Maybe let's not spend thousands of dollars for outdated gaming systems?
Do you complain about price or systems? Recent subscription gaming SaaSS have negative value even.
Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
11–20 of 24 posts
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean why spend money on anything not directly related to food, shelter, and health? Why spend extra to have aesthetically pleasing shelter rather than concrete blocks? People buy what they want to buy. You criticize this and I’ll criticize that.
Spending money on stuff that's valuable in itself is positive-sum. Spending money on stuff whose value is scarcity is zero-sum at best.
And what of spending money on stuff just because you enjoy collecting? From my limited knowledge, it seems like most buyers are motivated by that to at least some extent.
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#13I got bitten by a fake SNES Classic off of ebay a few years back. I was super excited to play Super Mario RPG on the real thing, only to find out that it was running with all sorts of glitches due to how the clone device had been designed, to the point where it was unusable. I suppose it's a pretty good scam since the thing goes for $200+ these days and I'm guessing it's some kind of a low powered android device on t…
I think the best option is to use a Mister FPGA. The SNES core works flawlessly.
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spending money on stuff that's valuable in itself is positive-sum. Spending money on stuff whose value is scarcity is zero-sum at best.
And what of spending money on stuff just because you enjoy collecting? From my limited knowledge, it seems like most buyers are motivated by that to at least some extent.
The issue with trying to pump prices is that it creates a speculative market that drives most buyers out of the market. We see a similar situation in the PS5 space where demand still outstrips supply and scalpers are wildly profitable.
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#15Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spending money on stuff that's valuable in itself is positive-sum. Spending money on stuff whose value is scarcity is zero-sum at best.
And what of spending money on stuff just because you enjoy collecting? From my limited knowledge, it seems like most buyers are motivated by that to at least some extent.
If it's something you enjoy collecting on its merit, go ahead. If it's something you enjoy collecting because it's rare, that speaks to a subtly unhealthy motivation of wanting to have something that other people don't have. Put it this way: if other people doing well in your hobby makes you sad rather than happy, it's not a good hobby.
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#17Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd spend $2k on an outdated painting from Rembrandt if someone offered me one at that price, but that's just me.
I am sure Rembrandt didn't print them at a factory by thousands.
Rembrandt, like most of the "old masters" in art, ran a studio that employed many painters. He put his name on a lot of things he didn't paint entirely by himself. It's not quite the same as printing, but the idea that he was essentially running a factory isn't entirely wrong.
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#19“it’s hard to justify any real value for a US copy of Super Mario Bros, no matter how old or sealed it is, as it’s just a newer copy of the same game.” This point is lingered on for a while and I don’t get it. Nothing about pricing collectibles is a rational assessment of utility: value is essentially a function of rarity, desirability, and condition. Obviously, in this case, the US versions score higher on “desirabi…
Agreed, the post would be much better if it stuck to the facts (and had a few more pictures!), as opposed to the chest-thumping rants about how the author is superior to "dumb Americans" for paying a mere $1,200 for copy of Zelda they're never going to play, instead of $800,000.
Re: Retro Scams: Authenticating Early Nintendo Systems and Games
#20“it’s hard to justify any real value for a US copy of Super Mario Bros, no matter how old or sealed it is, as it’s just a newer copy of the same game.” This point is lingered on for a while and I don’t get it. Nothing about pricing collectibles is a rational assessment of utility: value is essentially a function of rarity, desirability, and condition. Obviously, in this case, the US versions score higher on “desirabi…
I absolutely agree with the statement above, but there is context that I think is worth discussing (maybe in part because I can't internalise it properly :P)
I think for older collectors, it was due in large part to a very weird shift in recent years, epitomised by THAT copy of Super Mario Bros selling for so much.
Traditionally, high priced games were what you described, a combination of rare, desired (maybe not so much for play reasons) and condition. Examples of this were Stadium Events, NES Championships and to a much lesser degree Uforia (which was released only in certain PAL markets)
But the SMB copy was weird. It went to outlandish lengths to justify its "rarity". Sticker sealed with hanging tab not punched out. But other than those relatively minor factors (Opinion, I know), it was entirely unspectacular. Worse still it was an example of a highly published and distributed game, it is somewhat easy to obtain a decent condition boxed copy of SMB for a good (Sub $100) price and (at a guess) to get GREAT condition, it probably wouldn't have gone for much more than $200, just due to the commonality of it.
Game collectors struggled with this paradigmatic shift moment and how to internalise it, most of us (myself included) were somewhat worried it was the sign of non-collector money coming to drive up the prices massively. This happened recently with Pokemon cards to such an extent that Target in the U.S stopped stocking them because man-babies were fighting over it.
I can understand where the author is coming from in the piece. When taken in to account everything, it is functionally wrong, but if you scope it down to people who collect for collecting sake, then it holds true but its a denial of existence to a second segment of people that now exist in game collecting (For better or worse depending on what side of the sale you're on). But it is also fantastically reductionist even for a collector to make that statement. Age isn't the single factor that makes a game's desirability go up. As you've correctly pointed out, Rarity, conditional and personal desirability. (I recently really REALLY wanted a copy of Faxanadu, nothing special, but I paid more than most probably would of because of that).
But its really hard to properly contextualize what happened since the moment that copy of SMB sold for so much. It's not really well understood or even finished having its impact on collecting.