Comment by GaelFG | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GaelFG | Hacker News Reader

Edit to clarify : I don't doubt this specific robbing story, and I'm sad for the owner. It's the narrative about million dollars game cartridge, which can be read "a lot" in press and appear in the middle of the article which intrigue/bother me.

I'm geniously wondering (but not too hard I admit) what part about theses stories of 'million dollar videogame cardridges' are trues and wich are urban legend.

There were multiple alleged scam story about this 'milieu' and stories about crazy prices were indeed fake (or more exactly PR for derivated product like 'expertise' and 'unusual placement and money laundering friendly').

But I wonder if there is really a market of people exchanging game copy for really high amount with 5 or more digits. (no doubt for dedicated fans, I know a few, but event if they pay hight sum we are still in the 3-4 digits sums and often a lot of time, it stays a hobby).

People passionated about a specic game, willing to pay hundreds of dollar for a legit cartridge and nostalgia kick not doubt.

People willing to spend thousands of dollar on an occasional project of making a restoration of an old arcade cabinet, not doubt (it's a nice tinkering hobby, but the hobby part is probably the most important, not the result).

But "numerous insanely rich and anonymous peoples willing to spend millions on black market with shady people to buy stolen video game cartridge" I doubt ^^

There has been a lot of people calling out the role of game-graders and auction-houses in artificially raising the prices of video-games.

For example this expose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A

But I think it's fair to say that the people who are paying these prices are not interested in gaming per se, instead seeing their purchases as investments - after all the prices keep going up, and their grades are "the best". What could go wrong? (Ignoring the fact that millions of cartridges exist, of course.)

I don’t think “investment” is the right word. I think it’s closer to “collecting.”

They may say “investment” to make their expensive hobby seem more acceptable to the judgmental parts of society.

Though perhaps it is like Beanie Babies: people are truly fooled into thinking they’re making an investment.

I'm talking about the people buying the carts for $1,000,000+ they're very different from the "real gamers", for want of a better term.

Collectors, gamers and investors are 3 different groups (with some overlap, of course). Gamers buy the games to play them. Collectors buy with the intent of holding on to the collectable forever. Investors buy games with the intent of reselling them later (hopefully at a higher value).

I think at a certain price, collectors and investors wouldn't play the game though - it could reduce the value to either of them. Gamers also don't necessarily care about the condition of games (scratches on the label), having the box and manual, etc. The price difference between loose carts and CIB games, games with matching serials to the box (if applicable) reflects this. Hell, I've seen just a Super Grafx BOX go for a few hundred - but that is a worthwhile investment if you're trying to resell your SUper Grafx, and some collectors need it to completed their collection.

Investors is too generous of a word. These people are speculators, nothing more. They're trying to cash in on an asset bubble in the making. Same story with crypto. A few of them will time the market perfectly and come away rich. The rest will be caught holding the bag.

Speculators and manipulators like Wata/Heritage. An auction house that allows anonymous bids and sales? Hello wash trading.

At least some people are being conned into thinking this is an investment - fractional shares exist to own a product you'll never see.

https://www.wired.com/story/video-game-stocks-vintage-games-...

There was an amusing SNL sketch on this point not very long ago.

Someone announcing his pending retirement at a dinner party, and how he was now going to live off his 'investments'. A display cabinet of beanie babies.

Good article on the Beanie Baby bubble that occurred in the late 90's:

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2015/03/02/beanie-baby-bubbl...

I always find Christies auctions amusing, take these $150k Harry Potter 1st edition collection, the first paragraph highlights spelling errors, right after authors signature. Clearly valuing that very highly:

> with the ‘wand’ error on p. 53 and the misspelling of ‘Philosopher’s’ on the lower board.

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-rowling-j-k-b-1965-6382...

You might be interested in synthetic gemstones, often available at 99.9 - 99.99% discounts to "natural" stones due to their much higher quality.

The most insane or sad is that there is some market for fractional ownership... Of collectibles in general, but also games... That alone should prove that it really isn't fully about owning it or nostalgia... At least in any sense I understand.

Just because it exists does mean it's common though. I doubt very many collectors participate in fractional ownership.

There was an article recently about WataGames and/or other insider companies being the anonymous buyers of games that they themselves put up for auction.

This happens in the NFT world, too. Auction an item then anonymously bid it up to millions with multiple fake buyer accounts (winning the auction). The only money you lose is the money paid to the auction house in fees. But you’ve now established a new price point for the cartridge or NFT.

