Setting about making models for prices for old games

FAST6191

Techromancer
OP
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,282
Country
United Kingdom
I have done things like this in replies to other topics before but between that record sale (or indeed sales as it was more than Mario 64) and things I have been noticing trying to make a collection of 360 games I want (that being it is now somewhat retro and prices are going up) I figure something more formal/direct is in order.

There are endless numbers of categories you can go in for here, and I am not sure some would be any more or less valid than others. See also the millions of music sub genres for a similar problem
If we were going to go for strict economics then you will fail at the first hurdle; human psychology is very much a part of this, even if we assumed everybody wanted to be legal (ROMs, flash carts, emulation and more is not something we likely have to cover here if you are on this site, reading this) and I am not sure that we do; black markets are still markets.
Supply and demand, pain points, perceived rareness vs actual rareness (or indeed local rareness), something is worth what someone else is willing to pay... all good phrases but not necessarily what will be focused on here.

For my purposes I will go with three, maybe four categories as my initial approach.

1) The game players.
This is where I would put myself but there are many types here.

Games of a given style (I want every shmup, every RPG, all the racing games, all the simulation racing games... sort of thing)
Historically significant games.
Games from a developer maybe, though that is getting into the one below.
Myself I go for maybe some hidden gems, generally recognised quality, local co-op/multiplayer, games that advanced the state of things, and games that advanced the state of a mechanic/did something interesting from a gameplay design perspective even if they are not that good as a sum of their parts thing.

1a) Not sure this is a separate category per se, and I run the risk of my personal apathy towards the subject shining through
Speedrunners and competition players are a thing, and this can bring in issues with specific versions and regions ( http://zeldaspeedruns.com/oot/generalknowledge/version-differences ). Naturally the more popular the running and competition the more it knocks things up. Can also extend to peripherals; see smash brothers and gamecube controllers capable of doing various frame perfect manoeuvres.
Achievement and trophy hunting types. Various games, usually ones aimed at younger children, get sold that are also easy to get maximum points in a fairly short order for fairly little effort. This has been noted as raising prices on occasion

2) The completionists
Could be for a franchise, could be for a genre, though those two could also fall into the one above. Could be for a console, could be for a region on a console (for those unfamiliar then various places, especially Japan, like to control where their products get sold, and not all games will work on unmodified systems of a different region. The big three for games being NTSC aka North America, NTSC-J aka Japan and PAL aka Europe and sometimes Australia/New Zealand though they also count as North America for some handhelds. China is rising up, as is South Korea, and sometimes have their own thing too, South America and maybe aspects of the middle east will probably be there are some point with Russia also having some things of its own). Regions also depend where you are; finding Japanese games in North America or Europe tending to be harder than in Japan, even if import shops exist. As a general rule PAL regions are looked down upon in older consoles as they tended to receive sub par ports (why recode a game when you can slow it down and put borders to cope with the increased resolution), though not all ports were bad, some games were made to natively support it, and there are some rare titles from it that change prices people pay for things.


Anyway factors I have observed in prices here
Rarity.
While supply and demand is the obvious category then rarity is a major factor here. Supply tends to be limited (only so many discs, tapes and cartridges made, and with them being disposable toys for kids then many of those did not survive, you get people generally interested in gaming history, those that played it round a friend and that friend wanting to rebuy a copy of a game long since sold and demand outstrips supply which is where prices go up).

Games that only made a few, were maybe given out as contest prizes, or that otherwise see few copies being the major theme here.

This can have some bizarre quirks as well. For instance one of the pack in double pack bundle games for the gamecube, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker / Metroid Prime, is one of the the more rare titles for the gamecube. I believe it was only bundled with a console as well. Individually the games on their own discs suffer from being fairly highly rated Nintendo games on a somewhat failed console (makes them rarer than might be desired by all the people with means to play them, and desirable to play as a general thing in and of itself) but are still less than this.
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/the-rarest-most-valuable-nintendo-gamecube-games
Regions also play a factor. See also the failure of xbox in Japan and the prices of some of their exclusives. Or indeed bump it up to the 360 where for some bizarre reason (guess it was similar to the arcade hardware) the 360, which was less of a failure in Japan than the original xbox but still by no means good there, got Japanese region locked exclusives of several shoot em ups (as in 2d fly around in a space ship/plane/whatever and shoot things) that nothing else got and prices of those.

