How much are you willing to pay for a game?

[Tanooki]

Good ethics I see, like that. Been in the same position on a far smaller scale on damaged board stuff. Difference is to me a $5-20 is fairly valuable given things, so outside of one bad enough needing a parts swap (battery change aside) I'll go through my laundry list of things I can do to clean and repair. It usually works, once it didn't work even cleaning and a battery change so it got dumped and the shell a back-up. It's best, even if you could sell it cheap as a dead battery thing as some others won't care.

[+GoldenWheels]

Assuming paying "fair market price" (an always up to debate amount), I top out at 50 or 60, used or new, for whatever reason. I think I've actually stuck to that, at least in theory. I've bought lots though where I have price balanced things in my head and I guess that is kind of cheating my own rule.

[spacecadet]

I was about to say that I'd never pay more than $60 for any game, then I remembered I literally just paid about $160 for Radiant Silvergun for the Sega Saturn

 

Unless I'm forgetting something else in the past, that is by far the most I've spent for any game. I suppose it's also proof that I don't really have a hard limit; it depends on the game, the opportunity to get it, and the amount of money I have at the time. In this case, I had saved some money specifically to buy some games on a trip to Japan and it was just a question of how to allocate it. When I saw a copy of RS in front of me for the first time in all my travels, I bought it. I probably would have paid $200 if I had to. (I know you can get it on Ebay for that, but it's different when you're already holding it in your hand.)

 

For new, common games, though, $60 is definitely my limit, and even that's rare for me. I have a backlog of stuff to play, so I'm fine with waiting for most games to drop into the $30 range. The only exception is imports; I have spent $70-$80 on imports before, when it's a game I know will never be released in the US.

 

And for handheld games, way less. $20 is about my max there.

[omegadot]

Even if it's probably worth it I'm very unlikely to go over 60 bones.The handful of JRPGs that might be worth more to me are just so playable elsewhere that I can't see getting a super expensive PSX or SNES version.

[Seob]

Most i have every spend on a single retro game was 60 euro for Solar Crusade for the CD-i. But that game is very hard to get. On the other hand, i refused to pay the crazy prizes people ask for Zelda's Adventure. I always said i would find that games somewere at a fleamarket for only 1 euro. And i did eventually. Games for the vectrex i'm willing to pay more for, because of the overlays.

[enoofu]

Usually around 40-50 for a new game for me

 

Only way i would spend more then 200 dollars on a game if it was a coin operated such as A arcade PCB or machine or pinball

[Osgeld]

I can not recall ever spending more than 60$ on a brand new state of the art "you got to have this shit" game, old games I get really cheap, like no way in hell I am paying 25$ for SMB3 when they printed a billion copies of it, and I am not a collector so no rare expensive games here, only on emulator

 

 

PS: games are not investments, even the mention of it is spiteful of the hobby

[Tanooki]

I would agree with that last line pretty much covering it.

 

I have a side mentality along that spiteful treatment of the hobby. When I'm at a flea market, I expect flea market pricing, especially outside. If someone pulls out the phone or dares utter a specific word, that word being ebay, I consider it just as disrespectful and rude as using any other 4 letter word that'll get ya beeped on TV. 'Well on ebay you pay...' and I hear 'Well online fuck you pay...' and I walk away pretty much every time basically depending how that sentence ends.

 

I think not. I didn't drive 25min to come down there to walk the aisles in the heat on the gravel and black top to be told I could have sat on my ass and saved time, money, heatstroke, gas and wear on my car to pay your cheap ass not to shovel it on ebay and eat the fees.

 

That whole spiting on the hobby has for a good five years now has progressively disgusted me with the mess that I've been actively selling off hundreds of my games and some systems to bring it back down to late 20th century levels as I don't want to actively play in a pond full of pond scum that sucked the fun out of it so badly for me I can barely motivate myself some day to even play a game let alone look at them. I know that sounds bad, but when you've had a hobby 30 years and crooks ruin it, it's a blow.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Tanooki

[Schizophretard]

 

If I found an Air Raid for $.50 I would buy it from the person and then after it was mine, I would tell the person they just sold me a multi thousand dollar game and if they want some extra money give me their number and after I sold it I would hook them up. If however they try to take it back, they would then get nothing.

