Video game hobbyist Vs. game speculators

When the comic industry crash happened it had more of an impact on new comic sales and the value of recently published comics were devalued. The older stuff still retained the majority of their value and still continue to rise as comic book movies do well in the box office.

 

There was a great show on the History Channel(?) recently about the history of comic books in the US, including the crash.

As for games, everything I own now I plan to open and play at some point. Although I'm still picky about not have 'Greatest Hits' versions of stuff in my collection and if possible I only buy games new so they're in mint condition.

 

Hello

I am a so called "sealed collector" and I want to share my opinions with you.

First of all: When I want to play a game...I will buy it for a cheap price in used condition and play it. It's that easy.

There are a lot of game speculators out there...that is right. These are no collectors !!! So please do not mix it up. These guys know that they can make a lot of money with sealed games...instead of selling used games. That is why some prices are so fucking high.

For me as a sealed collector...I would NEVER pay thousands of Dollars for one game. Cause I know I can get it for much much cheaper...I just have to wait.

Some of the previous speaker here said that games are meant to be played....that is right. But as I said before...if I or someone else wants to play a game...then I'll buy it for cheap. Why should a sealed game which is 15 years old should be opened?? Is it so difficult to understand why keeping sealed games sealed???

The market for a game XYZ:
Used: 99 % (everybody can buy it, play it, have fun with it...)
sealed games: 1 % (why open it??? why not keeping it sealed for the next generation? why not collecting it when you had so much fun with it as you were a child)

I collect sealed PS (and PS2 games).
And why should I not collect them? Remember: When I want to play e.g. a Final Fantasy VIII or a NBA 2001, I can buy it.
I have about 20 open games at home...which I PLAY (e.g. Ico, Mario Kart, some sport games...)...but I COLLECT sealed games. I like games which are in the best condition and which are rare (the game itself is not rare...but the sealed condition makes it rare).
And I like the PS (for me it is/was the best console).

In MY OPINION it is more foolish and more silly to collect thousands of open games and play 5% of them. The rest is just in the shelves as a dust catcher.
There are sooooooooo many collectors who have 500+ USED games in their collection and they played maybe 100 of them or less.
Why is THIS not stupid??? Tell me please.

To the price discussion: I think there are people like me who share the same thoughts. Unfortunately they missed a lot of games in the past...and now they have to pay the high prices. It is economic and has something to do with supply and demand. The demand is getting higher (cause there are more sealed collectors out there) the supply stays the same or gets lower (cause games are in collectors hands).

 

so...you get a hard-on for sealed games? how does it feel? I just don't understand it, please explain to me if you may, what's that tingly feeling you get every time you buy a SEALED game? is it akin to sex or something?

 

I only have a few sealed games. And they're only sealed because I haven't got around to playing them. Working on my 360 games right now. Giving them all a decent play-through. In the last month or so I've finished like 4 or 5 games. Which is really good for me. Especially when games like RSV2 and Halo 3 have multiplayer that I play all the time.

 

Hi collector mutton! ;-)

Of course it is foolish to amass games that you are never going to play. I don't intend to devalue anyone's hobby here, and i can understand that sealed stuff has got something magic to it. I love opening games that are 10-15 years old or even older, you know that you are the first one to stick it in a console, awesome (mad props to Yakumo for opening up his copy of heim waltz!).
I must be a sealed collectors worst nightmare or godsend (depending if they already own the game i ripped open or not, the price will rise for a sealed copy!).
Now for a hardly related analogy: the oldest still drinkable wine bottle was opened and tasted not too long ago. It was almost 500 years old and worth a small fortune, but in the end it was meant to be drunk.

 

personally i consider weird collecting old sealed games (like 15 years)... after all you might have a bad cd/dvd press, or a faulty printed manual, or battery acid leaking, corrosion, mold...

I think the smartest is to have mint open items and use and play them religiously.

 

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it is just collecting things.
Same feeling as when a stamp collector gets an old stamp for his collection.
Same feeling which has a collector of old drawing pictures.
and so on and so on.

Why do you collect games (when you do it)?? Why don't you sell the games?

Why collecting at all....why not just play the games and sell them when you get through??

Collecting is a hobby.
Do you think a basketball player would also says to a chess player: Hey you freak...why you play chess, isn't it boring to sit around 4 hours.
It is his hobby.

I collected USED games before...and there was a time where I thought: "Hey...you do not play those 400+ games and those games are not even rare. How stupid. I can buy those games everyday in ebay. It is boring if anybody can have those games.
Why not collecting sealed games (cause I can't play them either) and having some rare games in your collection?"

@alpha
When I will ever sell my collection...maybe the buyer opens the games and plays them. That is his problem...he can get it for much much less when he buys some open games.
But who knows.

Maybe some guys who are now 20 years old are millionaires when they are 40 or 50.
They maybe want to play the games which they had in their childhood. And they want new copies of these games. So it is possible that they buy some sealed games/collections and open them.
But as you said before....the other sealed copies will rise.

Look at your wine story.
Maybe 400 years ago there was also a collector and everybody said: Hey you freak...why you keep the wine "sealed". Are you nuts. You have to drink it.
I think the grand grand grandchilds are very happy now that the grand grand grandfather kept the wine "sealed".

 

i collect for the sake of collecting, I intend on a fullset of NES games...though I won'tplay most of them (really though, who would play a lot of them that were released xD) though I don't keep anything sealed. I bought a sealed copy of Sin and Punishment, and i filmed me opening the sucker and popping it in.

Someone on youtube called me a dumbass for doing it and told me to just play it with an emulator. PSH!

 

You seem to have gotten my comment in the wrong way. I respect the subjectivity of what is and isn't collectible, I was just enquiring as to the exact feeling, the rush if you may, steming from owning a sealed game.

I too would prefer to find a sealed copy of a said game but I don't think it's worth twice the price of a used one (in good condition), let alone more.

Just to portray the argument better..

once I thought having a virgin would be awesome. After 7 or 8 I just came to the conclusion that it's not that special in any way, everything starts being used at some point in time and points in time are nothing more than a moment that we can choose to feel special for no other reason than for the sake of feeling special.

It's like opening a pack of cigarettes, does it get you excited every single time? no, it's a process and the fact that you break the seal is just the starting point of the whole experience and the fun begins after that initial point.

 

@henners

AFAIK jap N64 games were not sealed....but anyway.
A Fullset of NES games (US??) in sealed condition is nearly IMPOSSIBLE.
So I can understand why you collecting used games.

But when you do not play most of the games...what are you doing???
Yes....you COLLECT the games.
But do you know why some guys say it is stupid to collect sealed games???
It is the SAME what you are doing...collecting games.
Just the value, the condition and the rareness is different.

Hmmm....


@barcode
Ok sorry, got your point
Which sealed game are you searching??

 

at the moment I have other priorities and not looking forward to any new purchase. I already have too many games I owe to myself to complete before moving on.. Any game that I d purchase used I wouldn't mind getting sealed either, subject to price of course.

 

for sealed collectors it is fun and very excited to get a game which they searched for ages.
I was looking for about 3 years to get a sealed Wild Arms, FF IX or Legend of Legaia (PAL, not us).
When you get it and hold it in your hands...it is a feeling of happiness.
I am looking now since about 5 years (as I started with sealed collecting) for a sealed copy of FF VII (PAL). FIVE YEARS !!!!! And trust me...I know a lot of other collectors or communities where I can look for one.

That is why I (!!!!!!!) do not like collectors who are buying tons of open games every month. It is nothing special anymore...it is sooooo easy to buy them (when you have the money) and FOR ME it has nothing to do with COLLECTING. This is my opinion.

 

The only drawback of sealed collectors is, when the amount of sealed game 'ijk' is more than 40% and it's already hard to find one of the other 60%, and you just want to play it, not collect it. That's the only time the gaming collector collides with the preserving collector (I do not implicate that a preserver does not game or vise versa).

 

I always love to follow discussions in which certain sealed collectors want to proof that used game collectors are stupid, lol. Ironically, used game collectors do it the other way around although the latter are not additionally thinking they were superior to the other party what always makes this conversation so fucking annoying and unfortunately puts the whole sealed collecting-community in a very bad light.

