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Contest:
12:40 PM on 01.08.2009
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Now, this doesn't always hold true. For example, when I finished Persona 4 last month I asked myself the question. The answer was "probably not." But it was such a great game I wanted to keep it for that reason alone.
That right there could explain why "hardcore" games are traded in so often. If poor people love hardcore games, and poor people gotta eat, then those games are going to have to go at some point.
yup, i do exactly the same. if i think ill play it again, its a keeper. if its likely to gather dust and not get played. then i trade or sell it.
due to this, i still have a nice collection of older games. the collection isn't huge. but, they all get played every so often.
I really believe that it has more to do with how many copies a game sells. If you figure that that 30% of people sell back their games regardless of what it is, you're always going to end up with more copies of the massively popular ones. Which deflates its trade-in value.
Which, of course, doesn't explain Smash Brothers. But that's certainly a factor.
Though I should feel rich, since many of the games I have rank highly, such as Persona 2 (which I have two copies), the true hard core gamer, in my opinion, would hold onto their games.
The art of collecting is about rarity and demand. So it is no surprise that older games, especially games will less printings such as obscure RPGs, would have a higher rank.
GTA4 had millions of copies produced, people played it and now the demand it low. High supply, low demand. While I'm not sure how many copies of L4D were made, it is still new enough to have a high demand, regardless of supply.
Simply go on Ebay/Amazon, see what the asking price is for you used game; call/visit Gamestop, and see what they will give you. Sure the best value is getting trade in credit, but just use that to get another game, that's most likely cheaper used than online anyways. Just do research before you trade in something. Would you rather pay Ebay to do something you can do down the street?
Also how can you compare a brand new game like Left 4 Dead to a game that came out almost a year ago - Smash Brothers. Cool article but doesn't prove anything. Also Wii Sports is essentially a $250 dollar game, considering you can't get it anywhere else. It can't be on any list because it's a package. Do you think Soccer Moms and Grandmas even know how to use Ebay/Amazon to sell their products? I don't even know if a lot of the demographic knows that you can trade-in games.
It's possible all your friends own it, could bring it over to your house whenever, and you've gotten all the trophies/100% complete and you just want another great Wii game to play. Makes sense.
Bioshock I keep. Obviously.
So tl;dr, hardcore gamers are financially smarter?
Sure, but I could do without my copies of Elebits and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam much easier than I could Lost Odyssey and Xbox Arcade Collection (the only 360 disks I own as of yet). Not that I sell games at all, regardless.
My point is that it says more about smart buying decisions than anything else. There are good games and terrible games for every system. And more of them happen to be for the Wii than any other system. You are just more distinguishing when it comes to shelling out for a Wii title. And with good reason.
I certainly wouldn't trade Mario Galaxy or Twilight Princess for anything in the Xbox library. But I would part with my Wii sooner than my 360, for sure.
Also, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Radiant Silvergun down to $200. YESS.. Dragon Force down to $70! I knew this recession was good for something.
When a game is "perfect", that means it is worth owning, and if a game is worth owning as opposed to rneting, that means it's worth playing off and on for the rest of your god damn life. If you don't think so, if you think even the best videogames are totally disposable, then you aren't really a hardcore gamer.
Yes, I have some real crapmonsters lagging up my collection (Pat Riley's Basketball on Genesis, anyone???).
tl;dr?
It's not them being financially smarter, there just playing the latest greatest thing and don't want the old stuff cluttering the place up.
You assume far too much as long as it benefits your biased arguements. Whether or not a person wants to own a game has nothing to do with a rating a game gets. Reviews and ratings are meant to determine whether or not you should play the game, not buy the game. What a person does with a game is purely personal choice, there is no golden rule to buying and trading in games whether or not you are a soccer-mom gamer or a hardcore gamer.
Based on supply and demand, an extremely well selling single player game will drop to a very low price point even if it is amazing. I keep my multiplayer games just in case I want to play it later.
Seriously?
Supply and Demand is a huge effect here. There's quite a large supply of games like GTAIV so of course its resale value is going to be down. Games with more limited release tend to hold on to their resale value better (and eventually increase as they age if they become desirable).
Another factor is availability. Wii Sports has a relatively low availability. Every copy of Wii Sports starts out owned by a person. This makes finding a copy of the game much harder. Meanwhile a game like GTA IV has new copies filling the shelves.