Sticking with the gamecube then one of the rarest games of all is a basketball game. Basketball and the gamecube audience in the US did not have as much overlap as the PS2 might have so while PS2 and xbox versions are about what you would expect for sports games (which is to say you might buy them to replace the case on a game you like, and have the charity shop be delighted to get rid of it) then the GC versions are quite sought after by the collector types.

Genre. I hate the idea of genre as much as anybody but it suffices as a shorthand here. Also potentially tied to rarity as some are less popular than others at the time which means less in circulation and more staying power than those after the next shiny. Anybody that has tried to pick up copies of various older RPGs, and shmups, will likely tell you of how hard on their wallet it might be compared to their mates that like sports games and popular multiplayer shooting titles. It is not entirely the case; elsewhere I mention sports games as littering shelves of second hand shops, mass effect 1 and 2 seem to be just as popular whenever I go looking there, and not all versions of Halo are that hard to come by.
Can also be rarity on a system here; even the most rabid of fanboys will have to look into their heart of hearts and tell me that Xenoblade Chronicles would not set the world on fire, however as there were basically no other RPGs on the system, or at least the North American region we got the likes of project rainfall and later when a new run of them were made gamestop (which had something of an exclusive line in them) saw fit to buy their own stock and flog that on for high prices too. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...ade_chronicles_then_selling_as_used_for_usd90

Hidden gem status.
Most gaming press cares about the few big games from the few big publishers and not much else, granted if going by pure volume then most things published by those on the smaller side are not great so go where the going is good. Occasionally though it seems being left to do something you want to do that is fun, and constraining ambition (or having tech rise to meet it) means that this more independent of big publisher lark actually produces something nice. Too bad it is usually months/years before it is discovered, or that a particular aspect of play is discovered*. At which point you had a few chancers that bought it originally, friends and family, those with a finger on the pulse and not much else.
It gets even better if the gaming press actively dismisses something but it turns out they are wrong (happens quite a lot in everything; how many monster albums, films, TV shows or similar have been dismissed by the self styled press but it turns out they were wrong, or had ideas about how things should be that the public did not care for) leading to even fewer knowing of something after the truth comes out. If the game is a European dev and publisher and release, or maybe Japanese exclusive with only a European release, then chances of this rise dramatically.

*depending upon the person you are speaking to then the PS360 game "Blur" is at best a forgettable combat car game, others consider it one of the better contenders to the mario kart throne. Today though it has a thriving community using a very specific set of pickups/mods that turn the game into something quite different to what the devs presumably intended.

Not hidden gem but rare.
The kids games mentioned in the note about achievements above also tending to be this. Usually more of a concern for the completionist set, or maybe fans of the work it was based on (many such games are solid, if unremarkable, takes on the franchise in question).
Related to exclusive shops you also have the occasional religious game be made to sell to the once quite potent a commercial force of the American religious set. Sometimes some companies see the lack of games (making the next call of duty is hard, big fish in a small pond, or indeed only fish in a well stocked pond is quite nice though so many devs have attempted to carve a niche somewhere) and accordingly throw together something with a vague religious theme, sell it in the parallel market that is religious shops and go from there. On the gameboy then a simple viewer of the king james bible is one of the more rare games on the platform. Before tablets and phones got to be what they are as far as open code then handhelds were also often a means of doing things; the DS has a rather interesting Japanese dictionary that went for a lot at time of being new, though as a comparable electronic dictionary was several times that price...

Devs going on to do great things.
Dark Souls and games in the same mould are now fixtures of the modern gaming landscape. The weaker pedants might tell me that Demon's Souls was the first of those, however they would be wrong; prior to that the same devs made "King's Field". Guess what shot up and had stayed high despite being considered middling games at the time and arguably even now?
See also Michigan: Report from Hell. One of the earlier titles which SUDA51 (killer7, no more heroes, Shadows of the Damned and many other quite notable titles) had a hand in, only made it out of Japan to Europe. While not highly reviewed the association with later games sees various collectors seek it out.

