VGCollect Forum
General and Gaming => General => Topic started by: seether on September 22, 2019, 07:01:18 am
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I don't see retro games at car boot sales or charity stores any more really and certainly not desirable items. The prices of SNES games on ebay are high now and the more time passes the fewer things seem to be out in the wild, especially the rarities.
I enjoy picking up blu rays more now. There's always a big stack of them at pawn stores and they cost next to nothing so browsing and finding gems is easier and it's more satisfying to find something for a movie night that way than to find nothing in most locations game wise. All the independent retro stores around me have shut down too. Last week I found A Nightmare on Elm Street for £1 on blu ray and that was honestly more fulfilling than anything I've found in video games in a while, it's an easier hunt.
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Well, I certainly think so, although the ways of going about it are definitely different these days.
I'm long past the point of needing the common fare the typically turns up in secondhand stores & garage sales- I'll still look given the opportunity, but the days of being upset over not getting to go out on summer weekends for yard sales are over. Although- and this intrigues me- I've had better luck the last few months than I have in years! I've found Genesis, SNES, and NES in stores in recent weeks, and not trash titles- the DI had Metroid and Ninja Gaiden for 5 bucks each. I already have them but thought to myself 'those aren't gonna stay long'. They were being bought when I was walking out :D I also nabbed a nicer copy of Vectorman for my Genesis collection (I need to find/save a small shipping box so I can give away my spare soon.)
I'm mostly past the point of game shops, too- sometimes I find something good, but the things I still want are uncommon enough (or popular enough) that they typically aren't in stock anymore. I still make the trip to the shops when I can, but I don't save up money anymore- most days I won't find anything, so it's easier to set that extra money into the general rainy day fund & dip into it if I do find something.
For the most part though, the exciting part comes from hitting up the annual retro shows. This is were the finds are coming from- other collectors paring down or selling doubles, shops that cater to the collector bringing in their top stuff... and I still, sometimes, find great deals.
The biggest change has been the nature of the transaction- in the past, I was dealing with a stranger at a yard sale, dumping their kid's old stuff. I bought from thrift store employees who just hoped the things had price tags on them & you weren't going to argue that it was too expensive. Then I moved on to game store clerks, who liked to actually talk about the games, but not much- they did have work to do after all. Nowadays though, it's a far more intimate affair. Busier booths are similar to game stores, but you get to have fun conversations with the other shoppers. "I don't see any genesis games!" "oh, they're on the other side!" "Cool, thanks!" "Man, you grabbed that cart quick- what system even is that? "Oh, it's for Wonderswan- it only came out in Japan, so I don't see games much." "I've never even heard of that!" You get the idea. Smaller booths give you more time to talk with the people selling- why they're selling, which games did they like best, etc.
Basically, it's gone from mass acquisitions & pure bargain hunting to a more curated experience, choosing a few pricer titles & getting to know the other collectors around me while making those selections. It's honestly really nice!
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Overall game collecting is on the decline and has been since 2016 for the most part. Going on Price Charting and looking at the overall price trends for most retro consoles will show that most retro consoles have dropped in value quite a bit or at the very least leveled out. There are a handful of retro consoles that are rising in value like the Genesis and N64, but I'm pretty sure they will eventually follow the same trajectory as the other retro consoles that are dropping or plateauing.
Beyond what the more objective data is showing, there have been a lot of retro game stores that have gone under in the last 2-years in my state. Part of it is the general economic climate we live in, but also has to do with less people shopping at these stores. As for the retro game stores that are still around, they are having to turn to ebay to fill their store with games since not enough is being traded in to keep people wanting to visit. What is being traded in is stagnating, as is a lot of the ebay stock which is typically rarer, more desirable games that don't commonly come in, especially now. In the case of one store, the owner, who is a massive collector, has been downsizing his personal collection to fill his store shelves. However, you'd think this would be bringing in a lot of people, but instead the games are just sitting, at least for way longer than they would have just a couple years ago. Related to retail stores, I've seen a glut of retro games at used media stores that have been traded in, and a lot of it isn't moving like it would have a few years ago. This brings me to my next point.
Interest is declining, a lot! Stores are getting stuff in still, but a lot of that stuff us just sitting there for way longer than it used to. This indicates that supply and demand coming to an equilibrium, with supply gradually outpacing the demand. Sure, some are games selling still, but for the most part, more and more retro games are accumulating, a lot of these being good titles too. Going a bit deeper, there have been a lot of collectors in my area, some of them having Flea size collections that have left the hobby and sold off their collections. There have been a lot of famous (and some infamous) resellers in the area that abandoned retro games too. Sure, there are still some very passionate collectors that still heavily collect, but there are far fewer people doing this than there was in 2017 and especially in 2016 or 2015.
