The Price of Retro Games

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117735239#Comment_117735239

I did this two or three years back. I sold off the vast majority, kept the things that actually meant anything to me, and freed myself of the obsessive 'need to collect'. I stood back and realised I was pumping money into buying stuff, to never play it, and keep it in a box in the attic. Madness. I play far more games now than I ever have too, so for me, it was the best thing I could have done. It's a relief now to not have to check Adverts/Ebay/CeX anymore, and instead just smile from the sidelines at the stupidness of what's happening with prices.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741377#Comment_117741377

Looking back I think I got anxiety from this. Trying to pick up games before the prices got insane. I got to a point where I was chasing holy grail games to pick them up before the price got too high and trying to get ahead of the insane price hikes that I knew would follow the DS, 3DS and Wii. Now I was picking up Holy Grail games that I actually did want but I was getting more enjoyment out of buying a big box of cheap but great games from Lukie games for the same price.

I'm out of it now. I'm out of my parents and renting so have to emulate and saving for my own place which I should be moving into next year. Feel a lot better about everything since I left that behind. I'm not getting paid enough to keep up with it.

The Nal

The only surprising thing to me is that people are paying these prices when the games are available for free on emulators/ROMs

banie01

There are a few contributors to price rises at the mo.

The availability of unspent cash due to 12months plus of near zero recreational travel, gym/golf/whatever fees.

The drive to be entertained and to try an catch a little sentimental buzz from our gaming. And;

Tying into sentiment and something that anecdotally at least from my own experience is currently bearing very, very true. The fabled 25yr cycle.

1995/96 are my golden 16bit yrs. The best games, Brian Plank banging them in on FIFA, kicking ass on MK and SF2, bomberman, Mario and sonic all finally beatable by me on the regular.

Lots more late 30's upto mid 40's are now in the same boat looking for the same buzz. We are competing for a reducing market of original items with the benefit of 20 yrs professional experience and it's commensurate effect on our disposable income. Prices will imo go one way for the next couple of years before the cycle moves onto the PlayStation/XBox era and starts all over again.

Lucky Jack

I think it's just the fact that retro gaming has now fallen under the cloud of predatory online interest. From what some of you have said above, being able to source stuff online was a godsend for years allowing easier importing from abroad or giving better sight of the domestic market, but that was only while it was still under the radar. For other collectible hobbies the ability to source stuff online sent the prices stratospheric years ago - if anyone watches America Pickers you'll often see them mention how prices for Americana skyrocketed once European buyers were able to browse and buy online. Then there was that Irish 'version' on Blaze where they were buying things like old advertising signs (which I'd argue are cultural objects that shouldn't be allowed to be sold abroad, or only in very limited numbers, but I'm a heritage hawk), and they were all going to buyers in the US or Europe. Online resources have been fantastic for spreading knowledge about hobbies or for helping communities to grow, but it's been a curse in terms of the price points for those hobbies where the supply of stuff is limited.

I'm one of those blow-ins whose interest in retro gaming was sparked during the pandemic, but for a bit of a different reason. I had a NES as a kid and then PS1, PS2, and X360, but I liked gaming too much and knew I'd piss my way through college if I didn't give it the boot, so I stopped playing anything at all for about 10 years. Then during the pandemic I'd bought a new laptop and realised it could probably run older PC games that I never had a chance to play with ease, so I hopped on GOG and got Morrowind - now I'm like everyone else with a growing backlog and no time to play it.

But after that I thought I'd look at older stuff not available via PC, since I've always liked collecting and really do love games, but quickly realised this isn't a thing a newcomer has any hope of getting stuck into now. I think the most I've paid for anything so far was a DS copy of Chrono Trigger from Cex at about €70, and I also bought a couple of other Square Enix things for about €40 each. But that was when I was living at home and had a few more bob to hand - now that we're out and renting and saving for all the life things, even those prices seem astronomical to me.

I'm happy enough with the selection that's open to me on PC, and there is still the odd decent price on a game from Cex if you're not worried about DLC or GOTY versions, but I think my idea of building up a nice little hobby collection over the years is dead in the water before it's begun. Once I have an actual gaming PC that's separate from the productivity PC I'll hopefully get into dicking around with emulation, and I'm hoping that a combination of that and future remasters (or maybe the eventual fall of some totemic barriers - bring Zelda to PC, Nintendo!) will let me play as much as possible from the history of the medium.

I feel for those of you who were already into the hobby and are now being bitten by the prices - I'm the sort of completionist who'd obsess over an annoying gap in the collection, so not already having one is nearly a blessing.

Potatoeman

I paid 200 euro for a GBA SP AGS101, you have to keep watching to even get one. They’re few and far between. The 001 was 10-20 before a few years ago. Now 50-70 and climbing. Cartridges will just get more expensive.

