nocsi
Member
Intro
This thread isn't for stuff you recently purchased. It's not for the gamepass/digital, light money on fire people. This thread isn't for scalpers. It's for those that buy physical games and have diamonhanded so long that the assets have 4-10x.And yes, video game speculation is done by all ages. Look at this old lady:
Take ole Britta, she's old as shit, but is very charming - like if Queen Elizabeth was a weeb. She's smart though, her networth in JRPGs probably eclipses most users' worth on neogaf. She's a good example of the thinking it takes to go into game speculation. It just so happens she also collects very similar games to myself, but her collection is a lot larger.
Investment Collecting
Baseball cards, bath water, pokemon cards, fine art, wine, even legos. The stock market is kind of fucked for a bit so a lot of people have been diversifying out into other speculative areas. Ever since COVID, the values on the aforementioned assets have simply skyrocketed. It might be man/woman-children buying things from their childhood to fill the void in their depressed lives - who knows. It doesn't really matter.
You may have seen the extreme end of video games recently w/ the sale of Super Mario 64 sealed for $1.5m. That's not what I'm advocating. I prefer more grounded investments wherein you just buy games you would normally play. If you have the sense that something could increase in price, then buy multiple copies and keep it sealed. I tend to keep my entry point on games at around MSRP and goto strategy is to buy multiple copies at launch and keep duplicates sealed for selling years later.
I don't formally consider myself to be an actual video game collector, my approach is pretty half-assed. I actually started hoarding JRPGs when I first joined NeoGAF back in 2007 and just never sold any. I kept the games stored away, w/o the aim of making money. Stuff like Suikoden II, Koudelka and Wild Arms were what I thought to be the peak - going to $200+. I actually made almost all my money in 2007 trading rare games off cheapassgamer and watching the market. I couldn't open a stock trading account since I was under 18.
Anyways to better showcase, I made a simple table. It's a half-assed sampling of some JRPGs i've bought over the years and is mainly playstation. The reasoning for playstation is because I use estarland.com to quickly value games and they kind of have a bias for playstation games in terms of valuation. That's not to say it's inflated, the eBay prices match up and exceed it. However, Estarland isn't particular fair to Nintendo games and their market prices actually are much higher than what Estarland offers (take Octopath Traveler: Wayfarer Edition, and the Xenoblade Chronicles series). The sell column is straight from estarland, it's their aggregate that ingests across different marketplaces. Trade-in column is their cash offer rating as of today. And the 12 Mos Average is the .. 12 month average for their trade-in value. Feel free to cross-check with eBay completed sales.
JRPG Investments
Here's a small sample, like I said, I mainly play JRPGs.| Platform | Sell | Trade In | 12 Mos Average (Trade-In) | |
| Atelier Ryza | PS4 | $34.95 | $18 | $18 |
| Atelier Ryza 2 | PS4 | $84.96 | $45 | $25.83 |
| Blue Reflection | PS4 | $165 | $100 | $94.17 |
| Koudelka | PS1 | $344.95 | $293.21 | $152.92 |
| Octopath Traveler: Wayfarer Edition | NSW | $239.99 | $65 | $65 |
| Shadow Hearts | PS2 | $167.95 | $110 | $110 |
| Shadow Hearts: Covenant | PS2 | $129.95 | $75 | $75 |
| Shadow Hearts: From The New World | PS2 | $75.95 | $42.00 | $40.83 |
| Persona | PS1 | 479.95 | $300 | $300 |
| Persona 2: Eternal Punishment | PS1 | $514.95 | $350 | $320.83 |
| Persona 3: FES | PS2 | $31.50 | $19 | $17 |
| Persona 4 | PS2 | $51.95 | $30 | $20 |
| Suikoden | PS1 | $159.95 | $90 | $90 |
| Suikoden II | PS1 | $419.95 | $220 | $310 |
| Suikoden III | PS2 | |||
| Suikoden IV | PS2 | $59.95 | $34 | $31.33 |
| Suikoden Tactics | PS2 | $46.95 | $25 | $25.25 |
| Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner | PS2 | $179.95 | $110.00 | $89 |
| Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner 2 | PS2 | $144.95 | $80 | $90 |
| Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne | PS2 | $34.95 | 16.20 | 15.08 |
| Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga | PS2 | $37.95 | $20 | $17.68 |
| Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga II | PS2 | $35 | $20 | $16 |
| Wild Arms | PS1 | $89.95 | $52 | $52 |
| Wild Arms II | PS1 | $94.95 | $37.80 | $54 |
| Wild Arms 3 | PS2 | $37.95 | $17 | $19 |
| Wild Arms 4 | PS2 | $85.95 | $50 | $44 |
| Wild Arms Alter Code: F | PS2 | $219.95 | $150 | $155.83 |
| Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition | NSW | $44.95 | $25 | $19.75 |
| Xenoblade Chronicles 2 | NSW | $54.95 | $34 | $33 |
| Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna | NSW | $42.50 | $22 | $36 |
What kind of games are worth investing into?
