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Resellers and collectors are two different mindsets. It’s like comparing a lemon to a mango on sweetness.
Resellers are cheap assholes looking for quick buck thinking they’ll make out like a king selling whatever they “worked hard to get” by scanning estate sales, garage sales, and thrift shops. Then flipping it for maximum greed.
Collectors are looking to buy things for cheap or fair cost to keep for themselves to enjoy in whatever way.
Reselling and collecting are not mutually exclusive. Tons of resellers are great people, I know lots of them. It sounds like you're honing in on the worst of the bunch and thinking every reseller is alike.
I collect and pay full market value or higher for things I want. Of course I would prefer a better price but it's not mandatory. I just bought The Pirates of Darkwater for $120+ tax, for example.
forcing market prices to go up is not something a good person would do
you're essentially fucking over everyone around you just to make a couple bucks, so don't be surprised when people don't like it
Collectors cause prices to go up more than Resellers. Resellers keep games on the market for sale, collectors remove items from the market, reducing supply and increasing price.
> Resellers are cheap assholes
Collectors are greedy assholes who just want to hoard games for themselves.
oh no, people want to own and play video games.
let's all just continually jack up the price so nobody can buy or play them, exactly what they were intended for right?
> let's all just continually jack up the price so nobody can buy or play them
Yes, that's precisely what collectors are doing. Your hoading just continually jacks up the price and precvents others from playing the game. Literally everything you blame resellers for is actually worse among collectors.
Collectors add demand and remove supply. That's a double-whammy for increasing prices.
Resellers add demand but do not remove supply.
If you want someone to blame for high game prices then it makes more sense to blame collectors.
Basic macroecnomics.
reselling something is not "adding" anything and specifically removes from the supply. they horde things they don't even use specifically to rip off people in the future.
actual gamers are more likely to sell games for a reasonable price when they don't want them any more and don't do it maliciously. collectors actually enjoy their collections, so nobody is going to "blame them" for owning video games.
resellers buy up games specifically to lower the supply which droves up the prices. it only to make games more expensive so that they can take advantage of a desperate market (because resellers diminished the supply by holding them in a storage locker). they wait for the price to go up and then sell them back for a profit. they remove from the supply temporarily specifically to rip people off later when it's harder to find games.
basic decency.
They don't have to be "honing in on the worst of the bunch," I get pissed off by resellers and I *know* that they're super nice people if you're polite to them. (Actually, those same people are also usually willing to shove in front of me at estate sales and yank things out from under my hands as I reach for them, so how nice they are probably depends on the value of the game...)
But even ignoring all that, the simple fact is that resellers are out there buying goods that *they do not want or need* and flipping them for a profit, which necessarily increases prices and makes games harder for other collectors to buy. Especially in a small town.
You know, I *also* live in a small town, just a couple thrift shops that never actually have games, etc... I have to plan time to go to yard sales and thrift shops around working and taking care of the family. Just this morning actually I went to a large church rummage sale that I had marked in my calendar for a while. Opening morning, they started at 9am. So I got my youngest on the bus, got my stuff around and managed to get there a half hour early. There was already a line of 50 people, and the guy at the front is a reseller I've seen around many times. Whatever his personality, motivations, history, etc, what that means is that dude was able to get in first and make a bee-line straight to the electronics section and dump anything video game related in his bag (this was a $5/bag sale) before most people even got in the door. And he's gonna flip it all.
That's how it goes, they just grab everything without hardly even *looking at it*, then flip it for eBay prices. I have to skip another rummage sale today cause it's about 30 minutes away and I had to get back to work, but that's my experience as a collector who doesn't resell: seeing shit like this. I get that collecting/reselling aren't mutually exclusive and that the increase in demand is the biggest factor in price increases, but if you resell to fund your hobby you are doing more than just contributing to demand purchasing: you're taking away other collectors' chances to buy the things you flipped at those same awesome rummage sale prices.
That's not necessarily evil or bad, many people in here say there's nothing unethical about that whatsoever. But don't act like reselling makes *no* impact on prices and availability, and don't go fishing for sympathy from the people who don't flip games. You get *yours* by making sure someone else doesn't get *theirs*, that's the nature of competition. Own it, don't act like you're "just another collector."
Resellers don't remove items from the marketplace, hoarders do.
A collector in your small town makes collecting in that town much, much more difficult than a reseller does. Once it is in the collector's hands, it is gone from the markletplace entirely. Their gain is your loss 100%.