That said I got a GPD XD+ great piece of kit. Even plays ps1 games.

Retr0gamer

GBA is a joke with all the repro cartridges. So glad I mostly completed that collection when the system was new.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741709#Comment_117741709

There's a huge amount of ignorance out there geared towards emulation. The majority of cynics would judge what they've seen from the likes of the Mini consoles/cheap ARM solutions, and the likes of a Raspberry Pi. That's the same as judging a Snes connected to a modern display via an RF cable....it's the literal bare minimum needed to get games running, without any of the niceties. Both real hardware, and emulation (software and hardware) have their trials that you need to go through to get the best out of them, and when you do, they're very close to each other. If you could do a blind taste test on a desk, and underneath the desk was a Snes, a decent PC with emulation software configured correctly, and a Mister.....all connected to three identical screens, you'd have some seriously embarrassed anoraks huffing and puffing to find excuses as to why they guessed wrong. I'm fussy when it comes to input lag etc, so if a game feels right to me (Super Mario World and the likes), then it's right (or at least, not perceptibly wrong....and that's good enough for me.)

Of course certain parties have an agenda against emulation too, because there's money to be made out of other solutions.

With all that said, as has been alluded to, there's a predatory pricing element that has engrained itself into the collecting market too. The prices are not being driven up by collectors alone, but by scalping and reselling practices. The further notion that old=€€€ too, backed up by nonsense articles written by 'journalists' who haven't touched a game in 20 years, has helped cement that notion. It has become not fun anymore, everyone thinks the games they're selling are worth twice what they're actually worth, so for me I was better off out of it.

Retr0gamer

I'd still say PS2 emulation is a looooong way off being acceptable outside of the bigger games. It feels like the dark days of terrible PS1 emulation.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117743316#Comment_117743316

It does have a way to go, but it IS making progress at the same time. It's such a bespoke hardware architecture, almost completely undocumented too, which is why it has been such a long term emulation project.

Compare it with Ryujinx or Yuzu, and the progress they've made with Switch emulation has been nothing short of astounding. The hardware is heavily documented, using off the shelf parts to boot....thats the difference.

@sugarman those ODE's are a nice solution, and they strike a lovely balance between authenticity and convenience.

Retr0gamer

Well I'm finding it rubbish. Just like epsxe was. Game doesn't work, try the wild arms fix. Graphics corrupted, try change the coordinates that the textures draw from. Still have issues, try going to a different plugin renderer.

No thanks, I'll wait until there's a better emulator and set up my xrgb for ps2.

Not to disparage the great work ps2 emulation coders are doing but it's really not at a good point for exploring the ps2 library. It will get better but that will only come when they move away from plugins and hacks and move towards accuracy.

At the moment when I start a new game there's so much faffing about with settings to get it right I end up playing something else .

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117743593#Comment_117743593

My experience is exactly the same, anything I've used Pcsx2 for has been a positive experience, looks gorgeous, and enjoyable to play. The vast majority of games I've played have worked 'out of the box' with no additional configuration too.

@Retr0gamer they are currently merging/removing the plugin model, it's an in progress job. Are you definitely sure you're using the latest development versions, and not some antiquated stable release? The only info about corrupted graphics I can find in WA3 don't seem to be recent or common. Anyway, it's an experimental PS2 emulator, it's not going to be a one size fits all solution. If you have a PS2 and an Xrgb....that's gonna be the way to go for the time being for exploring the library.

Retr0gamer

I was using the latest update. I would use emulators to play games that I hadn't played before rather than playing the popular games I've already played to death already.

I just find that there's a huge amount of messing about with options to get a game looking properly and even with that a lot of games never look right or have glitches. It's a lot of effort and really bit worth it as it puts me off sticking with games.

Getting away from the plug in model would be great. The emulator is not displaying textures properly in any games and the graphics architecture like the ps1 and n64 is very bespoke. The next step will be moving away from using plugins to use modern graphics API to brute force effects and to actually emulate how the ps2 would have done this. At the moment they seem to be doing texture rendering by manually adjusting it on a game by game basis.

I know there's a lot of hard work that's gone into it but it's kind of a point where I'm doing so much fine adjustment to games that psychologically I can't stick with a game.

The xrgb unfortunately is great at 240p content but not 480i/p content. You really have to customize your settings otherwise it looks awful and I haven't gotten around to it. I really should. I was really enjoying a lot of ps2 games but the issues I kept running into on the emulator meant I dropped them all.

Inviere

@Retr0gamer I can only say again I've not had many issues with it, but admittedly I would only use it to play the big releases that I missed back in the day. For those, it doesn't miss a beat. The machine is so complex, and emulation of it so difficult, that using it like Snes9x or Bsnes to explore a games library just isn't the right use case. It's experimental, not a one shop stop.