 

I wouldn't ever tell anyone how much I think I saved on a game. I would just leave them in their ignorance is bliss happiness with the price that they got. Some of the times I have saved money on eBay is because the seller was ignorant about what they had. I wouldn't mind if every seller was ignorant about what they have and every game was $.50. That would make collecting so much easier.

[HoshiChiri]

I would agree with that last line pretty much covering it.

 

I have a side mentality along that spiteful treatment of the hobby. When I'm at a flea market, I expect flea market pricing, especially outside. If someone pulls out the phone or dares utter a specific word, that word being ebay, I consider it just as disrespectful and rude as using any other 4 letter word that'll get ya beeped on TV. 'Well on ebay you pay...' and I hear 'Well online fuck you pay...' and I walk away pretty much every time basically depending how that sentence ends.

 

I will freely admit I use Ebay for pricing when I do sell things- but unless it's an Ebay listing, I don't actually charge that much! I typically go for around half the low-end of the going rate. So I'd be saying something to you like "It's $50-70 on Ebay so... $30?" And if you offered $25 I'd take it.

 

I've yet to have someone use the 'on Ebay it's $X' line on me yet, but I already know I'm going to immediately say 'On Ebay I have Buyer Protection to get my money back if it doesn't work or was misrepresented. What's your return policy?' I'd also point out on Ebay you're losing 20-30% of that sale price to fees & shipping costs, so there's no good reason for me to give up my buyer protections so the seller gets more money.

 

What would be really funny would be to pull out your phone & start shopping Ebay right in front of them. "I didn't realize I could get it on Ebay for that price- that's way better than dragging myself to a hot, crowded flea market & haggling with some douche over untested as-is games. Thanks for the tip, man!" and walk away!

[NE146]

I remember I payed $100 for Phantasy Star (SMS), and also the first Street Fighter 2 (SNES). This was retail prices where I lived at the time. So I guess that's about my upper range.

 

Oh I think Virtua Racing for Genesis was also 99 bucks.. I have no idea why I bought that when I also had the 32x version.

[Tanooki]

 

I will freely admit I use Ebay for pricing when I do sell things- but unless it's an Ebay listing, I don't actually charge that much! I typically go for around half the low-end of the going rate. So I'd be saying something to you like "It's $50-70 on Ebay so... $30?" And if you offered $25 I'd take it.

 

I've yet to have someone use the 'on Ebay it's $X' line on me yet, but I already know I'm going to immediately say 'On Ebay I have Buyer Protection to get my money back if it doesn't work or was misrepresented. What's your return policy?' I'd also point out on Ebay you're losing 20-30% of that sale price to fees & shipping costs, so there's no good reason for me to give up my buyer protections so the seller gets more money.

 

What would be really funny would be to pull out your phone & start shopping Ebay right in front of them. "I didn't realize I could get it on Ebay for that price- that's way better than dragging myself to a hot, crowded flea market & haggling with some douche over untested as-is games. Thanks for the tip, man!" and walk away!

That right there is why I said it wasn't a hard line by saying 'almost every time' for the walk off. I do get the occasional guy who will throw out a price that's like 1/3 to 2/3 less as they know it's ebay and I'm fine with that. But 90% of the time around here someone pretends the magical ebay fairy doesn't slap you with a 10% FVF nor does PP want to get paid, and they try and find the mid to upper range paid price (and often enough asking too) and I just walk way as arguing with greed and stupidity is pointless. I don't think it as regional but bad luck as it happened out west a bit before I moved too once net phones got more popular outside.

 

I do use ebay to sell, ON ebay. When I've run a few garage sales here since moving back I have taken some video game materials and put them outside and I'll usually throw it out there for like 1/2 the price of ebay. I won't say that word, but I think the buyer has a clue because they don't bother haggling or whipping out the phone and just pay it.

