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[MrPopo]

Now, if people want them both on the same level, it only stands to reason that Game Y would be of a higher value, which proves to be absolutely true when you compare Super Mario Bros 3 (an in-demand, common game that can probably fetch $20), to Little Samson (which could easily fetch $500)

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Listen, Retrodude, none of us, except perhaps Mr Popo, likes paying $20 for a common NES or N64 game, but what you're suggesting, what you want, just isn't realistic.

Where did that come from?

[Retrodude]

Maybe you're all right that I just do not understand economics, but it makes no sense to me, in general not just with gaming, that charging more because you can is considered acceptable standard practice. It seems much more logical that you would be more successful, and have much happier customers, if you sell low to get people buying in the first place and then make your money through repeat business. I saw this at the grocery store I worked at for 13 years. Prices at our specific store are higher than at other stores in the chain because we're 30 miles from anywhere (yes, literally) and they can get away with it; if you want to shop somewhere else you'd spend the same on gas that you would save at the store, so that's not really an option. Why am I wrong in thinking that there's something wrong with that?

[SpoonyBard]

Dunpeal, why is it "troll-y" to argue that pricing should be based on scarcity? I said before, I understand paying more for legitimately rare games, but the vast majority of all retro games are nowhere near rare, so all the overpricing that goes on is pure greed and nothing else. I actually frequent a local retro shop specifically because they understand this and also understand that what they lose in per-unit pricing, they can make up through volume. If you want to talk economics, that seems to me like a great economic model because one would assume that by consistently selling for less, you'd build up a large number of happy repeat customers (as this shop seems to be doing considering it's a chain and presumably plans on expanding further).

I can't say that I entirely disagree. There used to be a game store in town that priced common NES carts at $2 a piece, and it was buy 2 get 1 free. I probably bought about 100 NES games from him. He even gave me a R.O.B. for buying them.

But I also bought a ton of fairly reasonably priced carts from his customers that weren't willing to sell them to him for 50 cents. After a few months his inventory got stagnant. Due to his effort to keep his prices low, he wasn't willing to pay anything out. He got some cool stuff time and again, but it was mainly because people had no idea what they had. Most of the "cool stuff" were just some slightly rare titles. He closed after about a year.


The store that opened after him sold common NES carts for $3.99 with no other deals. Everything was priced a little bit cheaper than Amazon/eBay, and most importantly, he was willing to pay out for things.

At one point he had all but 6 US SNES games in there. He constantly had complete Virtual Boy collections in there. A complete, boxed 5200 collection. I spent thousands of dollars in his store. I bought my boxed Amiga CD32 there, almost all my rare NES games there. He hooked me up with my boxed AES. This is in a town of 8,000 people. You never see this kind of stuff up here. The prices were higher than the other guy, but he always had something I wanted because he was willing to pay for it.

He finally went out of business when Gamestop came to town, but he was open much longer than the guy selling everything cheap.


Selling the stuff for cheap is great, it's a quick way to turn a lot of product and get customers coming back in. Until you start to saturate the market with all the cheap stuff you're selling and you've tapped everyone selling things to you. With the first store, after a couple of months I had all the stuff that he was able to buy for 50 cents. On the rare occasion he would be able to get someone to sell him a copy of a common "blockbuster" (for lack of a better term) for well under going rates, I would get it. But they were so few and far between that it was no fun to go in there anymore. In a larger city it may take longer to happen, but this is usually how most of those places end up. Your average customer is estatic to find Mario 64 for $10, but the same person would probably never sell you their copy for $3.

[Raiiban]

Maybe you're all right that I just do not understand economics, but it makes no sense to me, in general not just with gaming, that charging more because you can is considered acceptable standard practice. It seems much more logical that you would be more successful, and have much happier customers, if you sell low to get people buying in the first place and then make your money through repeat business. I saw this at the grocery store I worked at for 13 years. Prices at our specific store are higher than at other stores in the chain because we're 30 miles from anywhere (yes, literally) and they can get away with it; if you want to shop somewhere else you'd spend the same on gas that you would save at the store, so that's not really an option. Why am I wrong in thinking that there's something wrong with that?

That's a moral dilemma. Capitalism has no morals.

