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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 88 KB, 1574x472, Demon's Crest Bubble.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633149 No.633149 [Reply] [Original]

I have now confirmed that Demon's Crest is developing a market bubble. 2 days ago, Demon's Crest sat at $81 per loose cartridge, an outrageous price as it was.

This morning, I awoke to a cool $95 per loose cart. Demon's Crest's inflation is accelerating at a rate much MUCH faster than Earthbound, and it posed to be at over $100 per loose cart in just a few weeks, if not days.

What we know about this
>In April of 2011 the inflation was started
>It was kick started by a prominent LPer
>In the past year, the rate of inflation has grown exponentially
>The bubble deflates every few months, but only by about $10-30 at a time
>After the flash deflation, inflation grows faster

I am planning on buying several copies in the next flash inflation, and then reselling them at a LOW price during the following upslope to try and drive the price down, and flatten out a plateau to stop this from becoming Earthbound 2.0

Is anyone else planning something similar?

>> No.633160

You're doing god's work OP. I don't have the money for such operations but since you do, you need to stop these abominations from happening.

>> No.633154 [DELETED] 

I'll buy a copy when you do.

>> No.633162

I'll buy a copy from you when you do. Been looking for one.

>> No.633209

>>633160
>>633162
If there is a flash deflation, I will try to pick the games up for $40-60 a pop, and will just relist them as a BIN for exactly what I payed, so as to create more games selling at that price than usual. This will create a plateau if more people do it.

>> No.633221

>>633162

This is one of the people who helps create the bubbles that hike up the price.

You don't have to do this Peters, you know. If you keep waiting, the bubble will pop eventually for good. It just has to go on until people get fed up and suddenly evacuate the market

>> No.633217

>Be a jew on ebay
>Check the market every day
>Change my prices accordingly

>The market checker also checks my stock
>Everyone else is doing the exact same thing
>We're all driving up the prices and no one is buying, all because some web software tells us to up the price

Fucking drones.

>> No.633225

>>633217
pricecharting.com draws from sales only. So it isn't what you described, it is a legitimate bubble.

>> No.633237

>>633209
Any idea when the price would go down? You seem to be more attuned to this sorta thing than me.

>> No.633240

>>633221
Like how Earthbound popped with the VC announcement? It is on a downslope. Perhaps you are right. I just want to get DC under control before something awful happens.

>> No.633242

>>633225
>Legitimate

I question the ethics of this website, and every other market in existance. Because no one would EVER rig the market.

Protip: Every market ever has been rigged.

>> No.633247

Is THIS why people keep saying that Game Grumps is driving the used games market?

>> No.633249

>>633237
It deflates every 2-4 months, and then hikes back up to twice the previous value. But it is something you have to watch out for, it isn't a very precise thing. Earthbound does the same thing too.

>> No.633257

hehehe seems like my strategy is working
I have the demon crest market in the palm of my hand

>> No.633263

>>633247
Yes. Grumps, AVGN, and other LPers play a game, then it's value doubles in the following months. Casuals watch their videos and hear about a game, then they have to have it, so they pay any price for it.

Also, casuals hear a game was played on the Grumps, so they sell their dad's copy for loads of emone

>> No.633271

>>633247
Pocky and Rocky went up 14 dollars since they premiered their first video in the beginning of April to the beginning of May, which is the highest monthly increase for the game in the past year.

>> No.633280
File: 164 KB, 995x699, gamegrubs.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633280

>>633247

Maybe it does have something to do with it... maybe...

>> No.633286

Hold shit, why is Earthbound going for $200 now?

I fucking bought that for $100 in gem condition not even a year ago...

>> No.633290

>>633263
Okay; so its the LP community as a whole. I've been hearing for months that it was just the games the Grumps were playing, which never made any sense to me.
Though Mega Man 7 at my local used game store fucking DOUBLED since the last time it was in the store, which was before the Grumps had played it. MM7's rare, but not $179 rare

>> No.633304

>>633290
Mostly big names like Grumps and AVGN, but yes. It is the Youtube community of LPers.

>> No.633305

>>633290
>$179

The fuck are they thinking? You can buy the damn thing for less than 100 on Amazon right now. Still a retarded price, but jeez.