Devs going on to do bugger all.
Seen the price of the Skate games on the 360 and PS3 lately? Ditto MX vs ATV. They were reasonably popular but seen as Tony Hawk went off the rails (hah) after about 4 or maybe the ones just after, and nothing has particularly stuck the landing since. Similarly modern MX vs ATV failed to capture the feeling for many of the older motocross madness and earlier MX vs ATV titles, and the efforts from various other motocross games have not quite scratched the itch. MX vs ATV is also a pretty good thing for local rarity -- places where there is not much motocross action in the UK seem to have far lower prices and far more copies available than places where it is more popular.

Multiplayer popularity.
Usually more for the first year or two for online, but various resurgences can be had and popularity sticks around if sequels are maybe not as hot. Offline stuff... go look at sega saturn bomberman.

Lawsuits that see a recall, and recalls in general...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recalled_video_games is a wikipedia link but a reasonable jumping off point.
Too Human for the xbox 360 is an interesting case study here. A lawsuit between them and Epic games (which made the engine it was using) ultimately saw all unsold copies recalled and destroyed. A few made it out there before that though so it is actually quite a rare game for something that was otherwise forgettable for most (though it does have some fans that consider it both unfairly dismissed, and have similarly strong opinions).
Time will also tell what becomes of the Fallout helmet that was recalled. Though I have noted that collector editions rarely are, and this goes even more so if it is a large bulky item that goes with it as opposed to a nice cd full of game music, some cards or other trinkets.
One of the most famous recalls was Stadium Events on the NES for which only a very few copies were ever sold before the recall and reissue, and accordingly among collectors of all stripes is quite sought after
https://www.lifewire.com/stadium-events-history-729683

End of console lifetime "inferior" version.
Short version. Compare the prices for Twilight Princess on the gamecube and the Wii, the Wii tending to be considered the superior version of the game but as everybody bought that to go on their shiny new Wii then gamecube versions (which were variously hard to get hold of anyway) are rather more pricey today.

Shop exclusive and bundled game.
From time to time a given shop sees rights given to them. Stadium events in one example, though if we are covering the N64 then Blockbuster saw exclusive rights to a reissue of Clayfighter 63 1/3 called ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut. Even by the standards of awkward 3d transition era fighting games most don't particularly rate this one. Prices though...
Games are also given out as contest wins, often in Japan; Nintendo's "Club Nintendo" having a few such efforts.
Pack in games and exclusives to them were also mentioned already. The Zelda disc that contained the N64 zelda games for the gamecube being another of note in this; the emulation was not brilliant (or actually it was quite impressive what they got running on a gamecube in that timeframe, though if you are a perfectionist or even dabbler in the high res and superior to original emulator world then less so) and newer things have been made since.

"Legal" ROMs and remakes.
Anybody can download a ROM, however they occasionally get bundled with emulators and sold legally in various manners. Likewise the games can get remakes of varying qualities for later systems. This can have an effect, but not as much as some might think or you might expect from something like the DVD to blu ray world where good transfers are made for the newer one; completionists, those seeking the "original" work and more keep the prices reasonably up there. Quality, ease of getting on the new console/PC, censorship issues (many times modern political correctness might see something dropped that was OK back when, or OK in Japan, though can come the other way and be allowed where more prudish sensibilities governed the day back when), lack of content (if trademarked songs or art is used it can have an effect).
Remakes can themselves become rare too; Skies of Arcadia was a reasonably well liked Dreamcast RPG, the gamecube port sold less than might have been expected and today is quite expensive.

Unofficial games and non commercial games.
Today unofficial games on newer devices are rare; protections are too good though we did see some on the DS (see Diamond Trust of London). Back when though it was a different matter with the likes of the Tengen games on the NES not having Nintendo's blessing. What goes here for various people varies.
Non commercial. See the likes of the McDonalds training game https://gbatemp.net/threads/w-i-p-m...ation-alpha-patch-0-5-easy-menu.577809/page-2

Peripherals. See the saga of Steel Battalion on the original xbox, with the added bonus of speculators coming in for the second batch only to get disappointed in the short term (today though second batch is worth a lot). For those unfamiliar it was a mech game which came with a whole massive control setup.
Custom controllers that are basically normal ones with a dye job is a thing some go in for, though that will be left for now. Something like the Resident Evil 4 chainsaw for the gamecube...
At the same time your PS2 guitar hero controller is likely not worth that much.