As for my personal feelings towards collecting, I did give up on it, mostly. I decided this summer that I had accumulated too many games, many of which I don't really care about. Essentially what I did was find most of the games I did care about, and then I was like "hey, wouldn't be fun to track down those other interesting games too?" and so I did since at the time it was easy to find cheap cool and rare games. After I got a lot of those cool and rare games I wanted, I then wanted to find a bunch of moderately interesting, obscure games and that's where I was a for a few years leading up to me deciding I didn't want to collect anymore. Where the "mostly" given up part comes in is I will always love video games and there are many games in my collection I have no intention of ever getting rid of. On top of that I still do buy games that I think look fun and if they are fun enough I intend on keeping them. I guess where things have changed is I only buy games that I have the intention of playing shortly after buying, like as in within a couple of weeks. The only exception to this is if the game has sentimental value, which I just want for that reason mostly. However, I rarely make these sentimental purchases anymore since I found most of those games back when I first started collecting, or over the last few years. Still there are a handful I'm still after.
As for hunting for games, there is little to no point anymore for me. As I said, I have almost every game I've ever wanted, so scouring thrift stores, garage sales, or even game stores for those last few games is not worth my time or money; I could easily go online and just purchase them there without having to drive around, waste gas and time, and potentially not find them for months or years. Speaking of places to find games, without exceptions there are no good places in my area to consistently look for cheap games anymore; the thrift stores have been insanely greedy and overpriced for years now, our one flea market has very few games anymore, and the ones that are there are overpriced or in poor condition. The game stores in my area are all overpriced, and the biggest chain of them is run by a guy who has a weird vendetta against me that I still don't understand. And garage sales are mostly pointless at this point, unless you do what one guy I know does and simply goes door to door asking if people have video games they'd like to sell. This guy still finds some excellent stuff, however the amount of time and effort he puts into this is way more than I'd ever be willing to do. That leaves used media stores, which have been the only place in recent years where I occasionally find a good price on something, but this has become fairly rare to the point where I barely fo to these stores anymore. I pretty much just go to Gamestop, buy the new game I want to play and i'm done with it. Or I go on ebay and buy them since it requires little to no effort on my part.
This was definitely one of my longer posts, but I had a lot to say about it since it's not only something I find interesting, but is also personally relevant at the moment. So no, collecting games is not that much fun anymore, especially retro games, and that seems to be the general zeitgeist within the collecting/retro gaming world. There are exceptions to this, but overall the hobby in general is on the decline and I believe this will continue until very few people are actually doing it anymore.
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Beyond what the more objective data is showing, there have been a lot of retro game stores that have gone under in the last 2-years in my state. Part of it is the general economic climate we live in, but also has to do with less people shopping at these stores. As for the retro game stores that are still around, they are having to turn to ebay to fill their store with games since no one is trading them in anymore. In the case of one store, the owner, who is a massive collector, has been downsizing his personal collection to fill his store shelves. However, you'd think this would be bringing in a lot of people, but instead the games are just sitting, at least for way longer than they would have just a couple years ago. Related to retail stores, I've seen a glut of retro games at used media stores that have been traded in, and a lot of it isn't moving like it would have a few years ago. This brings me to my next point.
Interest is declining, a lot! As mentioned, more and more retro games are being traded in, but they aren't moving. This indicates that supply and demand coming to an equilibrium, with supply gradually outpacing the demand. Sure, some are games selling still, but for the most part, more and more retro games are accumulating, a lot of these being good titles too. Going a bit deeper, there have been a lot of collectors in my area, some of them having Flea size collections that have left the hobby and sold off their collections. There have been a lot of famous (and some infamous) resellers in the area that abandoned retro games too. Sure, there are still some very passionate collectors that still heavily collect, but there are far fewer people doing this than there was in 2017 and especially in 2016 or 2015.
how can stores have problems with filling their shelves since no one trades games in while later on you say that tons of stuff gets traded in that doesnt make any sense :o
but I do agree that pre 2016 era was a pretty nice time to collect at least in my country but 2019 stores will have tough times to refill those shelves.
For me personally I got everything that I want If i score some extra stuff that's interesting that's all good to me. but yea the days of sleeving many manuals and boxes in protectors for the collection those days are over for me with the exception of adding some bits here and there if I come across something good.
sure games like wild guns and ninja warriors, pocky & rocky on snes would be nice but i don't really need those not to mention with them crappy cib supply for snes especially in 2019 that's probably not happening unless ofcourse you spend some $.
@seether
game collecting ain't only about retro games
plenty of people also collect ps3 xbox 360 ps4 or switch games to name some examples plenty of that stuff around.
