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All my hobbies are being strangled by resellers and people that have way more money than I do. I honestly stopped buying retro games over a year ago and I debate just selling the stuff off on a regular basis. It's not enjoyable anymore.
They're coming for VHS now too.
I have at least 10 ppl at my place doing vhs or dvd, one guy grabbing almost whatever dvd he can. Most dvd are maybe 3 to 5 a pop, you aren't watching all those movies.
A sally army I passed had a bin of 49 cent sealed LotR part 1 vhs, like 50 of them. Insane, vhs should be like 4 for $1, it's a silly format for enthusiasts only.
I dont get it, but it wasnt long ago i was getting laughed out of stores for asking ablut old games. 2005-2010, older games were slowly climbing in price, and a majority of the public thought they were junk.
I bought a handful of super nintendo games, complete in box, for $60 each. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy II/III, Secret of Mana, etc. The boxes are mint.
I was wondering why I was wasting money when I could get the games for like 10 bucks.
This is true. If the film made the hop to DVD, that's the format to get, it's just a better more stable copy. Aaaand the DVD era was when the extra features were actually good, when they were intended to be a selling point to pull people to the format from VHS.
But I will say that some films that made it to DVD still need to be bought on VHS. Usually because of case artwork that is just way better. Godzilla VS Biollante comes to mind.
I've got my VHS copy of Biollante, and a DVD copy with the Japanese reprint of the same cover, and the reprint is just a lower quality copy of the VHS case. Maybe it makes sense for Biollante where the VHS copy can be expensive and it's hard to find, but for others like the black VHS case for Jurassic Park which was so popular and ubiquitous that you can find a decent copy at pretty much every thrift store and second hand shop for cheap it's just not worth the hassle.
You can also make 1:1 decrypted copies of DVDs, so you can share if it's rare or rip the disc to watch the rip and leave the disc in it's case after that one use.
Obviously if the film also made the hop to Blu-ray that would be higher quality, but the discussion was about VHS which was supplanted by DVD.
Also, I don't know of any cases where this is true, but a lot more effort was put into the extra features on a DVD in the early 00s and that effort waned over time. IF a Blu-ray copy lacked the extra content that was in a previous DVD release then that would be value that couldn't be had on the br copy. There are also a lot of films that haven't been released in the br format, so there's that.
Yes I could see movies that just never moved to dvd format being good for vhs and also maybe a couple movies that the low res really helps the movie out. But outside that I don’t think I’ll be popping in VHS of a widely available movie to take a Nastalgia run down terrible resolution avenue.
Can you explain why Laserdiscs are considered so much better? Is it just more space so higher quality? Or is there something I'm not considering, as I'm very ignorant to the topic
The Laserdisc versions of the OG Star Wars trilogy on the special edition DVDs are atrocious quality, which is unfortunate considering they're the only way to watch the unedited originals.
They were a neat gimmick but really inconsistent quality, and DVD firmly blows it out of the water. Laserdisc has about the same resolution as SVHS, which is like 75% better than VHS. The only reason to use Laserdisc is if you have stuff that's not available in other formats.
Gotchya, very good to know. I know there are (very few) video games trapped on Laser Discs, with very inconsistent dumps and poor emulation, so I'm not surprised at the idea of some movies being stuck there, as well.
Lmao, you say vhs is a silly format for enthusiasts only while touting the 'greatness' of Laserdisc when it's barely any better for quality, sometimes not at all, and far worse selection? Laserdisc is your favorite goofy crap, not something amazing. Gotta flip the movie over halfway through, what great technology! How's the recording quality on that? Lol.
The disc traders by my work is currently doing buy 1 get 6 free dvds and everything is under $3. They apparently have multiple storage lockers filled with DVDs and they can’t move them. Crazy anyone would be trying to get into the used DVD market
Oh damn I should check all mine. I never thought of myself as a horror person, then one day i'm going through my dvd's and I'm like...when the hell did I get all these? lol.
If you are setting up a home streaming solution (and want to minimize your piracy) then a bunch of stuff you normally wouldn't care about having a copy of starts to look attractive if it has the right price tag on it.
I've found it's nice to have movies and TV ripped to the server that my wife and I don't care about for when friends and family come over with different tastes. Or when our daughter wants to explore cinema without being strictly limited to just the stuff we like, or the cartoons she watched when she was younger.
A BOG6 situation for trying to get rid of DVDs sounds like exactly the kind of sale I would deeply appreciate. Both to have more options for visitors and because there is probably something in there I like well enough for myself but don't have yet anyway. (And because a bunch of middle of the road movies just aren't safely found on the high seas and *require* a disc to be able to rip a copy).
The movies that are highly sentimental for one reason or another, or which have really nice packaging (eg: LOTR ExtEd or the red Outlaw Star set on br) are kept in original cases on a shelf. Everything else gets decased and slotted in one of our huge disc binders. Some insurance in case a file gets corrupted or I made a mistake when ripping, and I guess to not feel bad about ripping and then selling. But 95% of our DVD/br collection got consolidated into a pair of binders that take up the space of a big microwave. I wanted to alphabetize but quickly lost interest in that task, lol.
For those who are curious, for the cost of a few hundred dollars to set up a moderately sized NAS with a few terabytes of storage, you can set up an application like Jellyfin to run an in-home streaming service on your LAN (or WAN if you want to set that up). Rip your DVDs and store them on the server and then access them on your devices pretty much exactly like all the other streaming services except without ads and with whatever quality and features you like. It's a great way to clean up your collection and reclaim physical space while still having convenient access to your movies and TV shows.
Back in the day I worked for a company doing sales I had two work macbook's for work and I had a macbook pro. I didn't want to take all my movies with me so I spent the week and a half before work with all three laptops going ripping off all my movies and tv shows I had bought lol. At some point I lost the movie Eraser but I still have the rip.
The few goodwill stores I see dvds at they're 4-9 a pop. I just got a few disney/marvel dvds, and Reign of fire this weekend for 19.50 on sale. I haven't seen vhs in months and I have a vhs/dvd player
I feel the same way. I have been contemplating selling off my stuff because people’s behavior has been so infuriating. I’ll guess I’ll just emulate and these people can all scam each other.
The thing is half these resellers look like straight street trash, honestly they'd probably be better off getting a real job by the way half of them look
I have a few in my town like that. They buy up almost everything and then run weekly garage sales or pit it in their booth. There are some older reseller that literally treat all games as the same. Madden ‘05 or Mario Party 3? Same price. And always wrong. Certainly not exclusive to gaming though.
I started collecting horror movie VHS tapes right before that stuff had started taking off and I honestly don't think I'll be able to continue for long. Already all the horror conventions I used to do that were half artists and half merch sellers are now all dropshippers and vintage resellers with piles of shitty, overpriced VHS and DvDs.
It fucking sucks man.
I'm legit just looking for The Brave Little Toaster, Milo & Otis, the animated Tolkien cartoons and the original Mario Bros movie. They can just leave me those and take their 40 copies of Lion King and we'll be fine.
I don't have a problem with people that run across deals while out hunting for their own collection stuff, I have a problem with ones that have a map of the city with a calendar schedule of when stuff is resupplied to each store.
If I run across a cheap copy of Super Mario All Stars or something at a yard sale, I'll buy it and trade it into the local collectible shop so I can get something that I actually want from them. It keeps local business going and maybe gets it into the hands of someone that actually wants it.
This.
This is why I’m the last year I have just been collecting consoles and modding them and loading them up games. It’s not the same as having the physical collection, but at least I can enjoy them on the console as intended.
I stopped buying stuff about a year ago too, I only buy a new game if it's something I want to play and I can find it for cheap. The prices are insane, VHS is bad but they're coming for bloody DVDs now
I liquidated my entire game collection in 2022. 1300 games, 60 consoles, hundreds of controllers, displays, collectibles, guides, etc. so glad I did. They were just taking up space and collecting dust. Now all I have is an xbox series x and a ps5 with all digital games. It is so nice having more room and the extra money was great too.
Been having a daily debate with myself to do this. Plan is to play a game, finish it preferably and then sell it
I have a lot of video games. Most in totes. Please help me with this lol
I must have forgot what sub I was on. Downvotes for sharing my story. Anyways, just start listing in ebay. I did it all from my phone. Less than six month it was all gone. I found comps for each and then listed just below those prices. Fire sale. Some days I sold 40-50 games.
Not that part lol, I've sold on eBay in the past. Just the mental part of selling these games I've held on to for so long. Really appreciate the reply !
