Price hike on Super Mario Bros?

[Warmsignal]

Not the ultra common Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt combo cartridge, but the lone Super Mario Bros cart. While there is evidence of it's value increasing online, I found it strange that a local store has just started pricing them at $26. Last week when I went they had about 5 copies, several were about $8 and a few were $26 which surprised me. I go back this week and all of them have been relegated to the "important game" shelf and now all of them at $26?

Doesn't make sense checking it against online prices, yeah there's a price increase, but not that much. Did I miss something? Was there some sort of hype going around the net about this version lately?

[aliensstudios]

Not the ultra common Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt combo cartridge, but the lone Super Mario Bros cart. While there is evidence of it's value increasing online, I found it strange that a local store has just started pricing them at $26. Last week when I went they had about 5 copies, several were about $8 and a few were $26 which surprised me. I go back this week and all of them have been relegated to the "important game" shelf and now all of them at $26?

Doesn't make sense checking it against online prices, yeah there's a price increase, but not that much. Did I miss something? Was there some sort of hype going around the net about this version lately?

That's outrageous! The average price for the cart only is about 10-12 dollars. Nobody will buy it for that and they'll have to lower that price. See? This is why mom and pop game stores don't stay in business.

[gf78]

It sucks when game stores do that.  I was in Florida for vacation up until two days ago and made it a point in our down-time to look up and hit the local game shops.  I found a few games here & there that were reasonably priced IMO.  All for the OG PlayStation, I picked up a mint copy of Final Doom for $14, a near-mint copy of Dino Crisis with RE3 demo for $13 and Fear Effect Retro Helix in decent, complete condition for $20.  I also picked up several cheap games that were $5 or less.

But it pissed me off when one store in St. Petersburg was hoarding copies of Legend of Dragoon in a case, asking $30 for even a beat-up ass copy of the greatest hits version.  They had several other games including the Final Fantasy PS1 games for high dollar prices.  If your $hit was immaculate...I might see charging $30 for Dragoon.  I looked at it and handed it back to him.  He looked confused and said "So...you don't want it?"  I politely informed him that I can get a NM complete black label copy for less than that shipped.  Which is exactly what I did when I got back home.  I also saw a copy of MediEvil II for sale which is a game I really, really want in my collection.  It was in ok shape.  The booklet showed it had been read several times and the disc had some light scratches on it.  They wanted $36 for it.  My wife asked why I didn't buy it and I told her that if I am going to spend that much on an old title, it will be in better shape than that.  I found one on eBay that I bought shipped for $32 that is immaculate.

But more on point of the OP, shops think they can charge a premium on Nintendo-brand games.  I've seen stores asking $60 for used copies of Zelda Wii titles.  Some in the original packaging, some not.  Several copies of each game sitting on a shelf with a ridiculous premium price attached to it.  I dunno...maybe if you decided $30 for a complete game was more reasonable...they would actually sell?

[gf78]

Not the ultra common Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt combo cartridge, but the lone Super Mario Bros cart. While there is evidence of it's value increasing online, I found it strange that a local store has just started pricing them at $26. Last week when I went they had about 5 copies, several were about $8 and a few were $26 which surprised me. I go back this week and all of them have been relegated to the "important game" shelf and now all of them at $26?

Doesn't make sense checking it against online prices, yeah there's a price increase, but not that much. Did I miss something? Was there some sort of hype going around the net about this version lately?

That is pure insanity and those carts are very common...at least in the local shops in my shopping vicinity.  I see as many of those as I do the Duck Hunt combo carts.  From my browsing, the least common is the 3-game version with Mario/Duck Hunt/Olympic Games (or whatever that is) that has a silver label.  And even then the most I see being charged for those is about ten bucks.

[Warmsignal]

It sucks when game stores do that.  I was in Florida for vacation up until two days ago and made it a point in our down-time to look up and hit the local game shops.  I found a few games here & there that were reasonably priced IMO.  All for the OG PlayStation, I picked up a mint copy of Final Doom for $14, a near-mint copy of Dino Crisis with RE3 demo for $13 and Fear Effect Retro Helix in decent, complete condition for $20.  I also picked up several cheap games that were $5 or less.

But it pissed me off when one store in St. Petersburg was hoarding copies of Legend of Dragoon in a case, asking $30 for even a beat-up ass copy of the greatest hits version.  They had several other games including the Final Fantasy PS1 games for high dollar prices.  If your $hit was immaculate...I might see charging $30 for Dragoon.  I looked at it and handed it back to him.  He looked confused and said "So...you don't want it?"  I politely informed him that I can get a NM complete black label copy for less than that shipped.  Which is exactly what I did when I got back home.  I also saw a copy of MediEvil II for sale which is a game I really, really want in my collection.  It was in ok shape.  The booklet showed it had been read several times and the disc had some light scratches on it.  They wanted $36 for it.  My wife asked why I didn't buy it and I told her that if I am going to spend that much on an old title, it will be in better shape than that.  I found one on eBay that I bought shipped for $32 that is immaculate.

