this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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Who's making older games so expensive? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 week ago by SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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I don't want to buy games digitally anymore until I can actually own the game rather than the license. But then some freak on eBay is asking for $500 for a copy of Klonoa on the PS1. Then there are even more freaks who are willing to bid higher than that! Then the smaller retro games stores around me base their prices on these prices. There needs to be a price cap on this stuff. We can't let all of the richest nerds control the economy.

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[–] Obelix@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago

Just to give you some background information:

In comparison, Japanese sales figures for the original Door to Phantomile on the PS1 sold 51,441 units in its first week and went on to sell 159,284 units. The original JP release of Lunatea's Veil on the PS2 sold 45,639 units in its first week and 133,401 units in nine months.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Klonoa/comments/xc3b9l/klonoa_phantasy_reverie_series_total_sales/

This one is giving you 25851 sales in north america:

https://www.installbaseforum.com/threads/ps1-and-n64-software-and-hardware-sales-data-for-the-usa-1995-2003.3292/

So there were never that much copies out there and there can't be that many copys left. The game was released 27 years ago - discs were thrown out, were destroyed, became scratched and unreadable, house fires, floods etc. happened, but even if every copy was still in existence: You would still only need 25852 people who are trying to collect all north american PSX releases to create a scarity.

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Emulators are your friend. Hoarders, graders, and scalpers can go suck a railroad spike.

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or if you prefer original hardware, flash carts and optical drive emulators.

MiSTer is another great option that's like a halfway point between software emulation and real hardware. It's still emulation, but it's done in hardware instead of software.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Grab a working, modded PSX (probably easier to find than unmodded), buy tubes of blank cds, go wild

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago

Laser health and blank CD quality just aren't what they used to be (especially after Taiyo Yuden shut down). This is still what I'm doing with my PS1, but I plan on upgrading to an ODE when I get the chance.

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

That's what I'm talking about!

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Supply and demand, since they're all collectors items now.

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And I hate to say this but also the success of vintage/retro PC and video game channels on YouTube.

On the flipside this has led to a whole slew of new businesses that cater to people who just play the ROM's and even new mini PC's just to play vintage/retro games on.

[–] Grangle1@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yep, it's the collectors' market. I say that as someone inspired by those very YT channels to get into the hobby myself. But I'm just looking to get games I remember and enjoy, not looking to get whole complete collections or anything. If a game I have my eye on becomes some "holy grail" $500 thing, I can live without it. What helps me, though, is living in a bigger town for a rural area that does have one or two brick-and-mortar retro game stores, where I may be able to find games I'm looking for at below eBay prices. That's another hint; hit up the physical shops you may have near you, be they specialized game shops or even thrift stores. Diamonds in the rough do exist sometimes.

EDIT: I mention rural areas specifically because they usually won't have as much demand driving up prices as the big urban areas will, even if supply is lower.

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The issue with our retro stores is that they look up prices on eBay to set their prices and the first result when looking up Symphony of the Night is $150, so their price is $125 to be "cheaper" than the market price.

[–] f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

At least they offer a substantial discount from eBay price.

"Well, this is what it goes for on eBay!"

Me: "No, that is the price it sits unsold on eBay. Refine search -> Sold items, my friend."

[–] SynonymousStoat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

It's not much different than if you were to go to a business that buys and sells gold. They'll have the current market rate on display and for video games eBay is a decent place to look for the market rate. With retro games there may at least be a bit of lag if they have prices directly on the games and not do something shady like looking up current prices at checkout.

What you said is definitely a problem though. The person selling a game should look at recent sold copies over the past 6ish months and consider the physical quality of the game in question to determine a price better; I don't think a lot of shops put much time or thought into this aspect of it.

I don't really know how you could do it any other way when retro games are a finite resource that isn't being produced any more.

[–] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm seeing playable discs for around $30 sold on ebay.

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'll let them know

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

"Then just buy it from them! See if I care!" - the shop owner, probably

[–] atomicpoet@kbin.earth 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

On every retrogaming forum I’ve ever been on, this has been a topic and it’s been a topic for at least 15 years. A few practical bits of advice:

  1. The cheapest games will always be last generations games
  2. Anything not deemed “retro” yet is cheap
  3. Nintendo is always super expensive unless it’s Wii or handheld
  4. Anything Xbox is cheap
  5. PC is cheap, unless it’s big box, but even then sellers will sell big box for cheap because they often don’t know what they have
  6. There’s nothing wrong with buying from GOG, burning to disc, and making your own labels and box art—which is easy to do because it’s DRM-free
  7. Except for PS1, Sony is cheap. But even then PS1 is cheaper than N64 or Saturn.
  8. Nothing wrong with an Everdrive, especially since that’s the best way to play aftermarket games
[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

For burning to a disc from GOG, is there a way to do that with the old consoles? I have all of the PlayStations, because I have never liked playing on my PC. I wasn't allowed to play many of the games that came out on PS1 or PS2 growing up, and now that I have some sort of disposable income, I want to check out the stuff I missed out on. The issue is that those are the games that scalpers love. If there was a way to bypass them on the games like Silent Hill or Diablo I would love that.

[–] xspurnx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mod your consoles, find backups online. For PSX check out PSIO...

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A lot of people have mentioned this, so I've been looking into it. How easy would it be to do these mods myself?

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

Modding a PS1 requires some soldering skill, but it's relatively easy. Depending where you're from and where/when you got your PS1, it's likely already modded, so if you have a blank CD to burn a game, you can test it straight away.

