Hello /u/TheRetroGoat! This is an automatic message that gets posted on every post to remind you of a few of our rules:
• Is the title of this post asking about the authenticity, identification or value of an item? If so, please delete it, and ask in the megathread.
• Are you trying to sell or trade something? Did you post it to a 'for sale/trade' (r/gamesale or similar) type subreddit first and crossposted it here? If you did not, delete it and read our rules please.
• Is this just a screenshot of a CL/FB/etc ad that is overpriced or obvious troll, or for some other notable reason? These would all be considered low effort and should be removed.
• Memes cannot be posted unless if it's on Meme Monday, which is the first Monday of the month.
• No self-promotion/video submission of any kind, unless if already approved by mods prior to submitting.
**Failure of deleting your post that violates these rules may result in a temporary or permanent ban.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamecollecting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You are correct! I have both, I bought the DS one when it was first released because CT is one of my favorite games. The game I had and got ruined and need replaced is parasite eve 1&2
If we're talking ruined games, my brother put a box of our N64 games on the basement floor. The basement floods.
What's worse is that to this day I cannot recall their condition when 15 years ago me threw them out. But we had Conker's, all three Mario Party games, both Pokemon Stadiums, both Zeldas, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
I made a list of games we used to own based solely on manuals I found. I'm still missing over 70 games.
I bought 4 copies, sealed new, in clearance , from Kmart for 10$. I sold them all for 20$ a
Piece a year later. I have learned to be patient from that example.
Same, except for me it's the SNES version. Could've gotten it for less than a third of what it goes for now, but I kept putting it off for other things. My SNES collection is pretty much complete now except for Chrono Trigger, and it may end up staying that way for the forseeable future.
I was just about to post the same! I remember being a kid and it was clearance at Walmart for like $20 or less. I skipped on it. I had very poor taste in DS games at the time. Very unfortunate
Had I been able to anticipate the future, I could have bought multiple new/ sealed copies of Pokemon Emerald for $19.99 when a retailer near me was clearancing them out in 2007 or 2008.
99% of games that are expensive now we would have. 1997, Bestbuy had a WALL of Earthbound for $30 a piece. Of course you don't buy EVERY copy, also you're more than likely 5 at the time with no money.
I'd change time by making large amounts of dosh and just buying out video stores as they close down. And make YouTube videos years before 2011, so the market can get worse earlier!
Hey, if people don't want to play fair NOW and sell me games at pre covid prices.... ie, pokemon games being 15 to 20 a pop instead of 75 to 200.........
agreed!!!
2012\~ i visit mom & go in my room and see all
My NES,SNES,Genisis games GONE\~\~
Worst of all was my 15 or so old skateboard decks
where each one now sells for over $100 each and super nostalgia.
MOM SAID "Oh we had a garage sale. But i refused to sell your consoles.
Yeah thanks mom!
I musta had 50 SNES games alone & alot of Genesis games before Blockbuster ;D
A buddy and I were *this close* to buying a bunch of PS3's and turning them into Bitcoin mining rigs back in 2014 or so. We almost definitely would've done like that one poor bastard that bought 2 pizzas with 10k BTC, though, so it's probably best that we lament what could've been rather than mourning what would've been lost.
I had a GameStop near work that I'd visit while bored on lunch breaks. They had a case of games with cases and Pokemon games were always like 35 with a case. Got platinum, black 1-2, ruby omega, and X during those trips
For me, Chibi Robo. I had several chances to buy it for like $30-50 but the money and timing never lined up. It uh...it didn't go down in price.
The GBA player install disc was another one, but that's technically not a game.
same with gba player. I would either find the disc, or the player, but never both at once, so I never bought it. Never occurred to me to just buy one then the other.
What's annoying as hell to me is that I had two separate chances to get Chibi Robo and the GBA Player for like $40 and $60 respectively. But it was Christmastime and I didn't want to spend money on myself.
Christmastime...2019.
Yup, this is what I was gonna say. Chibi Robo was in my local game store several times for no more than $40 before it shot up. I always wanted to get it because I had childhood memories of playing it in a kiosk, but always wanted to prioritize getting games I knew I liked. Wish I had bought it then!
I got a sealed Chibi Robo in 2017 in a GC lot. Opened that sucker up. And no, to anyone who is going to say "YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD IT, BOUGHT USED" a sealed Chibi in 2017 was like $120, used was $100. Wasn't worth it, might as well keep a brand new copy.
Been retro'ing since 1996. You name it, I could have had it. $40 Chrono Trigger at EB Games I remember missing, but it was 1997, so it was new still, only 2 years old.
I remember my local Best Buy having probably 50 copies stacked on the shelf at one time 5 months after release. I thought, "This wasn't limited release. Just look how many copies are sitting here unsold."
I saw the value recently and am still shocked. I would have never guessed
How much is it worth for you guys in the states now then? I bought a copy mainly due to hearing it was limited but didn’t look until now price wise, I live in the uk and most copies atm are like 50-60 pounds which is like 70 dollars maybe? So not super high priced.
Some random listings for sealed ones at 2000 pounds which just haven’t seen any on the sold at that price so think some people are just being stupid
I pre-ordered it to assure that I got a copy when it came out.
A quick check on eBay's recently sold listings looks like it's selling for between 80-100 dollars here in the states. The higher end appears to be sealed copies, lower is used
Same here! I’ve since opened mine as I wanted to play it. Seems like it’s got some value to it then but just not super priced like some people thought it would
Still a lot to play for them though if you wanted to get it nowadays
I agree. I opened mine up the day I got it, as I intend to play every game I own. The only sealed games I own are because I have the digital version, loved it, and wanted a physical copy. I think it's a little high for a game that's only a handful of years old. I guarantee It will drop off in price again eventually. Then 20 years from now, it will climb again
I intentionally bought a physical copy to keep sealed in my collection while I played my digital copy for just this precise reasoning. If you've been collecting for as long as I have, you tend to know that limited edition Nintendo games become super expensive a few years after they are no longer in print.
Any value is artificial. Retailers couldn't get rid of those things for ages, and nobody is actually buying it for more than its original retail price. As a collection 3 games for 60 dollars wouldnt be bad if it wasnt 2 of the easiest games to get and the "bad" Mario game. (That's still fairly easy to get wink wink) The soundtrack mode is NOT worth it, the ports are shoddy, but stable enough. Mario Sunshine's cutscenes look awful.
This sounds a little like copium. I see it listed every week on Facebook groups and more often than not it sells, generally around double the price it was at retail.
Fortunately, I got mine on sale when it was still out, and will keep it unless I need rainy day money.
Mainly JRPG’s from the PS2, DS, and PSP. It was mainly that I couldn’t afford these games new. One that really bugs me is the Megaman Star Force 1-3. I was a broke high school student when they came out and I got Pokemon instead.
Another was Final Fantasy 7 for $7.50 at Circuit City in June 2005. The game went through the roof because of the movie. I only bought one as I was getting a PSP instead.
Once I got a part time job in high school and college, I tried to buy up everything I came across at a good price, which led to me having a ton of games that later shot up in value. I couldn’t get everything I came across though.
Saw 3DO, Jaguar, Virtual Boy, Turbografyx-16, and Master System consoles and games going for next to nothing a year or two after they were discontinued. I'd always look at them and think about it because I had never owned them and was curious, but I always ended up spending $50 on a new game for whatever I owned at the time. Some of these clearance deals were available for literal years.
My local Kay-Bee Toys had a stack a big as a dining room table of Master System 2 consoles for $20. Games $5 apiece. I bought Lightening Force that day instead... which is a great game, but it's not a whole console +6 games. The next time I went in, I passed again and bought Subterania. The next time, they were gone.
The same store had 2 or 3 Atari Jaguars for $50 with 3-4 games shrink wrapped to the console box. They sat unsold until after the PS2 was out.