>> No.633310

>>633305
Well, Ebamazon is generally cheaper then Mom n Pop stores, and Yardsales are cheaper than online, so...

>> No.633319

>>633290
Mega Man 7 goes inflates and deflates really consistently. You can probably nab it for about 100 if you shop around right now.

>>633221
Actually, I've been selling my items at below average to stay competitive. Every 3 days I don't sell something, I knock off 1-3 dollars and relist it. If anything, I'm pretty sure I'm driving prices down since I get more games into circulation at lower average prices.

>> No.633323

>>633310
I guess. My local game store has it for 90 I think, which isn't terrible, so I guess his store is just retarded.

>> No.633331

>>633323
Depends on the owner. If they are old, you can get good deals, but if they can use the internet, you are boned.

>> No.633345

>>633310
The old ass addage of "Just look for yardsales"... Perhaps in simpler times it was true, but with the internet in place, even hicks know to charge only $30 cheaper than the ebay price.

The lowest I've seen someone on craigslist sell Earthbound for was $80 and that was because they needed to pay a bill that week.

>> No.633353

>>633345
these are troubling times.

>> No.633357

>>633345
>even hicks know to charge only $30 cheaper than the ebay price.


How true. I've gotten Earthbound and Mega Man Legends 2 at a thrift store, and a yardsale, each for 5 bucks.

I've also gotten Splatterhouse 2 and 3 CIB for 4 bucks and a different thrift store.
You just have to go every day, and get lucky.

>> No.633358

Guys

Gu-

Guys

What if


what if we sell it for a higher price
to make the bubble bigger
so big it-

so big that it pops

>> No.633361

>>633345
You still can find deals, even on the internet. I saw a craigslist posting last week in my area, guy was selling EB and FF6 together for 70 bucks. There will always be people who don't know, or don't care.

>> No.633370

>>633319
Does it? My store has always tried to keep the prices on the low end of the collector's market scale (Earthbound was always no higher than $80s for the longest time); that's why I was shocked when it was nearly $180. That scared me into thinking that the average price online was more than Earthbound is traditional thought to be.

>> No.633376

Soooo who's to say that the recent increase wasn't caused by the post on here a few days ago?

>> No.633375

>>633358
Sometimes it doesn't. For a bubble to pop, it has to either lose all it's buyers, or be deflated slowly by sellers.
The market for retro games is full of hipster shit with huge incomes and no fucking clue. They will buy shit BECAUSE it is expensive. Can't rely on them to stop buying. Earthbound proved that.

Sellers usually don't want a bubble to pop, but we are different.

>> No.633385
File: 107 KB, 400x361, fyrenygga.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633385

Y'all niggas hatin on my value

>> No.633390

>>633385
looks like a pokemon

>> No.633391

>>633376
You know, that could be so. But the bubble itself started in 2011, and has a pretty stable slope and angle, so an increase from a single thread is unlikely at this point.

>> No.633402 [DELETED] 

I also think I have confirmed a fake on eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEMONS-CREST-SNES-NTSC-WITH-COLLECTORS-CASE-/200921377245?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item2ec7d8e9dd

Notice the SNES logo on the left side of the cart (your right) it is just a gray square, not the striped NTSC logo that should be there.

>> No.633405

I also think I have confirmed a fake on eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEMONS-CREST-SNES-NTSC-WITH-COLLECTORS-CASE-/200921377245?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item2ec7d8e9dd

Notice the SNES logo on the left side of the cart (your left) it is just a gray square, not the striped NTSC logo that should be there.

>> No.633414

>>633391
Yeah, but an increase of $14 in two days is pretty weird. If a few people here decided to buy one when that thread was up, it could've driven up price.

But yeah, it's been going up for a while, so... bleh.

You'd think that the "prominent LPer" would only cause a spike which would stay, not a gradual increase. Who else could have played it or featured it? GameCenter CX? Does ScrewAttack still do that Video Game Vault thing?

>> No.633420

>>633414
I think the spike that happened in 2011 (AVGN spike) caused the trend to start upwards more violently. As in, the spike happened, and this influenced sellers in an upward trend. It is a ripple, it isn't the direct result, but a secondary result of LPs

>> No.633418

>>633375
Very true; the bubble ain't going to burst for quite awhile, if ever. The only thing we can do now is wait for the ridiculous price hikes to start affecting N64, PS1, and Sega Saturn games.