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Beyond what the more objective data is showing, there have been a lot of retro game stores that have gone under in the last 2-years in my state. Part of it is the general economic climate we live in, but also has to do with less people shopping at these stores. As for the retro game stores that are still around, they are having to turn to ebay to fill their store with games since no one is trading them in anymore. In the case of one store, the owner, who is a massive collector, has been downsizing his personal collection to fill his store shelves. However, you'd think this would be bringing in a lot of people, but instead the games are just sitting, at least for way longer than they would have just a couple years ago. Related to retail stores, I've seen a glut of retro games at used media stores that have been traded in, and a lot of it isn't moving like it would have a few years ago. This brings me to my next point.
Interest is declining, a lot! As mentioned, more and more retro games are being traded in, but they aren't moving. This indicates that supply and demand coming to an equilibrium, with supply gradually outpacing the demand. Sure, some are games selling still, but for the most part, more and more retro games are accumulating, a lot of these being good titles too. Going a bit deeper, there have been a lot of collectors in my area, some of them having Flea size collections that have left the hobby and sold off their collections. There have been a lot of famous (and some infamous) resellers in the area that abandoned retro games too. Sure, there are still some very passionate collectors that still heavily collect, but there are far fewer people doing this than there was in 2017 and especially in 2016 or 2015.
how can stores have problems with filling their shelves since no one trades games in while later on you say that tons of stuff gets traded in that kinds doesnt make sense :o
but I do agree that pre 2016 era was a pretty nice time to collect at least in my country but 2019. stores will have tough times to supply.
For me personally I got everything that I want If i score some extra stuff that's interesting that's all good to me. but yea the days of sleeving many manuals and boxes in protectors for the collection those days are over for me with the exception of adding some bits here and there if I come across something good.
sure games like wild guns and ninja warriors, pocky & rocky on snes would be nice but i don't really need those not to mention with them crappy cib supply for snes especially in 2019 that's probably not happening unless ofcourse you spend some $.
I just fixed it. It isn't that these stores are getting a lot traded in, that's where I screwed up, it's that they are getting some stuff in, but that stuff is not moving like it used to. Where game stores are having to turn to ebay has to do with keeping the store filled with desirable titles that motivate collectors to come in. Using ebay as a supplier seems to be exclusive to the game stores since they depend on games to pay the bills unlike the used media stores which sell a lot of other stuff, not just games.
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No.
I really wish I was into movies and collecting those. That stuff is so plentiful and so cheap. I don't have anything against movies, but I've never been able to really get hooked on watching them. Always felt like I can take it, or leave it, when it comes to film. Who knows, maybe physical edition movies will skyrocket in popularity at some point. Every collectable hobby I've gotten into ends up becoming immensely expensive over time, and harder work to continue doing. I guess because I'm a band-wagoner who's always a bit late to every party.
OG collectors have been doing this since the late 90s and early 2000s when chain stores would liquidate their 8 and 16-bit stock without discretion, as well as every subsequent console generation up until about the 7th when the collecting hobby went super mainstream. That's when I first started, it was still kinda fun and still affordable, at least for a while. The fun died off around 2012, 2013 when people started paying out asinine amounts for "ultra rare" items, essentially raising the tide for everything at the same time that tons more people continued getting into the hobby. It was all over by that point.
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(edit) to me yes,
But I have not always been happy with collecting video games :)
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No.
I really wish I was into movies and collecting those. That stuff is so plentiful and so cheap. I don't have anything against movies, but I've never been able to really get hooked on watching them. Always felt like I can take it, or leave it, when it comes to film. Who knows, maybe physical edition movies will skyrocket in popularity at some point. Every collectable hobby I've gotten into ends up becoming immensely expensive over time, and harder work to continue doing. I guess because I'm a band-wagoner who's always a bit late to every party.
OG collectors have been doing this since the late 90s and early 2000s when chain stores would liquidate their 8 and 16-bit stock without discretion, as well as every subsequent console generation up until about the 7th when the collecting hobby went super mainstream. That's when I first started, it was still kinda fun and still affordable, at least for a while. The fun died off around 2012, 2013 when people started paying out asinine amounts for "ultra rare" items, essentially raising the tide for everything at the same time that tons more people continued getting into the hobby. It was all over by that point.
Yeah 2013 was really the tipping point where collecting got ultra popular and as a result prices skyrocketed. There was a local used media store I used to get a lot of my games at that would price all games regardless of title at $3 if it wasn't Gen 7 or newer. Between 2011 and 2013 I literally bought hundreds of games from them for just $3 a pop including some really rare stuff. However around 2013, that place quickly started becoming a wasteland as there would always be a ton of resellers and collectors there all the time. Worse than that the employees started getting in on it and began sniping any retro games before they even hit the shelves. one scummy employee would literally stalk people as they were shopping in the game section and ask if the games they had in their hand were rare and valuable. The guy was a total scrub and used to sell off a ton of games on Craigslist and game stores all the time.
But beyond that store that's when Goodwill started selling most of their stuff on their auction site and ebay, and my local flea market started getting way harder to find stuff. I feel like 2015 is when retro collecting peaked in terms of price and popularity. It seems to be on the decline in both these areas now, however the days of finding choice $2 SNES titles at Goodwill or getting Earthbound for a dollar at the flea market are gone forever most likely. At least it's likely that a game like Super Metroid might sell for $10-15 someday again and Super Mario World is a $5 game like it should be.
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No.
I really wish I was into movies and collecting those. That stuff is so plentiful and so cheap. I don't have anything against movies, but I've never been able to really get hooked on watching them. Always felt like I can take it, or leave it, when it comes to film. Who knows, maybe physical edition movies will skyrocket in popularity at some point. Every collectable hobby I've gotten into ends up becoming immensely expensive over time, and harder work to continue doing. I guess because I'm a band-wagoner who's always a bit late to every party.
OG collectors have been doing this since the late 90s and early 2000s when chain stores would liquidate their 8 and 16-bit stock without discretion, as well as every subsequent console generation up until about the 7th when the collecting hobby went super mainstream. That's when I first started, it was still kinda fun and still affordable, at least for a while. The fun died off around 2012, 2013 when people started paying out asinine amounts for "ultra rare" items, essentially raising the tide for everything at the same time that tons more people continued getting into the hobby. It was all over by that point.
Yeah 2013 was really the tipping point where collecting got ultra popular and as a result prices skyrocketed. There was a local used media store I used to get a lot of my games at that would price all games regardless of title at $3 if it wasn't Gen 7 or newer. Between 2011 and 2013 I literally bought hundreds of games from them for just $3 a pop including some really rare stuff. However around 2013, that place quickly started becoming a wasteland as there would always be a ton of resellers and collectors there all the time. Worse than that the employees started getting in on it and began sniping any retro games before they even hit the shelves. one scummy employee would literally stalk people as they were shopping in the game section and ask if the games they had in their hand were rare and valuable. The guy was a total scrub and used to sell off a ton of games on Craigslist and game stores all the time.
But beyond that store that's when Goodwill started selling most of their stuff on their auction site and ebay, and my local flea market started getting way harder to find stuff. I feel like 2015 is when retro collecting peaked in terms of price and popularity. It seems to be on the decline in both these areas now, however the days of finding choice $2 SNES titles at Goodwill or getting Earthbound for a dollar at the flea market are gone forever most likely. At least it's likely that a game like Super Metroid might sell for $10-15 someday again and Super Mario World is a $5 game like it should be.
I remember your story about the Hastings guy throwing a fit because you would buy games from his store. That’s hilarious. I ordered a few games from Hastings website back then and they had great prices but you never knew if they’d come complete. Some didn’t. I never saw an actual Hastings store though.
For sure, I’ll never forget the days when I could pick up games and consoles every weekend for literally a dollar or two. Didn’t have to search very long or hard. The GP still widely regard old games as outdated junk. But a few years later, they quickly caught on. The rare game articles started making the news, record high prices paid for Stadium Events etc, got the dollar signs dancing in many people’s eyes who began to see it as a legitimate way to make a living. Enter all of the “retro games stores” that start off humble and inexpensive, then become lazy and overpriced. Everything gone from the wild as prices climbed and climbed and now here we are. A plateau maybe, but no significant change in some timw now.
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Well, it really depends on the individual no?
Some people enjoy watching Cricket, for me Cricket bores me to tears.
So yes, still enjoy it very much and finding games for cheap, just have to know where to look. ;D
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Well, it really depends on the individual no?
Some people enjoy watching Cricket, for me Cricket bores me to tears.
So yes, still enjoy it very much and finding games for cheap, just have to know where to look. ;D
I don't feel like it's knowing where to look as much as it's there isn't much left at those places. I know geography plays a big part in it too.
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Yes.
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I don't feel like it's knowing where to look as much as it's there isn't much left at those places. I know geography plays a big part in it too.
Agree that geography definitely plays a big part. For example the thrift store that I frequent to almost daily (since it's on the way home from my workplace) has a healthy flow of games going in and out because it's located in the heart of a busy town next to the subway. Recently found pretty much all of the Tales Of series there for $2 a piece. There are two major gaming shops in the same location so it seems like people are unloading their collections to buy newer games at the gaming shops.
So yeah, geography and location is a pretty big factor since it's convenient for people to unload their games at the thrift store. Probably get a better deal too than the major game shop for trade ins since its based on quantity over quality.
Plus it helps that I built a small friendship with the guy working at the thrift store ;D he doesn't play games so he doesn't know which are good or not but he snaps pictures of the new games that comes in for me.
