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

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

    If you had the money & the time... Would you perhaps be inclined to buy up all the copies you could find of an already rare game, in order to create the illusion that a specific game were actually much rarer than believed?

    For example, provided you had the cashflow, would you perhaps buy up every original copy of NWC (NES) you could find, and hoard them? Would this then make any other existing copies rarer? Or increase the value of copies already owned? Likewise, what about sealed copies of games like Chrono Trigger (NTSC U SNES)? Obviously aiming to buy as many copies of NWC as you could is a much easier task as you know exactly how many copies exist, and thus every aquired copy would increase the value of remaining copies owned...

    Would anyone be so selfish though? It's a thought which has passed through my mind many a time when watching videogame auctions for rare games such as this, and I think to myself: "If only I had unlimited funds...". I have seen many copies of NWC for sale over the years, and just wondered whether any one person ever considered buying all of them? Especially all of the gold NWC carts, few as they are.

    Also, if you were inclinded to do such a thing, and had the funds, would you keep it a secret? Obviously if people caught onto what you were up to then there could be repurcussions amongst the various gaming and collecting communities, so would you perhaps collecct such things in secret and only let on that you owned one copy, when in fact you may actually own multiple copies of a rare game?

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    If you had, say $150,000 to buy all of the NWC carts, there would be far better and more secure ways to increase your investment. So no, that would be retarded.

    And if you had unlimited money, why would you worry about making more money?

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    I know of a silly person on another board who is obsessed with Final Fantasy 7 so they bought like 50 copies of it or something weird. They talked about how many varients they had found but IMO it's a bit obsessive to keep that many of the same game for personal purposes.

    At least that's a game that can now be downloaded off PSN and has been rereleased as Greatest Hits over the years.

    Other than that I never heard of anyone doing such a thing unless it was a store who wanted plenty of copies to sell off. Having plenty of rare games in stock at a store attracts customers (and thieves lol)
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    Some guy seemed to be doing this with Magical Chase awhile back...he bought like every copy that hit ebay.

    Personally I think it's both pointless and sort of a dick move to your fellow members of the hobby. However there is a nice inverted situation like this that has happened, where one person ends up buying a crate of otherwise uncommon games and then sells them off to everyone else. Didn't that happen with Cheetahmen or something? That's cool.

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    I had someone try to do this with me. I found 4 new, non-gh Silent Hill 1 cheap as ___ in Philadelphia. Put 3 of them on ebay and kept one for the collection.

    Some guy messages me asking about how many I have because he would like to (and I quote) "corner the market" on them. Stupid and lame.
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    I DO have the money and I AM so inclined.

    I'm going to do it with Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt.

    Wish me luck!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cryomancer View Post
    Some guy seemed to be doing this with Magical Chase awhile back...he bought like every copy that hit ebay.
    When I was looking to get a copy of Clay Fighter Sculptor's Cut, the same user on ebay kept buying up all the copies. This was pretty annoying since it seemed he/she would pay whatever amount of money for each copy.

    I came to the conclusion that he/she wanted 63 and 1/3 copies!

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    There's another economic problem with this theory...

    Let's say there are 12 gold NWCs. After you buy the first 5 or so, people are going to start noticing. When you go to buy the 6th one, the price will have gone from $15,000 to $25,000. The 7th will be even more expensive. As you keep buying the game, you're not only creating rarity in the overall marketplace, but for yourself as well.

    If the only two people on the planet who own the game are yourself and DreamTR, Dream's pristine copy will go from $40,000 to $1,000,000

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    Quote Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce View Post
    And if you had unlimited money, why would you worry about making more money?
    You clearly have never seen Wall Street.

    But, in all seriousness, I agree. It would be a terribly inefficient way to turn a profit.

    Quote Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce View Post
    If the only two people on the planet who own the game are yourself and DreamTR, Dream's pristine copy will go from $40,000 to $1,000,000
    Then you eventually end up in a situation where the only people who own anything will just flat out refuse to sell for any reason short of extreme financial hardship. If that ends up happening then the item may as well not exist at all for pricing purposes since nobody who doesn't already own one will ever be able to obtain one through a means not involving actual theft. So, yeah, I agree that it's really not a sound plan.
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 07-01-2009 at 05:12 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rickstilwell1 View Post
    I know of a silly person on another board who is obsessed with Final Fantasy 7 so they bought like 50 copies of it or something weird. They talked about how many varients they had found but IMO it's a bit obsessive to keep that many of the same game for personal purposes.
    He's actually a member of this board too.

    Quote Originally Posted by backguard View Post
    I had someone try to do this with me. I found 4 new, non-gh Silent Hill 1 cheap as ___ in Philadelphia. Put 3 of them on ebay and kept one for the collection.

    Some guy messages me asking about how many I have because he would like to (and I quote) "corner the market" on them. Stupid and lame.
    You should have told him you'd sell them all to him for a huge markup, like $300 a piece. That should have sent the message loud and clear

    As for me, I once bought about three versions of the Japanese import version of Perfect Dark for N64, all complete. The second one was just to replace an imperfection on my copy and the third one I got cheaper than the other two. I actually thought about trying to buy any I saw on ebay but I decided there was no need for that and I sold the extra copies for a nice profit.
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    I would like to think that no amount of money would turn me into a total asshat.

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    Quote Originally Posted by c0ldb33r View Post
    I DO have the money and I AM so inclined.

    I'm going to do it with Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt.

    Wish me luck!
    That was the most I have laughed all day! Thank you.

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    Quote Originally Posted by c0ldb33r View Post
    I DO have the money and I AM so inclined.

    I'm going to do it with Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt.

    Wish me luck!
    Years ago I met a guy who was doing just that. He was wearing a belt and ammo sash type thing that were full of SMB/DH cartridges. It was at an anime convention in the mid 90s.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gemini-Phoenix View Post
    If you had the money & the time... Would you perhaps be inclined to buy up all the copies you could find of an already rare game, in order to create the illusion that a specific game were actually much rarer than believed?
    Like, for instance, Berenstain Bears for the VCS?

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    I'd probably travel the world and chill it with the video games for a while.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rickstilwell1 View Post
    I know of a silly person on another board who is obsessed with Final Fantasy 7 so they bought like 50 copies of it or something weird. They talked about how many varients they had found but IMO it's a bit obsessive to keep that many of the same game for personal purposes.
    Eskobar? Yeah, he's pretty damn crazy. :P
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    A person wanting to do this may as well just buy a one of a kind. If only one known copy of something exists, buy it and then you have legitimately cornered the market. You can freely name your price. But even then, you have to consider what a potential buyer is willing to pay. Even if you have the only copy of X game/prototype in existence, you probably will never find a buyer willing (or able) to pay $1,000,000 for it. So even after cornering the market you still have to bow to what people are willing to pay if you ever care to sell what you've just acquired.

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    I have a friend who used to work for a MAJOR world-wide sports card/memorabilia shop. They would do exactly this, and at least in the genre of sports crap, it can be very profitable if done correctly and covertly.
    .

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    I think it would definetely work, but only on something that had a limited print run and also had a print run that can be measured.

    Trying to buy every sealed copy of Chrono Trigger wouldn't work, because there's probably a few hundred of them in the wild (at least), and who knows when someone digs through old store stock what they could find. If someone finds a case of Chrono Triggers in storage, there goes your investment value...

    With the NWC cart, it's possible, but only if you do it covertly, as Ryborg said. You would make money, but only if people didn't start to catch on...

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    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.

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