Ebay effect. When even a grandma knows to check things on ebay this does yield a bit of a price bump if people think it is the "price it should be going for", or a least make bargains far rarer. That said bored mothers, spurned lovers and people wanting to get rid of those silly games do often do very nice deals if you are willing to take the whole lot from them (go round there, take the console, few junk games and all the good stuff, you can flip the junk and console and keep the game possibly even making a profit in money if nothing else). Trade in shops, be they national chain or local, will also be able to send things to places where demand is higher or just sell them online as well.

Console/computer it is for. If your console was not made by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft or Neo Geo you are probably going to be still in reasonably sane prices where older stuff and less popular consoles are mostly still in "takeout or a game on the list" price ranges despite being just as foundational to gaming today (though it seems some intellivision stuff is getting up there). Neo Geo is the major exception on that list above, however as it was mostly the easy way of getting basically arcade versions of games in your home without the need to have arcade cabinet space to store them then it makes some sense. Additionally then truly niche devices for each of those tends not to rank as high as the ones that enjoy more mindshare (prices for sega sg-1000 are nowhere near what megadrive stuff goes for). Note the term mindshare rather than popularity; a comparative failure (most Nintendo home consoles post 16 bit) tends to mean rarity. You also can see a slight inversion for some things; among the rarer titles for the xbox 360, a console generally sold and marketed to the more "hardcore" set, are games aimed at kids that nobody would bat an eyelid for on the otherwise contemporary Wii.
PC can be interesting here, especially as second hand sales have slowed dramatically with the rise of downloadable games compared to physical media. Older games that might not have had the best port today will probably be the more desirable ones owing to mods being made to improve things and tending to be PC exclusive, or at least very hard to port to consoles.

State of repairs.
Noted mostly in pokemon and consoles themselves, maybe some peripherals.
Anyway the pokemon thing is some of the older games use batteries to keep a clock or save data. Batteries have a limited lifetime so actually a restoration of them to working order, or replacement of ageing parts in the case of consoles, can actually mean a price bump similar to art and antique furniture restoration. Outside of maybe some of the competition legal controller stuff, which is a different matter, I have never heard of anything like you get in some tool restoration circles where people like the patina (think rust and other metal oxides) and removing it hurts the value for them, ignoring those doing it badly of course.

Nature of mods done for region free, video out and more can also be a factor here. Mods to consoles to allow region free/swapping, video out via superior methods (assuming you have a console revision that can handle it -- older 360s don't have HDMI, older NTSC gamecubes can use component video, later genesis/megadrive were seen to use some cheaper chips that impacted audio-video quality, SNES a similar story...) also play into this.

3) The high end collectors.
Presumably what that Mario 64 ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-seale...-record-breaking-1-56-million-dollars.591219/ ) and NES Mario with the rare box type ( https://www.watagames.com/learn/blog/post/nes-black-box-variant-guide/ , variant being a term more commonly associated with cards and comics) fall into, though there are also examples from more general completionists and things trickle down from this world into the others; bunch of my 360 purchases have faded labels (guy sells them out of crates at a car boot, hours of sunlight multiple days a week for some years now) but I don't really care about that, even if given a choice I would probably pick the one with the better one. This goes back a long way as well; back when the megadrive was still current the lack of a manual or case would see trade in and resulting sale price be different.

