based on both a suspected print run (or hte real print run if anyone knows) as well as a panel of knowledgeable gamers who based their rarity ratings on how ofted they'd seen the games in the wild, thereby giving a more rounded perspective on rarity.

All in all, the DP guide rarities I've seen are pretty accurate for the most part, but what you do have to remember is that some areas get more of certain games than others. What may be hard to come by in your area is common in another. For example....Chrono Trigger. Where I am now in Canada, it's VERY hard to find, and I've only seen one or two copies since I got here over a year ago at exorbitant prices ($60-100 for cart only). But back where I was in Oregon, I saw maybe 25 or 30 copies in a year, and some boxed, and they averaged around $25 for cart only and $30-40 for complete. So it's really a regional thing in some respects I think.

[Nature Boy]

Pricing and rarity are definitely two different issues. And I have no issues with how pricing is determined - I mean all you'd have to do would be peruse websites and stores and take a note of what items are selling for, lose the extremes, get an average, and there's your price guide.

But rarity is what I find interesting.

Most places I frequent don't take rarity into account much at all when it comes to pricing. Just popularity. For example, King's Bounty and Centurion were both the same price ($5 CAD). Doesn't matter that KB isn't found very often. It's not very popular, so the price reflects that. Whereas the complete Pitfall for NES I saw was $20 - a common game but one that will sell more quickly.

So how do you determine rarity? For todays games stamping common is pretty easy (GTA III would be the ultimate common). But what about Suikoden III? If it's already been pulled then it's likely rare (relatively speaking of course - I'd never compare rarity between consoles, just within consoles).

I'm not complaining about Centurion ('cause I don't care about the number) - but I'm wondering how what seems to me to be one of those games that never would've sold much could be so common.

And maybe the answer is in the genre. If rarity is deteremined by how likely you are to stumble upon something, then sports games will always be 1s because people are always willing to part with sports games. But RPGs (like King's Bounty) are held onto with a death grip, so it's more rare than Centurion, which nobody plays anyway.

[portnoyd]

maxlords,

Interestingly enough, the opposite holds for me. I've seen 4 Centurions to the one King's Bounty I own. I'd support the Centurion 2, King's Bounty 6 split in the DP book based on my experience.

dave

[digitalpress]

Oops did I not answer the question?

Let me re-word this in the form of a question. How would YOU reflect rarity on a video game list? For some, it's "how often do I see it in my local area". For some, it's "online frequency", and others "how many DID I see 'back in the day'". Then there are those multi-system, multi-era collectors who go by all three.

Now.

Take that last group of people, and get as many of them together as possible. Have them quibble over it. Example: "I think Centurion is WAY harder to find than King's Bounty!"; get experts like snorter or store owners like Mike Etler to resolve some of these disputes. Then determine the most likely or most agreed upon "number".

And there you have it. Like I said, it is NOT a science and it is NOT perfect. But I'm very confident in 95% of our numbers because the people who are involved in our project are top-notch aficionados, and that group continues to grow and gain more expertise over time.

I hope I'm answering the question a little better. I feel like I owe you a good answer!

[MightyMagnor]

WAIT !~!
Foolish children.

Rolling a ten sided dice is but the only way to discover the divine rarity in any gaming bible.

The world is crawling with evil........I'm off
--THE MIGHTY MAGNOR

[Tritoch]

Maybe this will help:
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1840

You must have that bookmarked or something...that's several times I've seen you reference it. Guess I did end up helping in some way after all. :)

Coming from a background in baseball card collecting (I'm still more of a game player than collector), I tend to think of rarity in terms of a game's total print run relative to other games for the same platform and that's it...just based on the pure numbers. IMO how hard it is to actually find shouldn't help determine a game's "rarity", just it's total overall value. However, I can also understand factoring in how hard it is to find as a part of "rarity" when you don't have access to the actual print runs (what else can you go on?), whereas in baseball cards the print run for just about everything is public.

In a perfect world there'd be one "R10" and one "R1" per system, with everything else falling inbetween (unless there was a tie in the total number of a game made).