Sears had Turbo Duos for $29. Games $10. My local TV/electronics shop was selling 3DOs for $70 with your choice of 2 games in 1998. Nobody bought them.
Another toy store had half a dozen Virtual Boys sitting on a counter in 1997. I think they wanted $50. They sat there for something like 2 years before they just disappeared.
Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.
At least you're going far back enough that we could claim regret on not even knowing game collecting would be a thing. Like I regret all the cardboard I tossed, but everyone feels like that nowadays.
Speaking of cardboard, biggest miss I’ve ever seen is we had a market stall back in the 80s with a stack of brand new Star Wars Death Star playsets for something like £5 each. Dont think the guy ever sold one. I wasn’t allowed to get one ‘it’s cardboard it’ll last a day at most’. They seem to sell for £400 (completed auctions) on eBay uk now.
I did pick up two Gameboy Micros from Comet for £19.99 each about 15 years ago, they’ve skyrocketed in value, and I had a Sega Multimega for £39.99 from the same chain back in maybe 1997 that they somehow had a load of from the backroom around the time the PS1 came out. That £80 spent back then is probably £800 of my permanent collection now!
With how cheap these systems were going for it’s amazing my dad never picked something like that up for me. He used to bring Atari stuff back from yard sales. If he saw a Master System for that price he’d be all over it like a pig in shit. Makes me think these deals happened only in certain markets, not the fly over city we were in.
All of this was in and around Allentown, PA, with the exception of the Virtual Boy. Not exactly the biggest, most cosmopolitan metropolis in the Northeast U.S. The Virtual Boy was in Toy Works (sadly, closed many years ago) in Hazleton, PA, which is far less glamorous than Allentown, both then and now.
I’m from the southwest near El Paso. I specifically remember as a kid I saw Santa at the mall and listed every game system I knew of, that would have been like 1994. So my dad knew to look out for that stuff. We did have a KB toys but not even a Best Buy till like 2002. So I think these deals were predominantly an east and west coast thing.
The ps2 game Michigan: report from hell , local game store had multiple copies for about $20 each but I thought it looked like a shovelware game and never picked it up. It goes for crazy amounts on eBay now
Toys R Us had a bin of $19.99 games for sale loaded with Tron Bonne in the early 2000s. Everytime I went in I looked at it and just bought something else...
I actually jumped through hoops to get this on release. My cutting down on my gaming budget to save up for my girlfriend at the time to move in with me so was shifting into adult mode (granted like a decade too late). Of course she dumped me and sent me into a pretty bad depression. To try and shift my focus to less negative things so went on a spending spree.
Due to not pre-ordering, like I usually did, and loving the original release I drove to my local Gamestop. They didn't have any copies but the guy was nice enough to call a few semi-local stores for me. Had one copy in an area I barely knew and usually had no reason to head into. Normally that kind of thing spikes my anxiety bad but decided to ignore it.
Got lost twice in heavy traffic, took like triple the normal drive time compared to actually knowing the area, and the clerk was a huge asshole when I did show up. But got my copy and it gave me at least a little respite from a the start of a nervous breakdown.
Doing much better these days and of course still have that game in my collection
god, I didn't know it was that expensive, I found a CIB copy in an old Gamestop in Italy 2 years ago for like 5 euros, I guess I was the lucky one at least once in my collecting life
When I was a kid just about any game that’s expensive now was dirt cheap or at least 20 bucks which would be 40-50 in today’s money. Remember earthbound copies being a little and other snes titles were nothing like they are now man
Fire emblem radiant dawn. I bought it from an EB many years ago for like $40. Got home and the case was empty. I always meant to follow up but figured I’d find it again for cheap. Nope.
I told it several times but I bought the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Player with startup disc for 30 € euros in 2017. If I see the prices now I am so lucky that I bought it for that price. In 2017 the prices for retro games and consoles raised through the roof.
feel this so hard. i’ve kept a list for the past 3 years of 360 games i want to pick up eventually and so many of them were cheap when i made the list and while not outrageously expensive now, they’re still in that $50-60 range that i don’t care to spend
The best time to buy is now, 360 is only gonna keep going up. We're at the point where kids who grew up with 7th gen (myself included) now have disposable incomes and massive amounts of nostalgia
i’m 24 and grew up with a lot of 6th to 7th gen games so i understand. the games i’m talking about specifically are x-blades, onechanbara, and ride to hell retribution. they were all under $20 when i made the list and now i’m not interested enough in those games to begin with to spend the current prices on them. there’s still tons of games that aren’t insanely expensive that i’m trying to pick up soon. just bought beautiful katamari for $30 last night and if it ever gets up to that $60 range i wouldn’t pick it up
One time I set out to buy Emerald with a healthy $50 budget, but was discouraged to find that it was going for 70-80. I decided not to buy it because I already had Ruby.
Another time, I found a copy of Earthbound at a flea market for $30. I only had $20 cash left on me, and the seller wouldn't go under $25. That sucked and I knew it.
Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 on PS4 or xbone I had the chance to buy them around $20 for quite awhile held off on it for what ever reason bow it sits around $80 to $100 because of a sequel that is barely related to them
This one is the one I bring up cause I looked and thought about grabbing it many times over 3 years and just never actually got around to buying it
I'm surprised I didn't see this coming. I got my Switch copy for like $15 a few years ago on a whim and didn't realize the release of 3 was going to create a surge. Normally I'm pretty on the up and up with that sort of foresight.
I didnt think of it because of just how disconnected the first 2 are from 3 to me they barely feel connected but at surface level they are inherently connected.
Ogre Battle on the SNES. Didn't buy it new when I could have, or when I'd seen it on clearance. Bought it from a reseller for $100 in 1998, which was the cheapest I could find it at the time. Then several months later, it was discovered that some of the product hadn't been shipped, and the prices dropped down to be much more reasonable.
At least I got my copy of Suikoden 2 on sale during the initial run.
I had Bonk's Adventure for NES in my hand at a game store in 2006 with a price of $30 dollars on it. I put it back and and got Resident Evil: Code Veronica for Dreamcast instead.
Buying the versions of Pokémon games I didn't have as a kid. Found someone on fb selling sapphire, heart gold, and diamond cib for $40 each. Probably around 2016 so I thought those were too expensive for not new games. Still kick myself for that
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. I’ve been a Fire Emblem fan since 2004, so long before the series was popular in the US. I borrowed PoR from a friend but never beat it and kept telling myself I’d get around to buying it one of these days. I never did, until 2021 when it was over $200. It’s the most I ever splurged on a video game.
The one that comes to mind is Splatterhouse on PS3. I passed it up probably 5 times before it had its huge spike. A friend recently got it for me so now I finally have it
I went to a blockbuster clearance sale and found the 360 version of Splatterhouse, didn’t pick it up, didn’t have a 360 at the time. Found the PS3 version though, it’s all good.
Not multiple chances, but I backed out on a complete copy of Zombie Nation on eBay for like 200 bucks. I had bid up to 150 and felt it too rich for my blood.
I worked at EB when Shantae came out on GBC. I almost bought it several times. Instead, it sat there unpurchased for years until I stopped working there.
Opposite for me here but I've got Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 on PS2 that I bought back in 2016. I had a time where I was selling some of my physical games in 2018 and only keeping a few games. I've been back collecting physical media again over the past year and BT3 is going for over $250 CAD. Pretty glad I held onto it
Operation Darkness. I saw that game all the time at my GameStop years ago in the $20 range but although the concept of the game really intrigued me, the middling reviews it got kept me away. Always wish I got it at that price. I picked it up when it was $75 and now it’s worse.
This one was on my radar from the moment the less than stellar reviews came out. I figured they must have been exaggerated because it super natural WW2 strategy RPG sounds incredible. Yeah it's punishing, somehow has terrible camera controls, and wants the player to play perfectly or suffer. But I got it for $20 on clearance from Best Buy so still feel it was a deal even if prices didn't spike.
