When I built my VG Collection here back in 2012, man it was such a thriving time. I still have those images, to never forget what was accomplished before inevitably having to sell it all in one swoop. The prices I've got those games for, the lucky breaks, the good trades here .etc were all worth it in the end. In a way, I could still do that today if I choose to but the business climate for retro games have changed and they've changed for the worst. First thing I've noticed, I no longer have a healthy network of places to frequent to acquire games from. There are places in general I could visit, but the prices are heavily based on EBay. Resellers have taken over thrift stores that I frequented, who also practice the same.
There's one used video game store I've been doing business with for a bit now and I'm starting to reconsider after my exchange by giving him my Nintendo Wii. He sells Nintendo Wiis for $60 a pop, I got mine for $25 at a thrift store. He was willing to give me 25 in store credit for it. Being partially blinded by the whole 'support small business' motto, I accepted the poor terms. He was lying through his teeth because I'm a semi-regular there, he does manage to sell Wiis. He didn't even add anymore credit for the two copies of the Price is Right for Wii that I had with the system, could've had at least 3 for each since they're 5 loose. I was also building credit to eventually buy a PS4 Pro he had there that was $349 even though I have a PS4 slim. I was considering trading my PS4 and PS2 (fat) combined and then fill in the difference with paying directly. I was at 95 store credit at the time, but now 60 cause he had a couple PS4 games I wanted. He offered 120 for the PS4 Slim and 20 for the PS2 fat. The offer for the PS4, maybe sounds fair. But the PS2 offer is what is making me change gears on all of this.
He can't tell me again that he has difficulty selling PS2s because he sells those for 50 a pop, regardless of model and they fly off the shelf. I go in, see one, I come back in a day later or an hour later - gone. So, I think I'm going to not give him anymore systems and drop the PS4 Pro idea. I'll find someone who'll sell a Pro down the road for at least a manageable price point, eventually.
And while I was browsing about on EBay to find me some PS3 games I'd want to have like Dante's Inferno, I see a copy going for $5,000. I thought "oh...one of you" because the image of that listing had a graded shell on it and all these fancy holo graphics and the grade of the condition that's entirely made up. I went out of my way to message this seller and straight up tell him off to first get his attention. Then it boiled down to a debate with a greedy reseller because I've been in the used video games market for 10 years of my life, I've done business here and I've been partially influenced by some of the users who has done business here. In otherwords, I know enough to know a phony reseller and their practices out in the open than most don't. So we debated about this, a pretty heated one at that and all that he can ever go on about is gloating about the hustling market and how I'm supposedly jealous that I won't be able to sell a graded game to make $5,000 blah, blah, blah.
Well, you know, I have a sealed copy of Nioh 2 for PS4. I could do the same exact thing that scammer does but I'm not going to because the whole WATA and graded system for games thing is managed by a bunch of greedy hustlers running auctions made for and ran by rich people. They've long been damaging the marketplace with their practices by inflating the values of games beyond what they would realistically be valued for. It is infuriating to see and no, I'm not jealous about it because I'm not a greedy fudging reseller who uses an elementary school grading system to artificially inflate the values of games. So, I just again told the reseller off and ignored him. He responded like 2 times in the past hour since I last sent mine and I'm ignoring it because I'm disgusted how he justifies this bullcrap.
Being in the retro game market can have it's perks but it's mostly dominated by scammers and scalpers who's been gaming a good hobby, the same way cryptominers have damaged the GPU marketplace. Absolutely disgraceful.
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