People doing it for the sake of art to display/collection to show off, people doing it as an investment, people doing it as some kind of money laundering or transport (customs generally won't care about a game and it is easy to have one of those vs some high priced art) all being players here, though actually playing is probably the last thing you would probably do here (try opening a cardboard box without creasing it)

I have not seen the full grading categories employed the people responsible for the recent Mario 64, and most of what I did see was usually an effort to smash another medium's methods (which themselves can be dubious) into games with a general line of the sorts of things seen in antiques as well.
As with most things there is condition, and rarity as well (which can include rarity of something at that condition). However that need not be the whole story; you could have a factory fresh copy that was handled with white gloves and put into nitrogen filled vault of perfect temperature the moment after it was made, however if the label machine was off that day, and the box stamping machine needed a blade being sharpened then one made the day after where the toner was refilled and the blade sharpened might be worth more to some. This sort of thing is seen more in comics and cards, though certain imperfections (lack of stamp, wrong colour border compared to most, which also brings in coin collecting where factory imperfections are often treasured) can be more valuable to some.
I don't get this at all. Put said Mario 64 in a museum next to a fairly tidy but dog eared copy (presumably with a video or playable version on a screen next to it) and no difference to me, put two next to each other that I have to use a magnifying glass to distinguish and I struggle to see what others would care in the differences. However "the world according to my thoughts" is not how the world works for anybody; what "should" be and what is are not necessarily the same and generally we try to describe the world as it is and reasons for it being that way.
Similarly early run vs late run for literally the same code by maybe on a different PCB means nothing to me either, but does for some.
Sometimes a story goes with a piece; someone famous owned it, was used on a popular film/tv show, obviously prototypes here (though prototype games tend to be worth less than that, and are another factor in the warez bump -- many a previously unknown game might be dismissed by those quite prepared to pay if the ROM is available otherwise, and many of those collectors can quite jealously guard their stuff even without the concerns about copyright) but I have yet to properly see this for games outside of those times it collides with film props. The word of choice in general antiques is "provenance" if you want something to search for. Presumably only a matter of time though, and arguably the wii intended as a gift for the queen was an attempt to tap into this. Various one off customised pieces from fashion designers do also happen (usually they glue a bunch of rhinestones onto them, maybe some actually valuable gems at times) but prices here vary somewhat and are more likely to be for fans of the fashion designer. Naturally signed by the author/creator, especially if they themselves are known, is a boost for some.

Artificial scarcity is also a thing enjoyed, whether deliberate or self interested (find a stack in the attic and you can flood the market quite easily, dribble them out and different matter. See diamonds for a better real world example of this; diamonds as these things go are actually quite common rocks but only found in a few places, a restriction of how many make it to the market keep prices high).

Much like more general art world there are taste makers, though some prefer the term influencers. A game being highlighted by one of the various websites, video channels or similar that deals in old games ( https://www.youtube.com/user/SsethTzeentach , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1JTQBa5QxZCpXrFSkMxmPw , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21uZkfXpT8rPY-gPgMiCwA , https://www.youtube.com/user/MandaloreGaming , https://www.youtube.com/user/chilledsanity , https://www.youtube.com/user/Gggmanlives , https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSaltFactory , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiP_FwGyJQ_6P8k5ON5mncQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6LaAC9VckZYJUzutUW3PQ if you want a suggestion or three from my list) could spur things in any of the levels above, though likely the high end market will develop its own circles in time.

I would normally contemplate some kind of numbers as depicted by time here, however most things like ebay and amazon historical prices (neither of which are particularly useful in determining price as most things there are "have a go" or "to help pay for the hassle of dealing with amazon/ebay" prices) tend to be paid information and I am not yet that invested in this. There are a million "most expensive games" articles dashed out.
You can do interesting things with data though
https://towardsdatascience.com/predicting-hit-video-games-with-ml-1341bd9b86b0
Note the existence of the Nintendo bump in that, most would tell you something similar exists in this second hand games and pricing thereof as well.
Personally I would note the general trend of "nobody cares" which can come around to "actually there is something to this after all" and finally "it is retro now". This means outside of those few hidden gems realised at the time (see something like godzilla for the PS4 ) the years after the console has ended until about 10 years after is the golden age of things still being cheap and available, after that it gets far harder (360 collecting right now is getting up there for me, and what partially motivated this).


Anyway have I missed any factors, do you have any personal anecdotes or observations from your own field (I mentioned a few genres above that are almost fields unto themselves and that I have minimal knowledge of the specifics for) or did I get something wrong above?
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
OP
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,282
Country
United Kingdom
I didn't quite read it all, but is there FPS games in this?
I don't really have much of a model for them. I will happily play them but they are usually disposable fun more than anything else for me and thus I don't track them the most.

