Quote Originally Posted by Sosage View Post
You and I may be able to pick up SMB for a cheaper price somewhere else. You and I may also be able to resell it for minimal profit. Hell...we have the luxury of not having to profit off the sale at all. Brick n' mortar stores *have* to make profit. It's why they can't offer you the "market rate" for what you're wanting to sell to them, and why some have to price items above market rate when they put it on the shelf.
In a way that's kind of a cop-out. I get offering less money for games with trade-ins but to do that and price games above market value when selling just seems greedy.

Using the excuse that they have to rip people off with both trade-ins and when selling just to pay the bills only goes so far. What if I said I had to sell broken lawn chairs or other freshly picked trash for $400 each to support myself financially? Would people gladly pay me my asking price to help me out?

Quote Originally Posted by Sosage View Post
As for who is buying this stuff, everyone. It's really tempting to tag someone paying higher prices for this stuff as "retro posers" who are "ruining the hobby". By all means, we've likely all met "that guy" who is a total douche that isn't into this for playing the games, yet wants everyone to check out his 20 NES games he doesn't enjoy. BUT the average person walking into a store isn't "that guy". They are likely not into prioritizing finding stuff online (or at swap meets/garage sales). They walk into a store, see SMB for 15 bucks and impulse off of it. Everyone loves SMB. Surely SMB, as an experience, is worth 15 bucks. If push came to shove, I think SMB...as a game experience...is worth every penny of that 15 bucks. Even though I could find the cart for much, much less at the "market" price.
Honestly, from what I've seen it seems to be mostly parents or younger kids/teens that don't know any better. Now a high percentage of younger kids and teens think old games are cool(thanks to everyone using the internet now regardless of age), so when they ask their parents for a game for their birthday/any reason, parents just go to game stores and they'll buy it. Most parents don't want to waste too much time searching for things as they have better things to do, or they're not into games so they don't know where to buy them outside of searching the yellowpages for video game stores. Or it'll just be kids/teens, the ones too young to have credit cards or paypal accounts and can't purchase things online.