Digital Distribution Driving Down Rare Game Values

Digital re-releases of classic games are undeniably good for just about everyone, but some collectors may be less than thrilled by the new accessibility of rare titles as it drives down the value of their games.

'When you think about it, it's actually quite predictable," Racketboy owner Nick recently told Ars Technica. "Those that have the valuable games don't like the trend for the most part. They feel like their collection is losing value, so they can be quite defensive."

That "trend" is the explosive growth of digital downloads, and the resulting easy access to classic videogames that were previously both hard to find and prohibitively expensive. "Rez used to sell for about $50 for the Dreamcast version and $45 for the PS2 version through the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008," he continued. "Ikaruga sold for about $75 for the Dreamcast version and $45 for the Gamecube port. Once it was announced that both games would be coming to XBLA in the middle of the year, the games dropped $5 to $15 in value, moreso for the Dreamcast version of Ikaruga... It seems that the Dreamcast games hold their value a bit more as it is more of a cult classic system, and they are also Japanese imports."

In fact, Nick predicted as far as back 2006 that collecting videogames as a financial investment was a losing proposition. In a post entitled "Game Collecting: Don't 'Invest' In Vintage Games," he noted that the rise of emulators, the growing popularity of services like Xbox Live and Gametap and "reprints" of games that saw limited initial release would all inevitably drive down the dollar value of videogame collections. "Between the fact that interest in most original copies of older games gradually decreases and the number of game reprints (legal and illegal) are on the rise, I would strongly recommend that you focus on collecting games that you actually enjoy as opposed to looking to vintage games as an investment," he wrote.

The dilemma facing "investment collectors" is one I hadn't considered. I take a good bit of pride in my own collection (although it's relatively tiny) but the monetary value of my games is something I've never really considered, except during those thankfully rare instances when I'm laying out the bucks for an old Origin game on eBay. I tend not to buy digitally because I enjoy the "extra stuff" - the boxes, manuals, bonus content, swizzle-stick and autographed photo of Buddy Burbank - as much as the game itself. But that's my own particular gamer aesthetic at work, not some long-term investment plan. Do any of you buy rare games with the hopes of seeing a big return on your investment - and if so, is digital distribution making you nervous?

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A very good article because a lot of people who are pack rats like myself have a decent size collection and have gone out of my way to get old games that I truly love. The moment I realized that re-distribution of old games was when bandai re-released Dragonball GT Final bout, an average to poor fighting game but damn people had FUN with it and the value of the originals dropped from 250 dollars to 50 bucks.

I would of been nice to "cash in" all my old games to other collectors or archives but since we are in the age of digitization the value of products produced today can easily be replicated and replaced. It is hard to get say an old baseball card signed by Babe Ruth to be reproduced. You can reproduce the card but it won't be the same as the original compared to a video game the game is frozen in time regardless of when the data will be written into the disc.

I still have my original boxed copies of Planescape Torment and Suikoden 2, but thats because I couldnt bring myself to trade them in rather than the monetary value.

I have a original copy me Tombi2 for the ps1. Still got the book and everything. It is worth around US $50

This news makes me happy.
Most collectors/investors strike me as either elitist or unethical people. They intend to make a profit by restricting other people's ability to enjoy something good. Anything that undermines that pleases me. Good things are for sharing.

Ikaruga being a good case in point, I hardly know anyone besides myself with either a Dreamcast or a Cube. It's difficult to get someone playing a game if they have to hunt down a rare or old console then pay way over the odds for an old-ish game. Now telling them it's on XBLA for £5 makes spreading the word much simpler.

It may be true to an extent with the PS2 generation onwards but games like Suikoden II and Symphony of the Knight will never lose their value. People have been using emulators for years and it hasn't had a negative effect. Of course most video games were never that valuable in the first place, it's just that there a lot of stupid/nostalgic people on eBay. Seriously, most people seem to think that because something's relatively old it must be rare. Copies of the original Final Fantasy VII still sell for £15 or so despite there being millions of copies in circulation.

Anyway, the joy of collecting is in possessing the actual item rather than playing the game. Try comparing prices between the original version of Ico and the reissue. Just the other day I was involved in a furious bidding war with several other people for a Growlanser box set. Growlanser! Why the hell would I pay £45 for a couple of old TRPGs in a nice package? Because.

The article does miss the point slightly because it's still ridiculously easy to make a profit from buying and selling games, specifically on eBay. Games are a lot like cars in that they lose value so quickly that people can't seem to accept it. They'll pay way over the odds because it must be worth that.... musn't it? I do feel sorry for people who paid £25 for Rez though (even if it is worth every penny).

Is it bad I know where the Buddy Burbank poster is from?

Ah well, I'll just stick with my Ghost Widow HeroClix and Everquest 2 teatowel.

