retro collecting and the influence of YouTube gaming people

[eatdogs]

Ok, so I used to collect retro back around 2001-2003 then I stopped. I decided to come back to collecting starting almost a year and a half ago. It's crazy how much it's blown up since then. Earthbound went from around 50-60 bucks to over 150 these days. Little Samson on the nes is around 500 bucks!

Now there are the online gamers who we all probably know who make certain games popular based off either hating it, or hyping it. AVGN, Pat the nes punk, the happy video game nerd (ugh...), pro Jared, and those two game chasers bros from Texas who seem to annoy everyone are some just to name a few. All these people make retro collecting hard now. It's not just because of them, but a huge part is though.

What do you think? I don't want to be angry at them because they all do some cool stuff. AVGN sort of got me back into the retro stuff. And because of them I have found "new" old games, but it's just becoming a mass market now and a "business" for some (not knocking those who have game stores, but those who are in it for a quick buck because it's time to sell! Sort of like furbys, beanie babies, and comic books...).

Eventually I hope it'll pass and these people digging into retro gaming just to make money will go elsewhere. All that will be left are those who love gaming and have a passion for it. (I was born in 1984. I still can't believe sometimes that the games I played as a kid are now selling like antiques. Nostalgia I guess...)

Ok, so end rant. I'd like to know what some of you might think? It's out there. I met up with a guy in Dallas who had a huge outdoor shed full of games. He was selling them at eBay prices and would barely negotiate. He told me it was for his retirement... Yeah, I heard that same idea from a beanie baby collector.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Steer clear of completion collecting on NES and AES and you should be fine. People pay 50 grand for a shit cart used in a competition because only a few were made or for a shit exercise game because most were destroyed. It really doesn't make sense on any level. Compared to arcade prototypes where only 1 was made, they still sell for 100X more on average all the while being shit games or otherwise available in another gameplay-identical format. It makes no sense. I think the bottom will drop out but I've been thinking that for years now and they are still paying crazy money for garbage.

[SuperDeadite]

Back when Fire Barrel didn't work right in MAME, I made a video of it. At that time, there were at least 3 pcbs sitting on yahoo for several months. After I made my video, all of them sold within a week....

When I bought my Gunnail from Shou, it had been sitting on this forum for quite some time, I made a video, now everyone seems to want one.

And not to mention the DISPL....

That's just the way the world works though, no point in getting angry.

[RegalSin]

Well two things influenced this.

1. Back then we did not have internet so the store sellers were the ones selling the rarities. This also hurts small businesses like my local Videogames/Comic book store, who is also selling used PC games, and Skateboards as a decline of Videogames sales.


2. People with money, yuppies, maybe your one of them, would also have bulk merchandise, usually from being involved with production, owner a store, or something along those lines.

3. People like me and you, who somehow have some money start buying games, after the GCN, was traded in for the Wii, the Sega Saturn failed, etc etc,etc. We have a certain craving and because of this, we started to go backwards. Right now a bunch of morons, are collecting X for various reasons, not to collect but to play, but some of us also collect.

4. Due to the fact that we all have a bunch of women who can't keep their legs shut, and we want to live in a decent place so we can bring our family over, and so forth like car insurance, internet bill, utilities, etc we are forced to deal with money. It is a bit better then communism, but hey videogames is a capitalist thing, tied to many other expenses.

Bottom-line the inflation occured so the price raised up. Garage sellers are getting smarter now, and $1 =< 25 cents. So collectors who brought everything cheap, want the value for their price, just like how comic books are now $4 dollars instead of $1.25 cents. It is not that it is expensive, it is that we are going through inflation and some people do not know how to deal with inflation. With the war from 2001 ( that nobody tried to stop, and by joining the military, you are preventing drafting, from occurring ), nobody has protested long enough. That wall street protest should have marched on capital hill, but nobody did "Forest Gump" at all. It fubared to the point where people got arrested, and jailed, and a bunch of bums hide in the masses for free food. The war is draining the oil, but what is worst is about the reserves nobody is talking about from the South end.