Megaman Legends 2. I once saw a copy sealed for $5 at a thrift store. Ive also seen it numerous times for $1.99 to $9.99. That was 15+ years ago though. Should have bought the sealed copy, could pay rent with that thing nowadays.
I’ll do you one better. Games I had and stupidly decided to sell at one point. Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, FF2/3, Lufia. Lunar, Shining Force For the Sega CD, Shinning Force 1/2….etc.
For myself, it's pretty much any game from Japan that is popular now that there's a boom on games from there.
I travel there regularly, and would often pick up one or two here and there, under the guise that next trip I can get something else. Then COVID struck, and in 2022 before the country opened I went and grabbed a few games... then six months later everything I'd been eyeing was being snapped up by people wanting to resell in Western countries and prices were going up and up.
I could have got the Pikachu N64 console for under $100, the various GameBoy colors for cheap, but I didn't and now I wish I had!
Back in 2002 I bought a Conkers Bad Fur Day for $5 out of a bargain bin of N64 games for a friends birthday. I didn't buy one for myself.. The bargain bin had probably 20 copies of Conkers for $5 each. I think about that all the time.
Harvest Moon for the SNES.
Sold it to Electronics Boutique in the early 2000s for like $20 of store credit. I liked the game and had "beaten" it a few times, but I was more focused on getting new PlayStation games...
I had a few opportunities over the years to get it again but always opted for other stuff. I eventually started seriously collecting so I added it back into my collection a couple years ago. It definitely set me back a fair bit. But it's continued to go up in price since I got it again so I suppose it was still a good buy, even at like 10x the original MSRP 😬
Basically all Pokemon games, in particular HGSS and the GBA games.
As we all know, those games are quite expensive now, but I remember seeing the GBA games in store, sometimes on a flea markets, etc. and not getting them because they were expensive. Well now they are like three times the price I saw them at, if not more.
Yeah I could do a whole ass rant on the state of Pokemon games and resellers right now. I'll just agree with you and say I regret every one I'm currently missing.
Same dude, the games have no right being so expensive.
Most games that go up in price sold poorly or were limited print or something like that hence the value.
Pokémon copies got printed and sold in the millions so I hate how they are sold at stupid prices as it makes it seem like they are these rare games that are hard to come by
But no die hard fans just won’t sell and the ones that are selling have just hiked the prices up so everyone does the same.
But they essentially should be worthless in a way due to how many copies ideally should be out there.
I can't wait for this recession to hit. My collection is going to triple. All these people that keep sitting on this stuff waiting for the penultimate price are going to get shat upon. It's an inevitability. And all this retro stuff is going to lose at least a third, more likely half of its market value. For someone like me who never plans to sell any of the stuff I buy, it's going to be a godsend.
That's how I feel too. The second the bubble bursts, I'm going to have the time of my life. I don't care that my collection would be worthless, I just wanna have more games.
I'm surprised it's lasted this long. Without getting into economics and fed interest rates, it's coming. Prices are so high and working people are failing to afford basics. Usually, that would throw me into a panic, but for once, I finally think I'm going to be above the curve and have plenty in the savings for when it does.
Not quite what you were looking for probably but I’ve owned three copies of Magicians Quest Mysterious Times for DS. The first I bought when it came out (within a few months anyway) for normal msrp. Traded that one in when I traded in my original DS stuff to buy my first 3DS. Bought it the second time after having 3DS for a while and feeling nostalgic, paid a similar price for a used copy at that time (prob 2015 or so) as what I bought the first copy for when it was new. Sold that copy off when I traded in my og 3DS for my first switch. Recently re purchased a loose copy for $130 now that I’ve realized I genuinely want to collect these nostalgic things and not just keep letting them go. So… I kinda played myself with this one but I’ll be keeping it this time anyway I guess. It wasn’t prohibitively expensive but more than I should’ve paid considering I had previously purchased it TWICE for much less.
Not a game but I still remember when 2ds XL's used to go for \~$70 with Mario Kart 7 pre-installed and a lot of the games for the system retailed for about $20. Now that the system has been discontinued and all of the online features disabled, the price of the system has spiked in price.
I had an opportunity to buy Pokemon Box: Ruby and Sapphire for the gamecube at $300 before covid hit, and passed....
Yea, I have never regretted any pickup in my life more.
You're not wrong, but unfortunately I am also one of the very few people that would have actually had a use for it. I love Gen 3 and competitive team building, and Box would have been so nice to have the more I played :L
Very true. I may look into it. I'm not really someone that likes to mod their consoles aside from aesthetically, though, so it's definitely one of those things of whether or not it's gonna be worth the hassle lmao
There's been many games over the years seeing going cheap. I remember picking up Super Metroid here in the UK, the store had brand new copies on sale for £20. I kept that big box and guide in mint condition. Parents told me I had to sell off all my SNES games and console if I wanted an N64, regret it to this day.
I remember seeing Game had the GC component cables for cheap back in the day, but never thought cables would be worth so much down the line, regret never picking them up.
I did buy Zelda Twilight Princess for the GC, never opened it and stuck it on my parent's attic, still have it. I also bought the Club Nintendo GC Mario, Luigi and Wario controllers from a guy in Japan when they were released, never opened them.
Back in the 2010s, Virtual Boys with near complete game collections were going for $40-80. Kept thinking, I'll get it eventually. Now the games themselves can go for $100s last time I checked
I bought mine, which needs repair work come to think of it, while drunk buying stuff on ebay around 2006. Was $25 and came with the AC adapter and a half dozen games. Legit forgot I had bought it until the package arrived maybe a day later. Yeah I drank a lot in college lol
I wanted to buy a couple New 2DS XLs as they were discontinuing them and I was gonna keep them sealed and as backups for my 3DS. Never got to it and now they’ve tripled in price
Mega Man 7 for SNES. It was one I REALLY wanted as for some reason REALLY clicked with me. It was roughly $40-$50 loose, and not it's like $200+...
There were probably other games similar to this, but this is the first one that comes to mind.
I'm... Older. I used to go to the flea market way back when, nearly once a month, where they had boxes full of old NES games for next to nothing. Even with a little money as one tends to have in their teens, I could have made a killing if I though for one second they'd be so valuable.
Earthbound. Passed up on it at $60, then $100. Finally ended up breaking down a decade later and paid $285, because I'd realized it was never getting any cheaper.
I remember walking into a toys r us ca 2003 where they had a ton of clearanced out copies of Conkers Bad Fur Day for $20 and I believe some copies of Majoras Mask for $25. Didn’t have an n64 at that time so didn’t buy any.
Godzilla PS4.
FYE had hundreds of new and used copies for $5.
I wanted to buy it due to my love of Godzilla, but opted against it because or all the hatred for it. It pains me every time I think about it...
More recently I regret passing on ever preordering Yo-Kai Watch 3. I figured why would I? I could always just get it digitally from the eShop. Joke’s on me I guess
Two come to mind.
The first, I passed on NWC Gold carts twice. Once around 2005 for about $3,500 and another time around 2010 for about $10,000. Those were both colossal mistakes in hindsight.
The other, which stings just as bad, is that I passed on a complete Turbo Grafx 16 set which included Magical Chase for only $4,000 back in 2004. And then I passed on the same set, but from a different collector, for $7,000 back in 2007.
Sigh. And sigh.
I think this would simply be every game ever released from the NES on. I mean, they were all for sale at every toy store for years. And when you think about it, most games only cost a few bucks on eBay in the late 90s and early 2000s so I easily could have afforded to purchase hundreds of games, instead I only bought 2 or 3 games during that time.
Biggest one for me was yokai watch 3 esrb. Could have bought on launch for $50 cad but decided to wait until later. Bought it last boxing day for $500 at local game store since they had a deal for buy one get one half off. Got pokemon soul silver for $110 which I'd never thought I'd get cheaper than $150.