During the 360 DVD modding days various Call of Duty games were seen to gain extra security over baseline such that it would have been easier for them to be bought for many. Their second hand prices however remained fairly high until the games themselves declined. Today I see them for next to nothing, almost up there with sports games for shelf fodder in charity shops and game shops, though the series itself has also waned somewhat. How much of that was general demand and how much was DVD modders I do not know.
Rainbow Six Vegas and its sequel also saw something of a similar trajectory but its multiplayer died off somewhat quicker than the others (was very much an early title in this).

Back on the original xbox then the various Halo games were seen as baseline must haves for the system so tended to stay high, there was modding too but I arrived somewhat late to that one.

I have never found myself chasing a particularly rare FPS title, or gone after one following some kind of resurgence (there was a bit of one for the now ancient Delta Force titles at one point, however I had them because they ended up on the cheap spinning shelves of DVDs and had known of them enough to pick them up when that opportunity presented itself). I suppose Halo 3 ODST saw people pick it up as something worth playing (it is something I found quite enjoyable) some years after it had a fairly middling success originally but was popular enough, still a Halo title before that got ran into the ground, that I found some bored parents at a car boot sale once.
I don't know that there are particularly rare ones either, or at least not ones I care to give a second look; I could look up what goes for Conflict Denied Ops but I don't want to think about that (if I don't want to play a local co-op game then... yeah). Despite efforts from fans and a bit of a resurgence of "it was actually surprisingly good and overlooked at the time" (debatable from where I sit, but I can see it being snubbed at the time) then Singularity for the 360 is still reasonably available. If you are doing the completionist thing, be it for consoles, regions or genres then the also rans will probably be some of the harder to source in years to come (think Binary Domain, Fracture, Inversion, The Outfit, Dead to Rights Retribution) but right now are still somewhat available. On the other hand maybe you are putting together a bad games collection and find it hard to source Darkest of Days or Rogue Warrior.

For more story stuff then I have found Far Cry games post 2 to stay pretty high until the next one comes out, and the general lack of games on the PS4 meant 5 stayed up there for a while. Today they are maybe not as worthless as sports games but you could find the disc copies of 2 through 4 quite happily, and probably instincts as well but let's not go there.
Borderlands games that people liked have had a bit of a wild ride, but also have the handsome jack collection. Doubt anybody is particularly clamouring for the pre sequel though. 3 also seems to be not a lot at this point, indeed might be able to get it on PS4 for less than the handsome jack collection which says most of what I need to know there.
I would also branch it a bit to third person here (granted I mentioned a few already more offhand); something like Max Payne 3, various Sniper Elite games, Spec Ops The Line and such hold themselves just above sports game (not expensive but not "thank you for freeing up shelf space" prices either. On the other hand Gears of War and its various sequels I tended to find be up there on the shelf fodder rankings. Fallout tending to also be in those for consoles at least, but Fallout these days is a PC affair because "no mods, no point" in the eyes of many. Never had a hard time finding PC copies of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. either.

For N64 stuff I am still surprised quite a few people favour Goldeneye over Perfect Dark, though I generally ignore N64 stuff for day to day prices (still have my stuff from back when -- following the failure of the N64 stuff was worth nothing to trade so I left mine in a box for years, then found apparently it is worth quite something to many, so I have a bunch of N64 games on the shelf now) and anyway the XBLA/Microsoft versions of Perfect Dark are where it is at, even if the C button quick sidestep method is harder with modern twin sticks. That said I played the somewhat bugfixed PAL version back when so maybe my opinions of it are higher.
Some of the various James Bond games, despite nothing particularly getting up there with goldeneye, also seem to want something.

A token search says there are a few digital only versions of things that got a very limited physical run and accordingly command a bit of a price, though could probably find a PC version for next to nothing. STRAFE on the PS4 for instance, downloadable version can be had for a token sum however.

