Is the video game collecting crash happening soon?

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Notice how for different donation amounts you get a special Red cartridge, or a special Blue, or whatever color.

For those who remember the Comic Book Crash, this is how it started. Comics would come out with different types of covers to increase value. They'd be in different colors or with silver paint on them etc. Investors would try and grab all the copies but these comics would just end up valueless. Eventually the entire comic collecting market crashed and hasn't really recovered at least to the level it was at in the 80s.

So all those collectors buying up every NES game they can, causing even the most common carts to go for $30 to $50 bucks, they are going to end up with carts nobody is going to want because eventually people won't want NES games anymore. All those Little Samson carts which go for $800 will probably plummet at some point.

When is this going to happen though? I think we're seeing the beginnings of it now if this kind of thing continues with games specially produced just to be "rare".

 

Interesting question, I don't know if or when it will crash..

PS. if you want the thread moved: use the report button (it looks like an exclamation mark inside a triangle). I have now reported it to a mod.

 

People have been predicting the video game crash for almost 10 years now. It will happen, but I highly doubt that there will be a similar rundown of events as during the comic book crash. I don't have much time to elaborate on this right now as I am on the bus, but what quickly comes to my mind is that during the comic crash, the market was destroyed by the big publishers who milked big names and series with their crazy variety of "limited" releases. In our days, it's more the collectors themselves who shovel out homebrew stuff, silly VGA grading to increase value by 500% and things like that. I don't think the phenomenon of homebrew inflation is popular enough to cause the whole collector's scene to crash, especially since most of the people who buy old video games still do it primarily for actual use. With so many superior substitutes (compilations, rereleases) in the comic market, reading the actual old books had always seemed to be sort of a secondary motivation to those affected by the crash.
However, looking at those absurd developments in the used game prices recently (2-4 years), a crash is inevitable at some point. I would welcome it because then I can buy games cheaper again. Never wanted to sell my collection anyways, I don't care if it loses 50% of its value (which it won't ;P).

 

Makes me glad I collect for my own purposes rather than for selling at a higher value.

 

Big fat +1 to that.

In fact, I get pleasure hearing people crack a sad when someone opens a sealed game and plays it.

 

personally a crash only benefits the real retro gamers, so i see it as a good thing. if anyone is putting money into games as an investment. they should probably look elsewhere.

 

I personally don't care if it happens , but it won't. Games will get more scarce as years go by so they will increase in value. Prices will just keep going up even if games get released via Virtual Console ect. Invest in an Everdrive.

 

I got a few game they called rare I dont know why especially saturn ones, I bought them new on release and the games will die with me, some people had offered me good money for them but, I like them that is why I bought them in the first place. I hope the crash occur for all those scalpers who just want to rip collectors pockets but stupid are those who paid a good sum of cash for games they are not going to play just to put them on display. For me a game was meant to be played not display it.

Also I love too when some one open a sealed game to play it. I just laugh at those game hunters on youtube killing themselves just for a game they're not going to play. I have asked a few of them if they have played just a few of the games they hunt and guess what, they come with the excuse of not having time yet to play them but have time to go out all day just to find 3 of the same kind of game and then see it on ebay asking for ridiculous amount of money and they say they are not resellers just collectors.

I call that bullshit I just buy what I play nothing more nothing less. The same I do for the arcades neo geo, atomiswave, cps2, naomi, pgm, etc. I just buy the games I played as a kid except the pgm I never play that as a kid but I play it now and I like those chinese beat em ups.

 

You nailed it perfectly. I watch those same youtube shows and I know in a few years they will have moved onto some other hobby and sell what they've hoarded. And yeah those collectors with the insane gaming rooms with boxed nes and zapper (is that even rare?) will move on as well. Then we can just pick them up for cheap if we even need them. I'm just glad handheld game prices have stayed low as its helped my own collecting. And I usually just buy cart only since I want to play the game on original hardware which is the whole fun of retro gaming which these youtube guys don't get.

 

I don't see that coming very soon. But one day it may come but not necessarily or won't hit that hard like previous collectors crashes did (comix, stamps etc.).

We don't have to forget that the video game universe with all its gamers, geeks, nerds, collectors etc. has grown really really huge and there seems to be no end in this direction. i think generations from now have to go over until the retro collecting as we know it today will fade out slowly, but then again, itmes (especially working ones) will become much much rarer and therefore much harder to get for those collectors in our future.

it's very hard to see how this all will develop. nonetheless kinda exciting in which direction this will all go (and probably end).

 

Everything comes and goes in cycles. Geek is certainly chic right now.

It's interesting, I'm not sure if we can exactly compare this to the comic crash of the 90s, simply because the Internet back then wasn't what it is today, and today the Internet can create this weird echo chamber where a particular title becomes super popular for a good while. i.e. Silver Surfer (NES) gets made fun of on youtube channel, a while later some blog refers back to it, a while later people in forums want it released on virtual console, and the game gets more and more interest along the way. The price slowly climbs, despite not being all the good or rare. Unsuspecting people see one game with a high price (for whatever reason) and think anything "old" is worth that much. Then add in people using eBay for price guidelines, which is bad cause you gotta raise prices on eBay to counter the fact that eBay takes a cut...

The Internet is good and bad. It lets serious buyers research what they're getting, but it also helps put sellers in contact with less savvy buyers.

 

I feel the same way! The only place anything sealed belongs is in a museum, not as some object that may or may not equate money. Collecting for enjoyment is definitely the best way to go.

As for the topic, I'm with ave on waiting for the inevitable crash, if only to snatch up games for lower prices.

 

Glad we're all on the same page here. I mostly collect stuff for my own personal collection. I may sell them in the future, I may not. I don't collect them in the hope of the value rising to make a profit. Sure I have rare stuff that could dramatically increase in value and make a big profit for me. Sure it'd be nice to have something to fall back on for money but those are reasons that rank low on my list of reasons for video game collecting. My top reason is for my own enjoyment and preservation. My rare items are a blank Dreamcast GD-R, pressed copy of Geist Force, and a Sega DS-16. I know I could sell my copy of Geist Force for $150 plus and make a huge profit because I got it here for $25 but I won't because I got it to help protect a rare game and for my own enjoyment of having rare items to show off when I have guests that are into video game memorabilia.

I view the crash as a good thing for me since that means I will be able to get my retro stuff for dirt cheap.

 

I think most people at this forum are likely to collect to play. But there are many out there that collect just to have it on their shelf. Or collect just to hope to later resell it and make money.

 

I got a lot of heat online for a video of me opening a mint, sealed and graded copy of Sin & Punishment to play it...granted this was in 2006, the game as only 6 years old at the time so it was still going for a lot.

 

is there still a link to that video? i love stuff like that. and i'd do the same.

 

Maybe but I think it will be limited to this fake retro shit hipsters like, because its all a trend from the "8bit" graphics that are actually 16bit/32bit like to the "ironic" also fake vintage tshirts from the NES era.

Also the speculation on NES is far higher than with any other platform, even other Nintendo consoles like the SNES don't get that much attention.

 

Isn't that EXACTLY what the comic book companies did with the artificial and pseudo rare prints that caused the collectors' market to crash?

 

There probably will be a crash, but it'll probably start with the CE/LE scalpers who order 100 copies of a CE/LE on Amazon and list them all on Ebay at 50% markup claiming that it's "Sold Out Everywhere!" when Amazon still has plenty of them. The retailers are getting better at anticipating and meeting demand and the scalpers are eventually going to start losing money on these scams.

 

hahaha, some big record labels are making pseudo and artificial rare prints, now that vinyl records are making a comeback in popularity. I'm glad I buy records to listen to, not to collect, so I don't get suckered in to the $30 official "bootleg", $35 180-gram "audiophile" edition & $20 "limited" (to 10,000) colored vinyl. I'll just buy the $15 standard edition and enjoy it all the same.

Maybe I'll scoop up those "limited edition" prints in 5 years when they are in the bargain bins at used record stores, but not now.