Behind,ahead or break even?

[Buyatari]

If you bought every game the day it came out for SRP not counting for inflation would you be behind,ahead or break even on the current market value.

 

Sure everyone wanted to be the guy who stored away Video Life at $50 but then you have Bezerk,Pac-Man and ET to weigh you down. Would it even be worth it? I tend to think that if you could find the games it would cheaper to do so now. If you put inflation into play forget it you are way behind.

[CPUWIZ]

I am sure bfstats can chime in on this.

[Dino]

based on $1 in 1983 = $1 today, you are far better off having bought all the games new. If you say that there are around 500 original NTSC games at an average retail price of $60 = $30,000. I don't think you could buy a complete NTSC collection today for $30k.

 

If you take into account inflation, it would have cost much more buying each game new. If you worked out how much each game cost new, and you invested that amount in stocks in the 1980s, you would be way ahead.

Edited November 22, 2007 by Dino

[Crazy Climber]

If you bought every game the day it came out for SRP not counting for inflation would you be behind,ahead or break even on the current market value.

 

Sure everyone wanted to be the guy who stored away Video Life at $50 but then you have Bezerk,Pac-Man and ET to weigh you down. Would it even be worth it? I tend to think that if you could find the games it would cheaper to do so now. If you put inflation into play forget it you are way behind.

Whats a CIB Gauntlet and Music Machine go for these days? Ad Video Life, Tooth Protectors,Magicard, Eli's Ladder, Malagai, CBG, Lochjaw, Quadrun, Out of Control,X man,River Patrol Video reflex/Jogger as 4 digit price tags as well. Condor Attack and the K-tel games get close to a stack and CTCW/Qubes/Do's Castle, Boing, Cakewalk, Stronghold, Guardian, Smurfs, Springer, Death Trap, BMX, all 4 BOMB games, Gravitar, SQ Water, Crazy Climber,Miner 2, Anything Xonox, Superman pic (sears), TCM, Halloween, Rescue Terra, Obelix, Asterix, Quintana, Master Builder, Bumperbash, Gas Hog, Stargunner, Ram it, Minos, Espial, Up n Down, Glib, all go for a few hundred...give or take not to mention the crazy prices mid range Tigervision, telesys, sega, etc... prices lately. I would say you would be ahead....very very ahead. Even farther if you take in to consideration that a lot of the games you could get for a few bucks at the end but even at full price you would be up

[Crazy Climber]

Even farther if you bought an Ultravision Karate (assuming a box exsists...which it probably does)

[CPUWIZ]

Even farther if you bought an Ultravision Karate (assuming a box exsists...which it probably does)

 

Or mail-ordered a PGP-1.

[Buyatari]

Even farther if you bought an Ultravision Karate (assuming a box exsists...which it probably does)

 

Or mail-ordered a PGP-1.

 

I don't count PGP-1 as a game its more of an accessory. A 10k+ accessory at that.

[Buyatari]

based on $1 in 1983 = $1 today, you are far better off having bought all the games new. If you say that there are around 500 original NTSC games at an average retail price of $60 = $30,000. I don't think you could buy a complete NTSC collection today for $30k.

 

If you take into account inflation, it would have cost much more buying each game new. If you worked out how much each game cost new, and you invested that amount in stocks in the 1980s, you would be way ahead.

 

how many games are there?

 

I thought there were way more than 500

[Omegamatrix]

based on $1 in 1983 = $1 today, you are far better off having bought all the games new. If you say that there are around 500 original NTSC games at an average retail price of $60 = $30,000. I don't think you could buy a complete NTSC collection today for $30k.

 

If you take into account inflation, it would have cost much more buying each game new. If you worked out how much each game cost new, and you invested that amount in stocks in the 1980s, you would be way ahead.

 

how many games are there?

 

I thought there were way more than 500

It depends on label variations, and what you would collect as a label variation. Would you take any of the Sears games that Atari also released? How about the three Imagic games Activision re-released in black boxes? In terms of original NTSC games I think it's close to the 570 mark give or take a few.

[Buyatari]

based on $1 in 1983 = $1 today, you are far better off having bought all the games new. If you say that there are around 500 original NTSC games at an average retail price of $60 = $30,000. I don't think you could buy a complete NTSC collection today for $30k.

 

If you take into account inflation, it would have cost much more buying each game new. If you worked out how much each game cost new, and you invested that amount in stocks in the 1980s, you would be way ahead.

 

how many games are there?

 

I thought there were way more than 500

It depends on label variations, and what you would collect as a label variation. Would you take any of the Sears games that Atari also released? How about the three Imagic games Activision re-released in black boxes? In terms of original NTSC games I think it's close to the 570 mark give or take a few.