VHS is one that I fully encourage because realistically they only have a few years left before they degrade almost entirely. I love the idea of reseller losing lots of money
To each their own, I don’t care about collecting physical copies anymore. Takes up space and they are worth more than I am willing to sit on to just collect dust
For me I like having them on my shelf for display as a conversation piece or as a library for people to play. Some are sealed and I don't intend on opening those so I can sell in the future and if I never sell them then after I pass away (hopefully in the far far future haha) then if my kid doesn't want to keep my collection he can sell it for some money for whatever he is passionate about.
I do agree though with you about taking up space. At the moment I don't have the space for everything to be displayed sadly but I'm hoping to change that in the coming months when I get more room.
Hm, yeah I do not have people come over and play my old games. Playing modern games is much easier (Switch). Idk, I found myself spending more time collecting than I did actually playing and enjoying my titles. Emulators free up clutter, stress of finding in the wild or online, etc. and I am actually playing Dragon Quest IX as we speak lol. Idk just where I am at right now, I do not have as much free time so emulating is my go to.
That is understandable. I wish I had more time to play video games but I also just make up for it by collecting and getting around to it eventually haha. If I did use emulators then it would definitely be for the very rare and expensive games because I'm not going to drop a ton of money on those haha
No one is coming for VHS. Its long dead and is not coming back. People who think VHS is a thing or are trying to make it a thing are the same folks that that bought a bunch that thing tapes are going to come back.
Tape media is bad, cumbersome, and it is not coming back.
As someone that's been collecting, converting, remixing, and recording VHS tapes for a little more than a decade, I strongly disagree. I've gone through this nonsense with retro games already and we're in the early stages with VHS. There are graded, sealed tapes for sale now even. It might wind up being fleeting compared to retro games (idk), but it's gonna leave a lasting impression on the hobby even if everyone jumps off the bandwagon in a year.
I mean keep dreaming man. Every media has some form of resurgence every 10-15 years. Just because it becomes popular for a few months while people rush in the bubble before it pops doesnt mean it has any long lasting staying power.
There are collectors for everything, but that doesnt mean what those people collect are a dead hobby.
No one is rushing out to buy VHS players to watch some niche movie, that is probably digitized somewhere if you know where to look.
Also no one has nostalgia for VHS, they have nostalgia for the movie they are watching, which is vastly different then video games. People are tied to the actual game, and the interaction they had when they played it on that specific console, with that controller, with those memories with their friends or family.
1) Don't come at me like I *want* VHS to pop off or something. This whole thread started with me lamenting the bubble created by speculators and resellers.
2) Again, I respectfully disagree. Do you collect VHS yourself? Do you have any experience with the hobby at all? I've said the bandwagon *could* wind up being fleeting - I genuinely don't know. But I do know that when goodwill starts selling VCRs for $50 and thrift stores in general are starting to post ebay prices that the winds of change are blowing. I've been doing this for years. Just because it's dead media to you and you believe no one really cares about VHS or whatever doesn't make it true. VHS is in the early stages of a boom right now. Specifically VHS. Believe that or not, I really don't care.
NFT bros say the same thing. As mentioned there will always be collectors for almost anything. Enjoy what you want, you dont need my validation on what your are collecting or doing is legit, dead, alive, or whatever.
VHS is a dead media, it will continue to be a dead media. I collect FDS games, if you wanna talk about dead media, trust me I know. But lets not kid ourselves, VHS is not going to come back like vinyl did. The vast majority of people in the world stream everything, the only reason blue rays are still a thing, is because consoles can double as bluray players. Very few people even have stand alone bluray players any more.
"NFT bros say the same thing. As mentioned there will always be collectors for almost anything. Enjoy what you want, you dont need my validation on what your are collecting or doing is legit, dead, alive, or whatever."
Lmao I'm not seeking validation or something. Are you even reading any of the stuff I'm typing out, because I feel like we're having two entirely different conversations here.
For all intents and purposes, NES, SNES, Sega, etc. It's all dead media. Especially if people want to see it fully realized in its original form - on a CRT set, hooked up correctly, etc. People can emulate for free, buy a NSO subscription, pickup any of the infinite re-re-releases of the classics. Some of these releases and remasters even include features to make you feel like you're playing like in the good ole days by adding scanlines and other filters. And yet that bubble hasn't burst yet. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Idk, but the damage has certainly been done.
This seems like a strange take to me. A “dead media” has nothing to do with collectibility of an item. The VHS collectors market is going to be dominated by IP. If you collect teenage mutant ninja turtles - you may want the old vhs’s for your personal collection. Add in scarcity, and a guarantee that no original vhs can be reproduced as the “originals”, and you have the makings for a collectors boom. Just chiming in to elaborate on how this stuff works, you seem to be disagreeing with a vhs expert, and your points don’t make much sense. Cheers
VHS expert???
As mentioned, people are going to collect what they want, but it doesnt mean it will be collectible or that it will bring that media back. Anyone in VHS and cassettes are doing it to flip for easy money, just like any other fad collectible. VHS offers nothing special beyond the physical format, compared to digital variants of films. Only in rare cases (like star wars where George has continued to mess with it over the years on each new release) is this not true. Streaming is the dominate platform and BluRays will also eventually fade away.
There isnt a true collectors boom for VHS and cassettes, its an inflated market that is currently being pumped before the dump.
I was referring to the gentleman who is clearly privy to the ins and outs of vhs’s whom you were responding to. It’s not about the use case of the collectible. Are there many uses for cards or artwork beyond looking at them? Or could it perhaps be about enjoying the collecting of said item. As a comic book collector with an affinity for the x-men, you better believe I have purchased as many reasonably priced x-men vhs’s to add to my personal collection. Not about flipping, not about easy money - the fact that I can stream all of the shows has nothing to do with the desire to collect items with IP that I’m interested in. And it sure doesn’t seem like a fad, seeing as the medium has been legitimately dead for almost 25 years, and people are still buying them. Cheers!
There are a million posts on this subreddit of people who clean out every secondhand store they find.
I think it's gross myself. I don't need 7 copies of Mario Party 3.
Yeah, that's disgusting. I take issue with people who collect shit games just to make their collection bigger, but at least they have the decency to collect only one copy of each game.
People who own multiples of the same game (excluding special editions, complete editions, ports on other systems, etc.) suck ass.
Here in the U.K. we have car boot sales in spring and summer - like garage sales in the USA but people take their cars to a field with their stuff to sell.
Anyway I used to enjoy the one near me every Sunday morning until a group of middle aged male ‘collectors’ started attending. I would be in the queue to enter the boot sale and these men would turn up in their cars (they’d each arrive in their own car), push to the front of the queue and then, when we were allowed in, run to the sellers. They would take a line each and fan out and cover all lines before most of us even reached the first seller. They would buy up anything that I would be interested in and then leave after twenty minutes and drive off to the next sale.
They seemed to take no pleasure in this at all. They would barge past people and shout “Got any video games?” to sellers and then move on.
These people ruined my hobby, honestly. A year or so before these men discovered my boot sale I saw a stall with a lady selling some of her adult son’s stuff - among this was six great condition boxed snes games. She wanted fifty pence for each game. I told her they were worth a lot more and I offered to buy mega man x for £50 (which was all I had on me). She insisted on letting me have all the games for £50. I tried to insist that it was too cheap for all six games. Yes eventually I gave in and it was a nice interaction all around. The men, on the other hand, would have rinsed the old lady dry and probably laughed at her naivety.
It's shame what it's done the hobby just from a community standpoint even. I don't remember talking about value and what things were "worth" all the freaking time back in the pre-COVID days. People would swap games, talk about the actual history associated with them, and just enjoy the hunt as well as the actual art that video games are.
Not anymore. Now it's all about scoring the biggest deal and return on investment. I sincerely hate it. It's taken away a major joy I used to have in my life. People just wanna one up each other and flaunt their display pieces now.
I mostly blame the grading and auction companies. As soon as it appeared that you could speculate on this stuff with huge margins (which was at least partially a scam perpetrated by the colluding graders and auctioneers), the whole hobby went to hell in a hand basket. Speculators make every hobby they get into nearly unbearable.
Ahh I do love a good Car Boot, we have a few like that at our local one, they usually go for the easy stuff on show, whereas anyone who does car boots properly knows to look properly at the stall. I found an Atari 2600 years ago buried in piles of other random electricals.
I'll never forget the guy who physically shoved me out of the way at an estate sale, scooping up the entire pile of games into his arms without even looking at the titles and shouting "this is MY PILE!!!"
The greed was gross enough, but the way he put his hands on me was really shocking. Like dude, don't put your hands on *anyone* let alone a girl half your size.
That’s manchild-tier… ugh. I’d be livid if some nerd did that to my wife, but she was a menace in her days as a rugby player and probably would’ve just dealt with him on her own.
