Board 8 > Question about old school video game prices

(+) Yeah! (+)

I went into a video game shop today (non-chain) and they were selling a copy of Earthbound for $500 and Hagane for $1,000. So I asked how much theyd give me for my copies, and they told me it depends on the condition and theyd have to see it in person. So I looked online to see prices, and I see super cheap prices. Whats stopping me from buying these games super cheap online then selling them to this or other places like it? Why arent they already doing that?

Where are you seeing cheap prices for these?

eBay, Etsy, etc.

The super cheap ones are probably reproduction cartridges and not the real deal.

The amount they give you for the games is probably going to be around what you'd buy them for online. It's possible that with stuff so expensive you'd get lucky and get a good price differential, but the numbers you see online will probably be what you get when you bring them in.

From what I checked on Ebay the prices are similarly in the hundreds range of the store's.

And Etsy has mostly repro cartridges.

Whats the difference with a reproduction?

And how do you tell?

Its homemade and not officially endorsed by Nintendo

Usually the labels and stickers are the biggest tells. Usually a much lower quality.

Moonroof posted...

And how do you tell?

The listing better damn sure specify

If they dont then they can get kicked off of any legitimate online marketplace

Yeah if the price is low and it doesn't specify make sure to stay away or message the seller a lot of questions.

Interesting. I feel like there are probably people who dont know anything about quality of games and could be sitting on goldmines. And they just post it online to sell at a cheap price not knowing any better.

I mean, thats been happening at garage sales/yard sales since forever

That never happens anymore lol. People know what they have now. The days of finding Earthbound in the wild are long gone.

Also if you want to know what a games worth, make sure youre checking the sold listings on ebay. Shits only worth what people are willing to pay

How can you tell what your own games are worth?

https://www.pricecharting.com/

Not that it matters, since I'm not looking to sell, but I sure wish I had kept my Einhander case.

When my parents were moving I had to clean up all my older game stuff. I kept the cartridges, put cd/dvd games into those big binders, and kept all the instructions manuals. But I threw out like 90% of the old boxes and jewel cases. I did keep some of the boxes for the big franchise games (Mario, Zelda, etc.) but I'm pretty sure no jewel cases made the cut.

google arbitrage

I remember when I bought Dragon Force for Sega Saturn for about $60.

Now it seems to be valued somewhere around $250+. Yup.

Also, I bought Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance at the time it was worth not much. That's a game I paid $13 for. Not bad. Same kind of thing with Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, I think I spent $20 on that game.

All 3 of these games I still have.

AxemRedRanger posted...

https://www.pricecharting.com/

To be honest, sites like price charting kinda suck. They do a terrible job of weeding out repros, loose vs complete copies, broken games, bundled games, etc. And prices fluctuate too often to rely on price charting. Just look at the most recent sold listings on ebay instead

I just checked and all my games from my childhood are legit. Im probably sitting on $1k worth of games. Not selling!

TomNook7 posted...

To be honest, sites like price charting kinda suck. They do a terrible job of weeding out repros, loose vs complete copies, broken games, bundled games, etc. And prices fluctuate too often to rely on price charting. Just look at the most recent sold listings on ebay instead

Pricecharting is not reliable for telling you how much a game is worth because something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. For that, I agree that ebay sold listings will be the most accurate source.

However, Pricecharting is very useful in telling you what games are worth in relation to other games. Even if the exact numbers are pretty far off, games at the top of the list will pretty much always be worth more than games further down.

cyko posted...

Pricecharting is not reliable for telling you how much a game is worth because something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. For that, I agree that ebay sold listings will be the most accurate source.

Price charting literally just averages sold ebay listings and you can see the listings it gets its price from by clicking.