$10K for an unopened NES game?

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VideoGameCritic
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$10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby VideoGameCritic » August 1st, 2019, 6:54 pm

A lot of people have been sending me this article about a new Kid Icarus game somebody found in their attic, being auctioned for a lot of money:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/uno ... 32021.html

I'm happy for the seller, but I don't understand why someone would purchase this.
I mean, you could never ever open it. It would just be a display item.
That would drive me nuts. All my games are open and played.

Thoughts?

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Gentlegamer
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Re: $10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby Gentlegamer » August 1st, 2019, 7:16 pm

Ron Jeremy with a PSA on opening games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvkXpRLspYE

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Retro STrife
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Re: $10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby Retro STrife » August 2nd, 2019, 10:22 am

This article reached the mainstream too, as it was covered online by many big media outlets (USA Today, Time, CNN) and it was actually a non-gamer that passed it along to me yesterday. My first thought was “no way... Kid Icarus is a $15 game loose at best.. i can see a sealed copy going in the hundreds but saying $10k is just non-gamers acting like crazy people.” Well, lo and behold, the game sold for about $9000 on the special auction site they used (not ebay), when you include the buyer’s premium. A few thoughts:

-I’m with you, Critic. Collecting sealed games makes no sense to me and I couldn’t do it, but I guess it’s not much different than people who collect sealed toys or sports memorabilia or other things that you just display and stare at. I’ve kept only a few sealed games in my collection, and mostly just as a “sample” of what sealed games look like.

-Not all sealed games are created equal. Nintendo lovers are the biggest culprits of this phenomenon, which means that NES and SNES tend to be the most collectible sealed games right now. I’ve sold a couple I had lying around and even common games can sell for hundreds. If you can get two sealed-game collectors fighting over one they both need, it really inflates the price. Grading the game also inflates the price, by rating it’s quality and verifying that it’s real. This Kid Icarus was graded an 8.0, which is decent but not spectacular for what collectors want.

-I think the price of this Kid Icarus was ridiculously inflated. For a common game, sealed copies of Kid Icarus are surprisingly rare. Still, not $10k-level rare. The auction site said no prior sales data existed, and I couldn’t find any either in my quick search. That allowed them to perpetuate this crazy article about it being worth $10k, to rile up collectors and draw them to the site to compete over the game. Very conveniently, the article came out on the day the auction was ending even though the game was found months ago. So people drove it up to $9k.

-It’s this kind of silliness that gets 70 year old grandma’s trying to sell their kids’ old Atari games for $20 each at a yard sale.

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Re: $10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby mbd36 » August 6th, 2019, 12:36 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:A lot of people have been sending me this article about a new Kid Icarus game somebody found in their attic, being auctioned for a lot of money:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/uno ... 32021.html

I'm happy for the seller, but I don't understand why someone would purchase this.
I mean, you could never ever open it. It would just be a display item.
That would drive me nuts. All my games are open and played.

Thoughts?


There are plenty of other ways to play Kid Icarus though.

I'm thinking the main reason to purchase this is hoping that it will go up in value so you can unload it on someone else and make money on the deal.

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Matchstick
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Re: $10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby Matchstick » August 6th, 2019, 3:19 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Thoughts?


I'm honestly surprised it didn't sell for more.

In this day and age, the only barrier against owning anything is merely how much you are willing to pay for it. Very few things are truly "rare" or "hard to find" anymore given the prominence of online shopping and marketplaces, eBay in particular. However, given our free market system, people are able to charge whatever they want for their items, and likewise, people are able to spend whatever they want to obtain them.

Nothing wrong with this at all, but when the circumstances are right, it's easy for a buyer to get swept up in the moment and overspend on something. Nine grand is a major investment for any sort of collectable, but for this buyer, they felt it was appropriate. I feel like the number of sealed Kid Icarus packages out there must be in the single digits, but as others have said, it's not a terribly uncommon game. No way I would ever consider dropping that kind of cash on something I could never do anything with but look at, but hey, I'm not a collector.

What is a collector? Please don't pepper me with the SOTN meme, I'm being serious. In my eyes, "collector" is just another word for "hoarder." While it's nice to be able to surround yourself with things that make you happy, as the saying goes, you can't take it with you. Some out there have collections of 10,000 games or more, but regardless of the reasons for their collecting, nobody is going to enjoy or appreciate the collection as much as the one who put it together. When they're gone, their friends and family are left with a house full of "stuff."

Again, nothing wrong with collecting, though the prudent thing to do would be to enjoy your items for what they are, but make sure they don't become a burden to those closest to you. Not only that, but anytime you're talking about a collection, there's the risk of losing it through uncontrollable circumstances. Theft. Fire. Natural disasters. Sure, collections can be insured, but if, for example, your house is swept up in a tidal wave (a very, very real possibility where I live) it's all gone. You can't take it with you, but it certainly can be taken away from you.

For the buyer of that copy of Kid Icarus, it was worth the nine grand to have it sitting on their shelf, staring back at them for the rest of their natural existence. For most of the rest of us, we probably have better uses for that kind of money. Nine grand is a lot for any sort of objet d'art, but it's not much different than having a collection of Faberge Eggs or having a Maserati parked in the garage. Some people feel the need to have physical representations of their wealth that they can display to others, and hey, more power to them.

Me, personally? Nine grand? I dunno, that's a lot of trips to Taco Bell...

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Rev
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Re: $10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby Rev » August 6th, 2019, 6:57 pm

Honestly, sometimes on sites like this the purchase may go through however the buyer of the item doesn't pay. Sometimes when people are charging ridiculous prices, buyers will do that. Not sure if this is what happened with that item, I would think there is a decent chance that this happened. Either that, or the seller made a ton of money on an item that isn't worth that much. At most, a new copy of Kid Icarus would probably go between $500-1000.

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Matchstick
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Re: $10K for an unopened NES game?

Postby Matchstick » August 6th, 2019, 9:36 pm

Very true, Rev. Anyone who's sold on eBay knows that you cannot force a buyer to pay for the item they've won. I've had this happen to me several times, which is why I ditched the auction format and now always require immediate payment for my items. If the buyer doesn't pay, the item stays listed, waiting for someone to come along and pay up.

Hopefully this seller received their payment and managed to close out the transaction. But, when you're right, you're right - there's no way this game should have sold for the price it did. Blame it on fanaticism or, as Retro STrife noted, timely media coverage, but if the buyer were patient, they likely could have picked up a similar sealed copy of the game for far, far less.

Still, like I said in my earlier post, nothing surprises me anymore in regards to what people are willing to pay for gaming goods these days. The game could have sold for $20,000 just as easily as $200, it all just depends on who's looking at it and how determined they are to get it. Sometimes, timing really is everything!


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