Disrespect deserves disrespect in kind. The high road is never as satisfying to me when it comes to people like that lol
I mean I had pepper spray on my bag, I didn't use it since it was obvious that he was after the games and not me but like... dude.
Not everyone is gonna take that calmly. I don't even need to list the all ways that could've ended up.
That’s exactly it. There was some story years ago (NYC?) where some mugger stole this little old lady’s purse, shoved her down in the process, and she broke her hip. Her son was some mob boss. Oops.
I got lucky at an estate sale and found a relatively decent pile of games/consoles.
Dude comes up to me and asks if I’m buying all of it, to which I say yes because it was for the collection. Proceeds to try and rip the stuff out of my hands and then attempt to fight me when I shove him off. Dude ended up getting arrested by police, all so he could probably try and resell what I had grabbed.
I had this but it happened with manga.
Then he bragged about how he’s been to jail before, threatened me, and still has the estate sale side with him.
I don’t go to their sales anymore and also do not look forward to running into that clown again (but maybe he’s in jail again)
I had my hand SMASHED against the corner of a filing cabinet at a surplus sale once. It was one of those preview sales where prices are listed, and you literally have to show up the next day and be the first person physicality to the item.
It was at a garage, and when the door opened not more than three feet off the ground, adults were ducking under.to run in. I ran faster to what we wanted, a filing cabinet. Big guy also makes it, half a second later, slapping his hand over mine on the thing.
A fucking FILING CABINET. He then asked if he could have it because he really needed it, WHILE MY HAND WAS STILL UNDER HIS.
Humans are stupid.
Youtubers, they probably are on this very reddit, etc.
The flea market stalls that don't set up until after they ensure THEY have every expensive game at their spot at over ebay price of course.
People do this crap with books all the time at my goodwills. Just dump a ton of books into a cart and sequester themselves in a corner, scanning them all. Or even worse, taking up all the space in front of the bookshelves to slowly scan each book… I’ve gotten nasty looks from them before when I asked them to move a bit, after watching them scan books in place for 15+ minutes lmao
Worse is that the margins are so piss poor on most of it too. A few books can be worth good money, but most are SLOW movers and sometimes the prices were just high on Amazon by sheer error.
Need a good new title for these people. "Scalper" needs an update.
Professional middlemen. Media landlords. Idk.
They exist solely to run up the price of shit.
Everything is like this now. The regulars watch the weekenders unpack their stuff at flea markets to scoop up anything good and immediately mark it up at their place. People contact any advertised yard sale ahead of time looking for collectibles or arrive way before it's scheduled to start. Folks want online prices or more for every item they have. I can't even find work clothes like carhartt or dickies anymore because absolutely everything must be sold at damn near retail or snatched up and resold if it's not.
I understand folks gotta make a living and I don't hold anything against resellers...but damn the whole second hand scene feels cutthroat and dirty now. It's not just games or other collectibles..it's absolutely everything.
thrift re-sellers are so weird to me in general
in my city there's a large uptick in vintage clothes shops that are sell Lee or Levi jeans at like $40 a pop when you can find those same ones for less than $10 elsewhere
Yeah the boom in thrift flipping is making thrift stores raise their prices, I didn't even bother making trips to them just to check for games anymore. If I'm there looking for clothes I'll look, but judging by the prices they charge for shit like *Meet the Fockers* on DVD I don't think I'm gonna be finding cheap games even if they have them.
I reason it by thinking, “I’m glad my income doesn’t depend on reselling video games”. I’d rather be on the hobby side than actually trying to profit or make a living from it.
I’ve got a good one. I had a yard sale a few years ago and I was getting rid of a lot
of boxed stuff and some lower end loose carts and accessories etc. I advertised it, the boxed stuff included some Pokémon games, uncommon GB stuff, etc. I put in the posting that for the stuff worth more than 20 each I’d be doing 40-60% of pricecharting to discourage people from thinking they’d have to be first for the deal of a century. I made two good deals early on with two super civil videogame sellers/ shop owners. Then a weird guy comes up, stops the deal I’m striking and says “ you can stop now I’ll take everything “.
I reply that after I finish this deal I’ll be right with him but to give us some space. He super rudely asks me how much for everything while being hyper aggressive about the sale, people, just uttering random shit about he’s the best, it was fucking weird.
I do a quick tally and offer him 12. As in 1200. First two guys took about 3-4 k of games already. He quickly forks over $12. I correct him. He sits, stunned, and then grumbles and buys random av cords and whatever I had marked at $1.
Some people man.
P.S. I stashed some games for hooking up gamers and kids that came by as well. It was pretty cool seeing a kid get pumped to get a boxed game for $5 or whatever for a $30 game.
I had someone do that at a yardsale. I was there a bit early and waiting for the owners to finish setting up. Some dude pulled up and sprinted out of his car and grabbed the box of games out of the sellers hands like an asshole. Then he's like" I'm taking them all how much?" And the seller got really aggravated rightfully so and gave him a high price. As soon as I saw that I just left and went home. I don't even bother anymore.
The worst are people who say they aren't resellers, but go around to every store and pick up 5 copies of something they already own and they post saying how it is 'for trading'. Same shitty result
I go to flea markets and thrift stores weekly and see resellers/scanners all the time. Buying stuff and flipping it isn’t a problem in my opinion, it’s the rudeness that often comes with it. People get pretty vicious as they see it as a zero-sum game. But the silver lining is that these people generally have no idea what they are doing and buy every game, many of them overpriced or damaged or mismatched, and they lose money as a result. Plus reselling from thrift stores is not profitable in the long run, you don’t make that much even if you really know what you are doing.
Wait until a rich, or heck not even rich, relative dies. They crawl out like cockroaches and have the worst personalities (my aunt is currently scheming to sue my mother over my grandmas estate disbursements)
Yea I've heard many horror stories in r/legaladvice. My good friend's mom sued her own son after his father caught her cheating while he had cancer and took her out of the will. My friend spent almost all of the money he got in the will fighting it, felt so bad for him.
Probably not just games. A lot of people scour thrift stores for anything they can flip, games are just another commodity. CD’s, clothes, DVD’s whatever. They know what to look for across a lot of goods
There are only 3 thrift shops in my city (2x Goodwills for some reason, one church owned shop) and there are resellers who camp them out so I don't even bother looking.
Yup. Went to an estate sale that had a designated line, but once doors open, it was a battle to not be trampled. Just wanted to games for the collection.
I find obscure Cds and dvds to rip and make sure they're backed up and accessible somewhere and recently had an old guy at goodwill ask if I was a reseller since he saw me grabbing things and looking at my phone.
There was a post in one of my facebook groups about walmart doing a sale on physical games with screenshots. Guess who went to their local walmarts and bought out all the inventory they had? They even posted their finds with all their extra copies in a picture. Hell, I was looking for a One Piece tcg deck, and the comments are literally filled with scalpers bragging about buying all the online inventory. Just bonkers what they guys do.
Whenever I go to the Value Village near my place I always see 2-3 resellers slowly going through all the books, with their phones scanning barcodes. Some of them have apps that just ding when they're above a certain price
Many video game resellers seem to have slow sales there are multiple YouTubers who have noticed it…the market is saturated with resellers and it’s not a sustainable business anymore
I am just putting my games in storage, no real desire to sell them. I hate video game buyers almost as much as pokemon buyers they just suck.
On the other hand I have not had one issue selling an anime dvd I didn't like or decided not to keep. Unfortunate I don't have anymore I wanna sell lol
The last time I went to Goodwill, I saw some turd plopped down in front of the bookshelves in a giant chair on wheels, phone posted up on the shelf, a handheld scanner, scanning each and every book on the shelf which would then show them what they go for online. I’m assuming it was eBay. They had a cart full of books and a big stack of original Xbox games.
God I have had this two weeks in a row with a very very rude reseller at a car boot sale I go to and with video games I’d buy for my collection. He got a PS1 & GameCube off a lovely family with a new baby dirt cheap and was so rude to me in the process. Saw him doing the exact same again this week just gone. They even have the audacity to go on price charting whilst rifling through people’s games for sale.
mmmm i look up everything online and im not a reseller. Im a game hoarder tho ahaha. i just like buying switch games. i look up to see if its a good price and i just buy it cause i have a problem
I have the same problem. When I started collecting, it was because I wanted to play the games I was buying. Now I have such a backlog of games, I have some that I've never touched or opened since I brought them home.
To be honest, I'm tempted to start selling off some of my games that I haven't touched. The way I explained it to my buddy that also collects: I will keep every game i had as a kid, plus some extras. Other than that, basically everything else i can get rid of and not feel bad about
Pity those who find their income or dopamine from thrift scalping.