Another factor can be price of a new copy of the game. As time passes and retailers want to move these copies off their shelves so they lower the price. Also possible is a release of a GotY, platinum, or greatest hits version at a lower price. Any presense of a new copy with a fixed price will affect the value of a 2nd hand copy. Arguably the fixed price of a new copy and its availability is another metric to judge games though.
Another big factor talked about but in a nonsensical way is replayability. Games like Final Fantasy and others that don't feature a good amount of replayability will drop in price faster than games that do. Many people will resell a game once 'done' with it to grab the next game. This applies to casual gamers (and games) as well as hardcore ones.
Next up is desirability of used vs new. 'Hardcore' gamers are likely to favor new new copies of the game. They want the fresh new game feel and don't want to risk a scratched disk (it's a geek/nerd thing?). Meanwhile casual gamers are likely more apathetic towards getting a new copy and will thus put more demand on a used copy. It's hard to tell if this is actually what's going on but given the data there's no way to prove or disprove it. More study would be needed to accurately determine the whole picture of what's influencing prices.
And we'll end with date. The more time a game's been out the lower its resale value (less demand). That's just common sense.
So pretty much I find the chart to be interesting but all of the conclusions to be completely worthless. There just isn't enough data about what's going on to say anymore than what the raw numbers already do.
Also, I'd like to point out that you can get GTA4 used at Gamestop for $30 so that price up their is actually only $10 cheaper than the buying price.
Smash Bros, however, is still $45 used (Nintendo games hardly ever drop in price) so it's "real value" is $15 less than it's sale value.
And that's an incredibly condescending tone towards other "game journalists" I must say. They don't pick games that YOU'RE attached to so they must be "out of touch?"
Here's the game of the year titles that I've seen thus far:
-GTA4
-Fallout 3
-MGS4
-Left 4 Dead
-LittleBigPlanet
-Braid
And basically ALL of those games (save for arguably GTA4) are amazing games that have nearly everyone can have strong "attachments" to.
YOU are the exception to the rule, chief. The rest of the world isn't wrong because you feel differently from them. Hell, you're not even wrong for loving SSBB.
I know you love your Wii and SSBB is a perfectly fine game for your game of the year. Personally, I can't see how anyone could find it "perfect" or develop much of an attachment to it beyond it being a fun party game, but I've never really liked the Smash Bros games all that much. I'm more into tourny fighters like Soul Calibur, Tekken, Guilty Gear, and Street Fighter.
Seriously though, you very often come accross as a Wii fanboy who won't even give the other systems a try.
Besides, why throw down 40-60 dollars for a new game, only to get back maybe 5 bucks?
Unless you're living out of a shopping cart, then your ability to house a collection might be limited.
I'm happy though if other people like to trade in their games, because it means that my collection can grow in a much more affordable manner.
-Digimon Rumble Arena 2 (PS2): $24.99 (69% GameRankings score)
-Gallop Racer 2006 (PS2): $23.00 (71% score)
-Hasbro Family Game Night (PS2): $29.86 (705 score)
-Jurassic Park Operation Genesis (PS2): $44.00! (74.5% score)
-Madagascar Escape 2 Africa (PS2): $36.45 (64% score)
This is laughable. NONE of these games are worth keeping (unless you're a fan of fictional horse racing!) and NONE of them would have ANY sort of value if they weren't new or hard to find.
These "values" are clearly just basically aggregate price values based off of ebay, amazon, and half.com (they even have the links next to the games!).
Any argument based off of this data is null and void.
Why are you sitting on this explosive evidence when the soul of video game journalism is at stake? You have a moral responsibility to out these people.
Also how much does one get paid to write a good review? Have you ever been propositioned by one of these dasderly companies? DId you refuse the money? or was it Nintendo who got to you first?
Now, i don't have a problem with people collecting things. but, what i find really, REALLY fucking annoying is the fact that a lot of collectors dont play all those games they own..
What annoys me about this is when im trying like fuck to buy a copy of castlevania: symphony of the night, rez, marvel vs. capcom 2, ZOE: The 2nd runner. I have finally owned these games and have been able to play them. A lot of people dont and cant. so, when I finish them and im not going to play them again, i pass them on.
This may not be too much of a problem in the states. but, here in the UK it can be very hard to acquire rare games and some dickheads on ebay ask ridiculous prices!
sorry about rant. but, you wouldn't believe the effort i have had to put in to play some of these games :(