In the end all these factors plays a part of getting games. I also notice you gotta be consistent with the visits too, because those games go fast ( since they're $2-$5 ). Sometimes I get 1 to 2 games, other times I get 15. However, majority of the time I get is 0... My buying habits is games I see myself playing, I don't buy for the sake of buying either, so gotta be consistent with the visits. Anyway that's what works for me. ;D
This is one rare example though, other thrift stores I visit are a dry wasteland for games...
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For me personally, Im sort of leaning towards no as of late. I've reached the point where I no longer feel excitement buying impulsively whatever either looks interesting or moreso cheap because its there and I tell myself I will get to it eventually which ultimately its what I want to do. I want to play the games not accumulate more and more that eventually I get sick of looking at and winds up being traded in or sold. That being said, it doesn't mean I will stop collecting but rather that I am slowing down significantly to give myself some breathing room and so far, its been well. I have only gotten a total of 3 games total since June. Those being Bloodstained, Crash Bash and Link's Awakening on the Switch over the weekend. I still need to chill on the digital front but this topic is more towards physical goods which Im working on slowing down for the best.
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No.
Between Nintendo and Limited Run, getting physical games has gone from a guilty pleasure way to treat myself to an anxiety riddled disappointment fest.
Every. Single. Nintendo 1st party Special Edition I’ve wanted has sold out instantly.
Several Limited Runs I’ve just straight up not been fast enough for. Or it happened on a day I didn’t have access.
So I’ve scaled wayyyyy back and resigned myself to settling for the digital versions. But even then I wait for the ridiculous 50% off more sales. If it’s more than $10 and only available digitally, it gets a hard pass from me publisher/developer be damned.
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I don't feel like it's knowing where to look as much as it's there isn't much left at those places. I know geography plays a big part in it too.
Seconded on the geography thing. I'm firmly in the middle of the Nerdy Northwest, so the churn around here is much higher than, say, where my grandparents live. (Based on what I've seen online, if I were an hour or so north I might have a chance with yard sales again!) Although, as I learned visiting grandparents one year, if you can find where the concentration goes you can still do ok. Not games, but we found a comic shop in a half-dead mall in the closest thing to a big city out by Grandma's place- they had stuff in, but it was all around 2 years out of date... which meant things that had sold out & gotten rare in neck of the woods were just on the shelf. My sister flipped when we gave her that copy of Jhonen Vasquez's I Feel Sick, becuase it was long gone were we lived!
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Collecting? Not really. If i'm out and about and come across a game store, then I may stop and check it out. The thrill is about gone.
Luckily, playing games is still fun.
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That's gonna be a hard no from me.
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I see a lot of people equivalating “easy” with “fun”. I never found collecting easy. That’s why it’s fun.
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Yes
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I see a lot of people equivalating “easy” with “fun”. I never found collecting easy. That’s why it’s fun.
very true but I highly doubt people who had amazing deals in the past had it easy. they most likely put time and effort in to get those deals even if it was allot more easy back in the day.
some people took this to the extreme like the guy who called every winner of the nintendo world champions ships and bought like almost all the grey and gold carts. that's quite an impressive
achievement imo.
while there where less people collecting when stuff was still cheap just like today you still had to be one of the first few people to buy those games for 3$ a pop in those pawn stores or funkolands before the good stuff was gone. a bit more time back in the day for sure but still collecting was never truly easy.
if there was a massive turbografx deal or any kind of interesting retro console deal back in the day for dirt cheap you better believe that one guy would take it all. the other few collectors would be left empty handed. I think the difference is that for example copies of mario world and contra III not to mention a ton of common uncommon games including hidden gems would most likely be leftovers wich is pretty decent if it where in this day and age for the people who came in late. or obviously spots in wich you where the only collector.
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I fell off a bit with retro games but have gone way up in my modern game collection. I love buying modern games. I just play them more at this point. But I'd say collecting games is still fun. Collecting anything is fun if you like it. I do think a lot of the bandwagon collectors that surged around 2012-2016 have fallen off luckily, prices are climbing steadily on SNES and Gamecube but PS2 has been a sinking rock. Maybe within 5 years or so prices will go down to about where they should be so we can collect what we love without scalpers getting involved :)
I'm on Amiibo collector pages and Wii U and Switch collector pages. Nintendo has sure kept the spirit of collecting alive this gen. Everyone is collecting those beautiful red spines and some are so hard to get. I think it'll survive off of their branding.
Xbox and PS4, especially Xbox, they both see the future. Both intend on going digital only soon. I sense it. If not this upcoming gen then the one after that. It will certainly be an option to have discless consoles. And I don't neither care as much as Nintendo about collectors. PS4 pushes the limited run games and the VR stuff, but I don't see them as desirable in 5 years.
I have fun collecting so many things, so i'm not the best to answer. But yet, I do think collecting games is still fun. Might actually be funner if the prices keep dropping. I just wish SNES would do the same.