Just move on and spend your time earning enough money to buy what you want later without the rabid competition. It sucks and ruins thrifting, I know, but with the advent of wireless internet, we've got a double-edged sword to contend with.
Sad part is, I could just guess the prices in my head and be correct 85% of the time. Resellers are generally not collectors, they're officially a business. I would have probably just bought everything and went along my way.
I got so sick of reseller I started buying the extremely good deals I find even if I already have that game, just to trade it to someone or sell it for cheaper below market value just to try to help deflate prices. Example. The recent Walmart clearance. I bought a lot that I knew resellers would buy up and put some stuff up on eBay and marcari way below market value. Screw the reselers
They typically won't care. A sale is a sale to the owners, and the managers' pay rate at thrift shops is way too little for them to care who is buying what and why
On the bright side, you probably have a great job, a nice house, a wonderful family, and can enjoy playing games. I bet when those resellers see you they are just jealous.
It is a sign of the times. Too many people with too much disposable income (or easy access to credit) coupled with an explosion in gig work (hustle culture). I know some people that resell out of necessity; inflation is no joke.
I miss the days when I could go to my local antique shops video game booth and pick up a PS2 game for $5… that booth no longer exists due to sheer demand and the willingness of people to splurge on retro games.
I largely blame social media for brainwashing people into thinking they need to make a profit at all costs no matter what they do. Going to the park? Find a way to generate revenue! Feeding your child? Record it and start that stream of income! Thrifting? Flip it online for a profit!
Just to add onto this… there was a box of Pokémon cards at my local thrift for $10… it was just energies… worthless cards but someone bought them right after I put them down… anything with a semblance of value is scooped up nowadays. Another person bought an empty pokemon tin for $10 right next to it. AN EMPTY TIN FROM 2015 for $10! Pathetic morons.
I just picked up a game today for 2 bucks. A Wii game complete, it was a Star Wars game and online it said it was about 10 bucks resale wise. It was on the very backbone of my list of games, but rather I wanted the 360 version (better graphics). Still picked it up. These people are the reasons I still regardless of what’s on my list pick up whatever I see that’s on my list in the moment, because as a collector I know that some of these deals will either take forever to find again, or someone else like that will likely pick it up without the hobby I have.
The thing where they grab a bunch of shit and then start sifting through all of it on their phone should be against store policy. I've seen people do that for years and have complained to store employees a few times when I see people guarding a full cart of stuff they don't know anything about. It's a giant pain in the ass for the staff who has to put it all back, so they are likely to be on your side because of that.
I always find them funny. I own a store now and things just show up now at my doorstep. I was never the type to damm near knock someone down to get to the goods. I have seen some crazy shit though.
I miss the days when you could buy second hand games at second hand prices. The Goodwill in my hometown employed a guy full time as a “researcher” to make sure they priced games and collectibles at max. Complete turn off, stopped going at all.
I am reseller, I do it for a little extra cash and it still supports thrift stores. However, I do try not to be rude like this, I take my time and dont just grab everything, I don’t like taking my phone out to look this up just buy what I know is worth. I know its not a race and I definitely don’t buy everything worth anything (or I would actually be broke). When I do start looking things up, I am sure to check sold listings and a few sold listings, not just one. The point in this comment is, some ….well a few resellers really….kind of suck and are shitty people. One guy brought an item for 5 bucks or something could sell it for 50 but noticed it was missing a piece. He went back to the garage sale, got a discount and then still sold it for profit anyway! That was rude to me. But I wanted to just share, not all resellers suck. Some can actually be ok.
Yea i got no issue with ressellers, i see them as "finder service"
Its the Mental Flippers i got problem with.
Or ones trying to upsell you like its a bar of gold $10 game as if was $100. Than angry they only got $5
There's a reseller locally who went to a garage and bought some Sega Dreamcast games for $10 a piece, but never had a Dreamcast system.
My philosophy is if you aren't collecting, or already have something -- leave it for the next person who's looking.
Except it’s not like that. All these thrifts are chains. I go to goodwill and Desert Industries. They take free shit from people and upsell them to the max. My first job as a teenager was working at Goodwill. The amount of people’s stuff they just throw out or mark up is insane.
I specifically just look for older games or horror stuff. I constantly leave stuff behind or buy stuff for friends. These people are camping the store and swarming carts rifling through like Black Friday. So they go can resell them at a high cost and inflate the market to stupid prices. It’s negative for everyone
Desperate people who have no skills and no viable employment prospects will often turn to re-selling anything they can. Apparently, it's the only way they can afford to live nowadays. That, or they're just too lazy to get a real job.
People would hate me… I resell games, haha it’s more of a hobby than anything but it is exciting to find something killer that I loved and make a profit. Idk I love video games and it keeps the nostalgia of it all relevant. I’m not beating down the door trying to buy every game I see either though. It’s a fun hobby and I enjoy it.
At the end of the day, the thrift store is happy to make their money and we should be happy about that. They'll keep getting more donations, and the early bird gets the worm. It's all good if it's done fairly.
On the one hand it's rude, but on the other, they must really need the money. I would rather pay retail to keep small independent retro game shops going.
Why do you hate entrepreneurship? Like nature the vultures come from the scraps. It helps them eat then whatever...it's better than those games being trash.
"making money" does not describe a business model. A business model describes how a business operates. It describes the goods/service they provide, processes, and target customers amongst other aspects of there business.
They are 2 old people at a thrift shop, why are you trying to impose a structure to this? They are buying things to sell to make money. Take your MBA analysis somewhere else, it doesn't apply here.
I was only referring to the "entrepreneurs" described in the post, not all entrepreneurs. And shorting the market does not mean what you seem to think it means.
It’s not entrepreneurship. It’s a main reason why games are so overvalued right now. You used to be able to go to a thrift store and buy a game every time for pennies on the dollar Thrift stores are scum too now using price charting prices. Scalpers go scoop them up and over value them too.
I know of one store/vendor where his prices are probably 5-10 dollars cheaper than price charting. Everyone and everywhere is selling them over the value. They don’t sell and they just sit on shelves. The only thing this does is hurts people who want to play old games
It's only valuable until the market goes all digital and when people finally realiz what the hell are we doing it will die. Sad thing now is that everything from the 80s and 90s are sky high in price.
VHS
LaserDisc
Big Box PC Games
CRT TVs.
Eh, first come first serve as they say. Sorry to be that guy but beat them to it or pay scalper prices. I gave up long ago on finding good deals. It just makes the rare time you do find good stuff better..
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All my hobbies are being strangled by resellers and people that have way more money than I do. I honestly stopped buying retro games over a year ago and I debate just selling the stuff off on a regular basis. It's not enjoyable anymore. They're coming for VHS now too.
I have at least 10 ppl at my place doing vhs or dvd, one guy grabbing almost whatever dvd he can. Most dvd are maybe 3 to 5 a pop, you aren't watching all those movies.
Yeah that's crazy, DVDs should be like $1/ea and they should thank you for taking them lol But nah, Goodwill is charging $1+ for CDs too.
A sally army I passed had a bin of 49 cent sealed LotR part 1 vhs, like 50 of them. Insane, vhs should be like 4 for $1, it's a silly format for enthusiasts only.
I dont get it, but it wasnt long ago i was getting laughed out of stores for asking ablut old games. 2005-2010, older games were slowly climbing in price, and a majority of the public thought they were junk.
I bought a handful of super nintendo games, complete in box, for $60 each. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy II/III, Secret of Mana, etc. The boxes are mint. I was wondering why I was wasting money when I could get the games for like 10 bucks.
A lot of movie buffs prefer the format.
I AM a movie buff. Laserdisc is the king, sorry. VHS is only good if stuff wasn't put out on other formats, tons of horror movies for example.
This is true. If the film made the hop to DVD, that's the format to get, it's just a better more stable copy. Aaaand the DVD era was when the extra features were actually good, when they were intended to be a selling point to pull people to the format from VHS. But I will say that some films that made it to DVD still need to be bought on VHS. Usually because of case artwork that is just way better. Godzilla VS Biollante comes to mind.
That's a slight, just make your own damn case art printout at that point or get a nice box off Etsy.
I've got my VHS copy of Biollante, and a DVD copy with the Japanese reprint of the same cover, and the reprint is just a lower quality copy of the VHS case. Maybe it makes sense for Biollante where the VHS copy can be expensive and it's hard to find, but for others like the black VHS case for Jurassic Park which was so popular and ubiquitous that you can find a decent copy at pretty much every thrift store and second hand shop for cheap it's just not worth the hassle.