I never collected games, way too expensive, and playing them is much more fun then letting them collect dust while I'm hoping to sell them one day.

Well thats nice, becaus losing a few quid is fine, because they'll always have some value - digital nevers beats the real thing, porn teaches us that.

fix-the-spade:
Most collectors/investors strike me as either elitist or unethical people. They intend to make a profit by restricting other people's ability to enjoy something good.

That's a bit harsh. Some people, in fact I'd say most people, collect simply for the joy of collecting. I've lined the wallets of a few sellers over the years (nothing too serious, of course) not because I'm building a retirement portfolio but because I appreciated and desired a specific example of the art form. Likewise, I've had my collection seriously pumped up by a fellow collector who wanted to get rid of a bunch of his stuff and decided to give it to an aficionado who'd really appreciate it rather than sell it off.

That said, I think this is a great trend too: Newcomers get to play some really amazing games they may have missed out on and I still get to indulge my desire for CIB originals. Hell, if Ars is right about this, I'll even get to take advantage of lower prices on older games as speculators abandon the market. It's a win for everyone.

Hmmmm... I suppose this means my almost complete set of hardcover Discworld novels will be worth almost nothing soon, as they're all available on audiobook CD...

Anyone collecting original copies of old games in the hopes of selling them for a profit has completely missed the point(in my not-always-humble opinion).
I'm looking forward to the scalpers abandoning the scene and driving down the prices for those of us who appreciate what we're buying.

I have a "collection" and I do enjoy hunting rare games in stores but I would never call it an investment, it's more for fun than anything else. That and I do really want to play the games I track down.

I personally am a fan of Digital Distribution because there are always a handful of games which I've never had a chance to play and really don't want to pay an arm and a leg for them, and it also means that I have them on a new console and don't have to drag out an old system and pray that it still works/ I have all the right cords.

Avida:
Well thats nice, becaus losing a few quid is fine, because they'll always have some value - digital nevers beats the real thing, porn teaches us that.

This man speaks the truth

While they might not be a worthwhile investment now or in the short term I think I can see rare computer games becoming collector's items in the (really) long term.

I'd compare it to old book collection. Books can be reprinted dozens of times with practically no qualitative changes to cover designs and font, they can (and increasingly will) be digitally distributed, they can be available to read for absolutely free in public libraries. But it isn't about the content, it's about the physical item. Collectors will still pay through the nose for a first edition.

People who collect things for monetary gain are utterly repugnant individuals, IMO.

I once overheard a conversation by two baseball card collectors talking about the new trend in baseball cards, 1-of-1s. Which basically means one copy of the card is printed ever, which spikes it's value to ridiculous levels. But my point is that the two card-geeks were talking about another geek. This guy was at a sports card convention, and he saw a kid with a 1-of-1 in one hand and an ice-cream bar in the other. And they were saying that he was trying to figure out a way to get the card away from the kid before he dribbled ice cream on it and ruined it's value.

What I got out of that exchange was that collectors believe that only they are entitled to any sports card or any other collectable that has any sort of real value. And if you have one they will either steal it, or corner you until you hand it over to them for a fraction of what it's worth. Then they will display it in their store or keep it in a safe for a hundred years or whatever so that they can get stinking rich.

Reading this news article, I can't be the least bit sympathetic towards these jerks.

Digital distribution hasn't gone far enough. The internet, in its commercial form, has been around for about fifteen years and I still have to line up, like a schlub, at some game store, surrounded by the unwashed scum of the earth, if I want to get a day 1 release. Balls to that.

Old games are merely testing the water, due to their conveniently small size.

Just means you've got to collect more carefully. When the Great Machine War of 2012 strikes, large numbers of games will be preserved by the supercomputer. The more obscure stuff, like my copy of Eric the Unready, is what will help me barter my way out of the slave camps and become a true road samurai.

People "investing" in video game collection really need to take a look at what they're spending their money on. Games aren't terribly collectable; at their core, they're bytes which are infinitely reproduceable. (Hence the problem with piracy.) Particular expressions of games, like boxed sets with tangible contents like decoder wheels or scratch-n-sniff cards, may retain some sort of value of their own... but the game content is prone to rerelease at any time, in translated format across multiple platforms.

This is actually a boon for people who collect games to play them, as they get more and more chances to pick up old rarities created for obsolete hardware... guys like me make out like bandits on this. But the "investor" collectors should stick with stamps and artwork.

-- Steve

I've honestly never thought of video games as a collectible commodity. While I'm quite proud of my own (very large) collection of games going back to the Atari 2600, I keep them for the love of the games, not for the money. I'd sooner sell my own arm as sell my collection. So, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the investment collector. Games are meant to be played, to be enjoyed, not stored away unused. That's the whole reason for a game to exist, for people to enjoy it.