 

Funny you mentioned the phone. I've done it repeatedly at the flea market because it so happened to be something I wanted at the time so I looked it up.'ve done the same thing usually a couple times a year on average at the outside walk up flea market car guys too, they get pissed as others around can see me doing it. I have thrown out ebay has fees and I can't return it either to no relenting so that's when I go into action. What really gets the glare and sometimes comment is my being nice walking off thanking them for pointing out ebay and my adding they were asking more on there so I just bought one online (for X less or X % off) and then walking off thanking them and they get furious. It has got a few stander by people laughs before. Win win in my book.

[icemanxp300]

 

I will freely admit I use Ebay for pricing when I do sell things- but unless it's an Ebay listing, I don't actually charge that much! I typically go for around half the low-end of the going rate. So I'd be saying something to you like "It's $50-70 on Ebay so... $30?" And if you offered $25 I'd take it.

 

Lets start pending trades! If a game sells for $70 shipped on ebay you lose $7 ebay fees, $2.50 pp fees, $3 s/h, so yeah I'll buy those off you all day for $30. I'll invest 2 minutes to pp you and then 10 minutes to do a listing and another 2 minutes to pack up so I can make $25 for 15 minutes of my time.

 

 

 

I've yet to have someone use the 'on Ebay it's $X' line on me yet, but I already know I'm going to immediately say 'On Ebay I have Buyer Protection to get my money back if it doesn't work or was misrepresented. What's your return policy?' I'd also point out on Ebay you're losing 20-30% of that sale price to fees & shipping costs, so there's no good reason for me to give up my buyer protections so the seller gets more money.

 

 

Why do you need buyer protection or a return policy when you have the item in your hand? If buying local you can also test the item. I greatly disagree on shipping being 20-30%. I can ship almost any game for $3. If we are talking systems here that may be true but only on heavy items and then yeah of course knock off 15% plus shipping or whatever.

 

When I sell locally I discount my items usually w/out shipping figured because most of the time someone will try and make you meet them. So if a game cost me $3 to ship sitting home relaxing why would I waste a half hour or more of my time and gas to meet? I generally make people pick-up and make them see the items work. Then they can save their shipping cost. Usually not worth it on 1 game but big lost of systems it matters.

 

I however do not sell much locally because people do expect everything to be sold for 1/3 of ebay value. Me personally I would rather save 15% plus shipping buying local and seeing exactly what I was buying and testing it first instead of having to rely on buyer protection.

[HoshiChiri]

 

Why do you need buyer protection or a return policy when you have the item in your hand? If buying local you can also test the item. I greatly disagree on shipping being 20-30%. I can ship almost any game for $3. If we are talking systems here that may be true but only on heavy items and then yeah of course knock off 15% plus shipping or whatever.

 

Oh, not just shipping- I meant for everything. Fees, actual mailing cost, boxes & bubble wrap, gas & time- all the things people bring up about doing ebay sales. Basically if the flea market guy says $50 because there's an Ebay listing for $50 with free shipping, I'm gonna point out the ebay seller is only gonna see $30-40 in actual profit, so why should I still pay $50.

 

I disagree about not needing a return policy when buying local- I find it's a rarity to get to a used game store that actually has TVs & such set up for testing games & consoles. It's unheard of at an electricity free flea market. Couple that with concerns about dirt & heat damage, and the ability to return defective product becomes a lot more valuable.

 

Plus, just because something is tested doesn't inherently mean it's good- usually, but not always. Back when I got my first working 2600, I went to a local place that does in-store testing. He got the unit running, I went home- and nothing. I tried for ages to get a response out of that unit, but something apparently shook loose enough on the way home to kill it. Lucky for me, the shop did have a return policy, so I exchanged it the next day. He was a little wary & said I'd get ONE chance to swap (I don't blame him). I picked out a junior (figured a newer machine might do me better). It worked great, I came back a few days later to load up on games. Interestingly, this seems to have cemented me as an honest customer in his mind, because now he'll hand write longer return windows on my receipts. It's never come up again, but I appreciate the trust!

[AtariBrian]

Yeah at a flea market none of them have tv's to test that I have seen . Gamestores around here do have a return window but it is not cash back .

[Andromeda Stardust]

I remember I payed $100 for Phantasy Star (SMS), and also the first Street Fighter 2 (SNES). This was retail prices where I lived at the time. So I guess that's about my upper range.