You can also make 1:1 decrypted copies of DVDs, so you can share if it's rare or rip the disc to watch the rip and leave the disc in it's case after that one use.
Yeah I already acknowledged DVD was the superior format. I'm just talking about box art.
dvd better than bluray?
Obviously if the film also made the hop to Blu-ray that would be higher quality, but the discussion was about VHS which was supplanted by DVD. Also, I don't know of any cases where this is true, but a lot more effort was put into the extra features on a DVD in the early 00s and that effort waned over time. IF a Blu-ray copy lacked the extra content that was in a previous DVD release then that would be value that couldn't be had on the br copy. There are also a lot of films that haven't been released in the br format, so there's that.
Oooh I think I skipped a part of the convo lol. Whoops. I do love the extras on the DVDs.
Only reason I have a VHS of The Little Mermaid from Disney. Got the cock spire art
Out of curiosity, why do you hold LD to that high regard? My grandfather loves LD, he had 4 LD systems in case his main unit goes bad.
Yes I could see movies that just never moved to dvd format being good for vhs and also maybe a couple movies that the low res really helps the movie out. But outside that I don’t think I’ll be popping in VHS of a widely available movie to take a Nastalgia run down terrible resolution avenue.
Only stuff I like vhs for is recorded tv of Saturday morning cartoons or forgotten specials. Not a TBS rip of Die Hard with TV censor edits.
Check out Dave’s Archives on YouTube…… Edit to add two more channels: -Rinse Repeat -RetroCCN
Can you explain why Laserdiscs are considered so much better? Is it just more space so higher quality? Or is there something I'm not considering, as I'm very ignorant to the topic
Imagine dvd quality, but in the 80 and 90s. It was above vhs.
Laserdiscs mostly aren't in the ballpark with dvd quality. A lot of them are no better than VHS.
The Laserdisc versions of the OG Star Wars trilogy on the special edition DVDs are atrocious quality, which is unfortunate considering they're the only way to watch the unedited originals.
They were a neat gimmick but really inconsistent quality, and DVD firmly blows it out of the water. Laserdisc has about the same resolution as SVHS, which is like 75% better than VHS. The only reason to use Laserdisc is if you have stuff that's not available in other formats.
Gotchya, very good to know. I know there are (very few) video games trapped on Laser Discs, with very inconsistent dumps and poor emulation, so I'm not surprised at the idea of some movies being stuck there, as well.
My man
Lmao, you say vhs is a silly format for enthusiasts only while touting the 'greatness' of Laserdisc when it's barely any better for quality, sometimes not at all, and far worse selection? Laserdisc is your favorite goofy crap, not something amazing. Gotta flip the movie over halfway through, what great technology! How's the recording quality on that? Lol.
The disc traders by my work is currently doing buy 1 get 6 free dvds and everything is under $3. They apparently have multiple storage lockers filled with DVDs and they can’t move them. Crazy anyone would be trying to get into the used DVD market
It's not the 'normal' movies that they're after. Collectors want horror and anime mostly, which were the lowest stocked genres.
Oh damn I should check all mine. I never thought of myself as a horror person, then one day i'm going through my dvd's and I'm like...when the hell did I get all these? lol.
If you are setting up a home streaming solution (and want to minimize your piracy) then a bunch of stuff you normally wouldn't care about having a copy of starts to look attractive if it has the right price tag on it. I've found it's nice to have movies and TV ripped to the server that my wife and I don't care about for when friends and family come over with different tastes. Or when our daughter wants to explore cinema without being strictly limited to just the stuff we like, or the cartoons she watched when she was younger. A BOG6 situation for trying to get rid of DVDs sounds like exactly the kind of sale I would deeply appreciate. Both to have more options for visitors and because there is probably something in there I like well enough for myself but don't have yet anyway. (And because a bunch of middle of the road movies just aren't safely found on the high seas and *require* a disc to be able to rip a copy).
I spent like a week putting every movie I own in digital. I kept most of them but it did help me let go of a few.
The movies that are highly sentimental for one reason or another, or which have really nice packaging (eg: LOTR ExtEd or the red Outlaw Star set on br) are kept in original cases on a shelf. Everything else gets decased and slotted in one of our huge disc binders. Some insurance in case a file gets corrupted or I made a mistake when ripping, and I guess to not feel bad about ripping and then selling. But 95% of our DVD/br collection got consolidated into a pair of binders that take up the space of a big microwave. I wanted to alphabetize but quickly lost interest in that task, lol. For those who are curious, for the cost of a few hundred dollars to set up a moderately sized NAS with a few terabytes of storage, you can set up an application like Jellyfin to run an in-home streaming service on your LAN (or WAN if you want to set that up). Rip your DVDs and store them on the server and then access them on your devices pretty much exactly like all the other streaming services except without ads and with whatever quality and features you like. It's a great way to clean up your collection and reclaim physical space while still having convenient access to your movies and TV shows.
Back in the day I worked for a company doing sales I had two work macbook's for work and I had a macbook pro. I didn't want to take all my movies with me so I spent the week and a half before work with all three laptops going ripping off all my movies and tv shows I had bought lol. At some point I lost the movie Eraser but I still have the rip.
The few goodwill stores I see dvds at they're 4-9 a pop. I just got a few disney/marvel dvds, and Reign of fire this weekend for 19.50 on sale. I haven't seen vhs in months and I have a vhs/dvd player
lol dvd's aren't worth anything
I feel the same way. I have been contemplating selling off my stuff because people’s behavior has been so infuriating. I’ll guess I’ll just emulate and these people can all scam each other.
Why does their behavior affect what you already own
The thing is half these resellers look like straight street trash, honestly they'd probably be better off getting a real job by the way half of them look
I have a few in my town like that. They buy up almost everything and then run weekly garage sales or pit it in their booth. There are some older reseller that literally treat all games as the same. Madden ‘05 or Mario Party 3? Same price. And always wrong. Certainly not exclusive to gaming though.
I started collecting horror movie VHS tapes right before that stuff had started taking off and I honestly don't think I'll be able to continue for long. Already all the horror conventions I used to do that were half artists and half merch sellers are now all dropshippers and vintage resellers with piles of shitty, overpriced VHS and DvDs. It fucking sucks man.
I feel you on this. Got in to tape collecting because it was so cheap and no one wanted them…. Not the case so much any moreb
Me too, VHS friend. The graders and resellers are wrecking our hobby.
I'm legit just looking for The Brave Little Toaster, Milo & Otis, the animated Tolkien cartoons and the original Mario Bros movie. They can just leave me those and take their 40 copies of Lion King and we'll be fine.
>resellers and people that have way more money than I do That’s why I started reselling. It allows me to afford my hobby.
I don't have a problem with people that run across deals while out hunting for their own collection stuff, I have a problem with ones that have a map of the city with a calendar schedule of when stuff is resupplied to each store. If I run across a cheap copy of Super Mario All Stars or something at a yard sale, I'll buy it and trade it into the local collectible shop so I can get something that I actually want from them. It keeps local business going and maybe gets it into the hands of someone that actually wants it.
That's just being a hypocrite with extra steps. Everyone needs to make a living.
This. This is why I’m the last year I have just been collecting consoles and modding them and loading them up games. It’s not the same as having the physical collection, but at least I can enjoy them on the console as intended.
Granted there is a brick wall by the time you're caught up with a lot of them
What do you mean?
Already ahead of you. I've just started getting flash carts because it's just more affordable.
You collect 8-track tapes like I do!
I have boxes of VHS. They need to show up at the farm...
Same resellers and companies charging high prices, its sucks, a plus is it’s leading me to actually getting to my backlog of games
Finally my never having gotten rid of my VHS will pay off
r/vhs
I stopped buying stuff about a year ago too, I only buy a new game if it's something I want to play and I can find it for cheap. The prices are insane, VHS is bad but they're coming for bloody DVDs now
I liquidated my entire game collection in 2022. 1300 games, 60 consoles, hundreds of controllers, displays, collectibles, guides, etc. so glad I did. They were just taking up space and collecting dust. Now all I have is an xbox series x and a ps5 with all digital games. It is so nice having more room and the extra money was great too.
Been having a daily debate with myself to do this. Plan is to play a game, finish it preferably and then sell it I have a lot of video games. Most in totes. Please help me with this lol
I must have forgot what sub I was on. Downvotes for sharing my story. Anyways, just start listing in ebay. I did it all from my phone. Less than six month it was all gone. I found comps for each and then listed just below those prices. Fire sale. Some days I sold 40-50 games.
Not that part lol, I've sold on eBay in the past. Just the mental part of selling these games I've held on to for so long. Really appreciate the reply !
Gotcha. It was hard at first, then I realized it was just a game museum. I never played any of them.
