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Comment by mr_gibbins | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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