What Has Happened To The Used Game Market??

[Cambot]

From 2002(ish) - 2008, I used to be a pretty active collector of old 90s games (SNES, NES, Genesis.. through PSone and Dreamcast), doing almost all of my purchasing "in the wild." Thrifts, pawn shops, flea markets, garage sales, a little Craigslist, Half Price Books, etc. Then in 2009, my wife and I moved to Canada for work. The used game market was very niche in our city, so I really slowed down up there. We were there for about three years and moved back to the US in 2012. During that time, we have had two beautiful baby girls.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I have had a very limited amount of time to collect and play old games. What little time I had was spent playing newer games (and my old ones), listening to music (I also formed a little vinyl collecting hobby).

Recently the old game collecting bug has been biting me again and I have begun venturing out locally to my old favorite hot spots to dive into bins only to find the market has almost completely dried up around here. For months of weekly searching, I have only found a loose copy of "Fester's Quest" and an empty case for "Contra: Legacy of War."

There's now a used game store locally, but they sell loose copies of Mario All-Stars for $59. What the hell has happened out there? Any other old-timers experiencing the same thing??

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Most of the old sources have dried up for me. The video games market has become more mature, and it's harder to find anything of value now that people know it has value. With that being said, there are still a lot of deals to be had, but it's harder to stumble across things these days.

[slackur]

I've been actively searching for retro games 'in the wild' for over two decades, and I have to say, things have really changed in the last couple of years.  Many additions to the market such as Craig's list and Amazon means sellers think they can get 'eBay' prices for their games, and as Shadow said, the overall collector market has matured and now even games that were once common can be hard to find and much more expensive.

Its been a sellers market now for awhile, and I hope the pendulum swings the other way, but I think a lot of the 'craziness' and unavailability is here to stay for awhile, if not permanently.

However, all is not lost!  Now the best way to get great deals is to become part of a collector community (*cough* *cough* *looks around RFG) and finding retro game conventions in your area.  Those are where I've found the best scores for many years now.

[Tynstar]

While harder to find in the wild I have noticed the price of pre-NES stuff has dropped.

[Duke.Togo]

It's gotten tougher in the last few years to be sure around here. Lately I have been doing deals mostly with people I know, or the occasional deal at the local retro store. Now would be a difficult time to try and build an NES or SNES collection, but I'm still able to find decent PlayStation and after deals from time to time.

[Crabmaster2000]

Ya got old is what happened!

[Cambot]

Like a fine wine! A wine that can't find old video games.

[Sauza12]

It's really a matter of what is considered "old and worthless".  I started collecting in the late 90's and back then NES, Genesis and the like were all pretty common to find because they weren't considered to be worth anything.  That was back when I wouldn't buy an NES game unless it had the box because otherwise I didn't have enough money to buy everything.  Now there are an exponential amount of collectors looking for and holding onto that stuff and the market has moved over to what is now considered "old and worthless", mainly PS2 and Xbox. 

It's the biggest reason why I've been concentrating so hard on collecting for those systems.  In 10 years, while I doubt they will be as dry as the neo-classic games are right now, I have a feeling we'll be saying the same things about games for those systems.  My heart is still with the 8 and 16 bit systems, but in a few years I'm sure I'll be as glad that I picked up all of these PS2 era games like I am the Genesis, NES SNES, etc. games I did back then.

While harder to find in the wild I have noticed the price of pre-NES stuff has dropped.

I've noticed that too, being a huge 2600 fan.  The classic game bubble has burst and died.

[shaggy]

What everyone else is saying.  Everything dried up, including Goodwill.  I believe they are auctioning off most of their games.

[Fokakis79]

Most of the only stuff I find anymore are PS2 and newer at Goodwill. Here and there I find Gameboy stuff. I almost never see NES, SNES, Sega Gen at all. And when it is in the thrifts it is not cheap. 

I mostly grab stuff on here if I am looking for 8bit & 16bit.

[leej07]

It's E-Bay. They have caused most everything to dry up.

[MetalFRO]

I live in an area that, up until recently, still hasn't quite hit the market for used video games.  There are now 2 shops that sell retro games, with another coming next month.  Those shops have some stuff priced way too high, but most shops these days do that for games that will always sell, no matter the price.  If they can milk a copy of Wind Waker for $60, or Super Mario Sunshine for $45, they will (and do).  Despite that, there's a pawn shop I buy PS2, Xbox, and GC games at for pennies on the dollar, and the Goodwill stores in my area still get decent PS2, Xbox, and PSX games from time to time.  When that dries up, I'll have to resign myself to paying $8 and $10 for PS2 and Xbox games again, and $15 for GC games.  Anything pre-6th gen usually gets priced according to the market, and that stuff, other than sports games, rarely hits the pawn shops or Goodwill.  I got lucky a couple months ago and scored 3 SNES shmups at the pawn shop, but that's probably the first time they'd had anything SNES other than sports titles.

[MaterialHandlerMike]

Same thing that happened to the sports card market, circa 1992-93?

[Sauza12]

Same thing that happened to the sports card market, circa 1992-93?

That seems like it was more the speculator bubble that went nuts like it did with everything from comic books to beanie babies.  Everything that was released was super rare ZOMG!!! instant collectible.  The market was flooded and interest hit rock bottom at an unbelievable speed. With sports cards in particular there went from a handful of companies making them prior to 1989 to dozens just a few years later.  I doubt we are going to see the video game bubble burst like it did for those other things in the 90's since it's a different type of market, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a major interest shift like there was from Atari over to Nintendo.

[A8scooter]

How much of this also has to do with people buying to just flip  games and have no interest in gaming.  Those who would hussle.people out of games cheap to flip at full retail and then some. To the point of being greedy and out for blood.  I'm waiting for the bubble to pop and I'll be a happy gamer. Like baseball cards  pre nes games and pigs  prices will adjust at some point. And I'm not a reseller so I'm good with that