Game collecting is not what it once was

[Ack]

Also I feel its worth pointing out that most of the people in here who seem to be arguing that it's 'not that bad' are people who've already established their large collections and/or have quite ample disposable income.

Seems reasonable considering these are luxury items.

luxury items which were just a few years ago far more accessable.

It would be a really interesting piece of research to examine who buys these games and what their average disposable income has been over the last ten years.

Also, I often wonder about the influence of the recession and its end on disposable income for the people who collect games.

[dsheinem]

luxury items which were just a few years ago far more accessable.

as long as retrogaming has existed, people have complained about the price of older games being less accessible. This isn't a "just a few years ago" thing.

Here's two years ago: http://racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... lit=prices

Here's four years ago: http://racketboy.com/forum/search.php?s ... y&start=10 and http://racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=27900

Here's five years ago: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 44&t=26553

Here's six years ago: http://racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=17407

If you look elsewhere you can find stuff from 10 years ago: http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showt ... of-a-Hobby

and older is out there too, believe me.

This is just a tired old argument and discussion. Slightly more interesting is a discussion of why some specific system and game prices rise and fall over time, but the general bitching and moaning about retro game prices being "not what they used to be" is just a trope of the culture at this point and, frankly, vacuous.

So when I posted

Threads about game collecting not being what it once was are not what they once were.

I meant it. These conversations lost novelty eons ago, and they tend to be little more than pointless bitch fests about these "new changes to collecting" that are anything but.

[isiolia]

luxury items which were just a few years ago far more accessable.

Later consoles, as has been pointed out, are (or are becoming) quite accessible. Maybe it's more that the focus for many hasn't shifted to them - which is slightly illogical in my mind, considering that a lot of the costly SNES, Neo Geo, etc stuff can be emulated a lot more easily and readily than PS2 or XBox at this point.

[AppleQueso]

Certainly complaining about prices isn't new, but I think there's definitely a threshold where these barriers become notable.

I know that I for one could not afford to build a collection from scratch in the current market.

EDIT: I'd really rather not argue about it though. I have reasons for not collecting anymore that are beyond purely financial anyways.

[dsheinem]

Certainly complaining about prices isn't new, but I think there's definitely a threshold where these barriers become notable.

I know that I for one could not afford to build a collection from scratch in the current market.

Not if you went straight for big hitters.

You could buy $50 worth of key used PS3/Wii/360 games at GS or Thrift stores or whatever, flip them for $150, buy $100 of NES stuff, rinse, repeat.

You could buy a mystery box from Simple or MJM or someone and, again, keep what you want and flip the rest to break even.

Same principle worked 10 years ago...

[mjmjr25]

You can't really directly compare inflation prices like that because income hasn't kept pace with inflation.

Not direct pace, but relatively close.

1991:
$50 = $92 now

1991 Min. Wage:
$4.25 = $7.25 now

[prfsnl_gmr]

I just want to add that I bought a CIB copy of Syndicate Wars (PS1) for $1 from a local pawn shop a few hours ago. This is approximately 1/10 of its shipped eBay price.

There are still deals out there. They just may not be on the games you want, and you may have to look hard to find them.

[vatermuzik]

^^^ Yep. The deals will always be out there for those who enjoy the hunting game as much as the games themselves.

[Fragems]

Really it's the expansion of the internet that has helped prices along as well. Now the "fair" market value of a game takes about 10 seconds to look up and people have access to a plethora of online markets to sell stuff on. So regional and local stuff gets thrown all out of whack by the supply and demand of the global market .

Luckily in my area there are a good supply of pawns/resale shops with flat rate pricing on more recent stuff and even occasionally some older games get tossed in. However the retro market is pretty dead aside from the random person at the fleas or garage sales clearing out their old stuff and most of those get raided by local resellers.

[Snatch1414]

I don't have a problem with the "whatever people will pay, that's what it's worth" magic bullet of an argument, I just have a problem with the fact that it doesn't go down that way most of the time. Most of the time it's "this website says it's worth $X and that's what it cost so I'm buying it!". It's not about what it's worth to a person it's about dumbass people taking perception for truth and opening their wallets with a smile without even thinking if they actually want to spend what they're spending.