It's Time To Be Honest About Retro Game Prices

[00:00:00]I don't know about you, but I have significantly slowed down the number of games that I buy, especially brand new games, in the past several years. If it isn't big Steam sales or just something that happens to be $5, then I really am not pulling the trigger all that often.

[00:00:13]When I was a kid back in 2008, I remember discovering that there were consoles that were older than myself that I had never played before. Browsing various internet websites and found sections for things like the Super Nintendo games, which I had never heard of before. I only loosely knew of this console because of the remakes, of course, on Mario Kart Wii, but I had never pieced it all together that this was a whole console with entire games that I had never even heard of. So, after discovering that online, I then for my birthday, instead of asking for the console itself, I mean, this was kind of challenging now cuz you had to go get it online. It wasn't something you could just [music] get on at GameStop or whatever. I asked just for like gift cards or money to buy the consoles on the internet and then start getting into retro games. I remember very clearly buying the Super Nintendo along with a copy of Super Mario Kart.

[00:00:58]And I also snagged a sealed copy of the Player's Choice F-Zero. If you've been in the game collecting hobby for a long time, you know that a sealed Player's Choice F-Zeros used to go for pennies on the dollar. There were so many of them.

[00:01:10]And then later, I snagged a copy of Kirby Superstar for the Super Nintendo and that kind of trilogy of games right there was my intro to retro gaming. In time, my curiosity continued and I started delving more and more into the retro scene. That's when I discovered YouTubers like the AVGN and then got really into like NES games and everything. Eventually, I was able to buy an NES and then got a small library of games going for that as well. The thing about it all is that it was all so cheap back in the day, right? Even as a kid, just with like birthday money or gift cards or whatever, you could buy so many more games for the NES and SNES than you could for something like the Wii or GameCube. Sure, there were there were some retro stores in my area, nothing too crazy. Um we did have a couple chains of the Play N Trade stores, if anybody remembers that ever.

[00:01:54]Decent selections, decent prices. It wasn't anything amazing, but just being able to be there and buy any NES games in person from a store was incredible as a kid. New games were expensive. There was no way I could afford multiple new games at a time, even with birthday or Christmas money. It just wasn't happening. But let's say my grandmom gave me $50 for my birthday, I could then go into the store and get something like Snake Rattle 'n' Roll, Rad Racer, Mario 3, Marble Madness, Jackal, Mega Man 3, all together and still have money left over. It was just so awesome being able to go in and get so many cheap new games, new to me at least. Sure there were some games that were still pretty expensive. I mean the Super Nintendo stuff was always more than the NES, but by that I'm saying that Chrono Trigger was like a $40 game, right? Not the $300 that the cartridge fetches now. I could still afford Super Nintendo games. It just took a little bit more of my resources to buy them. So eventually I built up a lot of NES games because they were so dirt cheap. [music] Today though, things are far from this. The hobby's basically unrecognizable anymore. If you're one of the five people that actually watched my Persona 4 video, you know that I'm actually a pretty big fan of the Shin Megami Tensei games. I've always thought it would be cool to get a whole bunch of SMT games and have them on a shelf and just kind of dedicate a little area to this as it is my preferred RPG, even over things like Pokémon and Final Fantasy. Even if I could only get Japanese copies of the first couple PS1 games, I think it would still be cool. Japanese PS1 games are very distinct and unique. They have different box arts. The games look entirely different than their American counterparts. So here's the thing though, Japanese copies of the first couple Persona games or of any Persona game really, Japanese copies of these games are not very accessible to Americans who don't speak Japanese, right? Or anyone who doesn't speak Japanese. So with that, how much do you think that a game that is basically unplayable because it is in a language that we do not understand and it is on a console that is region locked, how much do you think that these games would go for given that they are literally just shelf pieces to 99% of Americans.

[00:03:55]Yeah, the prices are still ridiculous on these. You're paying $100 for three games that you can't read. That is insanity. In this day and age, you got to ask yourself, would you like to buy unreadable JRPGs or would you like to buy a tank of gas? Because it's basically about the same cost. Those are sevens, not threes. Don't forget though, these games do have American counterparts that you can read and play.

[00:04:15]How much do you think those cost?

[00:04:18]And have you tried to use eBay since AI became a thing? Everybody just uses these horrendous AI descriptions now and you have no idea what you're actually getting. I remember one time I decided to screw with it for a long time and just see how bad I could make the description. And one time I did actually get it to say that Ninja Gaiden 3, The Ancient Ship of Doom, was a part of the Doom series. It's unreal.

[00:04:42]People put no effort into this stuff anymore and eBay has just gone downhill so far.