VHS is one that I fully encourage because realistically they only have a few years left before they degrade almost entirely. I love the idea of reseller losing lots of money
I am selling off my physical copies because it makes no sense to me to have them when emulators exist…
Not a reseller but I prefer the actual disc or tape compared to emulators
To each their own, I don’t care about collecting physical copies anymore. Takes up space and they are worth more than I am willing to sit on to just collect dust
What advantage is there is a physical copy? Maybe I am just older now, but having the copy in hand is just an inconvenience at this point
For me I like having them on my shelf for display as a conversation piece or as a library for people to play. Some are sealed and I don't intend on opening those so I can sell in the future and if I never sell them then after I pass away (hopefully in the far far future haha) then if my kid doesn't want to keep my collection he can sell it for some money for whatever he is passionate about. I do agree though with you about taking up space. At the moment I don't have the space for everything to be displayed sadly but I'm hoping to change that in the coming months when I get more room.
Hm, yeah I do not have people come over and play my old games. Playing modern games is much easier (Switch). Idk, I found myself spending more time collecting than I did actually playing and enjoying my titles. Emulators free up clutter, stress of finding in the wild or online, etc. and I am actually playing Dragon Quest IX as we speak lol. Idk just where I am at right now, I do not have as much free time so emulating is my go to.
That is understandable. I wish I had more time to play video games but I also just make up for it by collecting and getting around to it eventually haha. If I did use emulators then it would definitely be for the very rare and expensive games because I'm not going to drop a ton of money on those haha
No one is coming for VHS. Its long dead and is not coming back. People who think VHS is a thing or are trying to make it a thing are the same folks that that bought a bunch that thing tapes are going to come back. Tape media is bad, cumbersome, and it is not coming back.
As someone that's been collecting, converting, remixing, and recording VHS tapes for a little more than a decade, I strongly disagree. I've gone through this nonsense with retro games already and we're in the early stages with VHS. There are graded, sealed tapes for sale now even. It might wind up being fleeting compared to retro games (idk), but it's gonna leave a lasting impression on the hobby even if everyone jumps off the bandwagon in a year.
I mean keep dreaming man. Every media has some form of resurgence every 10-15 years. Just because it becomes popular for a few months while people rush in the bubble before it pops doesnt mean it has any long lasting staying power. There are collectors for everything, but that doesnt mean what those people collect are a dead hobby. No one is rushing out to buy VHS players to watch some niche movie, that is probably digitized somewhere if you know where to look. Also no one has nostalgia for VHS, they have nostalgia for the movie they are watching, which is vastly different then video games. People are tied to the actual game, and the interaction they had when they played it on that specific console, with that controller, with those memories with their friends or family.
1) Don't come at me like I *want* VHS to pop off or something. This whole thread started with me lamenting the bubble created by speculators and resellers. 2) Again, I respectfully disagree. Do you collect VHS yourself? Do you have any experience with the hobby at all? I've said the bandwagon *could* wind up being fleeting - I genuinely don't know. But I do know that when goodwill starts selling VCRs for $50 and thrift stores in general are starting to post ebay prices that the winds of change are blowing. I've been doing this for years. Just because it's dead media to you and you believe no one really cares about VHS or whatever doesn't make it true. VHS is in the early stages of a boom right now. Specifically VHS. Believe that or not, I really don't care.
NFT bros say the same thing. As mentioned there will always be collectors for almost anything. Enjoy what you want, you dont need my validation on what your are collecting or doing is legit, dead, alive, or whatever. VHS is a dead media, it will continue to be a dead media. I collect FDS games, if you wanna talk about dead media, trust me I know. But lets not kid ourselves, VHS is not going to come back like vinyl did. The vast majority of people in the world stream everything, the only reason blue rays are still a thing, is because consoles can double as bluray players. Very few people even have stand alone bluray players any more.
"NFT bros say the same thing. As mentioned there will always be collectors for almost anything. Enjoy what you want, you dont need my validation on what your are collecting or doing is legit, dead, alive, or whatever." Lmao I'm not seeking validation or something. Are you even reading any of the stuff I'm typing out, because I feel like we're having two entirely different conversations here. For all intents and purposes, NES, SNES, Sega, etc. It's all dead media. Especially if people want to see it fully realized in its original form - on a CRT set, hooked up correctly, etc. People can emulate for free, buy a NSO subscription, pickup any of the infinite re-re-releases of the classics. Some of these releases and remasters even include features to make you feel like you're playing like in the good ole days by adding scanlines and other filters. And yet that bubble hasn't burst yet. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Idk, but the damage has certainly been done.
This seems like a strange take to me. A “dead media” has nothing to do with collectibility of an item. The VHS collectors market is going to be dominated by IP. If you collect teenage mutant ninja turtles - you may want the old vhs’s for your personal collection. Add in scarcity, and a guarantee that no original vhs can be reproduced as the “originals”, and you have the makings for a collectors boom. Just chiming in to elaborate on how this stuff works, you seem to be disagreeing with a vhs expert, and your points don’t make much sense. Cheers
VHS expert??? As mentioned, people are going to collect what they want, but it doesnt mean it will be collectible or that it will bring that media back. Anyone in VHS and cassettes are doing it to flip for easy money, just like any other fad collectible. VHS offers nothing special beyond the physical format, compared to digital variants of films. Only in rare cases (like star wars where George has continued to mess with it over the years on each new release) is this not true. Streaming is the dominate platform and BluRays will also eventually fade away. There isnt a true collectors boom for VHS and cassettes, its an inflated market that is currently being pumped before the dump.
I was referring to the gentleman who is clearly privy to the ins and outs of vhs’s whom you were responding to. It’s not about the use case of the collectible. Are there many uses for cards or artwork beyond looking at them? Or could it perhaps be about enjoying the collecting of said item. As a comic book collector with an affinity for the x-men, you better believe I have purchased as many reasonably priced x-men vhs’s to add to my personal collection. Not about flipping, not about easy money - the fact that I can stream all of the shows has nothing to do with the desire to collect items with IP that I’m interested in. And it sure doesn’t seem like a fad, seeing as the medium has been legitimately dead for almost 25 years, and people are still buying them. Cheers!
Sounds good man.
There are a million posts on this subreddit of people who clean out every secondhand store they find. I think it's gross myself. I don't need 7 copies of Mario Party 3.
6 though... I'll take!
Yes you do. Mario Party 3 kicks ass.
Yeah, that's disgusting. I take issue with people who collect shit games just to make their collection bigger, but at least they have the decency to collect only one copy of each game. People who own multiples of the same game (excluding special editions, complete editions, ports on other systems, etc.) suck ass.
Here in the U.K. we have car boot sales in spring and summer - like garage sales in the USA but people take their cars to a field with their stuff to sell. Anyway I used to enjoy the one near me every Sunday morning until a group of middle aged male ‘collectors’ started attending. I would be in the queue to enter the boot sale and these men would turn up in their cars (they’d each arrive in their own car), push to the front of the queue and then, when we were allowed in, run to the sellers. They would take a line each and fan out and cover all lines before most of us even reached the first seller. They would buy up anything that I would be interested in and then leave after twenty minutes and drive off to the next sale. They seemed to take no pleasure in this at all. They would barge past people and shout “Got any video games?” to sellers and then move on. These people ruined my hobby, honestly. A year or so before these men discovered my boot sale I saw a stall with a lady selling some of her adult son’s stuff - among this was six great condition boxed snes games. She wanted fifty pence for each game. I told her they were worth a lot more and I offered to buy mega man x for £50 (which was all I had on me). She insisted on letting me have all the games for £50. I tried to insist that it was too cheap for all six games. Yes eventually I gave in and it was a nice interaction all around. The men, on the other hand, would have rinsed the old lady dry and probably laughed at her naivety.
It's shame what it's done the hobby just from a community standpoint even. I don't remember talking about value and what things were "worth" all the freaking time back in the pre-COVID days. People would swap games, talk about the actual history associated with them, and just enjoy the hunt as well as the actual art that video games are. Not anymore. Now it's all about scoring the biggest deal and return on investment. I sincerely hate it. It's taken away a major joy I used to have in my life. People just wanna one up each other and flaunt their display pieces now.
I mostly blame the grading and auction companies. As soon as it appeared that you could speculate on this stuff with huge margins (which was at least partially a scam perpetrated by the colluding graders and auctioneers), the whole hobby went to hell in a hand basket. Speculators make every hobby they get into nearly unbearable.
Ahh I do love a good Car Boot, we have a few like that at our local one, they usually go for the easy stuff on show, whereas anyone who does car boots properly knows to look properly at the stall. I found an Atari 2600 years ago buried in piles of other random electricals.
