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[Krejlooc]

Regarding the "dying off" of media - did the price of floppy disk games (C64, Amiga, whatever) rise when people realized how prone to failure and corruption the disks were?

They did, actually. And they're still doing so for later Amiga games right now. It's a popular talking point over on the english amiga board and lemon amiga.

[Ack]

I think Retrodude is talking about games like Final Fantasy VII, which continues to be sold at inflated prices despite a huge supply.

That's it. Thank you, Bone. I can see paying more for games that are legitimately scarce, but the common titles (which make up the vast majority of any console's library) should rightfully be priced less because you can find them almost anywhere.

Right...but then why has the average price for FFVII steadily decreased over the last six years then?

http://videogames.pricecharting.com/gam ... antasy-vii

[Ack]

Also, no offense intended, Ack, but it has seriously gotten to the point where the second someone brings up "economics", I put them in the column of people contributing to this mess even if they're not intending to. All you're doing is giving gougers more ammunition to justify what they're doing.

The problem is, you don't seem to understand anything whatsoever about how markets work, and when we ask you what kind of price controls should be set, you don't respond. You effectively have two options: let the market run its course, or put some kind of control in place to regulate it. So, since you obviously oppose the concept of a free market, what kind of controls do you want in place?

[AppleQueso]

It hasn't happened in Atari 2600's because those systems didn't use the types of caps subject to cap plague. Cap plague is a specific instance of a specific type of capacitor manufactured between about 1986 until about 1999. And the systems within that time span have already started failing. En-mass.

As for the price of fixing capacitor problems - you're correct in that the BOM is pennies. Are we to expect that skilled labor should be done for free? Regardless of how low the barrier of entry to this skillset is, it's still something out of the grasp of the majority of people who collect. You charge for labor if there is a demand for it, and there definitely is.

Why not actually provide some links or evidence to this massive capacitor plague that's supposedly going to hit? Only thing I can find when I google "Capacitor Plague" is a wikipedia article about specific Taiwanese manufactured caps failing back in 2002/2003.

I'm not saying hardware failure is the sole reason for price inflation. As someone pointed out above, it's a combination of many factors. I do believe that hardware failure, going forward, will drive the price of post-crash collecting through the roof, though.

I should say that when I bring up this speculator bubble, I'm referring almost exclusively to stuff like what we've been seeing on the SNES over the past couple of years. I'm not sure what else there is to attribute to that console having such dramatic price spikes.

[dunpeal2064]

I can never understand why someone thinks people should sell their goods at a lower value than people are willing to pay, reguardless of scarcity.

If you offered me $100 for a copy of FFVII, I wouldn't be a gouger for selling it, you'd just be a fool for buying it. If you want to blame anyone, blame those that make enough money that its not worth the $20-$30 difference for them to wait for a good price.

FFVII isn't even at a high price anyways.

[Krejlooc]

It hasn't happened in Atari 2600's because those systems didn't use the types of caps subject to cap plague. Cap plague is a specific instance of a specific type of capacitor manufactured between about 1986 until about 1999. And the systems within that time span have already started failing. En-mass.

As for the price of fixing capacitor problems - you're correct in that the BOM is pennies. Are we to expect that skilled labor should be done for free? Regardless of how low the barrier of entry to this skillset is, it's still something out of the grasp of the majority of people who collect. You charge for labor if there is a demand for it, and there definitely is.

Why not actually provide some links or evidence to this massive capacitor plague that's supposedly going to hit? Only thing I can find when I google "Capacitor Plague" is a wikipedia article about specific Taiwanese manufactured caps failing back in 2002/2003.

I'm not saying hardware failure is the sole reason for price inflation. As someone pointed out above, it's a combination of many factors. I do believe that hardware failure, going forward, will drive the price of post-crash collecting through the roof, though.

I should say that when I bring up this speculator bubble, I'm referring almost exclusively to stuff like what we've been seeing on the SNES over the past couple of years. I'm not sure what else there is to attribute to that console having such dramatic price spikes.

There are a ton of resources on capacitor plague beyond wikipedia articles over on PC Engine FX. I would look around for you, but I'm actually at work and responding to this topic is probably taking up too much of my time as is. I can give you some links later on today when I get home, but if you're impatient you can take a look on those boards.

[MrPopo]

I can never understand why someone thinks people should sell their goods at a lower value than people are willing to pay, reguardless of scarcity.

If you offered me $100 for a copy of FFVII, I wouldn't be a gouger for selling it, you'd just be a fool for buying it. If you want to blame anyone, blame those that make enough money that its not worth the $20-$30 difference for them to wait for a good price.

FFVII isn't even at a high price anyways.

But don't you see? My opinion of something's value is the only proper opinion. Anyone who sells higher than I think is obviously a gouger and is ruining everything.

[Retrodude]

Right...but then why has the average price for FFVII steadily decreased over the last six years then?

http://videogames.pricecharting.com/gam ... antasy-vii

Bone might have picked a bad example, but the main point is still valid. Taking Super Mario 64 as a for instance, regardless of popularity, it is probably the single most common N64 cart and there are more than enough to go around, so it should be priced in the $5-10 range, but I rarely see it for less than $18-25.

since you obviously oppose the concept of a free market, what kind of controls do you want in place?

Well it would be nice if people would just stop taking their cues from Gordon Gecko, but obviously, that's never going to happen. I have found a few (a very few) sites that actually have more reasonable prices, but even they succumb to reselleritis sometimes. Why is it that people can say "greed is good" all day long, but when someone has the temerity to disagree, they get called out on that? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[the King]

why game values have steadily increased.

Because people are greedy and they think their stuff is worth more than it is, that's why. This very thing happened before with the comic book market and fortunately, the market collapsed and all the greedy people went away and left comics collecting to people who are actually comic book fans. Nowadays, whatever kind of comics you collect, you can do so without breaking the bank. I keep hoping the same thing will happen to the retrogaming market, and I'm sure it will eventually, but my patience is growing thin already.

The comic book market collasped because much like the baseball card market items were overproduced and marketed as collectable. Comics and Baseball cards from the 60's and earlier are still worth money because there is a limited supply and someone is willing to play for them because they will only increase in value. When new these items weren't viewed as collectable so kids didn't take care of them, just like how a lot of people threw away NES boxes. These items will only increase in value. Now all the collectable editions being made today won't be worth anything because everyone has them and are holding onto them just like X-Men number 1 with it's 6 different covers that everyone bought because they thought it would be worth something. Simple supply and demand.

[MrPopo]

since you obviously oppose the concept of a free market, what kind of controls do you want in place?

Well it would be nice if people would just stop taking their cues from Gordon Gecko, but obviously, that's never going to happen. I have found a few (a very few) sites that actually have more reasonable prices, but even they succumb to reselleritis sometimes. Why is it that people can say "greed is good" all day long, but when someone has the temerity to disagree, they get called out on that? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

You dodged his question again.