What will happen to video games collecting?

[pooch]

Seeing that prices for NES on Ebay has cooled off a bit, I am starting to wonder what will happen to video games collecting. Will it become more popular in the years to come or otherwise?

[ryborg]

It's mid summer. It happens every year. Only true collectors' items go for their actual value now. Once September comes, prices will rise back up. No big deal and no need to panic.
________
THE CIGAR BOSS (http://thecigarboss.com/)

[ckendal]

It's mid summer. It happens every year. Only true collectors' items go for their actual value now. Once September comes, prices will rise back up. No big deal and no need to panic.

Agreed! College kids get back to school and they all want to catch up in the dorm and play some old school goodness. Prices will rise once again and availability will drop. Now is a great time for collector's to pick up all sorts of good stuff, but a bad time to sell!

[Steven]

correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the NES, in general, in a bit of a downswing in 2006? From what I can gather it seems the "boom" happened in years previous, and that by 2006, there are:

A. Those who came in 2002, 2003, 2004... got most what they wanted

and

B. Few are ENTERING the NES scene in 2006

I got into the NES April 2006 and prices have been pretty good. But from what I hear, I'm really late to the party and that most of its members are either satisfied or "gone home" if you catch my drift.

[Jumpman Jr.]

correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the NES, in general, in a bit of a downswing in 2006? From what I can gather it seems the "boom" happened in years previous, and that by 2006, there are:

A. Those who came in 2002, 2003, 2004... got most what they wanted

and

B. Few are ENTERING the NES scene in 2006

I got into the NES April 2006 and prices have been pretty good. But from what I hear, I'm really late to the party and that most of its members are either satisfied or "gone home" if you catch my drift.

I'm not to sure about the market for common games, but I think that the price of the grails for the NES has shot up considerably in the last little while.
Sealed Cheetahmen II's going for $500, Hot Slots selling for $700, it's been crazy. And I've been right at the ass-end of it buying all these games. :frustrated:

[mailman187666]

i think the reason prices go down is because everybody is going o the flea markets looking for games this time of year. I go to this one flea market and its hard to even see what some people have for videogames at their table because most of them are filled with people already looking through thier stuff. Its like you gotta wait in line.

[rhiohki]

Anyone familiar with ebay through the years know that it's a cycle most times than not. Summer is slow, Autum is the rush period.

[Geno Bomb]

I have notices that SNES games are just as high priced as ever right now

[nebrazca78]

Anyone familiar with ebay through the years know that it's a cycle most times than not. Summer is slow, Autum is the rush period.

In my experience my sales don't heat up until it gets colder out. I think it has less to do with students being out for the summer and more to do withg the tendency for people to do things outside when it's warmer. This year, the bottom line for me dropped drastically in May. I was pulling an average of $8 - $9 per game and then it dropped to $5 - $6 within a week - the same time when it got warm in most of the country. Last year it took until October for sales to get back to the excepted level.

From my personal use it's about the same. I spend as much time outside as possible when it's nice out and don't play that much. During winter I can be found playing constantly.

[7th lutz]

People save money for vacations. Gamers and collecters including my brother and I don't like to spend money on games when there is planing to go on major vacations like if you want to go to disney, Sea World, and Universal Studios on one trip, you would be saving a lot of money ahead of time depending on the amount days you will be on vacation along with airfare or by vehicle for money.

If a person doesn't have any more vacations plans after Labor day or late August, that person will be back on ebay buying games on ebay not to long then.

[nate1749]

Maybe what happened to comic books in the mid-late lates will happen to video games. I'm not exactly sure what happened to comic books in the 90s, I just know all the prices of everyting old dropped... a lot.

It seems to be there's been a retro game craze going on and as soon it it dies off so will all those insane prices. I mean are there any real accurate indictors for this market? I just hope people are collecting as hobbies and not as investments.

Nate

[StakeRaiser]

I would say one big factor is that while its very easy to get sucked into the Retro collecting thing, its very easy to lose the bug very quickly.

Someone goes into it thinking "I'm going to get every NES game ever" I'm guessing this happens a lot in the colder months, but by spring, they need cash and realize, "eh, I'm out" Then they sell off their stuff for cheap, and the market gets a bit more flooded

[graboid9]

I've got a question about the future of our hobby. What going to happen in 12 years when our first round of cd based games turn 25 years old? Is'nt that the expected life span of disk based media? Are all my sega cds going to crap out on me? Kinda makes me think that this hobby dosent have much of a future.