[Ack]

Maybe you're all right that I just do not understand economics, but it makes no sense to me, in general not just with gaming, that charging more because you can is considered acceptable standard practice. It seems much more logical that you would be more successful, and have much happier customers, if you sell low to get people buying in the first place and then make your money through repeat business. I saw this at the grocery store I worked at for 13 years. Prices at our specific store are higher than at other stores in the chain because we're 30 miles from anywhere (yes, literally) and they can get away with it; if you want to shop somewhere else you'd spend the same on gas that you would save at the store, so that's not really an option. Why am I wrong in thinking that there's something wrong with that?

That's a moral dilemma. Capitalism has no morals.

Indeed, morality is entirely subjective.

That said, where is your grocery store located? If it is 30 miles from anywhere, than it is also 30 miles away for any form of transporation to travel to deliver goods. So that's 30 miles worth of fuel, materials storage, driver wages, not to mention the possibility of wear and tear incurred in making what amounts to a 60 mile trip, as well as the logistical work required by whatever distributor you use to plot out this trip. Unless everything provided in that grocery is locally produced, of course, which would then mean that the local farmers should be paid accordingly or, better yet, could simply deal amongst themselves and cut out the middle man that is the store.

[Retrodude]

That said, where is your grocery store located? If it is 30 miles from anywhere, than it is also 30 miles away for any form of transporation to travel to deliver goods. So that's 30 miles worth of fuel, materials storage, driver wages, not to mention the possibility of wear and tear incurred in making what amounts to a 60 mile trip, as well as the logistical work required by whatever distributor you use to plot out this trip.

That's what the store says to justify charging more, but I don't buy that (no pun intended) because the distributors have to drive 30 miles further from where we are to deliver to a store in Georgia and prices at that store are lower than ours because that town has other stores and they actually have to compete. Our store has no competition and they know it, hence the higher prices. Seems pretty damn immoral to me.

[Ack]

That said, where is your grocery store located? If it is 30 miles from anywhere, than it is also 30 miles away for any form of transporation to travel to deliver goods. So that's 30 miles worth of fuel, materials storage, driver wages, not to mention the possibility of wear and tear incurred in making what amounts to a 60 mile trip, as well as the logistical work required by whatever distributor you use to plot out this trip.

That's what the store says to justify charging more, but I don't buy that (no pun intended) because the distributors have to drive 30 miles further from where we are to deliver to a store in Georgia and prices at that store are lower than ours because that town has other stores and they actually have to compete. Our store has no competition and they know it, hence the higher prices. Seems pretty damn immoral to me.

Again, where is your store located? And where in Georgia is the other store located?

[Retrodude]

Again, where is your store located? And where in Georgia is the other store located?

Our store is in Cashiers, the Georgia store is in Clayton. While there are other ways of getting to Clayton without having to go through Cashiers, it's the same number of miles either way AFAIK.

[Ack]

Again, where is your store located? And where in Georgia is the other store located?

Our store is in Cashiers, the Georgia store is in Clayton. While there are other ways of getting to Clayton without having to go through Cashiers, it's the same number of miles either way AFAIK.

Haha, actually I live in Georgia, hence my curiosity!

[pepharytheworm]

I really don't think hardware failures have much, if any impact on the aftermarket value. It's not like earthbound carts are suddenly failing en masse or something.

No, this is a speculator bubble.

Hardware failure doesn't have impact on the aftermarket value currently because nothing has failed en-mass. The few systems which have already succumb to cap plague have seen their prices sky rocket - compare the price of a capped Turbo Duo to an uncapped Turbo Duo for example.

I can only guess that you guys have no experience in other collector's markets. This isn't a bubble. It can't be a bubble without mass adoption. There isn't a tenuous floor that's going to fall out. Everybody who buys this stuff, is interested in this stuff, and won't stop being interested in this stuff. The number of people out there looking to "game" the system to make ridiculous profits are a tiny portion of the market.

So what happens when a lot those who are collecting stop and start selling? Are really going to tell me the people interested now will always be interested? wouldn't that bring the demand down and supply up? Do you really think retro gaming is going to continue to have the same popularity forever? How many Atari VCS, Maganavox odyssey and similiar consoles did you see people collecting for in the mid 90's? And what value did they hold then? pretty much considered by most as junk. Sure certain pieces had great value and will continue to do so for a while. If you don't think retro is somewhat of a fad you need to go out shopping more, there weren't NES wallets and ties easily available when I was younger. Gas stations have sonic ring sound for debit machines, and others have the Saturn open tray sound.