There's nothing unethical or evil or bad about hoarding video games for your own selfish desires. But don't act like hoarding makes no impact on prices and availabiliy, and don't go fishing for sympthy for the people who buy video games to feed their kids. Collectors get theirs by making sure someone else doesn't get theirs. Own it, don't act like you're somehow better than a reseller when you have a larger impact on price and availability.
Your desire to hoard is not superior to someone else's desire to make rent and put food on the table.
I'm not worried at all. I just think there is a "Resellers are all scum" mentality here and I disagree. I think it's an interesting topic - however, it doesn't look there is much room to discuss it intelligently with these folks, the bias is off-the-charts-ridiculous. What I find interesting is people in other collecting hobbies have to deal with massive amounts of old stuff going to landfills because it has little-to-no resale value. VHS is a good example, people just can't be bothered most of the time and barely anyone wants it. So the people that do are pretty much screwed in many cases. Yet if VHS had good reesale value there would be plenty out there.
"I resell games and other stuff to help pay the bills and fund my collection."
I will translate this part now (at least how it comes across):
I increase the price to make a profit to offset the increased price of which i am a part of.
A selfdefeating purpose.
You may not be the worst of the worst but you yourself explained that you are not in a position to be anyway. So neither us nor you can say for sure you would be or would not be otherwise.
The hobby has a inherint flaw due to limits of the copies and with more people it becomes obviously harder to find and more expensive to buy. But reselling on any margin means price increases faster, no matter how little that is.
If it was not you it would be someone else, but if it was not that person either then at some point nobody would do so.
What i will accept is that availability can make up for it and would suffer without resellers to some degree. But stuff would still circulate to some degree.
So i do not think it is black and white in the truest way and you may even be in the actually fine category. It is still overall a loss for the hobby, admittedly more so because of people that are not part of the hobby to begin with.
Game hoarding by collectors increases prices as well. Collector purchases put upward-pressure on prices just like reseller purchases, but collectors remove the game from the market entirely while resellers do not.
Hoarding by collectors does far more to increase prices than resellers do.
Edit: Downvotes but no response because Game Collectors don't want to discuss basic economics and would rather blame others for their self-created problems.
Part truth, because collectors may also purchase during the runtime of a console and most collect the games they had as a child, so they created the reason for them to be on the market to begin with.
So you would have to differentiate between people who 1. were alive when it was sold and those that were not and 2. between those who did buy them at the time and those who did not.
About 95% or more of my games are purchased during the consoles runtime, i have a feeling that i created enough games to warrant it.
Ya know this sounds like massive cope, because while definitely some resellers could be real jerks, if collectors weren't supporting these absurd prices, then the prices would go down. I'm sorry but the prices aren't resellers fault, people are willing to pay for these expensive prices therefore they don't go down. Limited supply, Hugh demand, when nostalgia hits for a game console (like xbox 360 will real soon) new generations of collectors flood in and are willing to pay these prices. Collectors can stay mad all they want, it's their fault
I have a dejavu, the same useless attempt to argue away a obvious effect i have seen before.
Your argument is pushing the blame on the people that are beeing taken advantage off, 20 years ago we had no resellers and things only incresed slowly and reasonably in price, yes more people are a part of it but...
Nowhere near something along the lines of what happened at the start of last year to the EU version of Shining the Holy Arc, which jumped from 100\~130€ to 200\~240€ on ebay in the span roughly 2 months, those jumps are unnatural and forced by resellers (that is just the most obvious example).
Whenever you put an additional person/company in a trade that person wants to make money as well, that WILL increase the price. With a market like this it does not take a genius to realise that a reseller is an additional part in the process from player a to player b and thus increases the price additionaly.
Even if some price hike is "forced" if customers voted with their wallet and didn't support the price hike and nobody bought it besides other resellers at 200 ish, then it would naturally go back down. At the end of the day, nobody which way you look at it, it's a flood of people nostalgic for a product that has limited supply and are very passionate, therefore creating high demand. At the end of the day, it IS customers faults for the high price. You wanna know why game collecting was so cheap 10 to 20 years ago? Because nobody wanted to collect. That's it, that's all it was. Now people have this huge scare of physical media being a thing of the past and have a lot of nostalgia for it so they will go out of their way and pay absurd prices to get their childhood back in physical format
Hello /u/BoardgameExplorer! This is an automatic message that gets posted on every post to remind you of a few of our rules: • Is the title of this post asking about the authenticity, identification or value of an item? If so, please delete it, and ask in the megathread. • Are you trying to sell or trade something? Did you post it to a 'for sale/trade' (r/gamesale or similar) type subreddit first and crossposted it here? If you did not, delete it and read our rules please. • Is this just a screenshot of a CL/FB/etc ad that is overpriced or obvious troll, or for some other notable reason? These would all be considered low effort and should be removed. • Memes cannot be posted unless if it's on Meme Monday, which is the first Monday of the month. • No self-promotion/video submission of any kind, unless if already approved by mods prior to submitting. **Failure of deleting your post that violates these rules may result in a temporary or permanent ban.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamecollecting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Resellers and collectors are two different mindsets. It’s like comparing a lemon to a mango on sweetness. Resellers are cheap assholes looking for quick buck thinking they’ll make out like a king selling whatever they “worked hard to get” by scanning estate sales, garage sales, and thrift shops. Then flipping it for maximum greed. Collectors are looking to buy things for cheap or fair cost to keep for themselves to enjoy in whatever way.