[goemon]

I've got a question about the future of our hobby. What going to happen in 12 years when our first round of cd based games turn 25 years old? Is'nt that the expected life span of disk based media? Are all my sega cds going to crap out on me? Kinda makes me think that this hobby dosent have much of a future.

It's not like all CD's are going to self-destruct once they reach a certain age. If anything, the degredation of discs will make surviving copies rarer and more valuable. Also, twelve is a lot of years. With all the new digital storage technologies, I might be able to keep all of my PS1 games on one several-hundred-GB super-disc and store the actual discs in a vacuum sealed climate controlled chamber. (At least the R6+ ones.)

[graboid9]

I know they are not going to explode, and i also know that they have aluminium in them wich will corrode and degrade over time. How will you know if you "mint" game is actually still complete and not corrupt at the last level. Or if your new copy of snatcher you got from ebay will play after 3 hours into it? Im not saying that its going to happen, but its possible.

[Charlesaway]

double post. sorry

[Charlesaway]

I've got a question about the future of our hobby. What going to happen in 12 years when our first round of cd based games turn 25 years old? Is'nt that the expected life span of disk based media? Are all my sega cds going to crap out on me? Kinda makes me think that this hobby dosent have much of a future.

The theoretical lifespan of optical media such as CD's is higher than 25 years.

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=2131

This site is one example of the common estimated shelf life range, which is 30 to 200 years. It's funny to note that properly stored and handled CD-R's are actually expected to last between 70 and 200 years.


As for the other issues, I agree with most; ebay sales are seasonal.

[drcurtis]

Consider that most big collectibles have their peak periods when the people who collected (or used) them for fun as kids become adults and want to relive the experience. We're just entering the time where the Nintendo generation is getting old enough to have the purchase power to drive the market. Why Nintendo? Like Disney, the history is so interesting and the marketing of recognizable characters so powerful that it's hard to imagine seeing a day where noone is interested in these little gray carts. And, in comparison to Atari 2600 era games (sorry buyatari), the NES generation of games still holds up as fun and playable, by and large.
As for the high values of the grails, there are only so many to go around and every person who decides he (or she) really wants to get into collecting as a dedicated hobby adds to the demand. I remember when I started really collecting seriously after going to the 5th Classic Video Game Expo in Vegas. I thought the $90 people were getting for Panesians was about the limit. Every year, it goes higher and higher. It will only stop when people move onto something that is of more personal interest to them, and more people get out of the hobby than enter it. Since the current video game market is huge, it may be some time before the interest dies down.
I was in on baseball card collecting at the very beginning of its explosion. I bought my first PC for 2 grand after selling some cards. I also watched the 'classic' card collecting market go completely to pot, in favor of 'rare' and limited edition cards, which are now available in lottery form for $2.99+ per pack. Most of the reasons for that hobby's collapse are not comparable to video game collecting, other than an inevitable devaluation of common games and increase in the rares. With millions of people familiar with video games and that number growing every year, I think we can look forward to a few more glory years in this great hobby.

[Steven]

Consider that most big collectibles have their peak periods when the people who collected (or used) them for fun as kids become adults and want to relive the experience. We're just entering the time where the Nintendo generation is getting old enough to have the purchase power to drive the market. Why Nintendo? Like Disney, the history is so interesting and the marketing of recognizable characters so powerful that it's hard to imagine seeing a day where noone is interested in these little gray carts. And, in comparison to Atari 2600 era games (sorry buyatari), the NES generation of games still holds up as fun and playable, by and large.

Good points, I never thought about it really this way: most of us 80's kids are now in our 20's and can afford to buy 100's of retro games we always dreamt about back in the day but never could (unless our dad was Michael Jordan).

It WILL be interesting to see how the NES/GEN/SNES/etc. market will be like in the year, say, 2020. By then, us 20-something-year-old's will be in the 40's and whatnot, maybe selling off our long time collections or a majority of it. Be interesting...

[bangtango]

Pooch:

If emulation didn't kill the market for NES or Super NES games, nothing will. You have nothing to worry about. People will always buy those games because they are fun to play.