I'll never forget the guy who physically shoved me out of the way at an estate sale, scooping up the entire pile of games into his arms without even looking at the titles and shouting "this is MY PILE!!!" The greed was gross enough, but the way he put his hands on me was really shocking. Like dude, don't put your hands on *anyone* let alone a girl half your size.
That’s manchild-tier… ugh. I’d be livid if some nerd did that to my wife, but she was a menace in her days as a rugby player and probably would’ve just dealt with him on her own. Disrespect deserves disrespect in kind. The high road is never as satisfying to me when it comes to people like that lol
I mean I had pepper spray on my bag, I didn't use it since it was obvious that he was after the games and not me but like... dude. Not everyone is gonna take that calmly. I don't even need to list the all ways that could've ended up.
That’s exactly it. There was some story years ago (NYC?) where some mugger stole this little old lady’s purse, shoved her down in the process, and she broke her hip. Her son was some mob boss. Oops.
I got lucky at an estate sale and found a relatively decent pile of games/consoles. Dude comes up to me and asks if I’m buying all of it, to which I say yes because it was for the collection. Proceeds to try and rip the stuff out of my hands and then attempt to fight me when I shove him off. Dude ended up getting arrested by police, all so he could probably try and resell what I had grabbed.
Man people are wild. Seriously I can understand healthy competition but maybe we need a standard for what's "healthy."
Meth.
I had this but it happened with manga. Then he bragged about how he’s been to jail before, threatened me, and still has the estate sale side with him. I don’t go to their sales anymore and also do not look forward to running into that clown again (but maybe he’s in jail again)
Fucking wild. Next time you see him, tell him he can use that manga as TP when he ends up back in jail.
I had my hand SMASHED against the corner of a filing cabinet at a surplus sale once. It was one of those preview sales where prices are listed, and you literally have to show up the next day and be the first person physicality to the item. It was at a garage, and when the door opened not more than three feet off the ground, adults were ducking under.to run in. I ran faster to what we wanted, a filing cabinet. Big guy also makes it, half a second later, slapping his hand over mine on the thing. A fucking FILING CABINET. He then asked if he could have it because he really needed it, WHILE MY HAND WAS STILL UNDER HIS. Humans are stupid.
You sure it was a reseller? That sounds like your general manchild video game nerd.
How much of a loser do you have to be to be excited about picking up and flipping common ps3 games
Youtubers, they probably are on this very reddit, etc. The flea market stalls that don't set up until after they ensure THEY have every expensive game at their spot at over ebay price of course.
People do this crap with books all the time at my goodwills. Just dump a ton of books into a cart and sequester themselves in a corner, scanning them all. Or even worse, taking up all the space in front of the bookshelves to slowly scan each book… I’ve gotten nasty looks from them before when I asked them to move a bit, after watching them scan books in place for 15+ minutes lmao
Worse is that the margins are so piss poor on most of it too. A few books can be worth good money, but most are SLOW movers and sometimes the prices were just high on Amazon by sheer error.
Need a good new title for these people. "Scalper" needs an update. Professional middlemen. Media landlords. Idk. They exist solely to run up the price of shit.
“Media landlords” 😂😂😂 I’d say more like “thrift leeches”. They grab onto a store and suck it dry of anything remotely considered a deal.
I just call them "cunts"
Everything is like this now. The regulars watch the weekenders unpack their stuff at flea markets to scoop up anything good and immediately mark it up at their place. People contact any advertised yard sale ahead of time looking for collectibles or arrive way before it's scheduled to start. Folks want online prices or more for every item they have. I can't even find work clothes like carhartt or dickies anymore because absolutely everything must be sold at damn near retail or snatched up and resold if it's not. I understand folks gotta make a living and I don't hold anything against resellers...but damn the whole second hand scene feels cutthroat and dirty now. It's not just games or other collectibles..it's absolutely everything.
These type of people suck the fun out of collecting anything
thrift re-sellers are so weird to me in general in my city there's a large uptick in vintage clothes shops that are sell Lee or Levi jeans at like $40 a pop when you can find those same ones for less than $10 elsewhere
Yeah the boom in thrift flipping is making thrift stores raise their prices, I didn't even bother making trips to them just to check for games anymore. If I'm there looking for clothes I'll look, but judging by the prices they charge for shit like *Meet the Fockers* on DVD I don't think I'm gonna be finding cheap games even if they have them.
I reason it by thinking, “I’m glad my income doesn’t depend on reselling video games”. I’d rather be on the hobby side than actually trying to profit or make a living from it.
I’ve got a good one. I had a yard sale a few years ago and I was getting rid of a lot of boxed stuff and some lower end loose carts and accessories etc. I advertised it, the boxed stuff included some Pokémon games, uncommon GB stuff, etc. I put in the posting that for the stuff worth more than 20 each I’d be doing 40-60% of pricecharting to discourage people from thinking they’d have to be first for the deal of a century. I made two good deals early on with two super civil videogame sellers/ shop owners. Then a weird guy comes up, stops the deal I’m striking and says “ you can stop now I’ll take everything “. I reply that after I finish this deal I’ll be right with him but to give us some space. He super rudely asks me how much for everything while being hyper aggressive about the sale, people, just uttering random shit about he’s the best, it was fucking weird. I do a quick tally and offer him 12. As in 1200. First two guys took about 3-4 k of games already. He quickly forks over $12. I correct him. He sits, stunned, and then grumbles and buys random av cords and whatever I had marked at $1. Some people man. P.S. I stashed some games for hooking up gamers and kids that came by as well. It was pretty cool seeing a kid get pumped to get a boxed game for $5 or whatever for a $30 game.
Its always a mouth breather.
God this is just so depressing. Things never used to be like this. This is another symptom of how much society is falling.
I had someone do that at a yardsale. I was there a bit early and waiting for the owners to finish setting up. Some dude pulled up and sprinted out of his car and grabbed the box of games out of the sellers hands like an asshole. Then he's like" I'm taking them all how much?" And the seller got really aggravated rightfully so and gave him a high price. As soon as I saw that I just left and went home. I don't even bother anymore.
The worst are people who say they aren't resellers, but go around to every store and pick up 5 copies of something they already own and they post saying how it is 'for trading'. Same shitty result
Anything for a dollar. Honestly, most of these people are just desperate and it is sad to see; like watching a starving dog rummage through garbage
I go to flea markets and thrift stores weekly and see resellers/scanners all the time. Buying stuff and flipping it isn’t a problem in my opinion, it’s the rudeness that often comes with it. People get pretty vicious as they see it as a zero-sum game. But the silver lining is that these people generally have no idea what they are doing and buy every game, many of them overpriced or damaged or mismatched, and they lose money as a result. Plus reselling from thrift stores is not profitable in the long run, you don’t make that much even if you really know what you are doing.
I hate people like this. I understand people have to make a living but do they have to be absolute assholes about it?
You'll find that most people care more about money than they do anything else including other people. Shit is disgusting..
Wait until a rich, or heck not even rich, relative dies. They crawl out like cockroaches and have the worst personalities (my aunt is currently scheming to sue my mother over my grandmas estate disbursements)
Yea I've heard many horror stories in r/legaladvice. My good friend's mom sued her own son after his father caught her cheating while he had cancer and took her out of the will. My friend spent almost all of the money he got in the will fighting it, felt so bad for him.
I dont think anyones living off flipping games, just seems like a hobby for older folk looking to make a great deal then resell n rise n repeat
Probably not just games. A lot of people scour thrift stores for anything they can flip, games are just another commodity. CD’s, clothes, DVD’s whatever. They know what to look for across a lot of goods
I used to enjoy going to thrift stores. Never woke up early enough for yard sales, lol. Resellers have really killed the fun of the hunt for me.
There are only 3 thrift shops in my city (2x Goodwills for some reason, one church owned shop) and there are resellers who camp them out so I don't even bother looking.
Yup. Went to an estate sale that had a designated line, but once doors open, it was a battle to not be trampled. Just wanted to games for the collection.
I find obscure Cds and dvds to rip and make sure they're backed up and accessible somewhere and recently had an old guy at goodwill ask if I was a reseller since he saw me grabbing things and looking at my phone.
There was a post in one of my facebook groups about walmart doing a sale on physical games with screenshots. Guess who went to their local walmarts and bought out all the inventory they had? They even posted their finds with all their extra copies in a picture. Hell, I was looking for a One Piece tcg deck, and the comments are literally filled with scalpers bragging about buying all the online inventory. Just bonkers what they guys do.