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Hell yes, but my obession, i need to take chill pill, so i limit myself to maybe 3 times i am on buying spree.... Black Friday, around Birthday, and sometime between holiday and my birthday. =) Save little bit off to the side, than spend more and more. Pickedup couple games recently, Greedfall, Code Vein (on pre-order), Surge 2, and a bunch of Playstation 1 games that i was either missing cases, manuals, to complete my series. (finally got my hands on Suikoden 2, last game i was missing in my series)
My collection is slowly getting to point of catching up. Almost have complete PS1 collection of all games i wanted as a kid/wish my single working mom could afford when i was little, and i just understood her situation and was happy with my copy of Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy Tactics, Warcraft 2, and Final Fantasy 7/8/9 and played those games to death (my 5th grade to 9th grade childhood) . (down to last 10 of needed for my collection). Got couple games left in PS2/Gamecube/Xbox Era but not too many. Finish up getting few last weird titles in DS age. Almost done with my PS Vita Collection.
I am hoping withint next 5 years, i be caught up to Playstation 4 era. Were only things i have to collect my games for is PS4/Switch/PS5.
I got to the point in my collection, were it used to be frustration how much stuff i am missing, to now getting strength from it, considering myself being lucky in finding alot of the games at prices i did find it at. Happy knowing that they are in my possession to safely hold on to, and slowly going thru years of backlog, that probably take me to old age.
So no, collecting for me never stops being fun, but their comes responsibilities that require my attention first. I just hope that in future generation will have something similar for next generation of gamers to fill the void when some stuff becomes "digital" only.
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I think so, I find myself still aiming for little sub catagories - currently it's 360 games which are backward compatible, ones that I care for anyways.
I also find that there are so many PS4 games coming out, at least one interesting title a month that I'l always excited for what the industry will bring.
As for Retro Collecting that has gotten much worse! Pawn Stores like Cash Converters see pre-PS4 games as Retro, so they own price hike them now, even PS3 titles which last year would usually be a generic £2.99.
I still check out my local Chairty Stores though, often stirking a <£3 deal on something. Last time I got a PS3 Slim for £30 & A DSiXL which I'm pretty pleased with.
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I see a lot of people equivalating “easy” with “fun”. I never found collecting easy. That’s why it’s fun.
There's a lot of truth here- it's not like 20 years ago where you could pop out to the secondhand sales any ol' weekend and have heaps of cheap treasure to pick from. The hunt is a lot more hunt-y these days... you have to hit the same shops repeatedly to score anything good, or scour the internet for deals on shopping sites, or just be willing to pay a marked-up price from the people doing those things. It's an effort!
Something I have noticed recently, that I kind of enjoy: even back in the easier days, one of the best things to do for collecting is tell everyone you're doing it- sometimes people just have stuff sitting around they'll give you if they know you'd want it. Some of my best 'scores' have been friends/family/co-workers cleaning out their old junk. Having picked up enough stuff to have a few spares from time to time, I find nowadays I am the source of the freebies! My brother-in-law was over & mentioned his only PS2 controller broke down. I turned around, opened a drawer, & threw one at him. He tried to protest, but I shut him down- I had 4 others, one never opened. I could spare a controller. That's happening more & more lately- or I find something at a too-good-to-pass-up price that I already have, & pass it on to someone I know who'd want it for cost/minimal profit. Or I find something rare a friend is looking for & pick it up for them. Honestly, it's fun! I'm the game fairy, spreading retro goodness to folks far & wide!
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I see a lot of people equivalating “easy” with “fun”. I never found collecting easy. That’s why it’s fun.
There's a lot of truth here- it's not like 20 years ago where you could pop out to the secondhand sales any ol' weekend and have heaps of cheap treasure to pick from. The hunt is a lot more hunt-y these days... you have to hit the same shops repeatedly to score anything good, or scour the internet for deals on shopping sites, or just be willing to pay a marked-up price from the people doing those things. It's an effort!
Something I have noticed recently, that I kind of enjoy: even back in the easier days, one of the best things to do for collecting is tell everyone you're doing it- sometimes people just have stuff sitting around they'll give you if they know you'd want it. Some of my best 'scores' have been friends/family/co-workers cleaning out their old junk. Having picked up enough stuff to have a few spares from time to time, I find nowadays I am the source of the freebies! My brother-in-law was over & mentioned his only PS2 controller broke down. I turned around, opened a drawer, & threw one at him. He tried to protest, but I shut him down- I had 4 others, one never opened. I could spare a controller. That's happening more & more lately- or I find something at a too-good-to-pass-up price that I already have, & pass it on to someone I know who'd want it for cost/minimal profit. Or I find something rare a friend is looking for & pick it up for them. Honestly, it's fun! I'm the game fairy, spreading retro goodness to folks far & wide!
thnakfully collecting around me is still easy,, my sister started to give her collection me and I offered to pay her for it $100 a month a total of $300 and she quickly moved and gave me every game and console she owned.