It is a lot different than baseball card collecting, where all you can do is look at the items. Couple that with the fact that a baseball card in anything less than mint condition is virtually worthless these days. Rookie card, limited edition, star player or otherwise. Most current baseball card collectors don't even know the history of the game or great players who were in the league during or before the 1980's, thus values for some (not all) older cards can actually plummet as time goes along. I theoretically lost money selling some good rookie cards at the only card shop within 200 miles to a guy under 30 who knew almost nothing about Rickey Henderson, Jack Morris, Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy or Yaz. He wasn't playing dumb, either, people like that are all through the baseball card collecting scene.

Collecting games, though, is a whole different story.

You can still get at least something for sought-after games that are "very good" "good" or even "fair", whether it is a loose cart or not. You can play it regularly and, depending on the current demand or going price, still make something off of it. Depending on who you sell to, a cartridge game that might be sold for $40-60 complete in the box could still be sold for half that amount, if not more, without the box or manual. You could still make something off of that cartridge game, even with a crappy label. Now keep in mind this is a case-by-case basis and that may be wrong some of the time, with some games or some buyers. CD games for example. However, try getting half price for a $40-60 baseball card or record album that has been beat up :D

I agree with everyone else. I make a lot more money selling games between October and February than I do any other time of the year. Take the $48 I received for a mint copy of Sega Bass Fishing 2, for Dreamcast, last November on Ebay. I didn't even have a real photo in the auction, just a stock photo. I ended up getting a copy of it back, in similar condition, for $19 shipped this past spring from J2 Games. That time, when I tried selling it a week later, I only made $25. I suppose the original auction could have also been a fluke *shrugs*[/i]

[Synergy]

I've got a question about the future of our hobby. What going to happen in 12 years when our first round of cd based games turn 25 years old? Is'nt that the expected life span of disk based media? Are all my sega cds going to crap out on me? Kinda makes me think that this hobby dosent have much of a future.

Since I've made the decision to go back into collecting after selling hundreds of games a few years ago, I've been wrestling with this issue as well. A big factor of me selling off my collection I had up to that point (other then helping out the 'ol family with house expenses), was being afraid of my collection decaying, wearing out, etc. Not just my CD-ROMs either; cartridges wear out even faster since they are more "mechanical" then compact discs.

So, for the last couple of years, I've been playing with emulators on and off, but it just wasn't the same. I just can't say I authentically beat the pants off of an NES game unless I'm playing on the actual console, holding the actual controller, and playing on a TV screen. It just felt too fake after a while to me. So, I finally decided to go back to collecting full time because I baby my games so much, I'll most likely pass on before my games start dying. But, then again, electronics have that nasty habit of just going kaput one day, no matter how much you take care of it. That still scares me.

[megamaniaman]

Actually most of your ROM cartridges will still be Alive and well even after your children die of old age. CD's actually have a shelf life that is way shorter. My nephew one time brought home A Atari 2600 centipede cartridge that he found in the desert whose label had worn away from the sun. Looked like it had been out there for atleast 10 years probably even longer. You could barely tell it was a centipede cartridge. It even had some small dead spiders in the cartridge itself. I decided to plug in the cartridge with no cleaning of it whatsoever. To my suprise it worked perfectly. It still works perfectly to this day. Now if a cartridge can take the outside weather for 10 years straight with no problems, I have a feeling you have nothing to fear with your cartridges actually dying out.

[GarrettCRW]

One note about card collecting and comic book collecting vs. video game collecting: cards and comics saw their values plummet because of speculators, which is why the early '90s in both hobbies are characterized by heavy amounts of showy gimmicks and bloated product lines. The closest video games have seen to that phenomena was back in the '80s, with the Crash. Though, as many have noted, most games aren't as easy to destroy as comics or cards, which also impacts the value of games.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I'm sure game collecting will slow down sometime, probably in a few years or sooner. I my self will like video games well beyond that, I have collected many other things and lost the bug, but gaming has been in my blood since I was in like 1st grade or so and I will collect games after the buzz has passed. Think about what Digital Press was like before the 2000's, small and unknown (a few hundred members strong on the boards at most) but classic gaming was to them. Comic and card collecting was popular and died off, but there is still die hard fans that it will live on through. Gaming is the same and will be the same to come. Speculators killed the card hobby by buying too much cards and the like and the market is flooded with it. Gaming is different it will hold up better, you can't just make reproductions of old games now (NES and the common consoles are an exception) but you have fake carts which are just that and you have plug n plays which are worthless and emulators which give you an experience but not the cold hard copy of the real thing and the real thing is what's worth money. That is what makes gaming different (maybe not better) than the other hobbies. One other thing to keep in mind, stuff that was produced to be collected (cards comics) are dead, stuff that isn't meant to be collected is what everyone is collecting nowadays. Bottom line, game collecting will die down inevitably, but the people who are in it for a hobby (not an investment) will remain and they will still enjoy it and collecting will become easier at that point. I am waiting for that time actually :-P