 

Oh I think Virtua Racing for Genesis was also 99 bucks.. I have no idea why I bought that when I also had the 32x version.

I paid $3.95 for Virtua Racing at GameXChange in late 2011 / early 2012. I think now it's $7.95 when it shows up which isn't often. It's not a bad tech demo at all, and fun to be had with it for a few races, but it hasn't aged terribly well and looks and plays like ass compared to later games on the N64/PSX. I'll be damned if it wasn't the most over hyped game of all time selling for $99.99 when it came out back in the early/mid 90s.

 

The special chip inside was Sega's answer to Nintendo's Super FX (which thanks to patent expiry, we can all a few of us can enjoy Star Fox and Yoshi on the SNES Mini). I think the price would have quickly dropped off with mass production, and would likely have been a better avenue than the cobbled on 32X, which IMO looked more like an ugly goiter than a proper game console. I wish they'd made more SVP games but alas, Virtua Racing will forever be the only one game that uses it...

 

http://www.sega-16.com/2006/03/segas-svp-chip-the-road-not-taken/

Funny Sega blasted Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country while in the same sentence mentioned expansion hardware, when said game didn't even use expansion hardware at all...

[jhd]

Even if it's probably worth it, I'm very unlikely to go over 60 bones.The handful of JRPGs that might be worth more to me are just so playable elsewhere that I can't see getting a super expensive PSX or SNES version.

 

This is about where I am at. I have paid about Cdn$50 for one or two PS 2 RPGs that I really wanted, but I am unwilling to go any higher.

[NE146]

I paid $3.95 for Virtua Racing at GameXChange in late 2011 / early 2012. I think now it's $7.95 when it shows up which isn't often. It's not a bad tech demo at all, and fun to be had with it for a few races, but it hasn't aged terribly well and looks and plays like ass compared to later games on the N64/PSX. I'll be damned if it wasn't the most over hyped game of all time selling for $99.99 when it came out back in the early/mid 90s.

 

The special chip inside was Sega's answer to Nintendo's Super FX (which thanks to patent expiry, we can all a few of us can enjoy Star Fox and Yoshi on the SNES Mini). I think the price would have quickly dropped off with mass production, and would likely have been a better avenue than the cobbled on 32X, which IMO looked more like an ugly goiter than a proper game console. I wish they'd made more SVP games but alas, Virtua Racing will forever be the only one game that uses it...

 

http://www.sega-16.com/2006/03/segas-svp-chip-the-road-not-taken/

Funny Sega blasted Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country while in the same sentence mentioned expansion hardware, when said game didn't even use expansion hardware at all...

 

Yeah I was fully aware of the chip when the game was launched thanks to the various magazines .. else the $99 price tag would have seemed mighty curious That said.. I was definitely excited to see it in action but ended up mostly unimpressed since I thought it was choppy.. however that was in large part since I was already so used to the much smoother 32x version. The differences were very obvious.

 

However it's funny because when I play it now.. it seems pretty much fine! Maybe I was too critical.

[Osgeld]

 

Yeah I was fully aware of the chip when the game was launched thanks to the various magazines .. else the $99 price tag would have seemed mighty curious That said.. I was definitely excited to see it in action but ended up mostly unimpressed since I thought it was choppy.. however that was in large part since I was already so used to the much smoother 32x version. The differences were very obvious.

 

However it's funny because when I play it now.. it seems pretty much fine! Maybe I was too critical.

 

 

Nah I had the same feelings about it, years later I was playing it in a funco and its one of the few games I just can not play close up (like on a demo machine) so I was looking to one of the tv's across the way and mounted from the ceiling to much of the amusement of my buddy's working there at the time

[Tanooki]

A curiosity I read up online not all that long ago was a further discussion that the SVP chip had deeper intent by Sega which is why it made that game so grossly overpriced and looked like Sega was on crack when your average FX game cost $50 new (half as much.) Supposedly it was sort of like having a gimped 32X chip or something like that on the cart individually and they had intended to do Virtua Fighter and a few of their other hot stuff arcade titles in that same period. But because Virtua Racing sold so badly due to being $100 which was outrageous against basically everything but those $200+ AES carts, the project got scrapped (and later on sega-parts.com they blew out new games for $20, then later $10 a pop sealed which is where I got my first copy of it!)