Can't wait unti we start seeing Mischief Makers for $400 dollars and Jumping Flash for $200.

>> No.633423

>>633405
It looks like there was a sticker on it, and someone did a bad job of taking it off.

>> No.633424

>>633405
>not tested
>near-pristine cart
>bad english in allcaps

But, 100% feedback from almost 1000 transactions. Interesting

>> No.633425

>>633418
>Sega Saturn games

I have some baaaaaaad news.

Even imports for the saturn are expensive as hell.


Anything worth owning starts at 60 bucks.

>> No.633431

>>633414
I don't think GameCenter CX does that to games in Japan. Mainly because all the games we get wet over over here are fairly commonplace in Japan.

>> No.633448
File: 85 KB, 1395x478, DC Level 2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633448

>>633431
I have some bad news, friend.
Demon's Crest is one of the most common games in the NTSC region, with a rarity level of 2. That is like the rarity of first party Nintendo games.

>> No.633454

>>633431
Japan also has a completely different retro game market. They have boutiques in every city with highly competitive owners that buy up tons of product because people don't like using auction sites. And because they're so many of them and so much product, prices are kept low. Meanwhile, in America, retro game shops are few and far between, and have almost no competition in the area they occupy; therefore, they get to make miniature monopolies in their area, and basically get to set their prices at whatever people who go there will pay the most for.

>> No.633459

>>633431
Yeah I was thinking maybe it was translated sometime in the last two years, and since GCCX has been gaining popularity at an exponential rate, people may have been interested...

But I got the games mixed up, I remembered the game he played was Gargoyle's Quest II on NES.

>> No.633462

Fuck, does this bubble mean that we are going to have to deal with even MORE fake game carts?

>> No.633468

>>633448

What site is that? Is that "pricecharting?"

>> No.633476

>>633468
nintendoage.com

>> No.633472

>>633459
Gargoyle's Quest 2 is developing a nice little bubble too.
It is happening to the whole series.

>> No.633489

You're bro tier, OP. If I ever find more copies of insanely priced games, I'll attempt to do the same. I wouldn't sell Conker for more than $35 and not even Earthbound for more than $50.

I would just worry about people buying my cheap games and instantly relisting them for 2x the price, or more.

>> No.633495
File: 19 KB, 247x246, cartridge only.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633495

Anyone who ever sells a game like this deserves to be sent to a North Korean labor camp.

>> No.633492

>>633472
>GQII is minimum $50 BIN on eBay

Come the fuck on, these games aren't rare in the slightest. Holy fuck. Is my duck phone from 1985 or my first issue Star Wars VHS worth $50-100? Fuck.

>> No.633506

>>633209
That won't work out well, unless you don't sell online. Ebay and Amazon take significant cuts of sales.

>> No.633509

>>633495
That's fine for me, but it's people who are misleading as fuck.

Amazon Marketplace suffers from this. People putting shit in the "New" section because "IT'S BARELY BEEN PLAYED NO SCRATCHES IT'S ALMOST LIKE IT WAS NEW"

I hate this shit. I'm starting to want gaming to crash again.

>> No.633515

>>633431

Went to Super Potato in Akihabara.

You're wrong.

>> No.633510

>>633495
Do you realize that's like, 90% of the market?

>> No.633518

>>633506
I know. They take 10%. It isn't about making money, it is about fixing something that has become fundamentally broken, and I will lose money doing it.

>> No.633526

>>633509

I bought Planescape Torment "Boxed".

It was the DVD case re-release.

Seller told me it was beyond his control because he could only sell it under the existing entry for Planescape Torment that everyone else was selling it under, and Amazon was the one who had to fix it.

I eventually found a near-mint boxed original, and I'll gift the DVD one to a co-worker or something.

>> No.633528

>>633518
>tfw people who buy up your games immediately relist them for double and you actually end up helping the bubble grow.

>> No.633535

>>633515
That's like the Best Buy of retro game stores
Thing is the population is freaking dense. Games be everywhere. In America we've got to take what we can get.