I got 4 consoles Gamecube, games Wii games, PlayStation 2 games, and even Xbox360 games and a brand new Xbox 360 that was barly used at all in fact all the consoles I got from her were like new. and last year my sister bought me a brand new wired Xbox One controller for my birthday.
Another relative of mine games bought me a new copy of the original Halo Combat Evolved, and a 500gig Xbox 360 harddrive that only cost about $40 USD or $50 USD new.
Walmart is now selling PS1 classics and SEGA Genesis Mini in the store near me for $40 USD a piece
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Oh man where can I get a $40 Genesis Mini? I’ll drive
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Definitely yes for me though it is harder to find reto games and yes it can get expensive.But if your very patient you can still find games for a reasonable price.Of course it might be easer for me to find stuff because I collect for alot of different systems so I'm betting it is easer for me than someone who is only hunting for one or two systems.also you can sometimes find imported games on the cheap too. When I cant find retro stuff to buy I'll buy a good used modern game for cheap.And their is nothing wrong with that.
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Oh man where can I get a $40 Genesis Mini? I’ll drive
(edit)
I may not have remembered correctly
Walmart near me it was $40 from what I remember this was an in-store item at the time, I didn't pick one up because I need an HDMI to RCA converter, and I needed a new PS3 I found one at GameStop conveniently located just outside of Walmart parking zone.
Taylor Trade Center is also a great place to go. they are a year round indoor flea market with tons of media and toy vendors last time I went. their Ecourse road located Taylor Michigan 1 or 2 miles from metro airport located in Romulus Michigan but the metro airport I don't think is on Ecorse Road. If you coming this way than use a google map.
I know you're probably only joking but near Detroit Michigan suburban mostly inside Taylor Michigan this area is a fantastic area for finding great deals on retro video games
Mostly everything game wise is in Taylor
1: Disc Replay
2: Taylor Trade Center
3: GameStop's
4: Walmart
5: Best Buy
6: Target
taylor trade center has at least 3 video game vendors sometimes more. there are only at their booths Friday Saturday and Sunday but even then sometimes there not in on those days either
this post was on 9-25-2019
If any of you plan on going here in the future make sure you call them first on the phone before comming because
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I've stopped caring for Special Editions in general. Quite honestly most of it now just come off as bulk items (excluding soundtracks and some art books).
Spending my every weekend going around to garage sales and the flea market has also lost its appeal.
However my interest is still there its just different now. Now if I do it feels more genuine and it's 80% from my LGS. Probably because I'm nore there to play MTG and just browse what games they have in stock between rounds so it feels less impulsive and feel a lot less that i must grab a game.
Then again, it is very possible I just replaced one addiction with another considering my modern Spirits deck is valued around *prepares butthole* $626.10 and i still have anoter $50 worth of cards to put in for "optimization"
Boy I'm glad i bought most of it when certain cards were cheap and either opened up or traded for the most expensive cards in the deck
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Its still for fun for me. I have been collecting for about 15 years, but don't have a big collection. My goal is to get games I like and try out new games I never had/knew about and I am constantly "curating" my games. If there is a game I don't like, I would rather get rid of it. Also for me it is about playing games, not just collecting them. I want to be able to like every game I have (at least to some degree.) Sometimes that means only the artwork :)
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Quick follow-up on the notion of 'make sure people know you collect':
My brother's an Xbox fan. Yesterday he handed me a game he thinks he paid 6 bucks for back in the day. His 360 could play it, but the backwards compatibility doesn't extend to his Xbox One, so I can have it- and he hands me a CIB copy of Stubbs the Zombie. Not something I was expecting to just be given!
Not adding it to my collection officially just yet. I did promise that, if they add it to the Xbox One, I'll give the game back because it would be notably pricier to get a new copy these days.
But yes- this is the core of current collecting right here... not finding a lucky score at a flea market or what-not, but keeping tabs with the other gamers you know (be they friend or family) & looking out for each other. Because, in fact, this is not the most rare/expensive thing I have been given, or given away!
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I see a lot of people equivalating “easy” with “fun”. I never found collecting easy. That’s why it’s fun.
I've always seen hunting for games as an investment of time and money. I never expected to go to a place like Goodwill or my local flea market and find a bunch of very rare games for next to nothing, however I did expect to find something I was interested in, even if it was some cheap $5 game that had been eluding me. And for several years that expectation was met. Yeah, I did walk away empty handed occasionally, but the hits far outweighed the misses. I'd go out to places like this often and a lot of times wouldn't find anything I was after, but I'd find a ton of games I could use as tradebait or resell for the purpose of putting that money back into collecting.