To make matters worst, store owners are left selling paper thin dvd cases, and download codes, for something, a person can get for free. So the primary market of videogames is messed up. No longer you can go inside a store and feel like funcoland or game Crazy, or Dragons Den.

.........................................................

So you should think about the price the seller is willing to sell you at. Think about the negative people, who are hogging up all the funds. Their are all kinds of people working against you and for you, and you have to think about these things asw ell.

When it all boils down to it, you have to say. Do I really want this thing?

[Kollision]

tell me about it!

last week I was checking out Action 52 for the NES and my jaw dropped
people are retarded sometimes

[chempop]

See my sig. Fireshark is now worth $400-600

[gray117]

It's all your fault, and you are wrong imho I am afraid to say

Hardly anyone makes decent money from retro games as a business. Those that purposefully try to flip for profit exist, and they're annoying - you have my sympathies on that - but clearly it's not just the youtubers themselves that pay the high prices... Equally there are some great people that help keep the hobbyists going - repairing crts/cabs/boards etc. - and I'm sure they're not buying penthouses/ferraris with whatever money they make.

The good news it that these games are getting more exposure, and slowly this persuades more and more competent re-releases and raises interest in the proper preservation of these games and related material/culture.

... Will these 'collectables' ever become 'antiques'? ... Probably, just as soon as describing them as 'art' becomes acceptable.

For the playing public (not the collectors) I live in hope of ever more accurate, digital, transferable, re-releases so we can all play and preserve them, and the rights holders get some kind of reward for their valuable back catalogs. Meanwhile, don't be jealous of those collectors; be happy to see someone holding this media in such high regard.

[eatdogs]

It's all your fault, and you are wrong imho I am afraid to say

Hardly anyone makes decent money from retro games as a business. Those that purposefully try to flip for profit exist, and they're annoying - you have my sympathies on that - but clearly it's not just the youtubers themselves that pay the high prices... Equally there are some great people that help keep the hobbyists going - repairing crts/cabs/boards etc. - and I'm sure they're not buying penthouses/ferraris with whatever money they make.

The good news it that these games are getting more exposure, and slowly this persuades more and more competent re-releases and raises interest in the proper preservation of these games and related material/culture.

... Will these 'collectables' ever become 'antiques'? ... Probably, just as soon as describing them as 'art' becomes acceptable.

For the playing public (not the collectors) I live in hope of ever more accurate, digital, transferable, re-releases so we can all play and preserve them, and the rights holders get some kind of reward for their valuable back catalogs. Meanwhile, don't be jealous of those collectors; be happy to see someone holding this media in such high regard.

Ha ha ok then. I do appreciate those who work for the industry outside the industry. Like the guy who modded my ps1 to play imports. I figured that those selling out now are making bank though. And yeah, all those people who pay crazy amounts for games don't help either. A friend of mine copied me and started collecting as well. He told me he wanted to start by getting all the hard to find games. Yeah, he bought them all. I'm taking, little Samson, hagane, Flintstones dinosaur peak, s.c.a.t., and panic restaurant. Those are just some he has spent money on. He also has the new ps and Xbox systems and the WiiU. (He doesn't work and gets a special check every month) he's basically what Regalsin said. I didn't say anything to him though. He's an adult.

The most I paid for a game was 140. That was for demons crest and five other awesome games included in the same offer.

I have found some awesome scores though. Zanac x zanac for 50 bucks complete and gun nac for 40 just recently.

[BIL]

4. Due to the fact that we all have a bunch of women who can't keep their legs shut, and we want to live in a decent place so we can bring our family over

Flintstones dinosaur peak

LOLOL that damn game.

[eatdogs]

4. Due to the fact that we all have a bunch of women who can't keep their legs shut, and we want to live in a decent place so we can bring our family over

Flintstones dinosaur peak

LOLOL that damn game.

I should mention that he bought his copy of that game on Amazon and it was a fake. He told me the seller had no feedback ratings. It was an old game with a repro label on it. I didn't ask him how much he paid. He did get a refund though, so good for him I guess.