For PS2, FreeMCBoot will let you run games from a USB pendrive, installed HDD or from ethernet cable and requires zero actual hardware modding, you just need to boot the console with the proper memory card inserted. You'll either need to buy a FreeMCboot card, which should be easy and cheap to find (aliexpress has plenty), or get an adapter to connect to a PC and do it yourself.

[–] bigb@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If you have a PS2, mod it to play backups. There's a new method called MMCE that is very promising and looks very easy to setup.

https://stoneagegamer.com/memcard-pro-2-for-playstation-and-playstation-2.html

https://youtu.be/mdxDRtfEXNg?si=vAticFv6PnZTN9ER

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or FreeMCBoot + a USB pendrive.

[–] bigb@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

You bet, I'm a FreeMCBoot fan myself. I bought a network adapter and a SATA adapter for an internal hard drive to load games off of.

[–] Benaaasaaas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What's the difference between playing on PC vs PS if it's the same game? Locking yourself out of either emulation or playing the PC version is going to make it harder/more expensive on you to replay old games.

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The difference is personal preference and values

[–] Don_alForno@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

What values?

[–] Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Got to disagree with you on #6 unless you explicitly mention that it's a DIY replica.

If one is buying a PC box, you expect the original from when it was released, not a DIY GOG package (which you can do yourself).

[–] atomicpoet@kbin.earth 16 points 1 week ago

I'm not suggesting that you sell your DIY GOG package to someone else. I'm suggesting you do that for yourself.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

unless you explicitly mention that it's a DIY replica.

I’m sure the OP will be careful to let himself know that he’s made a DIY replica.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Scarcity. Those games are no longer in print so there is no new units to bring the price down.

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can make many backup copies of your rom collection. Not so with old discs that are not reading, or carts suffering from bitrot or physical damage.

With retro gaming; emulation IS the way forward. Physical media is more of a display piece for nostalgia maniacs, or an investment for speculators.

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

I know that emulation is good for preservation and accessibility and I am all for it. My preference for physical media comes from wanting to support the mom and pop local stores and, while convenient, I don't like to have everything stored on a hard drive. All of the consoles I own work perfectly fine and I think it would be a waste for them to rot away in a landfill. Or worse yet, to gather dust on a shelf, unused as some collectors item to be shown off like a taxidermied elk.

[–] dormedas@lemmy.dormedas.com 9 points 1 week ago

Scarcity and some artificial scarcity called grading. Take for example Pokémon vintage trading card game packs. Base set has a bunch of print differences but even buying a normal unlimited version pack is $300-400. The value of a Charizard, if you pull it out of that pack, is ~$200-400 raw. However, if you grade it and it comes back a 10, it’s suddenly “worth” $1000+.

This is not quite as prevalent in video games but it is happening. The price of popular Pokémon games that are complete in box are sky high because someone somewhere wants to buy it and submit it for the chance it’s “worth” 10x the price.

Pricecharting.com is your friend. Patience is a virtue.

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 8 points 1 week ago

Get an Everdrive or blank CD and flash ROMs to them to play on your original systems.

[–] Benaaasaaas@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

GoG while they are still selling the license you can download it and save it for the future. All games have no DRM.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

Who's making old games so expensive?

GoG while they are still selling the license you can download it and save it for the future. All games have no DRM.

It makes it sound like you're blaming GOG, lol

[–] bluelander@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Some of it is just them getting hard to find for things that were made in smaller numbers. As time goes on there are less of them floating around.

But also: grading and internet hype has drawn the eyes of a certain class of investor that want to sit on these "assets." Then everyone that sees a graded copy of a game sell for a high dollar amount assumes their grungy copy with no box and their name written on the cartridge is worth the same amount. You see the same thing across a lot of collectibles hobbies, unfortunately.

[–] SubjectivelyGood@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The no box and no manual postings drive me mad. Firstly, I kept all of that stuff because it's fun to look at and reread the manual after years of not touching it, so it just boggles me that so many people immediately threw those things away and slipped the disc into a sleeve. But secondly, how are you going to sit there and tell me your loose, scratched up, sugar encrusted copy of Armored Core is worth over $100?

[–] bluelander@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

I'm guilty of tossing plenty of stuff out over the years. So many boxes full of boxes, eventually the downsizing bug bites and I need to separate wheat from chaff.

But the idea that people pretend to have no idea that those things adds to the value confuses me as well. I'm also perpetually confused that people don't understand the difference between something being listed for an amount and something selling for an amount. Anyone can list anything they want for any amount, but that doesn't mean other people are buying it! I could list my copy of Low G Man for 10 billion dollars if I want to, but it's sure as heck not worth that.

[–] Merlin@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago

Everdrives and hacking systems are your friends

[–] Weebdeluxe@ani.social 4 points 1 week ago

Videogame publishers not caring about their backcatalogs. If they'd care about preservation and actual long term gain, they'd make old games available.

It took EA so long to make Sims 1 and 2 available. It felt like they actively hate money. And there are plenty of other games that people would love to buy and that are just not made available.

If owning the physical retro game is the only way to play the game (legally) that will help drive up prices.

This is of course but one of the reasons.

[–] JASN_DE@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Good luck with that.

[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

If I had a ps1 I wanted to use then I would look at FreePSXBoot and UniROM - https://github.com/brad-lin/FreePSXBoot

[–] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Not expensive when you live in the Indian ocean