>> No.633541

>>633528
Yeah. Hadn't thought of that. I know people do that with EB. This plan might need some tweaking.

>> No.633548

>>633541
Only sell to people here?

Then again, that wouldn't influence the outside market...

>> No.633552

>>633541
Make an alt account, buy your game over and over for cheap prices, drive the price bubble down.

Rinse and repeat with all old games that are extremely expensive, but not rare.

>> No.633553

>>633515

I'm going to tell you right now, Akihabara is the most expensive place in Japan to buy electronics. You can find good deals there, that's true, but it's mostly to find that one thing you just can't seem to find anywhere else.

I actually prefer other wards of Tokyo for my game stores, or at least other regions in Japan instead.

Like, it seems people don't understand that due to Akiba's reputation for having electronics and lots of stores together doesn't mean they don't try to overcharge. All you gotta do is be the one store in Akiba selling a certain game and bam, you can charge anything you want for it.

>> No.633558

>>633541
Limit 1 per customer.

>> No.633560

>>633509

I hate this too. Especially when something is listed as complete; "game and manual"

Wait, that's not complete...

>> No.633571

>>633548
It would if it was on eBay, since pricecharting tracks ebay purchases. If BINs were put up, and people here immediately bought them, then we could somewhat guarantee, they wouldn't fuck the pan over... And pricecharting would track the purchase, and skew the trend downward, but only if a lot of them sold at once, and it made a massive deflation spike.

>> No.633597

>>633515
Don't go to Akiba if you're looking for even remotely good deals

>> No.633617

>>633552

Conversely with a bunch people working together, they could drive the price by "buying" each other's games over and over at "buy it now" prices. Each iteration would be slightly less than before, which would slowly drive down the prices and not look suspicious.

If you had, let's say 5 people and 5 copies, each buyer could sell to each other once for a total of 10 transactions. If you each had your own copy, you would not even need to ship it; just pay the money and 'consider it shipped' (wink wink). There would be no need to pool money, because it would all neutralize in the end if each person bought and sold a copy to a different person to make for all 10 combinations.

The only problem is you need some people who you can trust honestly not to fuck each other over, because it would be very easy to do so and would blow the whole operation up. It would also help if they didn't live in the same city/area. But organizing something like this and finding people you can trust is next to impossible, I think.

>> No.633630
File: 191 KB, 1284x640, cbfdchart.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633630

>>633247
And PewDiePie with CBFD

>> No.633631

I only count 7 BINs.

What's to stop someone from buying all 7 and then asking $150.00?

This sort of practice is the worst, and the fact that some of those are listings with more than one cart available, it's clear what's causing the price spike.

Normally I would say just don't buy, (and yu shouldn't) but the people purchasing don't know any better. Too bad there's no way to get the word out.

>> No.633627

>>633617
That is my only qualm with this.
I think I will be watching DC and EB real closely in the next few months. EB is on a downslope. If it actually pops the bubble, I think the real solution would be petitioning nintendo, capcom, sony, and microsoft for a re-release of DC on their respective online services.

>> No.633651

>>633425
>Even imports for the saturn are expensive as hell.
>Anything worth owning starts at 60 bucks.

It's true that Saturn games can get pretty expensive, but this is a gross exaggeration. I've just started my Saturn collection, and I haven't paid more than $20 for an import or $30 for a US game, and I already have JP games like NiGHTS into Dreams, Saturn Bomberman, Saturn Bomberman Fight!!, Black Matrix and Dark Savior, and US games like Mr. Bones and Three Dirty Dwarves (I also have some cheaper games that are also neat, but you might not consider them worth owning).

>> No.633676

>>633385
go away /b/

>> No.633687

>>633651


Those are either games with english releases which will be more expensive then imports anyway , or games that arent on everyone radar.

House of the Dead, All the Panzer Dragon games, all the sonic games, all the capcom games, and Radiant Silvergun are all pretty expensive.

>> No.633706

>>633687
>All the Panzer Dragon games
I wish Saturn had the amount of anti-piracy as the DC

>> No.633724

>>633706

I'm just going to get the whole trilogy once I get this new job. I don't even care any more. That, and House of the Dead NEED to be taken off my hitlist.

