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The NES Classic debunks that idea. There were about 3 million of them produced when it came out, and scalpers hoarded them to flip on ebay. I blame Nintendo for not producing enough of them, but people knew that they would become a hot product because of the audience it was catering to.
As much as I would love prices to come back down again, I just don't see it happening. The ardent collector buys everything up to hold on to, supply drops but interest remains high so proportionately you have an increase in people fighting over the what remains. People become desperate and pay over the odds.
The market has become attractive to those who want to make some quick cash or see a business opportunity as the prices continue to rise. These individuals are happy to buy the product at practically any cost as they can then just stick it on eBay at an inflated buy-it-now (no best offer) price and wait until someone flinches and buys it. That sets the new baseline price and repeat. A shop owner who wants to set a price +10% to cover overheads checks eBay to see what it goes for and then bases their price on these inflated ones. It's very rare to find variation in prices these days unless it's the difference between pricey and pricier.
As the particular consoles age, the frequency turning up at charity shops, jumble sales, car boot sales etc. decreases as it's unlikely a 25+ yr old console has been stored in someone's loft for so long. This reduces the opportunity for finding this stuff out in the wild at a reasonable price - plus people now use eBay to set the price on items readily searchable and comparable.
Someone made this point earlier which I think is relevant: consoles 10+ years old start to see a rise in prices as teens of that generation search for their nostalgia hit and start to have disposable income to throw at it.
This will still be relevant for current generations but might change for future ones if everything goes digital - who knows?
Finally, as the consoles and games age some will die due to degradation of the electronics. Therefore the number in circulation drops and so the prices will rise as a consequence, assuming there is demand. I don't ever see there not being demand for this old tech as it satisfies that nostalgia hit perfectly.
So, unfortunately, pricey old games and consoles are here to stay and don't be surprised when games which once fetched pennies end up going for £££. It's something I've come to accept but doesn't mean I don't grumble about it! I hope I'm wrong and the arse falls out of this thing!
To be fair, this was during peak Flash shortage and Nintendo really needed all the Flash they could get for the Switch (which itself had a shortage as well), and by the time said shortage was finally over the demand had mellowed.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
But yeah, I guess that by this point anything physical no matter what is going to be hoarded then. It's only going to be worse once Microsoft and Sony drop physical media for good (I really doubt that the optical drive will last long in the PS5 and XSX, especially the latter seeing how badly Microsoft is trying to push everybody into Game Pass even if it's at the expense of purchasing every studio they can).
I thought 25 dollars was ridiculous for specific SNES and N64 games ten years ago. PS2 and GameCube are to the point of where you have the ones who are nostalgic for it and will do anything to get back their childhood.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
I never saw games marked at 25$ back in 2010. Maybe like that one off his rocker seller that no one would buy from, but I'd just pass on that, and find it in a yard sale later for 3$. I don't know that it's about the childhood, I think it's the collecting fever. There exists many alternatives today, and ones that are superior to what was available in 2010. Flashcarts, system mods, reproductions, clone consoles, emulators, etc. Unless their childhood is having a shelf full of plastic stuff on it, I don't see the need to spend so excessively.
I think it's the super hardcore gotta have every game A - Z "collectors" that drive the prices through the roof. Aparently that's a hot thing to do now with GameCube of all consoles. I'm sorry if it offends some collectors here, but that's just fucking dumb no matter what system you do it for. There's just so much trash out there on every system, and do you know what it looks like when you collect all the games that came out on one system? It looks like lineup of mostly trash games sitting on a shelf, overshadow anything noteworthy. You gotta have a lot of time and money on your hands to do that, and that's where all the speculating comes in, the nutso price hikes and all of that. It comes from the folks who obsessively know a console library inside and out because they have three of everything and are still looking for some "upgrades".
As a side note, the price escalation of some strategy guides is even more insane than that of the games themselves. It seems that if a strategy guide isn't readily available, some sellers will slap absolutely insane prices on copies they have for sale. Not just high, but insane. I don't imagine anyone's actually buying unless there's some huge collectors market that has somehow gone unnoticed, so maybe it's the result of price setting algorithms gone awry. It's really quite annoying though.
I've seen a lot of seller who are like: "if there are no listings I'm just going to shoot for the moon"Quote:
Originally Posted by Silanda
I guess you can try and set the market price, but good luck lol.
