Will there ever be a TG16 price crash?

[StarDust4Ever]

On a large scale, the manipulation of commodities, price fixing, etc can get you decades in prison. On the small scale there is no penalty. Morally there is no difference.

Considering one obscure game was selected as an experiment and intent was not to tarnish the entire market, I don't think there was ill intent here.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm not saying the guy belongs in jail or anything, but "ill intent" seems exactly what he was going for, although mostly for curiosity's sake, not for any real gain.

FWIW, plenty of people have gone to jail for price fixing who never intended to "ruin the entire market". I'm pretty sure most would fall into that catagory. They usually don't want to ruin anything, or even do anything detectable, they just want to make a mint off of whatever they can manipulate.

Scale is everything.

[esteban]

I don't want to ruin my long-term investment plans, but I have been purchasing every copy of Keith Courage for the past decade. I even won a KC In the raffles here at pcefx.

THE FEW TIMES I lost a raffle, I would PM the winner and offer top dollar to purchase it.

Once I acquire the remaining copies of KC and I am golden.

[johnnykonami]

It depends if the system the game is on is popular amongst set collectors or not.  If common shitty game X becomes the sole game keeping seveal hundred set collectors from their last piece, common shitty game X will become uncommon hidden gem expensive game X.

Due to the huge size of the Gameboy library, I imagine the act of creating game scarcity and price manipulation is low.  If you were to try the same type of thing with TG16 or Virtual Boy or a smaller sized set, I am sure one person could make a game's price move.  All you would need to do is pick a game with less than 10 listings at most times and constantly win each copy posted.

Mario / Duck Hunt doesn't seem like a good example where this would be possible.

P.S. - Don't do this.

No worries, too much effort anyway!  I was just saying to my friend that even if I had stashed a couple Earthbounds or Panzer Dragoon Saga's and made 2-300 each, that's still a pretty dinky profit over a 10/15 year period.  It's nothing to scoff at, of course, but you'd made more money at a minimum wage job than sitting on and reselling hard to find games.

If you're talking about the original gray cart of Rampart, available BINs are much less than that and the only copies anyone has bothered to actually buy were a BIN for $15 and an auction which only received a single bid of $8.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that was the average price, just that particular auction must have been affected by the above mentioned experiment.  I'd never pay more than a dollar or two for that particular game myself.

[StarDust4Ever]

It depends if the system the game is on is popular amongst set collectors or not.  If common shitty game X becomes the sole game keeping seveal hundred set collectors from their last piece, common shitty game X will become uncommon hidden gem expensive game X.

Due to the huge size of the Gameboy library, I imagine the act of creating game scarcity and price manipulation is low.  If you were to try the same type of thing with TG16 or Virtual Boy or a smaller sized set, I am sure one person could make a game's price move.  All you would need to do is pick a game with less than 10 listings at most times and constantly win each copy posted.

Mario / Duck Hunt doesn't seem like a good example where this would be possible.

P.S. - Don't do this.

No worries, too much effort anyway!  I was just saying to my friend that even if I had stashed a couple Earthbounds or Panzer Dragoon Saga's and made 2-300 each, that's still a pretty dinky profit over a 10/15 year period.  It's nothing to scoff at, of course, but you'd made more money at a minimum wage job than sitting on and reselling hard to find games.

If you're talking about the original gray cart of Rampart, available BINs are much less than that and the only copies anyone has bothered to actually buy were a BIN for $15 and an auction which only received a single bid of $8.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that was the average price, just that particular auction must have been affected by the above mentioned experiment.  I'd never pay more than a dollar or two for that particular game myself.

Earthbound is a terrible example. It has an R4 rarity and sells for R7 prices. Goto nintendoage.com, find an R6 or R7 with low "loose" price on pricecharting, and use that for your market manipulation. Don't even bother with stuff that plateaued years ago...

[bob]

It depends if the system the game is on is popular amongst set collectors or not.  If common shitty game X becomes the sole game keeping seveal hundred set collectors from their last piece, common shitty game X will become uncommon hidden gem expensive game X.

Due to the huge size of the Gameboy library, I imagine the act of creating game scarcity and price manipulation is low.  If you were to try the same type of thing with TG16 or Virtual Boy or a smaller sized set, I am sure one person could make a game's price move.  All you would need to do is pick a game with less than 10 listings at most times and constantly win each copy posted.

Mario / Duck Hunt doesn't seem like a good example where this would be possible.

P.S. - Don't do this.

No worries, too much effort anyway!  I was just saying to my friend that even if I had stashed a couple Earthbounds or Panzer Dragoon Saga's and made 2-300 each, that's still a pretty dinky profit over a 10/15 year period.  It's nothing to scoff at, of course, but you'd made more money at a minimum wage job than sitting on and reselling hard to find games.