That's a tough one to answer, you'd have to look into a few aspects to consider what's a good investment. Things that create scarcity, like limited runs or smaller publisher runs are a good indicator. In many ways, it serves you to not actually have high sales for whatever you're looking to collect/invest on. The lower the sales, the more scarce, and therefore the more value others will have to pay to get it.It's a lot easier to list out games that you'd lose money on.
Annual/Sports or Games w/ a Year in its Title and Live Service Games
Here's some example of straight trash
Sports games are so bad. It might be because the genre has a high-degree of sameness over each entry.
Remasters/Rereleases
Remasters/Rereleases does not necessarily screw up the market value of a game. Unless it's something that's been remade 3+ times. Then the value will crash.DLC/Gacha
Pretty dumb, unless you're buying Nintendo physical DLC which somehow is not dumb.When Speculation goes Wrong
You ever see those listings on ebay where the seller is putting up 12 duplicate copies of the same game? That's speculation gone wrong.LiveStreaming/Content Creators
If a big content creator livestreams a game you on, it's likely to completely rocket the price of the game. This happens fairly often, random livestreamers would play an esoteric game and their viewership would run out and buyout every copy possible. This is most notable with JRPGs, where the float is so low that the entire market can be bought out in a day. I can't name any off the top of my head, since I value my time too much to watch livestreamers. But I've seen redditors attribute price surges on games to youtubers playing a game in the series and exposing it to their audience.This is actually a big one. Content creators have such a huge hand in promoting & making game sales, we're basically at the point where a games success hinges on how it presents in a streaming age.
Nintendo
Just buy anything from Nintendo, keep it clean and I guarantee you it'll go up in price. Nintendo fans really enjoy owning multiple consoles, and FOMO pretty hard compared to other playerbases. Nintendo is well aware of it and exploits this. You can do the same by buying up Nintendo published games and just waiting like 5-10 years. 3DS games are already climbing. Every Nintendo console is completely broken security-wise, and can be fully emulated - yet their games impressively hold value.Wait for Physical Releases
Always wait for the physical release. You keep your value and possibly can make money out of it. Digital-only are fools. Probably the equivalent to heroin addicts, getting that dopamine hit with nothing to show for it.
Cross-Media/Revivals
Some series get a revival and surge in sales due to cross-media projects like anime or movies. In some cases like Suikoden/Shadow Hearts, they get a spiritual revival that brings demand for the old games in the series. I'm still going to hold onto both since I'm betting both will increase when Eiyuden Chronicles and Pennyblood eventually come out. You can't underestimate people's fomo when they enjoy something and want to consume the older stuff in the series. Especially when the fanbase gaslights newcomers into thinking the older games are A-grade.Take a look at Blue Reflection. The original game benefitted from both an anime series and a sequel in Blue Reflection: Second Light. But with the limited release, and growing fanbase, the price has spiked for the original game.
Atlus/Gust/Monolith
Not square-enix though - unless you only do FF14. Their fanbase is moneybags and it shocks me w/ how much they're able to spend on stuff. But then again, Square Enix loves tickling their fomo.
I generally prefer just buying regular releases form Atlus (Persona/SMT), Gust (Atelier) and Monolith. It goes w/ my principle of supporting smaller developers, but also their games consistently and predictably retain value & increase.
Btw, can someone explain this to me:
What's Next?
I've been picking up a few collector editions (Atelier Ryza, Trails, SMT), kinda because I wanted them, but also they hold up their value well. I guess I'll stick to holding onto JRPGs.
Last edited:
