I disagree
Many people sell them as is working or not these include the higher sales prices. The value is in the boxes and the content lose floppies are replacable
Ok let me rephrase. Existing sales data is going to fall into the "as is/unknown" quality category. Items sold as "known working" such as with a picture of the program running on a monitor, gives an increase to price. When looking at these things, you have to keep in mind a few categories in which to determine price:
1. exact edition
2. relative edition (same game, different box, minor variant, etc)
3. relative media (same game, different disk type, not counting CD-rom versions)
4. relative game (same game, same disk, different platform)
5. any of the above shown to be working
Usually you don't even have to use all of those types to determine value because with a lot of PC games, there isn't a large amount for sale/sold to even bother so you can just get a general idea but not an actual value.
I don't think it will ad to much to the value since like you said Some pieces are so rare people will just pay the value risking the game non working since floppy's are so fragile these days that with use they might just break. Especially the boxes in nice shape will determine the value. Maybe it wiill increase a bit but I highly doubt it.
it's almost pretty much a collectible not for players even more of the hardcore collectors will probably not even use them and emulate them instead when they own them
I do get what your saying but in reality thanks to allot of pc games being very hard to come by in the first place it doesn;t line up as well.
as far as the working idea goes I've seen some sales with wolfenstein or doom games the more rare variants that go for hundreds with the description as working with the correct equipment etc yet the price is pretty much the same as a unknown working one wich you could consider broken. People pay insane amounts while the floppies might be dead it really seems people don't give a damm. Yes pc games have many variants and values fluctuate but in pc collecting people seem to just don;t give a damm and pay nice amounts.
If people sell something as is, not tested risk on buyer etc as a buyer you can expect an item to be broken it's a pretty big deal for most formats except for old pc big box floppy gaming.
In the end it will be especially the cardboard packaging that will determine the value the working aspect with a dying media such as a floppy disc will not have that much influence especially as time goes by of the price unless it is a cheaper pc game bought to be played if not worthless already.
Sure for carts and discs in today's retro gaming It's super important will slash the value in half if not more however those formats are very reliable It's pretty plain and simple. Pc gaming is also pretty hard to setup aside from the very fragile nature of them floppies. Less players are attracted to pc gaming unlike cart and disc media in wich the larger group are the people who actually play them games.
PC collecting especially when going for the early floppy releases it really seems to be just a memento of the past. It's more of a collectors only market and a pretty minor part for the gameplay when done with original hardware that is.
With retro cart or disc based systems if you sell them as working as iss your value would be 10 - 50% sometimes a bit more if people really want it especially with nice boxes. With pc gaming It's just not the same people seem to ignore it as long as the packaging is nice and crispy.
Maybe in the retail world this could work out but thanks to the fragile nature of them floppies retro stores avoid pc big box games, pretty hard to keep up with warranties I'm guessing
