Digital Distribution Driving Down Rare Game Values

[Anton P. Nym]

People "investing" in video game collection really need to take a look at what they're spending their money on. Games aren't terribly collectable; at their core, they're bytes which are infinitely reproduceable. (Hence the problem with piracy.) Particular expressions of games, like boxed sets with tangible contents like decoder wheels or scratch-n-sniff cards, may retain some sort of value of their own... but the game content is prone to rerelease at any time, in translated format across multiple platforms.

This is actually a boon for people who collect games to play them, as they get more and more chances to pick up old rarities created for obsolete hardware... guys like me make out like bandits on this. But the "investor" collectors should stick with stamps and artwork.

-- Steve

 

[Royas]

I've honestly never thought of video games as a collectible commodity. While I'm quite proud of my own (very large) collection of games going back to the Atari 2600, I keep them for the love of the games, not for the money. I'd sooner sell my own arm as sell my collection. So, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the investment collector. Games are meant to be played, to be enjoyed, not stored away unused. That's the whole reason for a game to exist, for people to enjoy it.

I find the release of all of these older, classic games to be a major plus. It not only allows those of us old timers with nostalgia to enjoy our old games, it gives newer gamers an opportunity to see what came before, to give them a sense of the history of the hobby. There's nothing bad about it, IMO.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Well, given my AMAZING SPIDERMAN #300 (Mcfarlane's first artwork) or my Uncanny X-men #130 are still soaring in value, I'll hang onto my Mylar coated goodies for some time yet.

Age has it's benefits.

 

[new_age_reject]

I have a original copy me Tombi2 for the ps1. Still got the book and everything. It is worth around US $50

Would be better if you had Tombi 1, I love those games.
I used to have an original Tekken 1 in the cardboard case, dunno what happened to that.

 

[Zephirius]

If you give a shit about the monetary value then you are not a collector and lack the right to complain as such. Collector means you collect stuff. That's it. Hence the name collector. The monetary value has nothing to do with it unless you plan on selling it later, in which you are not a collector, but an investor.

 

[Susan Arendt]

I have a "collection" and I do enjoy hunting rare games in stores but I would never call it an investment, it's more for fun than anything else. That and I do really want to play the games I track down.

Ditto. I used to have a rather sizeable collection (sadly had to abandon most of it when I moved), and while some of it was fairly valuable, I never intended to sell anything. Simply finding and owning the games was the joy for me, not the potential money to be made. And I also simply wanted the pleasure of playing them - I never collected anything simply because it was "rare," it also had to be something that appealed to me personally.

I still see digital distribution as a good thing, though. It gives folks access to games that they'd otherwise never get the chance to play, and helps keep prices from getting too outrageous for collectors who still want the real thing.

 

[Andy Chalk]

[a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/87433-Atlus-Unearths-Persona-2-For-Limited-Re-release]Remember this?[/a]

Some items will be rarer than others, and collecting inevitably drives up the prices of those items. There's nothing inherently evil about it.

Which isn't to say there aren't "evil" collectors and dealers, but there also has to be some obligation on the part of collectors who want to get into the hobby to that extent (buying from dealers, eBay, etc.) to do their homework. It takes two people to make a bad deal.

But I maintain that the vast majority of collectors out there are decent guys who like games, like collecting and are far more likely to help out their fellows than put the screws to them.

 

[Elurindel]

Interesting. I myself had to go some distance (across the Atlantic Ocean, to be precise) to pick up a copy of an old point-and-click called I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. But if I had been able to legally download it at cost, I'd have done so in a heartbeat. Re-packaged, re-coded versions have fewer compatibility issues, I find.