I'm of similar mind, but this perspective attracts more than a little ire seemingly everywhere. There's a shitfit going on over at VOGONS because someone said that people who pay insane ebay prices for old computer parts are just incentivizing dirty resellers to continuously raise their prices so that people who don't make $25 an hour pretending to work at an online newspaper can't afford anything. I wanted a 1MB ISA video card for my 486 so I could use Windows 3 in truecolor mode, but I'll be damned if I pay a hundred dollars for one that will arrive in several small pieces and two large ones thanks to the seller thinking that a bubble envelope is perfect for an expansion card.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. I myself suffer from chronic nostalgia. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by sull56ivan2010
Scalper groups making off with a large number of PS5s. Even hit the news. Is it really that hard to believe that these same groups aren't influencing the retro market? Shit has gotten out of hand.
Scalping is pretty much a religion these days, to a certain type of scumbag (and the Internet makes it so much more easy). Remember that one dumbass who scalped hand sanitizer at the beginning of the pandemic and made the news? You can see it in his face that he never worked an honest day in his life. Nobody needs a leech to resell them something for triple the price. You're actively make the world a shittier place to be. Get crushed.
Maybe I shouldn't say but, I still don't understand why Windows 10 was distributed as a free upgrade to existing Windows 7 users. Not to mention there's been previous Windows catalogs with much worse criticism from advertising like "Windows Millennium Edition" which could only be found at $120.00 as OEM upgrade CD as the lowest cost option while still requiring an existing Windows Chicago CD and boot disk.
Win10 was given out free to avoid the WinXP problem they had. Releasing Vista,7,8. A large portion of people was still using XP. Why they were still patching it until 2014. MS wanted to avoid people using older OS's. Not only that but wanted to emulate the OSX model from Apple. So it's technically the last OS but not really.Quote:
Originally Posted by vexatious
I still have a Windows 7 PC. I was on it last night. It’s still getting updates, even though MS says they dropped support. Windows 10 is full of bloat ware with up to 170 background apps running, compared to about 70 on the Windows 7 setup.
Windows 7 is not secure to use right now. Even though some updates may happen, they are for various external components like Internet Explorer. Vulnerabilities aren't patched, and it's best not to use it on the internet, especially now when support was just dropped.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
They are still providing security updates, even though they say they’ve cut support. There are way too many businesses still using W7 PCs, including the Morgan Stanley that I replaced 2 of their W7 PCs with W10. They still had a whole training room full of networked W7 PCs that they needed to replace.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blades
My video capture device does not have W10 driver support, so I use that W7 PC for that, Windows Office and very light web browsing. The router has a firewall, so I’m not all that concerned with security. I have a W10 PC for 99% of my internet use.
You may not like what he did but I see nothing unethical about it. It's not his fault he saw an opportunity and jumped on it. I blame the stores for not raising prices in response to an increase in demand (which would have signaled to the supplier to get more of the product there as soon as possible). The scalper is performing a valuable service by making sure the product will go to those who are willing to pay the most for it, versus ending up in a situation where there's no sanitizer available at any price. Guys like him help us get back to normalcy faster.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
If it's even legal in your country, then it shows how fucked up yours is.Quote:
Originally Posted by axel
The fact that you see nothing unethical with it is much more alarming.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Its precisely the bullshit mentality that made me move away from London. We seem to be living in a world where everyone just thinks "ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME, NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW".
I'm sure there's always been greedy people, but holy shit its bad now.
He saw an opening on the market and acted on it. There's nothing unethical about that, and the only reason people can scalp like that is because we have grown too accustomed to living in a consumer society. You don't need to have your shelf full of every Sega game ever made, and if it comes to it it's possible to make soap and ferment alcohol yourself to use as sanitizers. The stores over here even started selling "medicinal" vodka.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
If you have a problem with retro game prices, I remind you that you can 1. get a job, or 2. get a life - or a new hobby.
3 Emulate the games and quit whining.
4. Get an Everdrive like cart and play the Roms on your console.
A local judge cracked down on his ass. That loser ended up giving a lot of it away. There are laws against what he did. The dumb ass could have kept on overcharging people, but he made the mistake of bragging about it on social media.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Not only do I find it ethical, I think it should be encouraged.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Where do you invest your money? If you plan on retiring at some point I bet your strategy consists of something along the lines of "buy low, sell high." Does that make you a bad person?
So I should fund my retirement by buying up all of the necessary goods and medications in my area, and sell them at a premium to other retired individuals? That's cartoon villain talk.
"What a concept..." - Martin Shkreli, circa 2014.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raijin Z
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Even if what that guy did was legal, he was a total douche for doing it. The real blame though, lies with the store that didn't have a limit on how many bottles of sanitizer a person could buy.
