A thought about rare games | Retro Gaming Discussion | Forum

Paying premiums for shitty games isn't worth it. However, there are enough people willing to pay these prices to claim the shitty rare games as a "trophy" that it keeps these types of games going for high prices. It's supply and demand. Since there are so few of them, it doesn't take too many obsessed people to drive the prices. up. Most of us may be sane, but it just takes a few obsessive collectors to make the demand outweigh the supply.

If the game had been good (popular), wouldn't the company have made plenty of the game?

Now we get into "popular" vs. "good." There are plenty of bad rare games. Games that were recalled, never completed, etc. But there are also plenty of good rare games. Games that came out at the end of a consoles lifespan, games that hadn't caught on with American fans at the time like early RPGs, and obscure games that were just overshadowed by their first party counterparts (many of which have never been released for download either). Such games as Panzer Dragoon Saga, Earthbound, Dragon Warrior 4, Little Samson, etc.

Of course then you have the rare novelty games, such as the NWC carts, competition carts, exclusive Blockbuster rental games, etc. These are rare because they were not your standard released games and are almost always the most expensive of the rare games.

To some people games are about the fun experience, to others it's all about the collection on a shelf like a trophy case, and to others (like me) it's a bit of both.

Yeah its weird that they mislabel games as "rare" since its logical to think that for the most part, any casual gamer isn't scouring retro game stores/ebay/craiglist for 16-bit games, and anybody who is likely to buy the game is probably going to know what the games are worth?

I know that wont be strictly true for every single person and purchase, but hopefully people get what I mean. I can only assume its generally ignorance/naivety on the seller's part rather than deceit.

Post edited 4:31 pm – September 22, 2011 by NightStarX

My understanding of higher prices for harder to find games, aside from under-produced gems like Earthbound, or Suikoden II is that other games are just expensive, because of that: They're hard to find. Or just have stories behind them that are strange, or different from the norm in some notable way. i.e: Either not easy to get ahold of, or just have really weird distribution histories.

Also, not all expensive games are terrible games. In fact, from what i've noticed over the years, the ratio of good or terrible games being expensive barely even comes into it. Just games that not many people have heard of. Some are bad, but even more are games like Panic Restaurant, the aforementioned gems, or the PS1 game of Persona 2, ect. (Which I recently just acquired for a reasonably hefty $50)

For instance, Cheetamen II isn't really expensive because of the perceived quality (or lack thereof) of the game at all, really, nor was it retailers trying to keep the game from us, it's because of the unusual circumstances of the game's existence.

More or less, as the story goes, the game was never released, and boxes were found in an abandoned storage locker. Horrendously unplayable game or not, that's pretty weird. So this unusual game with an unusual history just sort of floated around like strange anomalies of history.

Or especially unopened copies of Stadium Events, because of it's weird history and extreme rarity, even though it's not necessarily that bad of a game or that good of a game. It's just an alternate version of World Class Track Meet that hardly anyone can find.

"Rare" games…. that is, truly rare games, are a lot like rare comic books.

The kind that are worth money even though it's just due to some weird anomaly, like an issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that was printed with an accidentally smudged printed page turning out to be prized issues of great value, versus those that you think might be worth lots of money like a first run printing of X-Men #5, but just turns out to be financially worthless. (Speaking from personal experience).

Sometimes NES games have their monetary or collector's value determined by the number of screws the casing has on them. While games with an interesting history like E.T goes for about….. 82 cents. It sounds random, and weird, and in a lot of cases it honestly kinda is.

But the reason that I always eventually came to understand that certain games are worth a lot more than others, are the types of games, that may be bad, or good, or whatever, but only a few select people in the world can actually raise it up and say "Hey, I have one of these."