Are we living the twilight of Classic Gaming as we know it?

[Mad-Mike]

TBH, I'm not sure if it's a Twilight or just a "slow period"........

Classic Gaming is a recent thing that grew along side the whole "retro" fads that started kicking off in the late 80's/early 90's, and I don't think that has been long enough to see what the long term cycle of fashion will be for this stuff.

I've always seen a small parallel to the music/fashion industry and what is fashionable/popular at the time. In the early 2000's, we were having a 70's revival on the heels of an 80's revival.....after a 60's revival at the beginning of the 90's and a 50's one at the end of the late 80's. Around 2000-2004ish, I saw the Atari 2600 considered "classic" instead of "sell it off for $20 altogether in a grubby cardboard box at the Salvation Army" junk, and watched the NES get to that point too.

If I were to make some speculations....
- certain consoles will always be popular, the NES, SNES, and 2600 come to mind
- certain games will always be cheap (think Super Mario Bros., Combat, Pac-Man, Pitfall!, Dragon Warrior, Zelda...and the like)
- when the quantities get lower, the prices will go up, but they will have a ceiling based on demand. I don't expect like Frank and Mike on American Pickers to pay $250 for a NES in 20 years to resell at their antique store for $320
- Some consoles will fade away except to certain crowds - I doubt the majority of collectors will want an RCA Studio II or Worlds of Wonder Action Max in the future
- And the mainstream will continue to whine and complain that the graphics are bad, the sound is ear grating, and that they can't figure out how to use a controller with one button and a stick, and that should should buy the Nintendo WiiWii 5000 with 12560P XSHD Graphics and a miniature DNA cloned orchestra for sound.

[Casati]

After getting out of video gaming in the 90s, I was late to the hobby, building my collection between 2010 and 2012. What I've noticed as of late is the disappearance of reasonably priced retro video game manuals. I bought much of my collection CIB a couple years ago for reasonable prices, hardly ever paying more than $5 extra for a manual or box. Now the manuals, especially for NES/SNES if they're still in good condition, are commanding premium prices often more spendy than the game cartidges (since they're more perishable and more often thrown away). And the supply of reasonably-priced posters has evaporated as well.

Also, as the supply has become concentrated in resellers' and serious collectors' hands, Ebay offerings have become largely a crapshoot since these resellers usually use stock photos and won't offer any description beyond "good". I have a dozen or so manuals that I'd like to replace due to their poor condition, but it's not easy to find a good copy on Ebay any more. And many of these Ebay sellers don't take a simple precaution such as cardboard backing to protect a manual that was listed as like new and I paid some good money for. This is basically an Ebay rant, but I was able to find manuals on Ebay with actual photos for good prices just a couple years ago, so it has recently changed.

[JSoup]

Unsurprising, really. All collectibles, particularly ones with large communities behind them, go through periods of major price influx. My mother used to tell me about how vinyl records used to be crazy expensive, then dropped off to pennies when the next thing came out, then spiked again when the internet became a thing. Now they are back to being (largely) dirt cheap.

Yes, games are way different, but the principle is the same. I'd wadge that a percentage of new collectors will eventually realize they prefer to play rather than collect and will make the switch to emulation, like I did.