And I agree with Gamevet. I have Everdrives for multiple consoles and give no fucks. I have zero interest in collector's prices and just want to play. If someone wants to pay $600 for Snatcher, more power to them. I'm done with that.
Windows 7 isn't any less secure than Windows 10. Support does not equal security.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blades
I've been perplexed as to why anyone still pays so much for carts. I understand when its a new game and you want to support the dev, but a flashcart pays for itself pretty quickly if you ever want to play Alien Soldier or SOR3.
something, something, actual hardware, wanting a physical box, etc. It's a cool idea, but way too pricey to collect, especially when the money is just going to another person versus the company that made the game. I've got no problem spending 60 bucks on a new game, I'm not spending 130 for a 20 year old used game, just doesn't make sense anymore with the large number of avenues one can take to play the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Moham
I see an opening too, I'm gonna buy all the fuckin' Twinkies in the land and when someone wants a Twinkie it's 50 fuckin' bucks or no Twinkie for your fat ass. Oh right, the scalpers already tried to "retire" on the Twinkie didn't they?Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
LOL!! I remember that with the Twinkies. It's just human nature to buy something at one price with the expectation of selling it to someone else at a higher price. People do it every day with games, stocks, real estate, foreign currencies etc. No one is forced to buy at the higher price though.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
Except during a natural disaster and the water system is out of commission and you need to buy bottled water and .... some scalping fucker has bought up all the bottled water and selling it at $5 a bottle. But I guess that's ok too...Right? LOL!Quote:
Originally Posted by axel
Yes. Of course. Without an increase in price the quantity available would soon drop to zero. That scalping fucker has guaranteed you will still be able to buy some water, even if it costs a little more than you might like. It's also greedy people like him who will be racing to the disaster site with as much bottled water as they can carry, while FEMA and the humanitarian groups take their time.Quote:
Originally Posted by stu
Have you ever sold anything for more than what you paid for it?
I almost always sell for less than I paid. Most stuff depreciates. I don't look at everyday, ordinary items as long term investments. I make a living producing my own goods and services.
Scalpers create an artificial disruption in supply, that's why they are not needed. If they hadn't bought all the shit out, then you wouldn't need them at all. If no scalpers bought PS5 systems, mostly everyone who wanted one would have it right now. Except now, a lot of people don't have one because of a bunch of assholes who bought them all to resell. That makes no sense. They're just holding shit hostage whenever an item becomes in demand. I hope more retailers understand the importance of trying to thwart this. It should a be a law that commercial products cannot be sold above MSRP on commercial websites for a certain period of time.
Don't waste time arguing with scalpers. You'll just get worn out, while they'll continue to be perplexed as to why you take exception to their behaviour.
Scalpers will always rationalise their actions with bullshit like: "I'm helping people", or my favourite "But I need to pay for retirement somehow" (fucking hell have I had raging arguments with the "but retirement" pricks). Scalpers will never 'get it', you can't expect any of them to realise that their actions are detrimental to every community they leach off of. I'm sure all the scalpers will be the first ones to complain if its their own parents who can't get help in a crisis though.
:eek:The origins of the word “scalping” had to do with native Americans cutting off the scalp of a dead soldier in return for money. Yeah, they don’t see it as anything evil. :eek:
By the time they were selling scalps for money, they have already been through a near genocide and forced into reservations where they were slowly dying out due to not having any jobs or enough land to live by - and the one or two times they managed to find a business opportunity (such as when they found oil that was legally on their land), they were forced off of that too, either with bullshit laws or straight up lynching. Notions of good and evil go out the window when you're choices are between barely surviving or getting fucked sideways.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
That started back during the American Revolutionary War, where it was believed that a British Lieutenant was offering a reward for the scalps of Colonials.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalping
https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/09...llingness%20toQuote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
My point was that these people are thinking that they are wearing some badge of honor, for what they are doing, when in fact, being called a scalper is considered the lowest of low that a person can go to make a buck. There is no honor in defending that.
FTFY and yes they will, nothing like taking advantage of people's suffering in a disaster in order to make a quick buck.Quote:
Originally Posted by axel
I buy things for in order to own them, not to sell in order to rip off someone else.Quote:
Originally Posted by axel
You can twist my words if you want, the point is the same. If I'm in a disaster area and need anything, the person most likely to supply it will be someone motivated by greed, because they have the most to gain from our transaction.Quote:
Originally Posted by stu
Anyway this is way off topic. You roll your way, I'll roll mine.