But more on point of the OP, shops think they can charge a premium on Nintendo-brand games.  I've seen stores asking $60 for used copies of Zelda Wii titles.  Some in the original packaging, some not.  Several copies of each game sitting on a shelf with a ridiculous premium price attached to it.  I dunno...maybe if you decided $30 for a complete game was more reasonable...they would actually sell?

The funny thing is this place started out more than reasonable with everything, you could always do better there than going to eBay. Now it's like I don't even know where they're getting these numbers from. It has slowly become what I call an "eBay plus some" kind of store. The -important- game shelf is busting at the seems with the same titles, all with the same prices. So stock doesn't matter, condition also doesn't matter. From what I understand that's common now, if the label is entirely gone it's the same price as a perfect copy. What are they thinking?!

[davifus]

It sucks when game stores do that.  I was in Florida for vacation up until two days ago and made it a point in our down-time to look up and hit the local game shops.  I found a few games here & there that were reasonably priced IMO.  All for the OG PlayStation, I picked up a mint copy of Final Doom for $14, a near-mint copy of Dino Crisis with RE3 demo for $13 and Fear Effect Retro Helix in decent, complete condition for $20.  I also picked up several cheap games that were $5 or less.

But it pissed me off when one store in St. Petersburg was hoarding copies of Legend of Dragoon in a case, asking $30 for even a beat-up ass copy of the greatest hits version.  They had several other games including the Final Fantasy PS1 games for high dollar prices.  If your $hit was immaculate...I might see charging $30 for Dragoon.  I looked at it and handed it back to him.  He looked confused and said "So...you don't want it?"  I politely informed him that I can get a NM complete black label copy for less than that shipped.  Which is exactly what I did when I got back home.  I also saw a copy of MediEvil II for sale which is a game I really, really want in my collection.  It was in ok shape.  The booklet showed it had been read several times and the disc had some light scratches on it.  They wanted $36 for it.  My wife asked why I didn't buy it and I told her that if I am going to spend that much on an old title, it will be in better shape than that.  I found one on eBay that I bought shipped for $32 that is immaculate.

But more on point of the OP, shops think they can charge a premium on Nintendo-brand games.  I've seen stores asking $60 for used copies of Zelda Wii titles.  Some in the original packaging, some not.  Several copies of each game sitting on a shelf with a ridiculous premium price attached to it.  I dunno...maybe if you decided $30 for a complete game was more reasonable...they would actually sell?

Yeah, all these price spikes out of nowhere.

Whew, good thing I got my legend of dragoon while back from f0x.

[gf78]

The funny thing is this place started out more than reasonable with everything, you could always do better there than going to eBay. Now it's like I don't even know where they're getting these numbers from. It has slowly become what I call an "eBay plus some" kind of store. The -important- game shelf is busting at the seems with the same titles, all with the same prices. So stock doesn't matter, condition also doesn't matter. From what I understand that's common now, if the label is entirely gone it's the same price as a perfect copy. What are they thinking?!

Yeah...that's the big thing now.  You can go to one of these stores to the, say "N64" section where they have all the crap and all the good games are in a locked case with ridiculous pricing.  I would really, really like to run a game store.  I know I could make it work by A) treating my customers with respect, B) pricing merchandise based on condition and other factors and C) being organized and cleaning the stuff up to make it more presentable.

I hate when I walk into a store and see a game I am interested in that is in a filthy, broken case with sticker residue on it that has accumulated so much dirt sticking to it that it looks like a giant booger on the front.  Sometimes, they even have little pieces of hair stuck to the booger residue!     Then you have the ones that have replacement covers printed up that don't even fit right, are washed-out looking, etc.  To me, that stuff is junky and should be priced accordingly.

And the absolute worst is as you already mentioned: pricing games the same regardless of condition, completeness, etc.  An example I'll use is Final Fantasy VII.  A set of the discs in a generic case should be about $8 tops.  A greatest hits version complete should be $20 tops.  A high-grade, awesome condition black label original that is complete?  I'd say $30.  And that pricing would work.  Someone who just wants to play the game would gladly pay you $8.  Someone looking for a complete one probably wouldn't balk at $20.  And a discerning collector looking for an original in great condition, seeing a gorgeous black label copy would throw $30 at you in a heartbeat.

And that goes for just about any highly desirable game. 

[maximo310]

Yeah, this is part of the reason why I'm not buying much from local game stores at the moment. Many of the prices that I see are priced at a minimum of 20%+ of VGPC or higher( even if its missing the manual) and it's become really hard to get decent deals on stuff unless the store screws up with pricing. It's pretty much forced me to mostly go online for cheap titles, especially since Gamecube has had some bad price spikes in the last several months.