In all cases Japanese versions are probably going to be hideously expensive to source if you are going for those complete sets, even more so for the 360; between that motion sickness thing and the xbox line not being big in Japan then numbers are likely not that high, even if there was a bit of a dedicated base for them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AncientBoi

FAST6191

Techromancer
OP
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,282
Country
United Kingdom
I thought I had a fair handle on such things but no.
So I leave my peaceful little village, load up Mr Rifle, saddle up the pony, put head on a swivel and make my way into the big town to do a job.
Being a town though there was a CeX (second hand games/electronics shop) and it was apparently open that day which was nice.
No 360 games really worth speaking of but did have some gamecube stuff on display I glanced at while walking out.

£110 for Skies of Arcadia for the GC, pretty clean copy at that. Now arguably best version of a seminal RPG (the original was Dreamcast, fairly popular there but fairly popular for the Dreamcast is not a thing to hang your hat on, and first of what would probably be the move away from Final Fantasy clone and into something more modern. GC was the only port/remake it got) that is rare and did not sell much, especially not in PAL regions. Going to be high and I doubt anybody is too surprised there. I would have loved to add it to my GC collection but I think I will wait to be first at a clueless mother's clearout of an attic for that one.

Next to it however was Harry Potter for the gamecube. £65 they wanted for it. Now CeX have some strange ideas about such things at the best of times (sometimes in my favour as well) but that was... yeah. I was around at the time and nobody cared then -- lord of the rings I could see (though I also see them often enough in PS2 game stacks next to the sports games) as there are various good games there (the action rpgs for the PS2 were pretty good co-op games, the Final Fantasy 10 reskin was FF10 engine so good enough, various other things on other platforms doing well too even if there is some junk out there) but nobody ever made a case for Harry Potter games as being more than basic and unremarkable cash in titles (which for the time period is actually good; most cash in titles for films for children were barely playable). I have also yet to see anybody claim it was some kind of hidden gem or overlooked title either. Never had anybody say it was their/a childhood game of note. A few have noted it for its magic system in game design circles but that rarely knocks the prices up that high (outside of things with a nice level designer that game designers in turn use to prototype ideas I don't think I have ever seen that). Think it has a bit of a following in glitch and speedrun land but still nothing drastic. While I try to keep my fingers away from Harry Potter fans ("do not put your fingers where you would not put your penis" and all that) I still end up with a pulse there and nobody seems to be considering it an unsung classic in those circles either; "It is not a great game but this level is just like being there/is like exploring the world" being a thing I have seen in a few fandoms before now. I can understand a £20 because it is gamecube and we have all decided the gamecube was an unsung classic tax but that does not account for much.

Edit some months later. Saw

the other day. Watched it more as an anthropological study but it never the less was a wonderful overview of Harry Potter games for the curious.
 
Last edited by FAST6191,
  • Like
Reactions: AncientBoi

duwen

Old Man Toad
Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2013
Messages
3,176
Trophies
2
Location
Bullet Hell
Website
www.exophase.com
XP
4,248
Country
United Kingdom
I use the CeX website for quick UK based price checking, but sometimes their prices are off if it's an 'out of stock' item. There's also quite a few titles they refuse to take or have never had in.
It's also handy to see which nearby stores have stock in.
For a UK collector, used in tandem with ebay and the various ebay tools, it's an invaluable guide to guaging prices.

If you do purchase from their website they add £2 per item for postage (it used to be a flat charge a few years back which made it a great way to buy a bunch of stuff at once).
 

Flame

Me > You
Global Moderator
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
7,201
Trophies
3
XP
18,339
I use the CeX website for quick UK based price checking, but sometimes their prices are off if it's an 'out of stock' item. There's also quite a few titles they refuse to take or have never had in.
It's also handy to see which nearby stores have stock in.
For a UK collector, used in tandem with ebay and the various ebay tools, it's an invaluable guide to guaging prices.

If you do purchase from their website they add £2 per item for postage (it used to be a flat charge a few years back which made it a great way to buy a bunch of stuff at once).

i do the same by checking CEX for prices to get an idea. i brought a switch lite recently from ebay which was perfect for £100 same thing on cex would have been £150
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: Sorry for accidentally bending over