Zardnaar
Legend
Interesting video on what's been happening.
Context. I have a somewhat modest retro video game collection. I'm not an expert on it but have been doing it for passion vs money. Kinda similar to old D&D books I own and I used to play MtG and know about graded cards etc.
Anyway I bought most of my games for pennies on the dollar and the most I've paid for a game was $80 usd back in 2004. I do have some rarities that were a few hundred dollars years ago as they had small production runs and mine are PAL vs NTSC. PAL is even rarer.
For years the Black Lotus type games were NES competition type cartridges and similar almost unique cartridges eg prototypes. We're talking about a handful in existence and only a comparative few ever made.
Hard core collectors have prototype and development kits of the various consoles. Some of them are almost unique. Generally I buy my toys when a new generation, edition or set etc comes out and people dump games, cards or books etc to get the next best thing. Eg right now is a great time to pick up PS4 and Xbox one titles. Next year expect cheap 5E books.0
A few years ago even I noticed headlines like N64 carts being sold for 1-2 million dollars. Previous rarities were in the10-30k range direct some of those semi unique ultra rare games.
So what's going on? Basically hype and speculation and a large amount of outright collusion between grading companies, auction houses, investors/speculators, shill bidding and hidden information. It's basically a bubble like NFTs.
Eg one knows roughly how many high graded Black Lotuses for MtG are out there. We know roughly how many Alpha Black Lotus were ever made (around 4k apparently). No one knows that for say Super Mario 64 9.5+ graded games. We know how many Nintendo World Championship cartridges were made and how many still exist (that we know of).
It's absurd to me the price of Black Lotus but one can understand it because they're actually rare and if you want a pack fresh one you better have the cash.
Long video I don't really expect anyone to watch it but its there. Personally I dud notice those headlines about gane prices.
Context. I have a somewhat modest retro video game collection. I'm not an expert on it but have been doing it for passion vs money. Kinda similar to old D&D books I own and I used to play MtG and know about graded cards etc.
Anyway I bought most of my games for pennies on the dollar and the most I've paid for a game was $80 usd back in 2004. I do have some rarities that were a few hundred dollars years ago as they had small production runs and mine are PAL vs NTSC. PAL is even rarer.
For years the Black Lotus type games were NES competition type cartridges and similar almost unique cartridges eg prototypes. We're talking about a handful in existence and only a comparative few ever made.
Hard core collectors have prototype and development kits of the various consoles. Some of them are almost unique. Generally I buy my toys when a new generation, edition or set etc comes out and people dump games, cards or books etc to get the next best thing. Eg right now is a great time to pick up PS4 and Xbox one titles. Next year expect cheap 5E books.0
A few years ago even I noticed headlines like N64 carts being sold for 1-2 million dollars. Previous rarities were in the10-30k range direct some of those semi unique ultra rare games.
So what's going on? Basically hype and speculation and a large amount of outright collusion between grading companies, auction houses, investors/speculators, shill bidding and hidden information. It's basically a bubble like NFTs.
Eg one knows roughly how many high graded Black Lotuses for MtG are out there. We know roughly how many Alpha Black Lotus were ever made (around 4k apparently). No one knows that for say Super Mario 64 9.5+ graded games. We know how many Nintendo World Championship cartridges were made and how many still exist (that we know of).
It's absurd to me the price of Black Lotus but one can understand it because they're actually rare and if you want a pack fresh one you better have the cash.
Long video I don't really expect anyone to watch it but its there. Personally I dud notice those headlines about gane prices.