I totally see the point, and I wonder if true (really high price) buyers exist, the sums are lesser (but still) but there recently was another story, for simply fake rare games :

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/06/inside-the-100k-forge...

That I found 'fun' (sorry for the victims) is the amount of storytelling around theses items, it seems there is a lot of roleplaying, storycrafting and even work to create fake old legit copies.

"Wash trading." Real banking systems have laws making that a crime.

> But I wonder if there is really a market of people exchanging game copy for really high amount with 5 or more digits.

I worked at a pawn shop for 4 years and I learned a valuable lesson in this regard. Collectibles are never worth what they say they are because most people don't want them, and the people who do want them never want to pay full price.

To quote an old adage: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The bird in the hand being liquid currency, the two in the bush being a hypothetical valuation of a collectible sitting on your shelf.

There are extraordinarily few collectibles that you can throw online and instantly get a full value bid on. Unfortunately old video games is not one of them.

I could see some games scratching that 5 digit mark. I recently saw Earthbound for $4000 open box, and I wouldn't be surprised if that number goes up for unopened copies.

But I wonder if there is really a market of people exchanging game copy for really high amount with 5 or more digits.

If there's not a market, you can try to create one. Especially if you have a good collection yourself. Hype stuff up on YouTube, talk about it collector forums, drive bids up high on eBay and all of a sudden, you've reset the market. I know it's not that easy, but it's a hustle.

Now that these collectibles are expensive, and talked about as such in mainstream media (like, I don't know, Vanity Fair) so everyone knows they're expensive, all of a sudden they are a status symbol, like a Jackson Pollock or diamond ring.

It helps if you already did that once 30 years ago and only got slap on the wrist settlement where you just had to pretend to pay ~1 $mil back after being caught. https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/347558/interesting-...

The people paying $00,000s or more for games are not people who are interested in the games, as such. They'll never open them and play them, or even do what the store owner here did and keep them safe, showcase them to interested people. They'll just keep them squirreled away in a safe deposit box, wait a few years and sell on when the games have appreciated some value - i.e. an investment opportunity.

But like most collectibles, they are poor investments. It’s extremely difficult to not a priori which game will be rare and valuable in 30 years. Meanwhile you are paying for climate controlled storage.

I accidently have a few of these 'collectable' games. I did not buy them 20+ years ago to put them on a shelf. I play them.

To be fair it seems like the topic of the story didn’t play most of these games, based on their condition and description of their packaging.

That's the narrative and it may be true but do you know people doing this for such amounts ?

I mean it's based on :

- video game are a popular subject

- some people like to collect things for disproportionate money values (it's even a 'nerd' cliché)

- some rare art collectible like famous painting can be worth hundred of thousands or even millions

- everyone dream of a small item you can store and sells with an increased value just by waiting

But an old video game cartridge is not a piece of art, it's a cheap industrial produced thing.

I'm curious if there are really people investing in theses for company grade amounts of money.

It's... nuanced.

There is absolutely fraudulent pricing in the collectors market. But it does calcify in people's minds to cause real transactions. Insurance values for your illiquid possession because they're based around a fraudulent but highly publicized price elsewhere, a charitable donation of an illiquid asset and tax deduction being based around a fraudulent but highly publicized transaction elsewhere. Of course, all currently unknown as fraudulent at the time, and unproven to be fraudulent, and by completely different people in the transaction.

The other thing to help you make a rounded opinion is looking at price distortions across all niche collectors markets. Delaware license plates went absolutely wild in pricing over the past several years, just like some trading cards, just like some video game cartridges, just like non fungible tokens. So its almost unproductive to put too much scrutiny on any specific market.

Yes, there is fraudulent pricing, yes, it affects how people do real transactions that also happen. Pricing is based on prior pricing, not based on whether there exist anyone sitting around willing to pay it.

The last prior price exists indefinitely at a volume of 0, until someone negotiates something different.

In some opaque markets based on magic, like at fine art galleries, they manipulate prices slowly upwards by using their market position to resist negotiation pressure and simply saying what the price is, and guilt tripping any buyer into saying "surely your interest in this piece is exclusively because you love the piece, it should bring you joy, market dynamics? hogwash!". with the only variable being if some collector or estate floods the market with a specific artist's work, which rarely happens so they don't need to adjust.

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