 

I would have to say Sears would be a given but most other label variations (same game,same name,same company) would not. Lochjaw would count but silver label Gravitar would not.

[Dino]

I added some additional science to this and came up with the following:

 

There are 944 North American NTSC games in the AA database. if we take away homebrews, prototypes, undetermined etc, we get to 706. This will include label variations. Sure there are some games not in the database (e.e. space chase monogrammed), but its good enough as there are also games in there that shouldn't be e.g. Pepsi Invaders and Atlantis 2 as these could never be bought on the shelf in 1983-84.

 

If the average price of games in 1983-84 was $50, then to buy each game full priced on the day it was released would cost $35,300. I doubt you could get a complete NTSC collection today for that.

 

As to what its worth today, I took Australian (hey, its easier for me here) AWOTE (Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings) in Feb '84 of $364.90 and divided it into AWOTE in 2007 of $1,103.60 and came up with a factor of 3.02.

 

Assuming US salaries increased over the same period AT THE SAME RATE, then my comparison is accurate.

 

Therefore, to set a worker back by the same amount today as it did in 1984, a game would have to cost $151.22 today to be the equivalent of a $50 game in 1984.

 

Therefore, in todays terms, a complete NTSC collection would cost a worker in today's terms a whopping $106,761. Could you buy a complete NTSC collection for that today? Probably, especially if you take out all non-releases such as Pepsi Invaders and Atlantis 2 as they were never "sold" in the first place.

[+bfstats]

I am sure bfstats can chime in on this.

 

 

I kept track of what I spent on EVERY title in my collection going back to the beginning (1981), as well as what I have sold each title for since I started selling in 2004. Seems safe to say it will be difficult for me to "break even" because there are SO MANY MORE commons then there are Grails, and NO ONE seems to be buying anything rated rarity 1-4 anymore, even boxed. Back then, I paid up to $40 on titles that wouldn't make 50 cents today. So, to sell my commons I have to do a "value-add", putting somethng in the package that will make the sale more attractive. For example, I have been compiling extra controllers so when the time comes for me to sell all my non-rare Atari-brand titles, I can include a clean console and ALL the controllers with the 120 or so non-rare titles in the hope that a beginning collector will like the idea of buying an "instant" collection. Trouble is, I've spent $250 to put this sale together in the hope of selling the lot for $300 ("street value"), all in the interest of making a reasonable return on my original purchases, which is probably not likely considering the current state of the classic market. Bottom line: I'd be lucky to turn a minimal profit on the entire collection because the return on the Grails is offset by the hit on the commons.

 

One other thing to consider in my case, I'm not a dealer, just a collector. While I do want to make as much money on each sale as is reasonable, it is just as important for me to share my collection with the community, regretting of course that I have only one of everything to sell. So I'm probably not the best source for a definitive answer to the question posed in this thread. But CPUWIZ is right; some of you may find my experience in the marketplace somewhat enlightening.

[homerwannabee]

Boxed in mint condition you probably would be ahead(Especially if you did not buy label varients). But if you threw out the boxes you would be far behind.

[Crazy Climber]

I am sure bfstats can chime in on this.

 

 

I kept track of what I spent on EVERY title in my collection going back to the beginning (1981), as well as what I have sold each title for since I started selling in 2004. Seems safe to say it will be difficult for me to "break even" because there are SO MANY MORE commons then there are Grails, and NO ONE seems to be buying anything rated rarity 1-4 anymore, even boxed. Back then, I paid up to $40 on titles that wouldn't make 50 cents today. So, to sell my commons I have to do a "value-add", putting somethng in the package that will make the sale more attractive. For example, I have been compiling extra controllers so when the time comes for me to sell all my non-rare Atari-brand titles, I can include a clean console and ALL the controllers with the 120 or so non-rare titles in the hope that a beginning collector will like the idea of buying an "instant" collection. Trouble is, I've spent $250 to put this sale together in the hope of selling the lot for $300 ("street value"), all in the interest of making a reasonable return on my original purchases, which is probably not likely considering the current state of the classic market. Bottom line: I'd be lucky to turn a minimal profit on the entire collection because the return on the Grails is offset by the hit on the commons.

 

One other thing to consider in my case, I'm not a dealer, just a collector. While I do want to make as much money on each sale as is reasonable, it is just as important for me to share my collection with the community, regretting of course that I have only one of everything to sell. So I'm probably not the best source for a definitive answer to the question posed in this thread. But CPUWIZ is right; some of you may find my experience in the marketplace somewhat enlightening.

