Remasters and a rash of short production runs?

[Gameguy]

Although, I have noticed physical releases don't seem to drop in price as often or as they used to.

This isn't exactly new, it's been a problem with most smaller releases for ages. I remember waiting for Rule of Rose to drop in price for PS2 as I felt $60 for a new/gutted copy at EB Games was too much, only it never got lowered in price and eventually all copies I remember seeing got sold. Guess I should have bought it back then. Same thing happened with Solatorobo for the DS. Most other games would be discounted to clear out much needed store space, only with smaller print runs today there's less space being taken up by these releases so discounts aren't given anymore.

I remember a few years ago i bought Retro Game Challenge for the DS from amazon as "new", it was less than $20. when i got it, it had been crappily resealed and there was a save file on the game already, it was in really good shape but it irritated me that it wasnt new so i sent them a message, they told me to send it back and when i did the only seller of the game must have been banned because it wasnt available for a long time. then people started scalping and well i never got another
i kinda wish i didnt do that

You're not alone. I remember buying a sealed new copy for I think $9.99 years ago back when EB Games was still selling copies, I ended up selling it cheap for around $15 as I changed my mind about the game and thought DS games wouldn't become collectible in the future as they had durable cases and were from a time when people already were actively collecting games. I was wrong about that, both about Retro Game Challenge and DS collecting as a whole. I never thought DS games were that rare or would be that sought after. I really just wanted to break even at the time.