[Bronty-2]

One note about card collecting and comic book collecting vs. video game collecting: cards and comics saw their values plummet because of speculators, which is why the early '90s in both hobbies are characterized by heavy amounts of showy gimmicks and bloated product lines. The closest video games have seen to that phenomena was back in the '80s, with the Crash. Though, as many have noted, most games aren't as easy to destroy as comics or cards, which also impacts the value of games.

Personally I think the 'showy gimmick' that might rear its head in video games is the limited edition box sets. The special metal gear, growlanser, lunar boxes, etc. Manufactured to be collectible. Hopefully things don't go down that road but if you see people paying $100s or $1000s for the Final Fantasy 18 box set with Yuna's panties and a lock of her pubes you'll know its time to run.

Or once you see Metal Gear 7 released in 12 different versions each of which you 'have to have' and people are paying big money for overnight, etc.

[gum_drops]

I have a feeling you have nothing to fear with your cartridges actually dying out.

Weren't the genesis / snes carts produced in a way that was less expensive then the old atari carts, resulting in a shorter lifespan?

I remember reading a post about it a while back, something to do with the eproms maybe. I would try finding the info by I am tired -_-

[Dave Farquhar]

Interesting discussion, especially for someone inexperienced like me.

I think there's a useful parallel I can draw to: Lionel (and similar) electric trains from the 1950s. In the early 1950s, a Lionel train was the Christmas present that everyone wanted. That hobby crashed too. It's a little harder to pinpoint (1956 was the last really big year, but the two dominant firms went bankrupt in 1967 and 1969). Throughout the '70s and '80s, you could find that stuff at garage sales and thrifts. There are stories of the early collectors going out on a Saturday and filling up a station wagon with it. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, it really boomed. Note the time frame--the guys who had this stuff in the 1950s were middle-aged then.

And 1950s Lionel and American Flyer trains are worth less now than they were 10 years ago. Some of that is the eBay effect. Maybe most of it. It turns out some of it isn't really as rare as once thought.

At any rate, based on what happened to the hottest Christmas present of the early 1950s, I suspect the hottest Christmas present of the early 1980s will have a similar track record. Some people will sell their 2600 collections when they reach middle age, but since middle age is all about recapturing lost youth, won't more of them be buying?

And Lionel trains don't necessarily have to run to be valuable. If it looks new, it's valuable to a collector, even if the motor won't run. Based on that, there's reason to believe a cartridge in really nice condition will still be valuable, even if it doesn't play.

And if it's any consolation, even though everybody knows old Lionel trains are valuable (just like all old baseball cards are valuable) sometimes I find them cheap at places I wouldn't expect. So will it still be possible 20 years from now to find an Atari Game Center with a working console concealing Chase the Chuckwagon and a few other desirable carts underneath, and score the whole find for less than 50 bucks? I believe it will be.

Take that for what it's worth--for some reason I know a lot more about the trains of my dad's youth than I do about the video games of mine.

[s1lence]

I wouldn't be to worried about it, seeing the amount of people that go to videogame shows is proof that game collecting is alive and well. A few years ago the 2600 was the really hot item to collection, then it went to the NES. Prices for games are like baseball cards, the majority fluctuate up and down were the rare/popular games command high/stable prices.

It is also summer which is a great time to buy games as people tend to not be playing as many games, hey people like to go outside this time of year.

I feel that collecting games will be around for many years to come, think it as todays popular game will be a collectable game in a few years to come.

[Bronty-2]

I feel that collecting games will be around for many years to come, think it as todays popular game will be a collectable game in a few years to come.

That part is true. I think there will be many ups and downs in the next 25 years or whatever but overall as long as today's games are still popular there will be a market for yesterday's games. The average collector is probably what? 23? That's sooooo young for an average age of the fanbase for any collectible. If a decent # stay with it over time then the market over the long haul should do fine. There will be winners (rare stuff) and losers (common or poor condition) be overall things should be fine.

As for nintendo stuff, I think as long as the company continues to make home consoles, there will be interest in their past offerings. Same goes for sony and ms, really.

[jajaja]

As long as there are games there will be collectors. People start, people quit, it goes up and down all the time :)