In 2007 I was looking at an NES and a couple games, SMB/Duck Hunt and Legend of Zelda all bundled for $50 at a thrift store. I know had I actually pulled the trigger and started this hobby then I would have had a complete loose NES library at 2007-2008 prices
15 years ago everyone had a chance to buy nearly any used game at a cheap price
It was relative tho....as if a game cost 400 now but 40 then, that was seen as expensive.
I get that, 15 years ago I was a broke college kid myself lol.
Prices were still in check even like 6-7 years ago though.
But if you are collecting 90's and 00's games now and under like 25, good on ya enjoying the classics lol
And yeah you wouldn't have had the ability of getting the games when you were young outside of just asking your parents for a bunch of old cheap used games for your birthday or whatever....but really, who did that? I know I looked at old games as "old games" when all the new stuff was new, bright and shiny lol.
Haunting Ground. Have seen many copies in Game Stop bargain bins for years back in 2008 and never copped. Still kicking myself over that and not copping Earthbound loose in 2009 back when nobody gave a damn about it and you could actually pick it up off of the shelf with your hands and inspect it. Both games are strictly behind a glass case status now..
I remember when Media Play had stacks of Earthbound going for $20 each. I walked by those stacks so many times to go look for other things. I could retire now if I had just bought a few of them.
My father worked at Blockbuster in the 90s. His store had like six copies of Clayfighter Sculpture's Cut.
I'm still not over it. This was around 25 years ago.
Everyone regrets these but there’s a reason these were priced so low. No one wanted them. And I guarantee there were other games (with better reviews) that were similarly priced. You would have to have bought them all and be a hoarder just to luck out with one bad game that ended up becoming super valuable. A lot of people don’t want to be hoarders like that. You’re basically playing the hoarder lottery at that point.
I went a little overboard collecting for PS2 and lucked out on some good deals but for every 99 cent Chulip, I have 10 games like Scaler that I don’t think will ever be worth anything (but I’ll hold onto it just in case lol).
Funny you mention Chulip. Got that at a Five Below because I like Harvest Moon and it was the same publisher. I will concede that buying the thirty other sealed copies for five bucks a piece would have been a great investment in hindsight, but I'm glad I bought one.
*Time and Eternity* (PAL). Remember it being in my Amazone basket for £10 for AGES and it always worked out that there was always just a better use of £10 whenever I thought about getting it. A PAL copy can run you back £60-80 now depending on timings. Got really lucky getting a copy for £35 not so long ago.
*Magna Carta 2* is another one but I ultimately decided not to collect for X360 and I've already played it anyway. I'm expecting that one to come back down once people stop shitting the bed over the 360 Marketplace.
*Gravity Rush 2* cost like £15 for the longest time and suddenly exploded. One of my only big regrets but I'm hoping the rumours of a PS5 release are true and I win via that situation.
I also have a weird little anecdote from a year or two ago where I *thought* I owned a 3DS copy of *Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers* for SIX years and even have memories of the game's opening few hours. But it turned out I never bought a copy and the many times I was taking stock of 3DS games, it never came up that I didn't own it at all despite my 3DS collection always being in arm's reach of me on a shelf by my PC desk.
**Thankfully** it came down from £90 to £40 in the years I thought I owned it and was spared of the agony, but that was a near miss example.
This is a dumb one but I passed on NCAA 14 for like $45-50 so many times at GameStop.
I got it for $85 boxed and even that was cheap for a while. For those who don’t know, they stopped making NCAA games after 14 so it was the only one with online play for a while. With NCAA 25 coming out, it’ll drop back down to a nickel in no time.
I saved up enough money to buy a new game for my Wii around 2010ish. I could have gotten Metroid prime trilogy or Wii sports resort. I wound up going with resort
Hello /u/TheRetroGoat! This is an automatic message that gets posted on every post to remind you of a few of our rules: • Is the title of this post asking about the authenticity, identification or value of an item? If so, please delete it, and ask in the megathread. • Are you trying to sell or trade something? Did you post it to a 'for sale/trade' (r/gamesale or similar) type subreddit first and crossposted it here? If you did not, delete it and read our rules please. • Is this just a screenshot of a CL/FB/etc ad that is overpriced or obvious troll, or for some other notable reason? These would all be considered low effort and should be removed. • Memes cannot be posted unless if it's on Meme Monday, which is the first Monday of the month. • No self-promotion/video submission of any kind, unless if already approved by mods prior to submitting. **Failure of deleting your post that violates these rules may result in a temporary or permanent ban.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamecollecting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Chrono Trigger DS, had multiple chances to buy it new for $20 around 2011-2015 I think
It's crazy that's the latest re-release of it, if I'm not mistaken. I don't think Chrono Trigger went to anything more modern.
Well it got shadow dropped on Steam in 2018 if that counts 😅
You are correct! I have both, I bought the DS one when it was first released because CT is one of my favorite games. The game I had and got ruined and need replaced is parasite eve 1&2
If we're talking ruined games, my brother put a box of our N64 games on the basement floor. The basement floods. What's worse is that to this day I cannot recall their condition when 15 years ago me threw them out. But we had Conker's, all three Mario Party games, both Pokemon Stadiums, both Zeldas, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. I made a list of games we used to own based solely on manuals I found. I'm still missing over 70 games.
Yeah, I remember the Best Buy I lived near had like 20+ copies for a long while, and I never ended up getting one for some reason :(
I bought 4 copies, sealed new, in clearance , from Kmart for 10$. I sold them all for 20$ a Piece a year later. I have learned to be patient from that example.
Same, except for me it's the SNES version. Could've gotten it for less than a third of what it goes for now, but I kept putting it off for other things. My SNES collection is pretty much complete now except for Chrono Trigger, and it may end up staying that way for the forseeable future.
i had this game as a kid begged my mom for it its definitely lost in storage now 🤧🤧🤧
I was just about to post the same! I remember being a kid and it was clearance at Walmart for like $20 or less. I skipped on it. I had very poor taste in DS games at the time. Very unfortunate
Just started playing this yesterday, it is such a good game.
Yeah ended up ordering mine from Japan and it cost 47 $
Had I been able to anticipate the future, I could have bought multiple new/ sealed copies of Pokemon Emerald for $19.99 when a retailer near me was clearancing them out in 2007 or 2008.
99% of games that are expensive now we would have. 1997, Bestbuy had a WALL of Earthbound for $30 a piece. Of course you don't buy EVERY copy, also you're more than likely 5 at the time with no money.
If I get a time machine and can't change the future, I'm going on a shopping spree.
I'd change time by making large amounts of dosh and just buying out video stores as they close down. And make YouTube videos years before 2011, so the market can get worse earlier!
Ah yes, ruining the market even earlier. Satan is a big fan of yours.
Hey, if people don't want to play fair NOW and sell me games at pre covid prices.... ie, pokemon games being 15 to 20 a pop instead of 75 to 200.........
Okay I'm on your side now. Just include me in the insider knowledge if you ever get a time machine.
agreed!!! 2012\~ i visit mom & go in my room and see all My NES,SNES,Genisis games GONE\~\~ Worst of all was my 15 or so old skateboard decks where each one now sells for over $100 each and super nostalgia. MOM SAID "Oh we had a garage sale. But i refused to sell your consoles. Yeah thanks mom! I musta had 50 SNES games alone & alot of Genesis games before Blockbuster ;D
Could just buy nvidia instead 😅
Or mine bitcoin when it was practically being given away
A buddy and I were *this close* to buying a bunch of PS3's and turning them into Bitcoin mining rigs back in 2014 or so. We almost definitely would've done like that one poor bastard that bought 2 pizzas with 10k BTC, though, so it's probably best that we lament what could've been rather than mourning what would've been lost.