 

I kind of feel this has to have some truth to it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

A curiosity I read up online not all that long ago was a further discussion that the SVP chip had deeper intent by Sega which is why it made that game so grossly overpriced and looked like Sega was on crack when your average FX game cost $50 new (half as much.) Supposedly it was sort of like having a gimped 32X chip or something like that on the cart individually and they had intended to do Virtua Fighter and a few of their other hot stuff arcade titles in that same period. But because Virtua Racing sold so badly due to being $100 which was outrageous against basically everything but those $200+ AES carts, the project got scrapped (and later on sega-parts.com they blew out new games for $20, then later $10 a pop sealed which is where I got my first copy of it!)

 

I kind of feel this has to have some truth to it.

It is like these cips were orphans. How many expansion chips only ever got used by one game, period?

 

Pitfall II DPC

Lagrange Point VRC7 (the soundtrack is so surreal)

Virtua Racing SVP

Street Fighter II PCe bankswitch

 

I am sure there are more...

[CatPix]

Several more.

I recall that Punch-Out is the only NES game that use a MMC 2 chip, that was used to fast-display the in-between pictures of the characters talking (if I remember that part well).

One NES game came with an AY-3-8910 sound chip embedded for audio expansion.

[Tanooki]

Yup and the StarTropics duo used the MMC6.

 

SNES has a very small list of one off or nearly one off used chips too.

 

Obviously the CX4 for MMX2 and 3 only and the SDD1 for both SF Alpha2 and Star Ocean

 

SIngle use: Dungeon Master (DSP2), SD Gundam GX (DSP3), Top Gear 3000 (DSP4), Metal Combat (OBC-1), Daikaiju Monogatari 2 (S-RTC), F1 Roc 2 (ST010), Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi (ST011), and it's sequel (ST018.) The few other chipped games were used in 3+ (most common worldwide being SA1)

 

An (if possible so easy again) hacked SNES Classic Edition given it has the FX and SA chip along with the DS1 variant in it set to go, you have like a dozen games that won't likely work and that's it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Several more.

I recall that Punch-Out is the only NES game that use a MMC 2 chip, that was used to fast-display the in-between pictures of the characters talking (if I remember that part well).

One NES game came with an AY-3-8910 sound chip embedded for audio expansion.

Mr Gimmick was the only game to use the audio portion of the FM7 chip I believe, though the non-audio version of the mapper was used in a handful of titles including Batman ROTJ. That game literally quadrupled in value due to everyone using it to make Gimmick repros. I have an INL repro with the AY synth chip built in, and a 10k audio pot for adjustable expansion sound on my NES. Very nice soundtrack...

 

Did any Famicom games besides Punch Out and it's variants use MMC2? Ditto for the Star Tropics MMC6. Gotta count Famicom when discussing weird mapper chips.

 

I believe Pinbot and High Speed used a special MMC3 variant that got assogned it's own mapper. Both games share the same engine which split the display between the flippers and upper field. Same mapper chip but wired differently compared to other standard PCBs.

[Silverfleet]

The most I've payed for a single "retro" game was $49.99, and the game was Chrono Trigger. A few years ago, I saw a loose copy in a shop and at the time that was top dollar for it. But, since it's probably my favorite game of all time, and I had it already for the PS1 (Final Fantasy Chronicles) on the DS (pre-ordered that one), and the fact that I also had the original Nintendo Power strategy guide to go with it, I had to have it.

 

Otherwise, it was probably $59.99 for one of the Forza games on the 360.

 

I do remember the insane prices for some of the 16-bit Era games, like Virtua Racing and Phantasy Star IV for $99.99, both of which I have. I bought my copy of Phantasy Star IV at a Circuit City Express (remember those?) for $19.99 on clearance, and Virtua Racing from GameStop in the early 2000's for a few bucks. Virtua Racing still impresses the hell out of me!