>> No.633752

>>633687
You realize that many of those games can be had in Japan for like.. 100 yen, right? Saturn games are cheap as hell. Even Radiant Silvergun goes for around 5000 yen generally.

It's mostly greedy importers jacking the price up like mad, I can tell you that they don't sell for anywhere near as much in Japan.

>> No.633759

>>633752
>100 yen


I have a hard time believing any game selling for a dollar in japan.

>> No.633760

>>633752
Tell me about it. I am getting into famicom collecting, and am looking to upgrade to a nicer FC, and fuck. These things are a pretty penny buying here in the US, and cheap over seas, but the shipping is CRAZY if I buy overseas.

>> No.633761

>>633752

He's right. I used to live in Japan. You can go to any book-off and find a stack of Saturn games for <500￥ each in the "old games" section alongside an assload of Famicon, Game Boy, etc, etc. While everything else is kept in security cases the old games are not. And its good games too

>> No.633776

>>633418
Thankfully I don't think this will happen to the Genesis outside of a select few games. The only one I can think of at the moment is Eliminate Down, but then again that was Japan only.

>> No.633785

>>633495
Maybe Nintendo shouldn't have skimped out on the boxing and actually had a hard cover case.

>> No.633795

>>633687
>all the capcom games
Night Warriors goes pretty low
I got one sealed for $50 just last week.
The Street Fighter collection is the only one I can think of the breaches over $100 all over the place.
Why is that anyway?

>> No.633841

>>633149
>Is anyone else planning something similar?

Seriously considering doing the repro thing at this point.

>> No.633848

>>633841
Repros still cost a lot, like $50-70. Better off getting a flash cart.

>> No.633876

>>633841
>>633848

Luckily my friend has all the things needed to made repos. I don't make repos of games that were released in English though.

I'm going to buy a JP copy of Star Ocean and put the english ROM on it.

>> No.633910

>>633848

Not talking about buying them. I mean making a whole bunch and flooding the market with them super cheap.

EB in particular is both easy and dirt cheap to repro.

This is already happening to some degree but the sellers are actually passing them off as genuine at full price and you wouldn't be able to tell unless you knew what the PCB looks like.

>> No.633927

>>633910

Wouldn't it be obvious as soon as you open it up?

If it has plastic protruding and 30+ wires soldered to the board, its a repo.

If its completely clean, its real.

>> No.633947
File: 480 KB, 1024x768, earthbound pcb.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633947

>>633927

Repros don't need to look like that.

In fact that sounds hilariously overcomplicated.

Pic related. This is a real Earthbound PCB.

>> No.633950
File: 76 KB, 341x1151, sofmap.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633950

>>633759
You can get some great Saturn games for ￥50 in Japan, coming with case and instructions, sometimes even with the spinecard. I can understand that importers on ebay are doing gamers a service, but they're literally buying most of these games for a dollar and selling them to you for twenty, before shipping is even calculated.

>> No.633960
File: 85 KB, 869x521, mystery pcb.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633960

>>633947

And this is a $1 sports title turned into an EB cartridge.

There are obvious differences if you compare them side by side, but it's no rat's nest of wires.

>> No.633975
File: 60 KB, 625x445, star o.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633975

>>633947
>>633960


It must depend on the game. I never bothered with earthbound, since I already came across it a few times on my own.

>> No.633981
File: 104 KB, 700x409, staroceaneng1we8.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633981

>>633975

Another Star Ocean repo.

>> No.633987
File: 101 KB, 700x399, staroceaneng2wn8.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
633987

>>633981

Other side would look like this

>> No.634017

>>633975
>>633975
>>633987

The eeprom they're using for those is physically the wrong size, so they can't solder it directly to the pads.

The wires would not be necessary otherwise.

>> No.634072

>>633515
>>633431

Super Potato is a bit of a different story. They have a lot of foreign customers come in looking for deals. Retro game nerds will go to Akiba early in their trip looking for games and might think to look for deals in smaller stores or book-off/hard-off.

GCCX is huge in japan, and most stores have prominent displays showing episodes and surrounded by the carts. The prices aren't really much higher than other games though because most GCCX games just aren't that rare overall.

>> No.634079

>>634072
might NOT think to look for deals in smaller stores, I meant