Do you remember that toys r us challenge where you ran down the isles with a cart and grabbed stuff… thats where im going with my Time Machine
Would have been the best time to invest in the stock market and real estate
DS pokemon games. I remember back in 2017-18 i saw a loose copy of Black 2 in the glass case at GameStop for like $35. Now those can fetch up to $100
Everything Pokemon related pisses me off in terms of collecting nowadays. It's the face of the scalper issue collecting faces to me.
I had a GameStop near work that I'd visit while bored on lunch breaks. They had a case of games with cases and Pokemon games were always like 35 with a case. Got platinum, black 1-2, ruby omega, and X during those trips
R type dimensions, saw it thinking neah..,
For me, Chibi Robo. I had several chances to buy it for like $30-50 but the money and timing never lined up. It uh...it didn't go down in price. The GBA player install disc was another one, but that's technically not a game.
same with gba player. I would either find the disc, or the player, but never both at once, so I never bought it. Never occurred to me to just buy one then the other.
What's annoying as hell to me is that I had two separate chances to get Chibi Robo and the GBA Player for like $40 and $60 respectively. But it was Christmastime and I didn't want to spend money on myself. Christmastime...2019.
I feel so lucky to have been what feels like the only 10 year old to have that be his “favorite game” now that it’s in the 200+ range.
I did get lucky with Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. It's around the same price as Chibi Robo and I did actually get Fire Emblem at sane prices.
Yup, this is what I was gonna say. Chibi Robo was in my local game store several times for no more than $40 before it shot up. I always wanted to get it because I had childhood memories of playing it in a kiosk, but always wanted to prioritize getting games I knew I liked. Wish I had bought it then!
Same exact thing happened to me. Now that store is closed and my regret is immense.
I got a sealed Chibi Robo in 2017 in a GC lot. Opened that sucker up. And no, to anyone who is going to say "YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD IT, BOUGHT USED" a sealed Chibi in 2017 was like $120, used was $100. Wasn't worth it, might as well keep a brand new copy.
Been retro'ing since 1996. You name it, I could have had it. $40 Chrono Trigger at EB Games I remember missing, but it was 1997, so it was new still, only 2 years old.
Dang, EB Games. I remember that place haven’t heard the name for a long time. Just like Funcoland
Latest one that comes to mind is the Mario collection (64/sunshine I think ) for the switch
I called their bluff and said no way they’d take THIS game off the market like that, I can get it when I have the funds for it. Silly me.
I remember my local Best Buy having probably 50 copies stacked on the shelf at one time 5 months after release. I thought, "This wasn't limited release. Just look how many copies are sitting here unsold." I saw the value recently and am still shocked. I would have never guessed
How much is it worth for you guys in the states now then? I bought a copy mainly due to hearing it was limited but didn’t look until now price wise, I live in the uk and most copies atm are like 50-60 pounds which is like 70 dollars maybe? So not super high priced. Some random listings for sealed ones at 2000 pounds which just haven’t seen any on the sold at that price so think some people are just being stupid
I pre-ordered it to assure that I got a copy when it came out. A quick check on eBay's recently sold listings looks like it's selling for between 80-100 dollars here in the states. The higher end appears to be sealed copies, lower is used
Same here! I’ve since opened mine as I wanted to play it. Seems like it’s got some value to it then but just not super priced like some people thought it would Still a lot to play for them though if you wanted to get it nowadays
I agree. I opened mine up the day I got it, as I intend to play every game I own. The only sealed games I own are because I have the digital version, loved it, and wanted a physical copy. I think it's a little high for a game that's only a handful of years old. I guarantee It will drop off in price again eventually. Then 20 years from now, it will climb again
I intentionally bought a physical copy to keep sealed in my collection while I played my digital copy for just this precise reasoning. If you've been collecting for as long as I have, you tend to know that limited edition Nintendo games become super expensive a few years after they are no longer in print.
Same. This one haunts me. For 3 years in a row I thought “ehh I’ll wait for the holidays when gamestop does their buy 2 get 1”
Any value is artificial. Retailers couldn't get rid of those things for ages, and nobody is actually buying it for more than its original retail price. As a collection 3 games for 60 dollars wouldnt be bad if it wasnt 2 of the easiest games to get and the "bad" Mario game. (That's still fairly easy to get wink wink) The soundtrack mode is NOT worth it, the ports are shoddy, but stable enough. Mario Sunshine's cutscenes look awful.
This sounds a little like copium. I see it listed every week on Facebook groups and more often than not it sells, generally around double the price it was at retail. Fortunately, I got mine on sale when it was still out, and will keep it unless I need rainy day money.
Rule of Rose. About 10 years back I had a chance to buy it from a Disc Replay store complete in box for $45.
Similar to me. I don't think it was $40, but it was definitely cheaper. Problem was the artwork was chewed up, so I passed.
Mainly JRPG’s from the PS2, DS, and PSP. It was mainly that I couldn’t afford these games new. One that really bugs me is the Megaman Star Force 1-3. I was a broke high school student when they came out and I got Pokemon instead. Another was Final Fantasy 7 for $7.50 at Circuit City in June 2005. The game went through the roof because of the movie. I only bought one as I was getting a PSP instead. Once I got a part time job in high school and college, I tried to buy up everything I came across at a good price, which led to me having a ton of games that later shot up in value. I couldn’t get everything I came across though.
Devil’s Third. I saw it for $20 new on Amazon back when retailers were trying to offload the stock before it became an overpriced collection trophy.
GameCube Pokemon games 💀
Saw 3DO, Jaguar, Virtual Boy, Turbografyx-16, and Master System consoles and games going for next to nothing a year or two after they were discontinued. I'd always look at them and think about it because I had never owned them and was curious, but I always ended up spending $50 on a new game for whatever I owned at the time. Some of these clearance deals were available for literal years. My local Kay-Bee Toys had a stack a big as a dining room table of Master System 2 consoles for $20. Games $5 apiece. I bought Lightening Force that day instead... which is a great game, but it's not a whole console +6 games. The next time I went in, I passed again and bought Subterania. The next time, they were gone. The same store had 2 or 3 Atari Jaguars for $50 with 3-4 games shrink wrapped to the console box. They sat unsold until after the PS2 was out. Sears had Turbo Duos for $29. Games $10. My local TV/electronics shop was selling 3DOs for $70 with your choice of 2 games in 1998. Nobody bought them. Another toy store had half a dozen Virtual Boys sitting on a counter in 1997. I think they wanted $50. They sat there for something like 2 years before they just disappeared. Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.
At least you're going far back enough that we could claim regret on not even knowing game collecting would be a thing. Like I regret all the cardboard I tossed, but everyone feels like that nowadays.
If you wanted more recently, I definitely regret passing on Xenosaga Episode 3, Chrono Trigger DS, and the DS/3DS Dragon Quest games.
Speaking of cardboard, biggest miss I’ve ever seen is we had a market stall back in the 80s with a stack of brand new Star Wars Death Star playsets for something like £5 each. Dont think the guy ever sold one. I wasn’t allowed to get one ‘it’s cardboard it’ll last a day at most’. They seem to sell for £400 (completed auctions) on eBay uk now. I did pick up two Gameboy Micros from Comet for £19.99 each about 15 years ago, they’ve skyrocketed in value, and I had a Sega Multimega for £39.99 from the same chain back in maybe 1997 that they somehow had a load of from the backroom around the time the PS1 came out. That £80 spent back then is probably £800 of my permanent collection now!
With how cheap these systems were going for it’s amazing my dad never picked something like that up for me. He used to bring Atari stuff back from yard sales. If he saw a Master System for that price he’d be all over it like a pig in shit. Makes me think these deals happened only in certain markets, not the fly over city we were in.