[00:04:48]Even recently, before I even started writing this video, I decided I had I had an eBay gift card, right? And so I decided to buy two Wii U games with it.

[00:04:56]Very run-of-the-mill, whatever. The games still have not been delivered to my house.

[00:05:02]They technically show as delivered on eBay. However, they were put in either another apartment's mailbox, just in entirely different properties.

[00:05:11]And so I do not have the games that say that they have been delivered for over a week. I have tried to contact the postal service about this and they just go, "Oh, this has already been delivered. Uh your request has been closed." It is impossible and eBay is just such a hassle and ordering online just sucks and I'm just so tired of it. I haven't used eBay in This was my first eBay purchase in about 6 [music] months and I instantly regretted doing anything regarding eBay, even having a gift card and not paying any money for the games.

[00:05:41]It's still such a hassle. So anyways, that's a little bit of a side note for you there. [music] But back to game collecting. The whole thing's a bit of a double-edged sword, right?

[00:05:51]Given that the prices got more expensive, it does mean that more people got into the hobby. There are way more people into retro gaming and just retro gaming just became so much more of a mainstream thing from when I was a kid.

[00:06:03]When I was younger, you could never like go into a Target and get a shirt that says classically trained with like an NES controller. Like that wasn't a thing, right? [music] Nowadays, that kind of stuff's everywhere and it's just because it's become so much more popular. In a way, that's great because it means there's more and more people in the hobby and I have met a ton of people throughout the rest of my life who really enjoy retro gaming and have made some great friendships from that.

[00:06:25]There's conventions and everything as well that I've attended. I'm sure that you all have too. You get what I'm saying. The hobby is nice to have a lot of people involved. However, it makes it extremely competitive then and it makes prices go up. They're also obviously not reprinting retro games anymore. So, the more people that hold on to them and aren't reselling them, those games aren't in circulation anymore and they're just higher and higher valued.

[00:06:47]So, it makes sense that prices go up.

[00:06:49]However, when do we put our feet down and say this is just blatant greed?

[00:06:54]Eventually, it just gets to price gouging, okay? I understand like if Chrono Trigger went from like a $40 to an $80 game or something, right? That's literally doubling it in price. However, that game is over $300 now for the original cartridge and that is a game that you can easily play other ways.

[00:07:10]It's on Steam. It's on the DS. You can just emulate it. Like, why is the original Chrono Trigger $300? Do not tell me that is just from the hobby being competitive alone. It is price gouging. It's insane. And Chrono Trigger is far from the worst example. It's just the one that I'm using cuz I really like that game.

[00:07:31]Take something like Flintstones Surprise at Dinosaur Peak. Yeah, this is one of the rarest NES games. I understand it was Blockbuster only.

[00:07:39]It was a late release NES game, so nobody cared about it. And then, you know, eventually it got out into circulation, but there are not a lot of copies of it. However, you're talking over $1,500 for a damn game. This is like as much as rent for an apartment.

[00:07:54]>> [music] >> It's crazy. In this day and age, so many people have so little to spend disposable income, too. You really have to wonder, who's buying this stuff?

[00:08:01]Like, who is this hobby even for anymore? If we're in an era where people deem groceries as a luxury, then I mean, just [music] you're so far off from affording something like Chrono Trigger or Flintstones: Dino Peak or anything that's any bit expensive. You know, even some cheap games, it just feels like a lot these days. With that, there are reproductions and everything that people do, but even those are kind of expensive. I mean, you're charging 30 bucks for a fake copy of Chrono Trigger.

[00:08:28]Like, this is not a real game.

[00:08:30]>> [music] >> This is just I understand that there are resources and effort that go into making a cartridge, but this is not real. This literally has no actual value other than it being plastic and a chip. Like, and and people still want $30 for this.

[00:08:47]I just I understand that the repro scene, like, as long as you don't, obviously, market it as the real thing, it's a decent way for you to be able to play the games on original hardware. Like, yeah, sure, you can get a Super Nintendo for not that much money, but, you know, you don't want to be throwing down 500 bucks or whatever for some game that you want to play.

[00:09:08]But still, is it really worth even paying the $30 for the repro? Like, who cares anymore?

[00:09:14]And I feel like it's not a true solution to fixing the cost of what the originals are. Like, are we just going to get to a point where Rad Racer costs $100 eventually?

[00:09:24]And look, I will admit, yes, I had a large collection of games. So, obviously, I mentioned that I built up a good collection of games when I was a kid.

[00:09:32]And then, when I moved across the country, I did sell off all those games.

[00:09:35]And I benefited greatly from the prices of them going up. However, I tried to do it where I kept them as auctions and not buy it nows, so I was letting everyone bid against themselves for the price.

