Classic Videogame Stock Exchange (CVSE)

[King Asmo]

2000 combat carts for $20.00!? With prices like that I could become the Atari ninja, and stealthfully vanquish my foes with a quick cartridge blow to the head.

But for it to work like a true stock exchange, you'd have to have a huge stockade of carts lying somewhere. Maybe you should go to the nevada desert to start your IPO.

 

Well.. the website/exchange itself wouldn't have to have the carts.. the users of the exchange would have. There would definately be a liquidity problem if there weren't very many users.. particularly if the big players didn't participate. I think the idea, tho, would save a lot of time for a lot of people if the big sellers embraced the idea. Right now, if I want to buy an uncommon-rare cart for a dealer, I'll go to 10 different dealer sites to see if they have it, and find out who has it for the cheapest. If this idea came together, I could just go to the website and find that Joseph Bloweski has the lowest sell price at $5.00.

[King Asmo]

Here's an idea I've had for awhile.. it's still somewhat rough, but I think it would really help out the classic gaming community. One problem I've noticed in the hobby is that there's no organized marketplace to buy/sell/trade video games.. eBay is the source most commonly used for games, but it's an auction house, and not a straight exchange market, so it has some rather peculiar properties. My idea is to form a website, say, www.cvse.com, that would act basically as a stock exchange, with the stocks all being loose video games. What you would do is sign up for a membership, or *seat* on the market. This would allow you to place buy and sell orders on specific loose video games.. I envision the markets being subdivided into different markets.. say.. 2600NTSC, Colecovision, 2600PAL, etc.

 

A buy order could look something like this (where Q is quantity and P is price):

 

King_Asmo's Transaction Sheet:

 

GAME | MARKET | B/S| Q | P

 

Asteroids 2600NTSC S 10 $1.50

Combat 2600NTSC S 50 $0.75

Glib 2600NTSC B 5 $50.00

Vulture Attack 2600NTSC B 1 $40.00

 

etc.

 

whereas user IHAVEEVERYTHING might have an order like:

 

GAME | MARKET | B/S| Q | P

 

Glib 2600NTSC S 1 $400.00

Vulture Attack 2600NTSC B 1 $250.00

 

and user IBUYCRAP might have an order like:

 

GAME | MARKET | B/S| Q | P

 

Asteroids 2600NTSC B 1000 $0.02

Combat 2600NTSC S 2000 $0.01

 

So the 2600NTSC market would look like:

 

GAME | BUY | SELL | LAST

 

Asteroids | $0.02 | $1.50 | $0.80

Combat | $0.01 | $0.75 | $0.25

Glib | $50.00 | $400.00 | NONE

Vulture Attack | $40.00 | $200.00 | $125.00

 

where last is the last price the item went for. Then suppose a user put in a buy offer for Vulture Attack at $200.00. Then the website would register the transaction, and send an e-mail to both the buyer and the seller that transaction took place, and then the two users e-mail each other, and work out the shipping arrangements.

 

Of course, there are details to work out, such as the shipping cost, etc. I would say that it would make sense that the buyer pays shipping... I would say that perhaps there should be a set shipping cost dictated by the website, and the seller either has to chip in the difference between the actual shipping cost and the money the website says you collect, or pockets the extra. Another factor is the quality of the game.. I would say that each game has to meet a certain criteria of label condition. I think the hardest part about the whole idea is the dispute mechanism process.. but I think something can be worked out there.

 

So what does everyone think of the ideas.. comments, suggestions?

 

KA [who is working on his PhD in Economics -- seriously]

[King Asmo]

Ooops.. that should have read:

 

whereas user IHAVEEVERYTHING might have an order like:

 

GAME | MARKET | B/S| Q | P

 

Glib 2600NTSC S 1 $400.00

Vulture Attack 2600NTSC S 1 $250.00

 

and user IBUYCRAP might have an order like:

 

GAME | MARKET | B/S| Q | P

 

Asteroids 2600NTSC B 1000 $0.02

Combat 2600NTSC B 2000 $0.01

 

but I'm sure you guys figured that out

[Hakogame 箱亀]

2000 combat carts for $20.00!? With prices like that I could become the Atari ninja, and stealthfully vanquish my foes with a quick cartridge blow to the head.

But for it to work like a true stock exchange, you'd have to have a huge stockade of carts lying somewhere. Maybe you should go to the nevada desert to start your IPO.