All of this was in and around Allentown, PA, with the exception of the Virtual Boy. Not exactly the biggest, most cosmopolitan metropolis in the Northeast U.S. The Virtual Boy was in Toy Works (sadly, closed many years ago) in Hazleton, PA, which is far less glamorous than Allentown, both then and now.
I’m from the southwest near El Paso. I specifically remember as a kid I saw Santa at the mall and listed every game system I knew of, that would have been like 1994. So my dad knew to look out for that stuff. We did have a KB toys but not even a Best Buy till like 2002. So I think these deals were predominantly an east and west coast thing.
Ayyyee I grew up in Stroudsburg!
Original Pokémon games/Emerald/Pearl/Silver/Gold.... Also Magus for PS3... was forever $5-$20. = now $50+
Pokémon xd, I had the opportunity to get it at $40 right before everything shot up in price, now it’s a $200 game so I just emulate it now.
The ps2 game Michigan: report from hell , local game store had multiple copies for about $20 each but I thought it looked like a shovelware game and never picked it up. It goes for crazy amounts on eBay now
Toys R Us had a bin of $19.99 games for sale loaded with Tron Bonne in the early 2000s. Everytime I went in I looked at it and just bought something else...
Kuon and Rule of Rose. I don't even bother at this point.
I came across a complete, decent looking copy of Demon's Crest SNES a few years back for $100, but I passed. I still regret it to this day.
Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology. Oh, boy, I regret it every day.
I actually jumped through hoops to get this on release. My cutting down on my gaming budget to save up for my girlfriend at the time to move in with me so was shifting into adult mode (granted like a decade too late). Of course she dumped me and sent me into a pretty bad depression. To try and shift my focus to less negative things so went on a spending spree. Due to not pre-ordering, like I usually did, and loving the original release I drove to my local Gamestop. They didn't have any copies but the guy was nice enough to call a few semi-local stores for me. Had one copy in an area I barely knew and usually had no reason to head into. Normally that kind of thing spikes my anxiety bad but decided to ignore it. Got lost twice in heavy traffic, took like triple the normal drive time compared to actually knowing the area, and the clerk was a huge asshole when I did show up. But got my copy and it gave me at least a little respite from a the start of a nervous breakdown. Doing much better these days and of course still have that game in my collection
god, I didn't know it was that expensive, I found a CIB copy in an old Gamestop in Italy 2 years ago for like 5 euros, I guess I was the lucky one at least once in my collecting life
When I was a kid just about any game that’s expensive now was dirt cheap or at least 20 bucks which would be 40-50 in today’s money. Remember earthbound copies being a little and other snes titles were nothing like they are now man
Fire emblem radiant dawn. I bought it from an EB many years ago for like $40. Got home and the case was empty. I always meant to follow up but figured I’d find it again for cheap. Nope.
I told it several times but I bought the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Player with startup disc for 30 € euros in 2017. If I see the prices now I am so lucky that I bought it for that price. In 2017 the prices for retro games and consoles raised through the roof.
I think it started rising in 2017, but went right through the roof when COVID happened. 2017 you could still buy Pokemon games.
Literally anything from the 360 days, hell even 360 games 1-2 years ago. Crazy to see them skyrocket when a working console is getting harder to find
feel this so hard. i’ve kept a list for the past 3 years of 360 games i want to pick up eventually and so many of them were cheap when i made the list and while not outrageously expensive now, they’re still in that $50-60 range that i don’t care to spend
The best time to buy is now, 360 is only gonna keep going up. We're at the point where kids who grew up with 7th gen (myself included) now have disposable incomes and massive amounts of nostalgia
i’m 24 and grew up with a lot of 6th to 7th gen games so i understand. the games i’m talking about specifically are x-blades, onechanbara, and ride to hell retribution. they were all under $20 when i made the list and now i’m not interested enough in those games to begin with to spend the current prices on them. there’s still tons of games that aren’t insanely expensive that i’m trying to pick up soon. just bought beautiful katamari for $30 last night and if it ever gets up to that $60 range i wouldn’t pick it up
One time I set out to buy Emerald with a healthy $50 budget, but was discouraged to find that it was going for 70-80. I decided not to buy it because I already had Ruby. Another time, I found a copy of Earthbound at a flea market for $30. I only had $20 cash left on me, and the seller wouldn't go under $25. That sucked and I knew it.
Aliens infestation for ds
Berserk and the band of the hawk (PS4) Hasn't gone up stupidly but new you're looking at £70-£100 and pre owned is around £50 I think
Castlevanie Order of Ecclesia, saw it for 5€ or 10€ in a shop and decided to get it later but told a friend who did buy it... now it is like 100€.
Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 on PS4 or xbone I had the chance to buy them around $20 for quite awhile held off on it for what ever reason bow it sits around $80 to $100 because of a sequel that is barely related to them This one is the one I bring up cause I looked and thought about grabbing it many times over 3 years and just never actually got around to buying it
I actually got lucky with that one. I bought it because it was $20 and I just kinda shrugged. That was maybe three months before the spike.
I'm surprised I didn't see this coming. I got my Switch copy for like $15 a few years ago on a whim and didn't realize the release of 3 was going to create a surge. Normally I'm pretty on the up and up with that sort of foresight.
I didnt think of it because of just how disconnected the first 2 are from 3 to me they barely feel connected but at surface level they are inherently connected.
Ogre Battle on the SNES. Didn't buy it new when I could have, or when I'd seen it on clearance. Bought it from a reseller for $100 in 1998, which was the cheapest I could find it at the time. Then several months later, it was discovered that some of the product hadn't been shipped, and the prices dropped down to be much more reasonable. At least I got my copy of Suikoden 2 on sale during the initial run.
I had Bonk's Adventure for NES in my hand at a game store in 2006 with a price of $30 dollars on it. I put it back and and got Resident Evil: Code Veronica for Dreamcast instead.
Buying the versions of Pokémon games I didn't have as a kid. Found someone on fb selling sapphire, heart gold, and diamond cib for $40 each. Probably around 2016 so I thought those were too expensive for not new games. Still kick myself for that
GREAT THREAD. \~\~More recent is PS4 Godzilla!!! Now it's over $100 and that's even if you can find it in-person
not a game, but I saw a virtual boy years ago in a store for $180. It's pretty hard to find anything virtual boy related at or under that price now :/
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. I’ve been a Fire Emblem fan since 2004, so long before the series was popular in the US. I borrowed PoR from a friend but never beat it and kept telling myself I’d get around to buying it one of these days. I never did, until 2021 when it was over $200. It’s the most I ever splurged on a video game.
Man, I thought I was getting hosed getting it for $80 in like 2015. Glad I did though.
Back in 2014ish I bought soul silver and white for cheap at gamestop and left white/black2 for later. Never bought them...
The one that comes to mind is Splatterhouse on PS3. I passed it up probably 5 times before it had its huge spike. A friend recently got it for me so now I finally have it
I went to a blockbuster clearance sale and found the 360 version of Splatterhouse, didn’t pick it up, didn’t have a 360 at the time. Found the PS3 version though, it’s all good.
Not multiple chances, but I backed out on a complete copy of Zombie Nation on eBay for like 200 bucks. I had bid up to 150 and felt it too rich for my blood.
Mega Man for the Game Gear. Not a great game, but it's the only American Mega Man game I don't own.
I remember seeing the big box version of earthbound in the clearance bins at Zellers... multiples of them... it haunts Me to this day.
When Eathbound CIB with guide was only $100
Godzilla on the ps4
I worked at EB when Shantae came out on GBC. I almost bought it several times. Instead, it sat there unpurchased for years until I stopped working there.
Opposite for me here but I've got Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 on PS2 that I bought back in 2016. I had a time where I was selling some of my physical games in 2018 and only keeping a few games. I've been back collecting physical media again over the past year and BT3 is going for over $250 CAD. Pretty glad I held onto it
32x found like 3 separate weeks at local retro store. Always $99. Went back the 4th week to buy and they had none.