I find the release of all of these older, classic games to be a major plus. It not only allows those of us old timers with nostalgia to enjoy our old games, it gives newer gamers an opportunity to see what came before, to give them a sense of the history of the hobby. There's nothing bad about it, IMO.

CarlosYenrac:
Anyone collecting original copies of old games in the hopes of selling them for a profit has completely missed the point(in my not-always-humble opinion).

Not really. It's easy to make money buying and selling games online. Buying something and sitting on it for a decade in the hope it'll become priceless is stupid, on the other hand, but I don't think anyone does that.

Because most games have no actual "value" their prices fluctuate from day-to-day and with each auction. So long as you know the average selling price of each item there's profit to be made.

johnx61:
People who collect things for monetary gain are utterly repugnant individuals, IMO.

I "collect" games for monetary gain in the same way that any other businessperson collects their item of choice: I buy things at the right price and sell them on at a better price, usually within a couple of months. Sometimes I hold onto something in the hope that its value will rise over time (Dark Chronicle, Katamari) but it can just as easily fall (Ico, Rez). The fun is in predicting the winners and losers. Am I "utterly repugnant"?

(I have never conned a child.)

Double post, sorry.

harhol:

johnx61:
People who collect things for monetary gain are utterly repugnant individuals, IMO.

I "collect" games for monetary gain in the same way that any other businessperson collects their item of choice: I buy things at the right price and sell them on at a better price, usually within a couple of months. Sometimes I hold onto something in the hope that its value will rise over time (Dark Chronicle, Katamari) but it can just as easily fall (Ico, Rez). The fun is in predicting the winners and losers. Am I "utterly repugnant"?

(I have never conned a child.)

Double post, sorry.

I don't know you personally. But I base that claim not just on the exchange I witnessed between those two idiots. But on years of playing TCGs and being scammed by card-shop owners and collectors alike. I've also had my card-collections ransacked, rare and valuable cards stolen and been harassed by collectors to give up rare cards for bad trades or otherwise bad deals.

johnx61:
I don't know you personally. But I base that claim not just on the exchange I witnessed between those two idiots. But on years of playing TCGs and being scammed by card-shop owners and collectors alike. I've also had my card-collections ransacked, rare and valuable cards stolen and been harassed by collectors to give up rare cards for bad trades or otherwise bad deals.

So because of your experiences with some shady card dealers and collectors, every collector who intends to make a profit on anything is an "utterly repugnant individual"? That's a bit of a stretch if you ask me. Not everyone is a scheming asshole.

Well, given my AMAZING SPIDERMAN #300 (Mcfarlane's first artwork) or my Uncanny X-men #130 are still soaring in value, I'll hang onto my Mylar coated goodies for some time yet.

Age has it's benefits. :)

smallharmlesskitten:
I have a original copy me Tombi2 for the ps1. Still got the book and everything. It is worth around US $50

Would be better if you had Tombi 1, I love those games.
I used to have an original Tekken 1 in the cardboard case, dunno what happened to that.

If you give a shit about the monetary value then you are not a collector and lack the right to complain as such. Collector means you collect stuff. That's it. Hence the name collector. The monetary value has nothing to do with it unless you plan on selling it later, in which you are not a collector, but an investor.

PedroSteckecilo:
I have a "collection" and I do enjoy hunting rare games in stores but I would never call it an investment, it's more for fun than anything else. That and I do really want to play the games I track down.

Ditto. I used to have a rather sizeable collection (sadly had to abandon most of it when I moved), and while some of it was fairly valuable, I never intended to sell anything. Simply finding and owning the games was the joy for me, not the potential money to be made. And I also simply wanted the pleasure of playing them - I never collected anything simply because it was "rare," it also had to be something that appealed to me personally.

I still see digital distribution as a good thing, though. It gives folks access to games that they'd otherwise never get the chance to play, and helps keep prices from getting too outrageous for collectors who still want the real thing.

Hankage:
Remember this?

Some items will be rarer than others, and collecting inevitably drives up the prices of those items. There's nothing inherently evil about it.

Which isn't to say there aren't "evil" collectors and dealers, but there also has to be some obligation on the part of collectors who want to get into the hobby to that extent (buying from dealers, eBay, etc.) to do their homework. It takes two people to make a bad deal.

But I maintain that the vast majority of collectors out there are decent guys who like games, like collecting and are far more likely to help out their fellows than put the screws to them.

Interesting. I myself had to go some distance (across the Atlantic Ocean, to be precise) to pick up a copy of an old point-and-click called I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. But if I had been able to legally download it at cost, I'd have done so in a heartbeat. Re-packaged, re-coded versions have fewer compatibility issues, I find.