They are moving away from plugins though, which will help a lot.

Colonel Panic

If you can get one, the RetroTink5x does an amazing job deinterlacing 480i content on a PS2, and even manages to deal with 240p gameplay to 480i menu transitions quite well.

CiDeRmAn

Using CEX I shifted about 16 games and made €1000 in trade-in credit, which bought me an Xbox Series X and a 8th gen Ipad (young fella needs it for school).

Mostly it was older DS Pokemon games and shooters, as well as a couple of Mario Party games on the GC.

I'm looking at ChibiRobo now, as it will get me €150 cash in the local CEX and I haven't ever played the thing...

Decisions, decisions!

DaveyDave

Now would definitely be a good time to do a clear out!

CiDeRmAn

I might just move that bad boy on, seeing as I can get the Japanese version for feck all, and the boxes are so much nicer

Retr0gamer

Chibi Robo is a game you'll need english for if you play it.

CiDeRmAn

Well, one can own the Japanese copy and run the local version by... other means....

Retr0gamer

True but if you are going down that road then the japanese copy is just an ornament and you might as well go full buccaneer.

Downlinz

I'm glad I finished off getting the remaining 3DS and DS games I wanted a year or two ago, was having a look through what I paid on my previous CeX orders and some of those prices have doubled or tripled or more in 12-18 months.

Ever Oasis €6 -> €22

Kid Icarus Uprising €15 -> €42

Ghost Trick €30 -> €70

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn €20 -> €45

Dragon Quest V €45 -> €145

Pokemon Platinum €65 -> €100

Devil Survivor Overclocked €50 -> €130

Dublinandy3

For those that are selling stuff how do you find the people buying if you're using adverts?

Pre pandemic I was regularly selling with, at a guess, every 5/6 things out of 10 going to the same couple of dozen buyers (I assume collectors) and the rest going to guys around my age (35 to 45) or women buying as presents for their partners.

When the pandemic hit more items went to non regulars and the age got younger and younger, but also the headache.

I was selling to help fund my saving for a deposit. I gave up however simply because it was not worth the hassle.

I still have a fair few working, and non working, consoles and more games than I should, that I just intend to save until car boots are allowed again. I suspect I'll have no trouble shifting in person and will increase the standard prices to allow to be haggled down.

Possibly, if my experience is not unique maybe some people just decided to stop selling for a while, which would drive the price up too. Maybe be after the restrictions stop prices might drop slightly again. Then again, they probably won't.

DaveyDave

Will the Covid gamers be inclined to sell them when they start collecting dust next year or hold onto them due to the cost?

johnny_ultimate

Obviously about a very specific area of the market (sealed, graded games), but this is a fascinating video on those absurd record-breaking game sales from recent times. Some suspect happenings afoot to put it mildly!

https://youtu.be/rvLFEh7V18A

Gamer Bhoy 89

I plan on watching all of this tonight, but I've gotten through the first 5 minutes and so far my thought process is "this is gonna be fúcking depressing".

Lemming

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117796753#Comment_117796753

That was an interesting watch. The bit where he connects the dots [convincingly] between the coin "market" bubble and those responsible in the USA in the 1980s with the video game market with the same names yet again involved was particularly noteworthy in how brazen those players have been.

Inviere

@johnny_ultimate thanks for posting that, it was a very interesting watch. Obviously I'm not going to fact check everything in an hour long video, but if true, it's its a pretty damning exposure of what can only be described as a rats nest of greed and market manipulation. Scumbags really (again, if true)

Dr Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058203226/the-price-of-retro-games

Where the hell are people able to sell Meg games for an average of $21? looking at adverts, selling megadrive games at less than that gets the usual "anything from my ads/offer you 2 euro bag of tayto" lowballer Delboys dealers

I'm at the stage where I'm happy to sell about 4/5ths of what I have , I just cant get anything for it!

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117801343#Comment_117801343

Yep obviously hard to fact-check without putting a serious amount of time in, but if even some of it is accurate - and it all seems convincingly researched and argued - then it's truly damning.

Here is Heritage Auctions' response, in the interests of balance. Unsurprisingly, they refute it. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/report-alleges-auction-and-grading-fraud-is-behind-recent-surge-in-retro-game-prices/

“Heritage Auctions wishes it had been given the opportunity to respond before the video’s publication, because there are numerous misstatements of fact and inaccurate conclusions contained within the piece.

“Heritage strongly refutes any allegation that it or its officers are involved in shill bidding, “market manipulation” or any similarly illegal or unethical practices. Heritage prides itself on our transparency and being a place built by and for collectors. With this in mind, we welcome the opportunity to discuss the video-game marketplace further, and would invite Mr. Jobst to our world headquarters in Dallas to tour our operations and speak further with leadership.”