Will the Collecting Bubble ever pop??

[VideoGameCritic]

Have you guys noticed the price of old video games (on ebay for example) is out of control? I mean, even a common loose Game Boy cartridge might run you more than $30. Complete in the box? We're talking hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

I've talking to some people about it who has explained that ALL collectibles - whether it's shoes or games or trading cards - have gone through the roof during this COVID crisis. Did you hear that Target just stopped carrying trading cards because people were FIGHTING over them??

My question to you is, will this bubble ever pop? Will game prices ever come down to reasonable levels? I have my doubts. I've been collecting for over 20 years and I have never noticed ANY drop in game values. But since I'm not collecting for investment's sake, I think I would welcome it.

Thoughts?

[JustLikeHeaven]

I've noticed the hike in price. It's by far the biggest increase I've seen since the initial YouTube personality explosion over a decade ago.

I don't know if it will necessarily burst, but I think something will eventually change. I think part of it will be more and more companies making their older titles available via new physical media/compilation collections. I'm at the point where I'm not going to buy a copy of Earthbound, but if Nintendo were to release a Mother Anniversary Collection I'd be fine just owning that. I don't need the original as long as the new version is emulated correctly.

As long as I'm able to play the games I'm happy at this point. The novelty of owning the original stuff is long gone. As long as it's officially released and identical the original game I'm good.

[bluenote]

I've noticed the hike in price. It's by far the biggest increase I've seen since the initial YouTube personality explosion over a decade ago.

I don't know if it will necessarily burst, but I think something will eventually change. I think part of it will be more and more companies making their older titles available via new physical media/compilation collections. I'm at the point where I'm not going to buy a copy of Earthbound, but if Nintendo were to release a Mother Anniversary Collection I'd be fine just owning that. I don't need the original as long as the new version is emulated correctly.

As long as I'm able to play the games I'm happy at this point. The novelty of owning the original stuff is long gone. As long as it's officially released and identical the original game I'm good.

I don't know. With Earthbound, it was released as a download for 3DS and again on Wii U virtual console, and the price of the physical cart did not budge at all, despite being able to now buy it for $10 as a download.

I see prices perhaps leveling off, but I really don't see them getting cheaper.

I do wonder though as collectors get older and get out of it, will the prices come down? For example, Atari 2600 saw a bit of a boom in the 90s, but now you can get 2600 carts for next to nothing. I would assume because the people who grew up with Atari are no longer collecting it like they did in their 30s. They are now in their 50s and have moved on.

Will we see the same for NES? As people who grew up with NES are now in their 40s, and the novelty of buying NES carts is over and they've moved on, will prices start to come down as demand diminishes? I guess we'll wait and see.

[JustLikeHeaven]

Yeah I guess the re-releases may not have impact on the value of the original carts/discs, but at least it will give people that just want to the play a game a chance to do so. At this point that's a consolation prize I'm hoping for anyways.

I do agree about people aging out of collecting. I had actually typed up a big thing similar to your Atari 2600 thoughts and ended up deleting it. My gut is that people that have nostalgia for that stuff do it in their 20-30s when they first get disposable income. At some point the people that purchased the stuff they want will have done so and the masses will have moved on. Though I'll concede that rare and in demand games may never really budge in price much. For example, Halloween on the 2600 is more valuable than ever before despite most of the Atari 2600 library being relatively affordable.

Though I think part of the 2600's lack of value is the brand's relevance today. Most modern gamers have never heard of the Atari. Nintendo is arguably more popular than ever and the fascination with their older stuff may never go away. Which will in turn keep the prices high for many years to come.

[bluenote]

Yeah I guess the re-releases may not have impact on the value of the original carts/discs, but at least it will give people that just want to the play a game a chance to do so. At this point that's a consolation prize I'm hoping for anyways.

I do agree about people aging out of collecting. I had actually typed up a big thing similar to your Atari 2600 thoughts and ended up deleting it. My gut is that people that have nostalgia for that stuff do it in their 20-30s when they first get disposable income. At some point the people that purchased the stuff they want will have done so and the masses will have moved on. Though I'll concede that rare and in demand games may never really budge in price much. For example, Halloween on the 2600 is more valuable than ever before despite most of the Atari 2600 library being relatively affordable.

Though I think part of the 2600's lack of value is the brand's relevance today. Most modern gamers have never heard of the Atari. Nintendo is arguably more popular than ever and the fascination with their older stuff may never go away. Which will in turn keep the prices high for many years to come.

Good points! Also, the fact that 2600 games are much more basic than NES games might have something to do with the value as well.

I do hope prices level out soon. I'm not a huge collector, but I do have quite a few SNES games that are on my want list, and almost every one of them is beyond $200 complete (Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, etc).

[pacman000]

If it is a bubble, it will pop. If more people buy a product as an investment than as a useful object, there there's a bubble.

The folks fighting over Pokémon cards reminds me of the early 2000's, when kids continued buying the cards just because they thought they could resell them; from what I've read the people fighting over cards in Target & Walmart are looking for an investment opportunity.

If that's truer, there is a bubble, & it will burst.

(NOTE: THIS NOT FINNANCIAL ADVISE! I AM NOT A FINNANCIAL ADVISER! I AM NOT AN ECCONOMIST! GET A REAL ADVISOR FOR ACTUAL ADVISE!)

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

Who knows?

This is uncharted territory.

Thanks to emulation and the internet - plus mass digital/dedicated console rereleases - we have history's largest collection of informed retro enthusiasts/gatekeeping snobs. And because many of the best games were either produced in limited quantities or the demand for them is evergreen?

Or discs were scratched? And boxes thrown away?

It's the perfect storm for a collector's market. Especially in a time when many of us need some escapism just to keep our minds healthy.

But before COVID, I'd noticed some of the most obsessive collectors airing their regrets. These collections take up a lot of space. And the 8-bit generations have aged especially poorly, as modern indie games have embraced everything that once made them unique, but without a lot of the flaws.

Looking over the E-Bay prices for NES games, only Bucky O'Hare and Swamp Thing were priced obscenely high. I think the bubble was already about to burst...but with a pandemic at play, and enough galaxy brained idiots refusing vaccination to prevent herd immunity? (The right mutation and we're all screwed all over again.)

Who knows?

[ActRaiser]

I kind of hope not.

I think I'm done collecting and need to start unraveling what I've got. I need to let my daughter try out a little Samba de Amigo and then I can start decreasing my collection a bit.

My hobbies tend to be more forest/lawn maintenance at the moment anyways. It's good exercise and feels good to get outside. Selling Snatcher and adding it to my daughter's 529 will let me tell her one day that video games paid for her college education. She won't have to know how little it contributed in the big scheme of things.

[DrLitch]

People still collect vinyl right, old records from goodness knows when, old unique prints, editions and so on? Exchanging hands for several if not tens of thousands. This been going on for decades. Any reason why this would be different for video games? Although potentially a ticking time bomb is degradation of electronic components towards non operability - both cart, CD, and console format. Vinyls and stamps might be a safer collection insofar as liquid assets go.

[Voor]

I sure hope so. I thought about collecting some games I was nostalgic for years ago, but quickly figured out it was going to cost waaaaay more than I imagined.

Which is dumb.

People shouldn’t have to pay double the new price for mass produced items. Collecting should be a fun hobby....not an expensive one. Part of the appeal for me collecting baseball cards as a kid was how accessible it was