[Arcade Antics]

Coming from a background in baseball card collecting (I'm still more of a game player than collector), I tend to think of rarity in terms of a game's total print run relative to other games for the same platform and that's it...just based on the pure numbers. IMO how hard it is to actually find shouldn't help determine a game's "rarity", just it's total overall value. However, I can also understand factoring in how hard it is to find as a part of "rarity" when you don't have access to the actual print runs (what else can you go on?), whereas in baseball cards the print run for just about everything is public.

Trouble is that print run is not a hard and fast number.

If a million copies of (for argument's sake) Quadrun had been made, but the game only sold 20,000, the other 980,000 could have been returned to Atari and destroyed. So print run is meaningless in this (admittedly fictitious for the sake of clarity) example.

[Tritoch]

Coming from a background in baseball card collecting (I'm still more of a game player than collector), I tend to think of rarity in terms of a game's total print run relative to other games for the same platform and that's it...just based on the pure numbers. IMO how hard it is to actually find shouldn't help determine a game's "rarity", just it's total overall value. However, I can also understand factoring in how hard it is to find as a part of "rarity" when you don't have access to the actual print runs (what else can you go on?), whereas in baseball cards the print run for just about everything is public.

Trouble is that print run is not a hard and fast number.

If a million copies of (for argument's sake) Quadrun had been made, but the game only sold 20,000, the other 980,000 could have been returned to Atari and destroyed. So print run is meaningless in this (admittedly fictitious for the sake of clarity) example.

In a situation like that where copies were destroyed BEFORE reaching the market, the considerable print run would only be 20,000. We'd know that the other 980,000 would never be owned by any consumer, and as a result we wouldn't think of that game as having 1,000,000 copies available somewhere.

Like I said before though, I know that companies don't publicize print runs and as a result it's understandable to factor in how hard it is to find something into a rarity list.

[Nature Boy]

I hope I'm answering the question a little better. I feel like I owe you a good answer!

Definitely. I probably suprised you by talking about rarity only and not thinking about price. :D

To answer your question I'd agree with the three tiered approach, sort of anyway. I wouldn't really differentiate between 'in my area' and 'on the web' - I'd throw all the availability information of now together into one pile. That should take care of regional differences I'd assume (the net being a universal region).

I'm not sure what I'd do with the 'past history' bit. If I had numbers to look at from reliable sources I'd count it. But if I was relying on memory, well I'd definitely not give it much weight.

I might add a third variable though - collector lists. What do people arleady have? Focusing mostly on those who try to get every game (like yourself say) as they will have the best idea of how hard it was to get something, or how long they've been searching for it.

Maybe this is what you meant by 'Back in the Day' - and if it is I apologize.

I've enjoyed the topic of conversation, that's for sure.

[digitalpress]

I might add a third variable though - collector lists. What do people arleady have? Focusing mostly on those who try to get every game (like yourself say) as they will have the best idea of how hard it was to get something, or how long they've been searching for it.

Maybe this is what you meant by 'Back in the Day' - and if it is I apologize.


No apologies needed, this IS a subject near and dear to me, and I really appreciate feedback and intelligent inquries. Collector lists defnitely enter into it. Like you, I have somewhat limited (or unreliable) "memories", but keep in mind that we're doing every "orphaned" system now, so even the likes of me can remember the Saturn days, the Dreamcast days, etc. But take into consideration that we've had some incredible BRAINS in our camp for many years. People like Al Backiel, Ward Shrake, Keita Iida... these people simply do NOT forget.

But what's most important to remember is that though it's got a lot to do with gathering all of the data we can get our hands on, a significant portion is defined by the 'experts', simply monitoring the collecting and availability trends of their favorite system.

[Nature Boy]

But what's most important to remember is that though it's got a lot to do with gathering all of the data we can get our hands on, a significant portion is defined by the 'experts', simply monitoring the collecting and availability trends of their favorite system.

That's good to know - I love crunching numbers but I have to admit that sometimes they just don't tell the whole story.

I hate those types who can't forget anything :D