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Thread: Youtube Stars' Effect on Prices

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    Default Youtube Stars' Effect on Prices

    Im not going to specify what it is what I was bidding on but a well known Youtube star made a recent video and suddenly the ending bid is 3-5x what it would normally have gone for in the past. That is not an exaggeration.

    Ive heard about this happening in the past but always thought it was an exaggeration or just people getting mad that a Youtube star they disliked was talking about their favorite game, but I see this as a real thing.

    I will never understand the phenomenon of people buying things because their favorite Youtube star is just now putting the spotlight on it.

    I can think of at least 10-20 games Ive been wanting to buy and I am sure that once Metal Jesus or James Rolfe exposes them to millions of people who havent done their research, they will suddenly skyrocket in value

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    It's like you said. People who haven't done the research and/or aren't as dedicated to the hobby as we are learn of something they've never heard of previously, and they're told and shown how good it is. People are often pretty easily swayed, so if something is hyped up by someone they trust, respect, and admire, they'll suddenly want to check it out for themselves. Unfortunately, this often isn't just a temporary surge but has long-term effects on prices. I mean, Run Saber used to be a relatively unknown and affordable SNES game, but after it got some Youtube attention, the prices shot up and they're still high years later. People just accept that that's what the price is now, so buyers keep paying the overinflated price, and sellers won't drop their prices.

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    I doubt they have much of an affect anymore. There's nothing "secret" anymore, they've all covered just about everything.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg2600 View Post
    I doubt they have much of an affect anymore. There's nothing "secret" anymore, they've all covered just about everything.
    I can think of a number of games and game related products that are not generally known to be rare or of interest. Im just waiting for one of the popular Youtubers to put a spotlight on them and make them desirable

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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg2600 View Post
    I doubt they have much of an affect anymore. There's nothing "secret" anymore, they've all covered just about everything.
    They definitely have an effect. There's always new viewers, new "retro" fans, new collectors, etc.

    I was just this week thinking of posting about this very topic, but figured why bother...
    What brought the topic to mind was 3 ebay sales I had within hours of each other.
    I've had 2 copies of Mega-CD Wolf Child listed for well over a year, and a copy of Famicom War Wolf listed for almost 2 years. The items have usually had "watchers" and I've had a couple emails regarding War Wolf offering low-ball nonsense.
    Last week, Wolf Child and War Wolf sold within an hour of each other (to different people), by the next morning the other copy of Wolf Child also sold. I find this hard to write-off as just a coincidence. Chances are, somewhere online, the topic of werewolf games (or something similarly related to these games) came-up and people went looking for werewolf games.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    Im not going to specify what it is what I was bidding on but a well known Youtube star made a recent video and suddenly the ending bid is 3-5x what it would normally have gone for in the past. That is not an exaggeration.

    Ive heard about this happening in the past but always thought it was an exaggeration or just people getting mad that a Youtube star they disliked was talking about their favorite game, but I see this as a real thing.

    I will never understand the phenomenon of people buying things because their favorite Youtube star is just now putting the spotlight on it.

    I can think of at least 10-20 games Ive been wanting to buy and I am sure that once Metal Jesus or James Rolfe exposes them to millions of people who havent done their research, they will suddenly skyrocket in value
    on the flip side.. if u own these games just sell them and buy em back once the hype settles down.

    yeah its been happening for a long time. once something stirs up interest in a specific title it goes up in price.
    At this point the rarities are all already known. Video games are expensive but honestly it could be way way worse.

    If you were to compare collecting video games to the Magic the Gathering market in terms of speculation, actual rarity, and fraud.. you'd quickly realize that current video game values are really not that inflated or unreasonable. Further more, there is still alot of potential growth in the value of video game rarities as well.

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    The world is full of lemmings that are willing to pay triple or more a game's initial value to get all the DLC, why be shocked when some talking head's fans distort the market? To be blunt 90% is burning mom and dad's money, so they don't even really care.