If you're talking about the original gray cart of Rampart, available BINs are much less than that and the only copies anyone has bothered to actually buy were a BIN for $15 and an auction which only received a single bid of $8.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that was the average price, just that particular auction must have been affected by the above mentioned experiment.  I'd never pay more than a dollar or two for that particular game myself.

Earthbound is a terrible example. It has an R4 rarity and sells for R7 prices. Goto nintendoage.com, find an R6 or R7 with low "loose" price on pricecharting, and use that for your market manipulation. Don't even bother with stuff that plateaued years ago...

L  O  f*cking L

[StarDust4Ever]

It depends if the system the game is on is popular amongst set collectors or not.  If common shitty game X becomes the sole game keeping seveal hundred set collectors from their last piece, common shitty game X will become uncommon hidden gem expensive game X.

Due to the huge size of the Gameboy library, I imagine the act of creating game scarcity and price manipulation is low.  If you were to try the same type of thing with TG16 or Virtual Boy or a smaller sized set, I am sure one person could make a game's price move.  All you would need to do is pick a game with less than 10 listings at most times and constantly win each copy posted.

Mario / Duck Hunt doesn't seem like a good example where this would be possible.

P.S. - Don't do this.

No worries, too much effort anyway!  I was just saying to my friend that even if I had stashed a couple Earthbounds or Panzer Dragoon Saga's and made 2-300 each, that's still a pretty dinky profit over a 10/15 year period.  It's nothing to scoff at, of course, but you'd made more money at a minimum wage job than sitting on and reselling hard to find games.

If you're talking about the original gray cart of Rampart, available BINs are much less than that and the only copies anyone has bothered to actually buy were a BIN for $15 and an auction which only received a single bid of $8.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that was the average price, just that particular auction must have been affected by the above mentioned experiment.  I'd never pay more than a dollar or two for that particular game myself.

Earthbound is a terrible example. It has an R4 rarity and sells for R7 prices. Goto nintendoage.com, find an R6 or R7 with low "loose" price on pricecharting, and use that for your market manipulation. Don't even bother with stuff that plateaued years ago...

L  O  f*cking L

Look at the historic prices of Earthbound and compare it to other games that sell at equal prices today. Most of them were far, far cheaper in 2008 than they are now. Earthbound hasn't inflated much at all by comparison. Just find a cheap uncommon title that hasn't spiked yet and corner the market on it.

Turbo games are a bad idea since they are in general far less common than NES, SNES, Genesis titles, so most games have already spiked. PCE games may be a good market to corner as more American gamers jump onto the import bandwagon.

[Gredler]

Good market to corner

[StarDust4Ever]

Good market to corner

Unlike Southpark's underpants gnomes, this 5 step plan does not contain marks. In fact, it would be a bit like playing the stock market. Buy enough of a specific stock and price inflates, then sell it back, aka "pump and dump." Same principal with game commodities.

#1: Search on eBay and buy up all existing copies of a specific cheap PCe game that sells top dollar for the Turbo equivalent.
#2: Watch as prices skyrocket.
#3: Slowly release PCe games back into the market.
#4: Profit.
#5: Pick another game and return to step #1.
 :-"

[johnnykonami]

I just pulled Earthbound out of my hat, I'm not gonna become an ebay price gouger so I haven't done any research on maximum profitability or anything.

[Lost Monkey]

I just pulled Earthbound out of my hat, I'm not gonna become an ebay price gouger so I haven't done any research on maximum profitability or anything.

Shit - I was going to do a dissertation on Earthbound profitability through the year 2025...  Oh well...

[Black Tiger]

B.S. like rarity ratings and guides are a large contributor to the gouging, collectard, etc problem.

Remember when someone "proved" that Magical Chase was a mail-order-only game, only available in the U.S. and after only a handful of people bothered to order it, TTi shutdown and 99% of the already small production run was crushed, incinerated and buried during a legal ceremony?

[johnnykonami]

I just pulled Earthbound out of my hat, I'm not gonna become an ebay price gouger so I haven't done any research on maximum profitability or anything.

Shit - I was going to do a dissertation on Earthbound profitability through the year 2025...  Oh well...

Sounds like I saved you some time and effort!

[bob]

B.S. like rarity ratings and guides are a large contributor to the gouging, collectard, etc problem.

Remember when someone "proved" that Magical Chase was a mail-order-only game, only available in the U.S. and after only a handful of people bothered to order it, TTi shutdown and 99% of the already small production run was crushed, incinerated and buried during a legal ceremony?

the "R4/R7/etc" crap is what i was laughing at.

[Gypsy]

B.S. like rarity ratings and guides are a large contributor to the gouging, collectard, etc problem.

Remember when someone "proved" that Magical Chase was a mail-order-only game, only available in the U.S. and after only a handful of people bothered to order it, TTi shutdown and 99% of the already small production run was crushed, incinerated and buried during a legal ceremony?

the "R4/R7/etc" crap is what i was laughing at.

Just completely f*cking stupid tbh. And NA wonders why they are disliked.