Around 2013 is when the hits and the misses started to equal out, and then by 2016 it was probably 10% hits and 90% misses, but even given how disproportionate this was I still was motivated to look, albeit not to the extent I used to be. As of the last year and a half, it's been like <1% of the time I go out I'll find something worth picking up; it's literally got that bad for me. Sure I find a ton of games still, but they're all either games I have that are priced above ebay, or are games I do actually want and are priced just as high. At this point I literally have zero reason to continue to go out and look for games when it is nearly certain I won't find anything. Imagine going to a place like Target every week in hopes that they'll have some super obscure movie on DVD there; yes it's possible hey might, but incredibly unlikely, yet you still go back week after week hoping to find it. That's what game collecting became for me, at least the hunting aspect of it. It became way more convenient and cheaper overall just to go on ebay, bite the bullet and pay market value for a game I want. There just isn't enough out there anymore, and what is out there is in the hands of people who absolutely know what they have.
Hopefully this paints a picture of why going from "easy" finds everywhere to it being incredibly hard to even find a copy of Banjo Kazooie priced at $5 under ebay would kill ones motivation to collect and look for games. I don't know when you got into collecting, but it might also be case of knowing how great things once were and comparing them to how they are now that creates this feeling of collecting no longer being fun; if you got into collecting around 2015 or later you really have no idea what you missed out on other than veteran collectors telling you about the good ol'days, which would have little impact on you since you never experienced it first hand.
On the bright side though and as I pointed out in my original post, less and less people are going after these games which at the moment as created a lot more supply while also decreasing prices. Even though these prices are almost always relative to ebay, it's definitely sparked my interest slightly to want to collect some more, but at the same time I have no desire to collect the way I have been for the last 3 or 4 years. If retro games ever slipped into the status of being old junk again then I'd likely get into it again just to buy up games on the cheap and flip so I can buy the stuff I still really want on ebay. But I don't think that'll ever happen again. I think the best that will happen and is actually likely at this point is that retro game prices reflect the games actual abundance and the price reflects this rather than reflecting a massive amount of interest from collectors who want the game so badly that it's caused the price of the game to inflate well past it's quantity in the wild.
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Collecting now is the definition of insanity for many of us - Going out and looking over the same places again and again, actually expecting different results, but it's always the same thing as last time.
Maybe in some areas it still hasn't complete dried up. Around here, it did years ago. You might have a slight chance of finding something if you go a dozen times in a row, but that to me is totally not worth it, and totally not fun. So yea, I expect it to be somewhat reasonable to do, or it's not fun. 70 gallons of fuel and all of my free time is not worth the occasional catch, and is far from my idea of doing something fun.
I have more fun just hopping on eBay and smashing that BIN button. At least I can get something I want once in a while.
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Yep! I live in the NW so retro collecting is still very popular and there are a lot of options that still make this hobby so much fun. I still find great deals on the regular on fb/Craigslist, we have great retro stores with several opening up in the last few years, and our local PDX community is fantastic. Gearing up for PRGE in a few weeks, which is set to have more vendors and arcade machines than any year prior. I've built up a good deal of trade bait and excited to knock more off my ever decreasing wishlist.
What hasn't been fun is recently having to move again and pack up my entire collection. I'm in the process of putting everything back on the shelves in alphabetical order, it is going to take several weeks... But my new setup means I should have room to display more so I'm excited about that!
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I've stopped caring for Special Editions in general. Quite honestly most of it now just come off as bulk items (excluding soundtracks and some art books).
modern day collecting is filled with special and collectors editions. in the past special and collectors editions where actually special. like way less than a % of game libraries had special editions nowadays it's like the opposite even with nintendo. These days it's like a miracle if a game withouth a special edition releases say mario odyssey or dragon quest XI devinite edition i was like damm finally some games with no collectors edition.
I personally feel that modern day collecting is way more pricy than retro game collecting except ofcourse for the high tier value games. I'm kinda glad I'm a cheap mofo. I'm only buying 1 to 2 modern games a year wich I really want to play right now. some years even zero new games. Also even withouth the special editions. the dlc not to mention that many non nintendo games have micro transactions it's quite a mess imo.
i really am glad that I'm not going to seriously collect for these modern system since otherwise I would probably waste a ton of money on shelf candy CE etc wich i would not appreciate as much as other stuff that i collect.
I'll just focus on the retro stuff wich i have with a few of the newer nintendo releases wich i really want to play.
I mean japan was crazy with CE since them saturn days but it just had to tranfer to the west during the wii u 3ds era. and ofcourse for non nintendo consoles ps3 and xbox 360.
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Yeah, it still very much is. I buy what I like and know will enjoy; I try my hardest to not overshoot and always keep my two feet on the ground. Hobbies are meant to be fun, and if you ain’t having fun, then clearly you’re doing something wrong.