    It's a product of demand, and demand tends to dramatically increase when the buyers are impulsive and have a disproportionately high disposable income to throw at things. This goes even further for things like games. The problem is that sellers will see this new high-water mark and refuse to budge back down because they know some latecomer idiots will cough up.

    As has been noted already, this is nothing compared to the insanity that is the CCG market.
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    The same thing happens in the stock market as well. When some financial tv or radio host says to keep an eye on a stock, there is usually a bump in price from them simply bringing attention to it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    Im not going to specify what it is what I was bidding on but a well known Youtube star made a recent video and suddenly the ending bid is 3-5x what it would normally have gone for in the past. That is not an exaggeration.

    Ive heard about this happening in the past but always thought it was an exaggeration or just people getting mad that a Youtube star they disliked was talking about their favorite game, but I see this as a real thing.

    I will never understand the phenomenon of people buying things because their favorite Youtube star is just now putting the spotlight on it.

    I can think of at least 10-20 games Ive been wanting to buy and I am sure that once Metal Jesus or James Rolfe exposes them to millions of people who havent done their research, they will suddenly skyrocket in value
    I'm really not sure how this is any different than you deciding that all of a sudden you wanted to buy this particular item rather than doing it a year ago or five years ago. When people are exposed to new information, whether that's a post on a forum or a blog or a Youtube video, it may make them interested in something that they weren't aware of before. Youtube just has a larger reach than more traditional media. I'm not sure what there really is to complain about other than the basic economics of demand increasing and if supply can't keep up, prices will increase.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I'm really not sure how this is any different than you deciding that all of a sudden you wanted to buy this particular item rather than doing it a year ago or five years ago. When people are exposed to new information, whether that's a post on a forum or a blog or a Youtube video, it may make them interested in something that they weren't aware of before. Youtube just has a larger reach than more traditional media. I'm not sure what there really is to complain about other than the basic economics of demand increasing and if supply can't keep up, prices will increase.
    Im not complaining. I am making an observation and confirming what Ive heard others say.

    If it's 100 degrees outside, and I say "wow its hot" am I complaining?

    And as far as it being different, Im not suddenly paying 5x what the item was previously going for because Youtube mentioned it. The equivalent would be me seeing someone bring Nintendo World Championship on Pawn Stars and instantly bidding 150k for it.
    Last edited by gbpxl; 03-28-2019 at 06:04 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    Im not complaining. I am making an observation and confirming what Ive heard others say.

    If it's 100 degrees outside, and I say "wow its hot" am I complaining?

    And as far as it being different, Im not suddenly paying 5x what the item was previously going for because Youtube mentioned it. The equivalent would be me seeing someone bring Nintendo World Championship on Pawn Stars and instantly bidding 150k for it.
    Well you also said "I will never understand...", so perhaps not an unequivocal complaint, but clearly an indication that you think there is something wrong with people behaving in this way. All I'm saying is that this is not a new phenomenon and going back to the earliest days of collecting video games, when rarity lists started to pop up, the same thing happened. All Youtube has done is magnify the reach of the information and potentially increase demand as more buyers enter the market which results in prices going up. It's not the mention on Youtube that directly leads to the price increase, it's the increased demand from the addition of more willing buyers that pushes up prices.

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    Youtuber make the game more accessible to the masses. For reseller and scalper, this make it easier to pickup great title and hopes to cash in on the hype. Usually this don't always work out. Metal Jesus did a Xbox360 hidden gem where they mentioned Brutal Legend as hidden gems, yet the it didn't affect the price at all. It is all based on user's willing to buy into the hype more than anything. Recently I was watching the PS1 title Hive went from average $15-25 game to $150-300 in span of 2 weeks. I don't know how it got the attention, but you have people hoarding them and buy into the overpriced hype.

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    are we still beating this dead horse?

    this isnt any different from any other form of media in pop culture and other items.

    look at back to the future and de-loreans, really a pretty shit car that was worthless until the movies hit their stride...

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