I've been cruising around some different game forums and noticed a common cry of, "our games are getting too expensive."
It's been alarming to me sometimes to notice games that I bought 10 or more years ago now in the $100+ range. This especially seems true for the SNES and PC Engine libraries; prices seem a lot more reasonable for the Famicom and MD/Genesis, although I was just reading a thread about the latter's prices rising dramatically.
I don't really mean to complain about these prices, really. My other hobby is action figure collecting and lord knows I'm used to paying premium prices for my G1 Transformers.
But it has informed my collecting habits...for instance, I just got into PC Engine, and I find myself burning CD games rather than buying them, and I will probably end up owning a small library of cards/CDs and playing the rest on a flash card.
I also started bumping up my Genesis collection recently, and I intend to buy most of the good, still-reasonable RPGs ASAP, and I opted for an Everdrive to play some of the now-very expensive ones.
Anyway I guess I'm just wondering how you guys are reacting to these changing times. What factors are playing into rising costs? Do you bite the price bullet, or go to emulation/flash carts? Is it more important to you to own the physical game, or is just having the ability to play it OK?
I like collecting games that are cheap and I can't really justify paying a lot of money for just one game. I gave up on SNES because it's hard and expensive to get even some of the regular titles. I know that I can't really get into the PC Engine either because that's pricey to collect for.
I think I will use devices like FDS stick, Everdrives, and burning games on disks at the moment until I can start collecting great treasures when I have extra cash.
Back in 2005 pretty much every game I bought I kept, but these days I usually buy a game, beat it, then resell it, unless it's a multiplayer game or has sentimental or replay value.
For example, I was collecting the Robo Cop and Terminator games for the NES, but after playing them all, I decided I don't want them.
Duck Tales 2, however, holy hell--the price went up $40 since I bought it. :-\
The rise in cost is all due to those DAMN HIPSTERS!!!!!!
Really though, everyone who enjoyed these games as kids have full time jobs/careers now and can drop the cash to get a game they want, ridiculous price or not.
For me personally if I can get an original game on the cheap that's great. Otherwise I go for reproductions (or make them myself), or flash carts. Some games I have to have a physical copy of, the majority I would just like to play on real hardware. That's where a flash cart comes in handy.
Even with a flash cart, I find after finishing a game, I've already decided whether I will try to get a physical copy (original or repro) to play again. If I don't care for it, then it's off my to do list and off my flash cart.
I just wish I wasn't an idiot and sold most of them off in 2006 and just kept all of them until now.
Example (Best pic that I have!):
(http://i.imgur.com/ARaNUGr.jpg)
Complete Panic Restaurant, Zombie Nation, Dragon Fighter, etc! I probably sold them for about 90% less than what they go for now!
Aw man, that hurts to look at! :o
Another thing I wonder about is whether this somewhat-recent rise in prices is some sort of "bubble" and the collector market will have a sort of collapse at some point.
My guess is, no, it's not, based on my experience in watching TF prices. The only time I see G1 prices fall is when a character gets reissued, but even then the originals hold their value pretty well.
A rare item is only worth what an idiot is willing to pay for it. And because I figured many gamer geeks were smart, retro video game prices were sure to stay relatively low (at least for a few more decades).
But seeing the rise of *ahem* certain individuals, (http://nintendoage.com/forum/) it looks like the ship has sailed.