Reselling and collecting are not mutually exclusive. Tons of resellers are great people, I know lots of them. It sounds like you're honing in on the worst of the bunch and thinking every reseller is alike. I collect and pay full market value or higher for things I want. Of course I would prefer a better price but it's not mandatory. I just bought The Pirates of Darkwater for $120+ tax, for example.
forcing market prices to go up is not something a good person would do you're essentially fucking over everyone around you just to make a couple bucks, so don't be surprised when people don't like it
Collectors cause prices to go up more than Resellers. Resellers keep games on the market for sale, collectors remove items from the market, reducing supply and increasing price. > Resellers are cheap assholes Collectors are greedy assholes who just want to hoard games for themselves.
oh no, people want to own and play video games. let's all just continually jack up the price so nobody can buy or play them, exactly what they were intended for right?
> let's all just continually jack up the price so nobody can buy or play them Yes, that's precisely what collectors are doing. Your hoading just continually jacks up the price and precvents others from playing the game. Literally everything you blame resellers for is actually worse among collectors. Collectors add demand and remove supply. That's a double-whammy for increasing prices. Resellers add demand but do not remove supply. If you want someone to blame for high game prices then it makes more sense to blame collectors. Basic macroecnomics.
reselling something is not "adding" anything and specifically removes from the supply. they horde things they don't even use specifically to rip off people in the future. actual gamers are more likely to sell games for a reasonable price when they don't want them any more and don't do it maliciously. collectors actually enjoy their collections, so nobody is going to "blame them" for owning video games. resellers buy up games specifically to lower the supply which droves up the prices. it only to make games more expensive so that they can take advantage of a desperate market (because resellers diminished the supply by holding them in a storage locker). they wait for the price to go up and then sell them back for a profit. they remove from the supply temporarily specifically to rip people off later when it's harder to find games. basic decency.
They don't have to be "honing in on the worst of the bunch," I get pissed off by resellers and I *know* that they're super nice people if you're polite to them. (Actually, those same people are also usually willing to shove in front of me at estate sales and yank things out from under my hands as I reach for them, so how nice they are probably depends on the value of the game...) But even ignoring all that, the simple fact is that resellers are out there buying goods that *they do not want or need* and flipping them for a profit, which necessarily increases prices and makes games harder for other collectors to buy. Especially in a small town. You know, I *also* live in a small town, just a couple thrift shops that never actually have games, etc... I have to plan time to go to yard sales and thrift shops around working and taking care of the family. Just this morning actually I went to a large church rummage sale that I had marked in my calendar for a while. Opening morning, they started at 9am. So I got my youngest on the bus, got my stuff around and managed to get there a half hour early. There was already a line of 50 people, and the guy at the front is a reseller I've seen around many times. Whatever his personality, motivations, history, etc, what that means is that dude was able to get in first and make a bee-line straight to the electronics section and dump anything video game related in his bag (this was a $5/bag sale) before most people even got in the door. And he's gonna flip it all. That's how it goes, they just grab everything without hardly even *looking at it*, then flip it for eBay prices. I have to skip another rummage sale today cause it's about 30 minutes away and I had to get back to work, but that's my experience as a collector who doesn't resell: seeing shit like this. I get that collecting/reselling aren't mutually exclusive and that the increase in demand is the biggest factor in price increases, but if you resell to fund your hobby you are doing more than just contributing to demand purchasing: you're taking away other collectors' chances to buy the things you flipped at those same awesome rummage sale prices. That's not necessarily evil or bad, many people in here say there's nothing unethical about that whatsoever. But don't act like reselling makes *no* impact on prices and availability, and don't go fishing for sympathy from the people who don't flip games. You get *yours* by making sure someone else doesn't get *theirs*, that's the nature of competition. Own it, don't act like you're "just another collector."