As for me, I have indeed not few but also not many sealed games. I never bought a game intentionally in sealed condition, every sealed object I own I got by incidence, even the expensive ones (like Segagaga DDirect, I wanted it open but could only find a sealed one and as I didn't plan to really play it either way... well. Still have to hunt an open copy though, just to give it a go). I own hundreds of used games and at least gave most of them a shot (I'd say about two thirds).
Why am I stupid because I have used games in my collection that I don't/can't play? Sure, they have lower value than sealed ones (normally), but I also didn't pay as much as I had had for a new copy and I don't ever plan to make money with my collection or to sell it even. I have some valuable games that I can still sell for good money, if they were sealed they would go for even better money but on the other hand, I didn't have to pay the big bucks that a sealed copy required beforehand.

I would definitely call myself a VG hobbyist as I see games as a very beautiful part of my life, just like music, literature, comics and film - in short: culture. After all, culture is meant to be consumed and I love to consume. I don't want to argue with how things are meant to be used, but in my opinion using things is more fun than looking at things you can't use but sell in a decade for 30$ more.
Moreover I don't think game speculating is really worthwhile after all. People who really want big money need to do something else. I don't think anyone has bought a house yet with money earned by increasing value of sealed games. Brokers, inventors or shareholders did.

 

you'd be wrong, maybe not specifically sealed games (why does everyone always get hooked on this aspect of collecting games/value of games?) but used games for sure.

i know personally several people who made alot of money just trading used videogames, much more than their annual income from regular work.

 

If you are collecting sealed games cause of the gain you are doing something wrong. That's right ave. But in my point of view you can make good money with it.

IF (!!!) I were a reseller I could earn each month easily about 300-400 Euro extra by buying/selling sealed games.
Ok, you can't pay a house or a big car....but it WOULD BE a nice pocketmoney.

I bought a sealed FF2 some month ago for 250 Euro....best offer which I got is 6000 Dollar.
I bought a sealed Resident Evil 1 for 7 Euro....best offer were 400 Euro.
I bought recently from a friend of mine (we worked at Square together) a LOT of sealed games incl. FFIX, FFVIII, some PS2 and PSP games and some Promos for 100 Euro (!!!)
Can sell it easily for 800+ Euro.

Trust me...if you want to make money (and it is big money), you can do it.
Look at the resellers at ebay...they buy a game, they grade it at VGA and sells it with 100% gain. There are some hanging around at sealedgameheaven.com

I also do not like them. I wanted to sell also my sealed copy of FF2...but I decided to keep it. It is a piece of history.

 

At the end of the day, searching for a perfect, untouched copy of your favorite game from 15-20 years ago IS a game unto itself, and a very addicting one. Nothing calls out to the frontier of determination like the thrill of the chase.

 

Dude, it's been like this for years. Maybe it only used to be $500 instead of $5000, but there have been folks taking advantage of game collectors for many years.

Don't blame ebay. Blame people being stupid.

There is some merit to your view, but I see it as great when people show off their collections because it's like going to mini-museums that would otherwise never be seen. What's the use of having a bunch of cool stuff that many people would appreciate but no one will ever see?

That is the completely awesome part about retro gaming. We have 20/20 hindsight so we don't have to muddle through countless failed purchases. We can read years of reviews and find out which games have stood the test of time and be very precise with our purchases.

So true! :lol:
-ud

 

I think this is getting a bit too much heated. :/

I do understand people who like collecting sealed games, but I don't share they're point of view. There is people who likes to collect things, be it games, music, soda cans, wallets or lighters.

If someone wants to collect sealed games, it's just that they want to have them, it's their own goal to have the games they want to get, of a particular region, etc, etc, even with it being contrarial to the original meaning of a videogame which is playing it, a videogame is a thing so it can be collected.

It's just the hobby of looking for the games, waiting for the best opportunity, looking everywhere at every website that sell games, etc, etc...

I've seen this very clearly in rail models. There is people who just get the locomotives, wagons, passenger cars, etc, to have them on a shelve and see them from then to then. And there's people who don't understand at all how can that people not be playing with them, making them run, etc. Well, it's just their hobby.

About showing collections: it's not a "hey look, I have more games than you, now start worshiping me", most people just likes sharing their collections with everyone, commenting which games they got, asking for good games they could get, stories from where did some thing come from or whatever else.


I just see in general a bit of tension in the whole game collecting scene, each person that shares this hobby can have it's own point of view about it since it's a thing that oneself is the one that must have fun with it.