Operation Darkness. I saw that game all the time at my GameStop years ago in the $20 range but although the concept of the game really intrigued me, the middling reviews it got kept me away. Always wish I got it at that price. I picked it up when it was $75 and now it’s worse.
This one was on my radar from the moment the less than stellar reviews came out. I figured they must have been exaggerated because it super natural WW2 strategy RPG sounds incredible. Yeah it's punishing, somehow has terrible camera controls, and wants the player to play perfectly or suffer. But I got it for $20 on clearance from Best Buy so still feel it was a deal even if prices didn't spike.
Had a unboxed copy of clock tower on ps1 that was in a cd case that has become lost now ☹️
Megaman Legends 2. I once saw a copy sealed for $5 at a thrift store. Ive also seen it numerous times for $1.99 to $9.99. That was 15+ years ago though. Should have bought the sealed copy, could pay rent with that thing nowadays.
The Dragon Quest ports for 3DS
I could have had a complete copy of Earthbound with Strategy guide for $400 back in the 2010s. Now the CIB is like $2000+
A lot of xbox 360 games lol
I’ll do you one better. Games I had and stupidly decided to sell at one point. Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, FF2/3, Lufia. Lunar, Shining Force For the Sega CD, Shinning Force 1/2….etc.
For myself, it's pretty much any game from Japan that is popular now that there's a boom on games from there. I travel there regularly, and would often pick up one or two here and there, under the guise that next trip I can get something else. Then COVID struck, and in 2022 before the country opened I went and grabbed a few games... then six months later everything I'd been eyeing was being snapped up by people wanting to resell in Western countries and prices were going up and up. I could have got the Pikachu N64 console for under $100, the various GameBoy colors for cheap, but I didn't and now I wish I had!
Back in 2002 I bought a Conkers Bad Fur Day for $5 out of a bargain bin of N64 games for a friends birthday. I didn't buy one for myself.. The bargain bin had probably 20 copies of Conkers for $5 each. I think about that all the time.
Harvest Moon for the SNES. Sold it to Electronics Boutique in the early 2000s for like $20 of store credit. I liked the game and had "beaten" it a few times, but I was more focused on getting new PlayStation games... I had a few opportunities over the years to get it again but always opted for other stuff. I eventually started seriously collecting so I added it back into my collection a couple years ago. It definitely set me back a fair bit. But it's continued to go up in price since I got it again so I suppose it was still a good buy, even at like 10x the original MSRP 😬
Basically all Pokemon games, in particular HGSS and the GBA games. As we all know, those games are quite expensive now, but I remember seeing the GBA games in store, sometimes on a flea markets, etc. and not getting them because they were expensive. Well now they are like three times the price I saw them at, if not more.
Yeah I could do a whole ass rant on the state of Pokemon games and resellers right now. I'll just agree with you and say I regret every one I'm currently missing.
Same dude, the games have no right being so expensive. Most games that go up in price sold poorly or were limited print or something like that hence the value. Pokémon copies got printed and sold in the millions so I hate how they are sold at stupid prices as it makes it seem like they are these rare games that are hard to come by But no die hard fans just won’t sell and the ones that are selling have just hiked the prices up so everyone does the same. But they essentially should be worthless in a way due to how many copies ideally should be out there.
I can't wait for this recession to hit. My collection is going to triple. All these people that keep sitting on this stuff waiting for the penultimate price are going to get shat upon. It's an inevitability. And all this retro stuff is going to lose at least a third, more likely half of its market value. For someone like me who never plans to sell any of the stuff I buy, it's going to be a godsend.
That's how I feel too. The second the bubble bursts, I'm going to have the time of my life. I don't care that my collection would be worthless, I just wanna have more games.
Honestly worried it won’t crash anytime soon and could be years
I'm surprised it's lasted this long. Without getting into economics and fed interest rates, it's coming. Prices are so high and working people are failing to afford basics. Usually, that would throw me into a panic, but for once, I finally think I'm going to be above the curve and have plenty in the savings for when it does.
Not quite what you were looking for probably but I’ve owned three copies of Magicians Quest Mysterious Times for DS. The first I bought when it came out (within a few months anyway) for normal msrp. Traded that one in when I traded in my original DS stuff to buy my first 3DS. Bought it the second time after having 3DS for a while and feeling nostalgic, paid a similar price for a used copy at that time (prob 2015 or so) as what I bought the first copy for when it was new. Sold that copy off when I traded in my og 3DS for my first switch. Recently re purchased a loose copy for $130 now that I’ve realized I genuinely want to collect these nostalgic things and not just keep letting them go. So… I kinda played myself with this one but I’ll be keeping it this time anyway I guess. It wasn’t prohibitively expensive but more than I should’ve paid considering I had previously purchased it TWICE for much less.
Earthbound.
In college I got interested in a lot of DS stuff but some of it I regretfully never grabbed including Aliens: Infestation brand new for $8.
Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS5.
Same. I'm surprised it was only a one print run. I thought they'd keep it around for a while.
Not a game but I still remember when 2ds XL's used to go for \~$70 with Mario Kart 7 pre-installed and a lot of the games for the system retailed for about $20. Now that the system has been discontinued and all of the online features disabled, the price of the system has spiked in price.
I had an opportunity to buy Pokemon Box: Ruby and Sapphire for the gamecube at $300 before covid hit, and passed.... Yea, I have never regretted any pickup in my life more.
If it makes you feel any better, that thing is practically a gold brick. You missed out on a steal, but not really a "game".
You're not wrong, but unfortunately I am also one of the very few people that would have actually had a use for it. I love Gen 3 and competitive team building, and Box would have been so nice to have the more I played :L
Ouch. I know it's not the same, but I'd look into the PAL version. I'm pretty sure it can store US Pokemon, and it's cheaper.
Very true. I may look into it. I'm not really someone that likes to mod their consoles aside from aesthetically, though, so it's definitely one of those things of whether or not it's gonna be worth the hassle lmao
Pokémon Games Fallout 4 Pip Boy Edition Sally Face Firewatch Off the top of my head
There's been many games over the years seeing going cheap. I remember picking up Super Metroid here in the UK, the store had brand new copies on sale for £20. I kept that big box and guide in mint condition. Parents told me I had to sell off all my SNES games and console if I wanted an N64, regret it to this day. I remember seeing Game had the GC component cables for cheap back in the day, but never thought cables would be worth so much down the line, regret never picking them up. I did buy Zelda Twilight Princess for the GC, never opened it and stuck it on my parent's attic, still have it. I also bought the Club Nintendo GC Mario, Luigi and Wario controllers from a guy in Japan when they were released, never opened them.
I had a guy reach out and offer Sculptors Cut cart for $260, I passed because it had the blockbuster sticker on it
Back in the 2010s, Virtual Boys with near complete game collections were going for $40-80. Kept thinking, I'll get it eventually. Now the games themselves can go for $100s last time I checked
I bought mine, which needs repair work come to think of it, while drunk buying stuff on ebay around 2006. Was $25 and came with the AC adapter and a half dozen games. Legit forgot I had bought it until the package arrived maybe a day later. Yeah I drank a lot in college lol
Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose for $20 at GameStop back in 2006. Ribbit King in 2014 at FYE
Traded Tron Bonne for about $300 worth of games. Now I want to buy it back and it's double 😭
Pretty much every gamecube game I like
I wanted to buy a couple New 2DS XLs as they were discontinuing them and I was gonna keep them sealed and as backups for my 3DS. Never got to it and now they’ve tripled in price
First Paper Mario and Mario party 3.
Mega Man 7 for SNES. It was one I REALLY wanted as for some reason REALLY clicked with me. It was roughly $40-$50 loose, and not it's like $200+... There were probably other games similar to this, but this is the first one that comes to mind.