[00:09:45]So, the people were determining the price instead of myself. And yes, I understand I benefited from it, but I also held on to my games for like 10 to 15 years before selling them off, and it just so happened to be that way. Yes, I benefited from it, but then when I tried to get back into the hobby on the buying side of things, then it was not very fun. I tried to build my collection back up like really large again, and it just felt very soulless. It didn't have a lot of charm to it. My original collection were games that I sought after when I was like 12 years old and was just fascinated in things like Double Dragon and Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania, but in the modern times I was just kind of buying lots of games and just acquiring stuff that I didn't even really care all that much about. Sure, I got some good games. I do have a copy of Snow Bros in there, but it still never felt the same.

[00:10:33]So, I paired I sold off a lot of my collection again after doing all that.

[00:10:38]And now I have a nice kind of humble collection of games that are pretty much all meaningful to me. It's nowhere near as big as what it used to be, and I don't really care. It's just a lot of games for a lot of systems that had a big impact in my life. And that's what matters to me the most at this point.

[00:10:53]So, it's pretty much filled out. Like I don't buy a whole lot more games these days as I had mentioned, but here and there obviously I pick things up like those Wii U games that inevitably I may never see in the mail.

[00:11:05]So, not everything is terrible in this hobby. I know it's been a pretty negative video. I know it's been a lot of doom and gloom, but I will share and I've kind of alluded to it this whole time that yes, um with the Wii U with the Wii U stuff that yes, you can still find some semi-decent deals if you look in the right places and are willing to make maybe some sacrifices.

[00:11:26]So, what I do with the Wii U stuff is I understand that basically the the Wii U library that was any bit worthwhile got ported to the switch. However, the Wii U game still exist, right? And so something like Hyrule Warriors is a game that I've never played. I don't really know if I would like it or or care at all.

[00:11:44]And so instead of shelling out like 40 to 50 bucks for the switch version of Hyrule Warriors, I instead went for the Wii U version. That was one of the two games that I bought that got lost in the mail. And same thing then with like Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Mario 3D World. All those games like they have switch versions that are still pretty expensive, but you can just get the Wii U ones and they're like five to ten dollars. Like people do not care about those Wii U copies of those games because they're not definitive. They all got, you know, some kind of upgrade pretty much in the switch release. And I mean, it's just it's the Wii U, dude.

[00:12:18]Like who cares, [music] right? But myself and I guess Scott the Woz are the only two people on the internet who actually like the Wii U. So it's been a nice way to kind of do some budget collecting because it's just not really a very sought-after console. Sure, there are expensive Wii U games out there. I'm not out here buying Devil's Third or anything, but getting the popular games for the system and stuff that I didn't play when it came out cuz again limited money in high school and stuff, right? You can find deals, which is great. So anyways, just to wrap it up, I just want to talk a little bit about the channel itself and uh and just life. Do a little unscripted chit-chat.

[00:12:58]Another thing that has impacted my finances so greatly is that in the past five years I have moved four times.

[00:13:05]If you can't tell, this is a different background from where I've been before and this is the first video that I'm doing in now our next new place.

[00:13:14]So it's been a lot. Um moving is a horrible experience and it's just very expensive and it's really not not an ideal thing. Would not recommend.

[00:13:24]Uh Uh, you don't have to move, don't do it.

[00:13:27]Um, hopefully the goal of this is to actually be here for a lot longer than we have been in other places. So, this is there is more sustainable or more stability. There is more stability to it now.

[00:13:40]Just in our lives in general than um than we've had in previous times. Yeah, happy that that's over with. Uh, that's why the content's been really slow was because of doing the move. I know I released some of those Call of Duty videos, but it's you know, other than that it's only been a couple videos this year. Uh, it's just been a lot going on.

[00:13:57]So, but we're back in and we're getting settled into the new place pretty well.

[00:14:02]So, hopefully there'll be some more more videos coming up. I do have some other ideas. And with that like I understand that when I've diverged off of like Nintendo games like Persona 4 and like Call of Duty and just other stuff that I enjoy, that you guys don't seem as interested.

[00:14:21]Uh, the viewership levels are like way way way low compared to when I do Nintendo games. The Mario Golf video that I put out last year has over 10,000 views now and then things like the Call of Duty videos have about 50. So, I'm just going to be sticking more to like Nintendo and like Mario and Pokémon and things that they just [music] kind of narrow down the focus of the channel.

[00:14:42]I mean, that's what you do when you're small, right? You just kind of branch out into other stuff and see what works. And uh, we're kind of figuring out here what what does and doesn't work. So, I appreciate everybody's patience with just me and everything that's been going on. So, I do appreciate it. Uh, and that's about it.

[00:14:58]So, I will see you guys next time.