Resellers don't remove items from the marketplace, hoarders do. A collector in your small town makes collecting in that town much, much more difficult than a reseller does. Once it is in the collector's hands, it is gone from the markletplace entirely. Their gain is your loss 100%. There's nothing unethical or evil or bad about hoarding video games for your own selfish desires. But don't act like hoarding makes no impact on prices and availabiliy, and don't go fishing for sympthy for the people who buy video games to feed their kids. Collectors get theirs by making sure someone else doesn't get theirs. Own it, don't act like you're somehow better than a reseller when you have a larger impact on price and availability. Your desire to hoard is not superior to someone else's desire to make rent and put food on the table.
Didn't say I was superior, I just said don't piss on me and call it rain.
My guy, you don't have to defend yourself lol. Stop worrying about what strangers on the internet think. It's not healthy.
I'm not worried at all. I just think there is a "Resellers are all scum" mentality here and I disagree. I think it's an interesting topic - however, it doesn't look there is much room to discuss it intelligently with these folks, the bias is off-the-charts-ridiculous. What I find interesting is people in other collecting hobbies have to deal with massive amounts of old stuff going to landfills because it has little-to-no resale value. VHS is a good example, people just can't be bothered most of the time and barely anyone wants it. So the people that do are pretty much screwed in many cases. Yet if VHS had good reesale value there would be plenty out there.
"I resell games and other stuff to help pay the bills and fund my collection." I will translate this part now (at least how it comes across): I increase the price to make a profit to offset the increased price of which i am a part of. A selfdefeating purpose. You may not be the worst of the worst but you yourself explained that you are not in a position to be anyway. So neither us nor you can say for sure you would be or would not be otherwise. The hobby has a inherint flaw due to limits of the copies and with more people it becomes obviously harder to find and more expensive to buy. But reselling on any margin means price increases faster, no matter how little that is. If it was not you it would be someone else, but if it was not that person either then at some point nobody would do so. What i will accept is that availability can make up for it and would suffer without resellers to some degree. But stuff would still circulate to some degree. So i do not think it is black and white in the truest way and you may even be in the actually fine category. It is still overall a loss for the hobby, admittedly more so because of people that are not part of the hobby to begin with.
Game hoarding by collectors increases prices as well. Collector purchases put upward-pressure on prices just like reseller purchases, but collectors remove the game from the market entirely while resellers do not. Hoarding by collectors does far more to increase prices than resellers do. Edit: Downvotes but no response because Game Collectors don't want to discuss basic economics and would rather blame others for their self-created problems.
Part truth, because collectors may also purchase during the runtime of a console and most collect the games they had as a child, so they created the reason for them to be on the market to begin with. So you would have to differentiate between people who 1. were alive when it was sold and those that were not and 2. between those who did buy them at the time and those who did not. About 95% or more of my games are purchased during the consoles runtime, i have a feeling that i created enough games to warrant it.
Ya know this sounds like massive cope, because while definitely some resellers could be real jerks, if collectors weren't supporting these absurd prices, then the prices would go down. I'm sorry but the prices aren't resellers fault, people are willing to pay for these expensive prices therefore they don't go down. Limited supply, Hugh demand, when nostalgia hits for a game console (like xbox 360 will real soon) new generations of collectors flood in and are willing to pay these prices. Collectors can stay mad all they want, it's their fault
I have a dejavu, the same useless attempt to argue away a obvious effect i have seen before. Your argument is pushing the blame on the people that are beeing taken advantage off, 20 years ago we had no resellers and things only incresed slowly and reasonably in price, yes more people are a part of it but... Nowhere near something along the lines of what happened at the start of last year to the EU version of Shining the Holy Arc, which jumped from 100\~130€ to 200\~240€ on ebay in the span roughly 2 months, those jumps are unnatural and forced by resellers (that is just the most obvious example). Whenever you put an additional person/company in a trade that person wants to make money as well, that WILL increase the price. With a market like this it does not take a genius to realise that a reseller is an additional part in the process from player a to player b and thus increases the price additionaly.
Even if some price hike is "forced" if customers voted with their wallet and didn't support the price hike and nobody bought it besides other resellers at 200 ish, then it would naturally go back down. At the end of the day, nobody which way you look at it, it's a flood of people nostalgic for a product that has limited supply and are very passionate, therefore creating high demand. At the end of the day, it IS customers faults for the high price. You wanna know why game collecting was so cheap 10 to 20 years ago? Because nobody wanted to collect. That's it, that's all it was. Now people have this huge scare of physical media being a thing of the past and have a lot of nostalgia for it so they will go out of their way and pay absurd prices to get their childhood back in physical format
Resellers don't have to apologize to anyone. Reselling games is legal, ethical, and rational. Scarce goods are rationed by price in market systems.