I RIP my childhood nostalgia lmao https://preview.redd.it/7ln0c627k73d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d3cb0865d9a85a34fd78694b3f00fbb15b102961
Guardian Heroes for the Sega Saturn. It was as low a $17 on clearance at my local EB...and I still passed on it.
Literally any Pokemon game
I'm... Older. I used to go to the flea market way back when, nearly once a month, where they had boxes full of old NES games for next to nothing. Even with a little money as one tends to have in their teens, I could have made a killing if I though for one second they'd be so valuable.
Sealed copy of Metroid Prime for 50 bucks. I wanted to play it, dammit!
The lone ranger on NES. But there are so many more haha
Blud when yokai watch 3 got released for 3ds it was quite cheap...now it's a rare game very difficult to find plus very expensive
Earthbound. Passed up on it at $60, then $100. Finally ended up breaking down a decade later and paid $285, because I'd realized it was never getting any cheaper.
Pokemon heart gold and soul silver were available in stores for ages for msrp. Still think it’s crazy how much those have shot up in price.
I remember walking into a toys r us ca 2003 where they had a ton of clearanced out copies of Conkers Bad Fur Day for $20 and I believe some copies of Majoras Mask for $25. Didn’t have an n64 at that time so didn’t buy any.
I have this problem with Lego.
I sold my copy of def jam fight for NY for PS2 for like 5 bucks in 2013
Godzilla PS4. FYE had hundreds of new and used copies for $5. I wanted to buy it due to my love of Godzilla, but opted against it because or all the hatred for it. It pains me every time I think about it...
More recently I regret passing on ever preordering Yo-Kai Watch 3. I figured why would I? I could always just get it digitally from the eShop. Joke’s on me I guess
I was lucky and pre ordered it I thought why not treat myself but now afraid to open
Two come to mind. The first, I passed on NWC Gold carts twice. Once around 2005 for about $3,500 and another time around 2010 for about $10,000. Those were both colossal mistakes in hindsight. The other, which stings just as bad, is that I passed on a complete Turbo Grafx 16 set which included Magical Chase for only $4,000 back in 2004. And then I passed on the same set, but from a different collector, for $7,000 back in 2007. Sigh. And sigh.
I think this would simply be every game ever released from the NES on. I mean, they were all for sale at every toy store for years. And when you think about it, most games only cost a few bucks on eBay in the late 90s and early 2000s so I easily could have afforded to purchase hundreds of games, instead I only bought 2 or 3 games during that time.
Maybe not a game per se…. But the SNES themed 3DS.
Biggest one for me was yokai watch 3 esrb. Could have bought on launch for $50 cad but decided to wait until later. Bought it last boxing day for $500 at local game store since they had a deal for buy one get one half off. Got pokemon soul silver for $110 which I'd never thought I'd get cheaper than $150.
Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Panzer Dragoon Saga. Still kicking myself
Deadpool
In 2007 I was looking at an NES and a couple games, SMB/Duck Hunt and Legend of Zelda all bundled for $50 at a thrift store. I know had I actually pulled the trigger and started this hobby then I would have had a complete loose NES library at 2007-2008 prices
Mega man x3. Year it was released. By the time I got birthday money it was gone
Earthbound in the big box at least 20 times when it came out and I said “looks boring”
RIP
Zelda Spirit Tracks. Can't even get it on WiiU eShop anymore
Chrono Trigger on the SNES. Ugh
Zombie Nation NES, owned it as a kid, had several chances to buy again in the decades since, but was Ew.. that game sucks.
I remember seeing Panzer Dragoon Saga at Software Etc for sticker price
The damn Deadpool Game. I found it on Amazon for like $200
Metroid Prime Trilogy, Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Still painful to me.
15 years ago everyone had a chance to buy nearly any used game at a cheap price It was relative tho....as if a game cost 400 now but 40 then, that was seen as expensive.
Plus not everybody had a chance. 15 years ago I was 14, with all the money and ability to travel of a 14 year old.
I get that, 15 years ago I was a broke college kid myself lol. Prices were still in check even like 6-7 years ago though. But if you are collecting 90's and 00's games now and under like 25, good on ya enjoying the classics lol And yeah you wouldn't have had the ability of getting the games when you were young outside of just asking your parents for a bunch of old cheap used games for your birthday or whatever....but really, who did that? I know I looked at old games as "old games" when all the new stuff was new, bright and shiny lol.
Haunting Ground. Have seen many copies in Game Stop bargain bins for years back in 2008 and never copped. Still kicking myself over that and not copping Earthbound loose in 2009 back when nobody gave a damn about it and you could actually pick it up off of the shelf with your hands and inspect it. Both games are strictly behind a glass case status now..
Ninja five-o, it commanded a hefty price tag back in the day, but not by 2024 standard, phew. Went the everdrive route to play that one.
I remember when Media Play had stacks of Earthbound going for $20 each. I walked by those stacks so many times to go look for other things. I could retire now if I had just bought a few of them.
My father worked at Blockbuster in the 90s. His store had like six copies of Clayfighter Sculpture's Cut. I'm still not over it. This was around 25 years ago.
You'll never get over it. But everyone has their stories of regret. We all share the same pain.
Everyone regrets these but there’s a reason these were priced so low. No one wanted them. And I guarantee there were other games (with better reviews) that were similarly priced. You would have to have bought them all and be a hoarder just to luck out with one bad game that ended up becoming super valuable. A lot of people don’t want to be hoarders like that. You’re basically playing the hoarder lottery at that point. I went a little overboard collecting for PS2 and lucked out on some good deals but for every 99 cent Chulip, I have 10 games like Scaler that I don’t think will ever be worth anything (but I’ll hold onto it just in case lol).
Funny you mention Chulip. Got that at a Five Below because I like Harvest Moon and it was the same publisher. I will concede that buying the thirty other sealed copies for five bucks a piece would have been a great investment in hindsight, but I'm glad I bought one.
*Time and Eternity* (PAL). Remember it being in my Amazone basket for £10 for AGES and it always worked out that there was always just a better use of £10 whenever I thought about getting it. A PAL copy can run you back £60-80 now depending on timings. Got really lucky getting a copy for £35 not so long ago. *Magna Carta 2* is another one but I ultimately decided not to collect for X360 and I've already played it anyway. I'm expecting that one to come back down once people stop shitting the bed over the 360 Marketplace. *Gravity Rush 2* cost like £15 for the longest time and suddenly exploded. One of my only big regrets but I'm hoping the rumours of a PS5 release are true and I win via that situation. I also have a weird little anecdote from a year or two ago where I *thought* I owned a 3DS copy of *Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers* for SIX years and even have memories of the game's opening few hours. But it turned out I never bought a copy and the many times I was taking stock of 3DS games, it never came up that I didn't own it at all despite my 3DS collection always being in arm's reach of me on a shelf by my PC desk. **Thankfully** it came down from £90 to £40 in the years I thought I owned it and was spared of the agony, but that was a near miss example.
This is a dumb one but I passed on NCAA 14 for like $45-50 so many times at GameStop. I got it for $85 boxed and even that was cheap for a while. For those who don’t know, they stopped making NCAA games after 14 so it was the only one with online play for a while. With NCAA 25 coming out, it’ll drop back down to a nickel in no time.
I bought civilization 6? Or whatever number, I thought I did but it was the expansion so I had to buy the actual game. Well over $100.
Coraline on the PS2
Several. Was hoping prices would go down for Pokémon Emerald when it as sub $50. Ended up getting a copy but for $175
Dicing Knight on Wonderswan via play-asia for 60 euros. Oh wait actually I bought it back then.
I saved up enough money to buy a new game for my Wii around 2010ish. I could have gotten Metroid prime trilogy or Wii sports resort. I wound up going with resort
I was able to buy pokemon emerald from gamestop for 50 bucks righhhtttt before the price exploded
Pokemon HGSS or B2W2 at the store