If you had the money & were so inclined...

[Haoie]

That's terrible!!

Worst kind of selfishness.

[Ed Oscuro]

Some guys did this with furniture, but nobody knew about the particular maker and he wasn't churning pieces out in video game numbers (not even close) so they were able to effectively hoard and then stimulate the market. You want to develop the market for video games past the already inflated public perception of the value? Good luck!!

[jcalder8]

If I had that much time and that much money then I would. But it would only be after I had complete collections of pretty much every system, then it would come down to seeing if I could get a complete collection of NWCs.

I wouldn't do it for the money just for something new to collect.

[backguard]

I've already bought up all of the Air Raids and Gauntlets for the Atari 2600. Working on GameCube NCAA 2k3 (go ahead, laugh and let's meet again in 10 years).

So I suppose it's possible. You just have to find the *right* game to horde. Silly to try anything Mario or Final Fantasy, either loads of people already own them or THINK they're hording them already.

You will never get my sealed NCAA 2k3 :P

[TonyTheTiger]

I've already bought up all of the Air Raids and Gauntlets for the Atari 2600. Working on GameCube NCAA 2k3 (go ahead, laugh and let's meet again in 10 years).

So I suppose it's possible. You just have to find the *right* game to horde. Silly to try anything Mario or Final Fantasy, either loads of people already own them or THINK they're hording them already.

NCAA? Even that sounds like a huge undertaking. Backguard's sealed copy, I have a couple used copies, a good number of people on this site probably have a fair share and you never know who out there just happens to have one and has no idea what the story is behind it. But, hey, good luck if that's a goal of yours.

I still think, however, that the value of an item will plateau even if one person does corner the market. Let's say there are 100 copies of something and in the general market they're worth about $200. So if I invest about $20000 to buy up every single copy then that means I can now name my price. If I'm reasonable about it then, sure, I can get maybe $300 for a copy now. Once people get saavy to the fact that either they deal with me or don't get the item they'll play ball.

But everybody has a limit. It's entirely possible that if I say each copy costs $1000 a piece I won't find a buyer because nobody would value the item higher than they'd value the $1000 in their wallets. I still need to set a realistic price that both matches what a buyer is willing to pay for the item and also a price that people who would be interested in the item could realistically afford.

Granted, if you could sell at $1000 making $800 on a $200 investment is not a bad deal at all. But you can't do the math and say $1000*100 = $100000 - $20000 initial investment = $80000 profit. Because as you start selling off copies the market is now being revitalized which just might drop the price. Fewer people are now interested in buying from you.

It still can be profitable (and will be if the long term dedication is there) but I don't think it's an efficient get rich quick scheme which I think is what the topic is asking about.

[Iron Draggon]

just do what I do... buy sealed copies and open them... do this enough times and there won't be anymore sealed copies of anything... sealed prices go up, and fellow collectors thank you for making their sealed copies more valuable!