If you had Gauntlet and Karate CIB I bet that would put you ahead.

[+bfstats]

If you had Gauntlet and Karate CIB I bet that would put you ahead.

I didn't.

[+Psionic]

If you had Gauntlet and Karate CIB I bet that would put you ahead.

I didn't.

Ditto for Condor Attack, X-Man, The Music Machine, Eli's Ladder, Mangia', etc.

 

Sure...you'd be ahead if you had bought all those, but therein lies the problem...nobody did. None of the people that I know of who were collecting the 2600 seriously back then (Al Backiel, Dan Cage, Leonard Herman) were able to complete the 2600 collection...they're all missing some of the grails.

[Mirage]

I think it would depend on if you mean the day they came out or just whenever they were available new. If you waited to buy them in the $1 clearance bins after the crash, you may be way ahead having bought them all new back then. Otherwise, my guess would be you'd be ahead buying them all now -- assuming you could find ALL of them, which is really the problem nowadays.

[+Psionic]

I think it would depend on if you mean the day they came out or just whenever they were available new. If you waited to buy them in the $1 clearance bins after the crash, you may be way ahead having bought them all new back then.

Nah, that makes no difference really...it all comes down to the rares. With something like River Patrol that goes for $1000, the mark-up today is so high what's the difference whether you paid $40 or $4? Also, with rare exceptions (the bfstats 'Lochjaw incident'), you wouldn't have found most of the big money items in bargain bins anyway, it was mostly common junk.

 

Otherwise, my guess would be you'd be ahead buying them all now -- assuming you could find ALL of them, which is really the problem nowadays.

Indeed.

Edited December 7, 2007 by PingvinBlueJeans

[Mirage]

I think it would depend on if you mean the day they came out or just whenever they were available new. If you waited to buy them in the $1 clearance bins after the crash, you may be way ahead having bought them all new back then.

Nah, that makes no difference really...it all comes down to the rares. With something like River Patrol that goes for $1000, the mark-up today is so high what's the difference whether you paid $40 or $4? Also, with rare exceptions (the bfstats 'Lochjaw incident'), you wouldn't have found most of the big money items in bargain bins anyway, it was mostly common junk.

 

 

 

Point taken about $40 vs $5, but how many $1000 games are there nowadays? As far as I know, there's only a handful that are even in the $100's. I don't know... it's really hard to say other than that I think either way, it would come down to a lot of luck in either case which way it came out. I remember there being a some rares in those bargain bins back in the day -- I didn't think of them as rares at the time of course! But the hardest-to-find-today items, no, those wouldn't have been in bins... mostly mail-order stuff, as I alluded to.

 

Fun question to ponder though. Either way, I know I have tons more carts now than I did back then!

[workingstiff]

Meh, For me it would be cheaper to get the games now. Especially since I earn a lot more money now as an adult than I did as a kid:

 

Atari 7800 maybe $100 on fleabay with a bunch of games. Of course the exclusives on the 7800 don't impress me much and I already own an atari system, the flashback 2. The games I enjoy that aren't on the Flashback 2 are fairly common and I could get them if I wanted. For the few that aren't common there are other ways to enjoy them.

 

So I guess what I am saying is that it is a great time to be an Atari Fan!!!

[supercat]

Sure everyone wanted to be the guy who stored away Video Life at $50 but then you have Bezerk,Pac-Man and ET to weigh you down. Would it even be worth it? I tend to think that if you could find the games it would cheaper to do so now. If you put inflation into play forget it you are way behind.

 

Very few cartridges sell for more today than their initial suggested retail, even in unadjusted dollars. A minty 2600 Heavy Sixer probably would (possibly much more, if in a perfect box) but later 2600 units would not. Of the cartridges I spent over $10 on, I think I have three which are worth more than I paid for them: Road Runner ($15), the Harry Dodgson 7800 monitor cart ($70 I think), and the CC2 ($200). There are probably some other carts in my collection that are worth slightly more than I paid, but not by much (e.g. I may have bought a game for $2 that's worth $3).

[shadow460]

I'm ahead today for the simple fact that I wasn't able to work or buy stuff in the '80's. I was a young boy back then.

 

In most cases I paid less than what each of my carts is worth. The exceptions are the commons. Any that are worth less than $1 I definitely overpaid for. I paid too much for Tank Command, I know, but I wanted to. Otherwise, I've grabbed games worth up to $45 for $1 each.

Recently I acquired my third R7, Stargunner, in a trade for a cart I had paid $1 for. I swapped it for Star Wars: The Arcade Game that I had bought from the Game X Change Atari bin. According to DP, Star Wars was worth $20 at the time.