Highest possible or hopeful possible selling prices should only interest
sellers. Why would a buyer care about the
MOST a game can sell for? Seriously, if you are looking to
buy a particular game, why would you even be
aware of the highest prices? Non-investor buyers should only be concerned with lower end prices, unless over-paying is part of your hobby (
unfortunately, it is bragging rights for some). Dynastic Hero has only sold for $50 for what, the past year now? But we should ignore that and instead focus on the imaginary prices it
could have sold for instead? Or does it only work in gouging-
supporting ways?
I paid $5 for a sealed Magical Chase. Some clown paying $5000 for one is an extreme in the opposite end. Both are equally factual. The prices I listed are double what MC sold for up until the market began being unnaturally manipulated. I know of people who have bought and sold them for lower prices than I listed since then as well. Why do you guys think that MC is rarely listed for sale anymore, if it is so easy to sell for the gouged prices it supposedly demands? Soldier Blade has also slowed in sales in gouging circles, as those who snatch them up, believing them to be priceless, continue to see them failing to sell at crazy escalating prices. In the meantime, the credit card interest these people are racking up convinces them to continue to hold out for the market to support the fantasy so they can perhaps at least break even on their investments.
I've seen Shockman either sell or available to buy at the prices I listed a few times in the past six months, one of which I bought for myself. High-end eBay prices are
above market value, by the very nature of eBay for both buyers and sellers. Checkout the current completed listings for Shockman and properly interpret the unsold, sold and total number of listings, factoring in eBay fees and now limited completed view, etc. And these are still higher than what some sold for on eBay not long ago.
People who promote ridiculous prices wonder how the rest of us find games for reasonable prices. The first steps are to stop using top prices to gauge value and stop dismissing low end prices as freak anomalies. The best deals here and elsewhere (
even through eBay) are found
off the public record. I have advertised several items on this forum over the past year for prices which gouged-price-supporters say don't exist. What those listings
don't show, is how I actually offered most of the buyers
even better deals. They didn't ask for it, didn't haggle or anything. I just offered them to people I like. I also scored several "impossible" deals for myself that weren't advertised in threads. Some of which were offered to me unsolicited.
This is how the Turbo community has operated over the past twenty years. I based these prices on my experiences as well as knowledge of how much the appeal or lack of appeal of each item affects their range of prices. At least as much buying/selling/trading happens out of public internet view as is on display. This is no different than when I've described scenes from PCE games that I'd played through and had my accounts challenged or have even been called a liar by people who hadn't played through the same games. The "pics or it didn't happen" accusation doesn't change reality. Just because you
personally aren't aware of something doesn't mean that it isn't real. Those of us who never stopped hunting down Turbo games since it was launched have witnessed the natural progression in pricing and watched the recent deliberated price fixing and understand it. It isn't sustainable because it is built on nothing by speculators and artificially supported by speculators. It isn't a theory, because we watched it happen play by play, the exact same way that fads like Beanie Babies unnaturally suddenly lept out of control from outsiders jumping in to play a money game.
Not only does every eBay listing which fails to sell at any given price tell as much a story as those which do, but every time something is given away for free, it dilutes the real actual value of the item even further. Look around at how much stuff is being given away for free around here. You can look at games I valued at $5 - $20 each as actually being worth $20 - $50 each, but they are literally selling for $0.00 on a regular basis in this forum. Just as most of the best deals happen behind the scenes, people give away at least as much stuff without publicly talking about it. I valued the loose Turbo CD System Card higher because of the novelty value of allowing you to view warning screens. But after buying a Turbo CD on here for $90, I privately sent it to someone for free after they asked to buy it with money. I've given away more Turbo/PCE stuff than I've sold on this forum and most of it has been done in private. The more people go out of their way to defend gouged prices, the more I see that I should make a big deal out of my freebies, like many of the raffles do.
The most important thing that gouged price supporters fail to understand is that
true value, what something is
actually worth paying for to
most people, can still sit far below what it (seldom) sells for. If 90% of Turbo fans wouldn't pay more than $100 for Magical Chase and literally never will, while 1% pay the hyped gouged prices which only transpire twice a year... that means that Magical Chase it literally worth no more than $100. If you can't wrap your head around that, then you're likely be stuck in that other 9% group.
If those who don't care enough about the games to keep them and are only playing an investment game, were to only advertise Magical Chase for $100,000 and Soldier Blade for $3,000 in today's dollars for the foreseeable future, are those suddenly their real values? What if one copy sells each year? When sales of a formally regular selling games slow to a halt, it is a sign of a severely over-inflated collectors price. The gears of the market literally grind to a halt when speculation drives estimated prices so far beyond true/naturally developed value that no one is selling or buying anymore.
Each time you criticize reasonable prices and prop up gouged prices, you encourage speculators to do ridiculous things like not-so-secretly offer a Magical Chase box for $1500 with no precedent to justify the price beyond this kind of hype.
The fact of the matter is those crazy isolated prices are contained with a small bubble market within the overall genuine market. The rest of us are continuing on with the natural market, even if it has been driven further underground by those who come in to exploit it.
Is that a typo? I thought the System 2.0 card came loose and either way I'd think a 3.0 card would cost way more.
It was sold in a box which also contained a Turbo CD. Most System 3.0 Cards have their cases, but the Turbo CD Card's box is much harder to find.