[gray117]

The awkward position is that some of these games are still difficult to obtain or play decently through other means. Thus 'collecting' and 'gaming' remaining very heavily entwined for now. When this separates a little more I think we'll start to feel less hurt by the fact that - yes the original, culturally relevant, copy costs $100 - but I can get a perfectly playable version here for a couple of $ or even part of whatever service I pay a subscription to.

For now; at least the value of the games mean that they are looked after and not simply trashed. Developers are more conscious of the value of original code/properties/materials and purposefully retain material. Hobbyists help pick up slack, and actively seek out lost/buried material, record interviews and help keep knowledge alive. The grey area of emulation is of course a difficult, but extremely valuable resource, and means of not only granting access, but also encouraging future endevours - so long as the community generally respects rights holder wishes and behaves as responsibly as possible.

But, yep, nothing happens very fast. It heartens and horrifies me we're only just now getting metal slug 3 on steam over a decade after each game/service came into being - why isn't the whole catalogue on there, snk own (nearly?) all the rights to the titles on that machine. Similar with the psn/wii/xbla stores; just get whole collections up on there - especially for older stuff you can emulate well rather than have to produce thorough ports.

[Obiwanshinobi]

It is a bit better then communism, but hey videogames is a capitalist thing, tied to many other expenses.

Computer games, on the other hand, are communist to the bone.

[eatdogs]

So what do you all think of repros? I have one for Recca and I have no qualms with it being a repro. I wouldn't have gotten it any other way and that's including emulation which I hate. I've even experimented and made myself a Gradius 2 cart. What say you?

[R79]

Many, many great games from 1990 to 2010 can still be had on eBay each week for well under £20, even a tenner, especially if you look for lazily listed auctions on loose carts for example. Each year, for the last few years of the modern consoles, official download software helps chip away the value of certain games that had gradually become expensive on the original format.
If you contrast the toy market, say from the 80s, then the vintage videogame sector hasn't really begun to emerge yet. Just look at the PS1. Coming up for almost 20 years old now, and like 95% of it's software is virtually worthless.

By the year 2000, unopened Star Wars figures I bought in toy shops in the mid 1980s for £1.50, were worth around £100-500 each. I have plenty of sealed PS2 games still, some almost the same vintage... probably worth less now than what they cost me at the time.

There's the issue of age corroding carts as well, and of course, consoles and boards. Same deal with the toys. After 30 years, some of them (still sealed) are falling apart, obviously dragging the value back down. How much longer will the 8 and 16 bit era stuff still work I wonder. I still very much buy 90s games to play, and over this Christmas, I got burned on a few N64 games that simply wouldn't load, which has made me more cautious and ask more questions from the sellers now.

[eatdogs]

Many, many great games from 1990 to 2010 can still be had on eBay each week for well under £20, even a tenner, especially if you look for lazily listed auctions on loose carts for example. Each year, for the last few years of the modern consoles, official download software helps chip away the value of certain games that had gradually become expensive on the original format.
If you contrast the toy market, say from the 80s, then the vintage videogame sector hasn't really begun to emerge yet. Just look at the PS1. Coming up for almost 20 years old now, and like 95% of it's software is virtually worthless.

By the year 2000, unopened Star Wars figures I bought in toy shops in the mid 1980s for £1.50, were worth around £100-500 each. I have plenty of sealed PS2 games still, some almost the same vintage... probably worth less now than what they cost me at the time.

There's the issue of age corroding carts as well, and of course, consoles and boards. Same deal with the toys. After 30 years, some of them (still sealed) are falling apart, obviously dragging the value back down. How much longer will the 8 and 16 bit era stuff still work I wonder. I still very much buy 90s games to play, and over this Christmas, I got burned on a few N64 games that simply wouldn't load, which has made me more cautious and ask more questions from the sellers now.

Ugh, I hurt thinking about all my star wars toys and collectibles I lost last year during the tornado here. I went into our shed and grabbed my Sega genesis about two weeks before the tornado hit here in Moore OK. I probably had thousands of dollars worth of star wars stuff. Oh well...

[CKR]

Computer games, on the other hand, are communist to the bone.

Communism is forced redistribution, and PC gaming is an almost completely open market. Many people get angry about services such as Steam because it takes away some of that freedom.