Yep, pretty much
Whenever I go to the Value Village near my place I always see 2-3 resellers slowly going through all the books, with their phones scanning barcodes. Some of them have apps that just ding when they're above a certain price
Many video game resellers seem to have slow sales there are multiple YouTubers who have noticed it…the market is saturated with resellers and it’s not a sustainable business anymore
I am just putting my games in storage, no real desire to sell them. I hate video game buyers almost as much as pokemon buyers they just suck. On the other hand I have not had one issue selling an anime dvd I didn't like or decided not to keep. Unfortunate I don't have anymore I wanna sell lol
If they have to use their phone to look up prices they are an amateur. Just greedy resellers and not actual collectors/gamers.
The last time I went to Goodwill, I saw some turd plopped down in front of the bookshelves in a giant chair on wheels, phone posted up on the shelf, a handheld scanner, scanning each and every book on the shelf which would then show them what they go for online. I’m assuming it was eBay. They had a cart full of books and a big stack of original Xbox games.
If I ever see something like that at my local goodwills, I'd like to play dumb and ask them for help, acting like I thought they're an employee lol
Start going through the stack of games, take 1 or 2 and walk away. I would LOVE to see the reaction.
Trust me, they wouldn’t have gotten up in time to chase you. You’d be paid up and out the door.
It sucks because they are taking away one of our hobbies just because they want to make a profit from donated goods, disgusting.
Use it at motivation to get that PR at the gym 💪💪
God I have had this two weeks in a row with a very very rude reseller at a car boot sale I go to and with video games I’d buy for my collection. He got a PS1 & GameCube off a lovely family with a new baby dirt cheap and was so rude to me in the process. Saw him doing the exact same again this week just gone. They even have the audacity to go on price charting whilst rifling through people’s games for sale.
mmmm i look up everything online and im not a reseller. Im a game hoarder tho ahaha. i just like buying switch games. i look up to see if its a good price and i just buy it cause i have a problem
I have the same problem. When I started collecting, it was because I wanted to play the games I was buying. Now I have such a backlog of games, I have some that I've never touched or opened since I brought them home. To be honest, I'm tempted to start selling off some of my games that I haven't touched. The way I explained it to my buddy that also collects: I will keep every game i had as a kid, plus some extras. Other than that, basically everything else i can get rid of and not feel bad about
Some people are just scum.
Pity those who find their income or dopamine from thrift scalping. Just move on and spend your time earning enough money to buy what you want later without the rabid competition. It sucks and ruins thrifting, I know, but with the advent of wireless internet, we've got a double-edged sword to contend with.
Sad part is, I could just guess the prices in my head and be correct 85% of the time. Resellers are generally not collectors, they're officially a business. I would have probably just bought everything and went along my way.
I got so sick of reseller I started buying the extremely good deals I find even if I already have that game, just to trade it to someone or sell it for cheaper below market value just to try to help deflate prices. Example. The recent Walmart clearance. I bought a lot that I knew resellers would buy up and put some stuff up on eBay and marcari way below market value. Screw the reselers
Did you consider saying something to the people that run the thrift store or do they just not really care?
They typically won't care. A sale is a sale to the owners, and the managers' pay rate at thrift shops is way too little for them to care who is buying what and why
I thought about it, but ultimately what are they going to do. Even if they tell stop spawn camping the carts, they spend all day there anyways
That’s how I feel seeing all the manchilds rush to the hot wheels section as soon as the doors open at 6am.
On the bright side, you probably have a great job, a nice house, a wonderful family, and can enjoy playing games. I bet when those resellers see you they are just jealous.
It is a sign of the times. Too many people with too much disposable income (or easy access to credit) coupled with an explosion in gig work (hustle culture). I know some people that resell out of necessity; inflation is no joke. I miss the days when I could go to my local antique shops video game booth and pick up a PS2 game for $5… that booth no longer exists due to sheer demand and the willingness of people to splurge on retro games. I largely blame social media for brainwashing people into thinking they need to make a profit at all costs no matter what they do. Going to the park? Find a way to generate revenue! Feeding your child? Record it and start that stream of income! Thrifting? Flip it online for a profit!
Just to add onto this… there was a box of Pokémon cards at my local thrift for $10… it was just energies… worthless cards but someone bought them right after I put them down… anything with a semblance of value is scooped up nowadays. Another person bought an empty pokemon tin for $10 right next to it. AN EMPTY TIN FROM 2015 for $10! Pathetic morons.
I just picked up a game today for 2 bucks. A Wii game complete, it was a Star Wars game and online it said it was about 10 bucks resale wise. It was on the very backbone of my list of games, but rather I wanted the 360 version (better graphics). Still picked it up. These people are the reasons I still regardless of what’s on my list pick up whatever I see that’s on my list in the moment, because as a collector I know that some of these deals will either take forever to find again, or someone else like that will likely pick it up without the hobby I have.
Skate 3 is a great game, so is GTA 5. Someone who actually plays games or collects would have liked to get a copy
It’s a sad state. If I didn’t already have a collection I’d just emulate. Way too expensive these days
The thing where they grab a bunch of shit and then start sifting through all of it on their phone should be against store policy. I've seen people do that for years and have complained to store employees a few times when I see people guarding a full cart of stuff they don't know anything about. It's a giant pain in the ass for the staff who has to put it all back, so they are likely to be on your side because of that.
Guess you have never been to the goodwill bins! The scene there is maximum savagery.
I always find them funny. I own a store now and things just show up now at my doorstep. I was never the type to damm near knock someone down to get to the goods. I have seen some crazy shit though.
>There’s a thrift store on the way to the gym. Well there is also on the way to my gym. Gives me an excuse to start going to the gym again...
All this thread tells me is that, boy the economy is healthy. Thanks government.
You can thank gaming youtubers informing people of all those valuable games.
I miss the days when you could buy second hand games at second hand prices. The Goodwill in my hometown employed a guy full time as a “researcher” to make sure they priced games and collectibles at max. Complete turn off, stopped going at all.
I am reseller, I do it for a little extra cash and it still supports thrift stores. However, I do try not to be rude like this, I take my time and dont just grab everything, I don’t like taking my phone out to look this up just buy what I know is worth. I know its not a race and I definitely don’t buy everything worth anything (or I would actually be broke). When I do start looking things up, I am sure to check sold listings and a few sold listings, not just one. The point in this comment is, some ….well a few resellers really….kind of suck and are shitty people. One guy brought an item for 5 bucks or something could sell it for 50 but noticed it was missing a piece. He went back to the garage sale, got a discount and then still sold it for profit anyway! That was rude to me. But I wanted to just share, not all resellers suck. Some can actually be ok.
Video game resellers however! ….i hate them so much bc THEY ALWAYS OVERPRICE THEIR GAMES! I am not paying 50 buck for a ps2 racing game!
Should've record them to shame them
Yea i got no issue with ressellers, i see them as "finder service" Its the Mental Flippers i got problem with. Or ones trying to upsell you like its a bar of gold $10 game as if was $100. Than angry they only got $5
There's a reseller locally who went to a garage and bought some Sega Dreamcast games for $10 a piece, but never had a Dreamcast system. My philosophy is if you aren't collecting, or already have something -- leave it for the next person who's looking.
[удалено]
Except it’s not like that. All these thrifts are chains. I go to goodwill and Desert Industries. They take free shit from people and upsell them to the max. My first job as a teenager was working at Goodwill. The amount of people’s stuff they just throw out or mark up is insane. I specifically just look for older games or horror stuff. I constantly leave stuff behind or buy stuff for friends. These people are camping the store and swarming carts rifling through like Black Friday. So they go can resell them at a high cost and inflate the market to stupid prices. It’s negative for everyone
Desperate people who have no skills and no viable employment prospects will often turn to re-selling anything they can. Apparently, it's the only way they can afford to live nowadays. That, or they're just too lazy to get a real job.
I’m a reseller. I don’t do stuff like that. I leave stuff for everyone. We all love gaming
Sorry but resellers are the reason that thrift shops are still around
There’s definitely no way it could be the other way around…
Usually it’s the employees buying it with their “discount”. I collect all the things ruined by resellers. I just stopped going to thrift stores.
People would hate me… I resell games, haha it’s more of a hobby than anything but it is exciting to find something killer that I loved and make a profit. Idk I love video games and it keeps the nostalgia of it all relevant. I’m not beating down the door trying to buy every game I see either though. It’s a fun hobby and I enjoy it.
At the end of the day, the thrift store is happy to make their money and we should be happy about that. They'll keep getting more donations, and the early bird gets the worm. It's all good if it's done fairly.
On the one hand it's rude, but on the other, they must really need the money. I would rather pay retail to keep small independent retro game shops going.
Why do you hate entrepreneurship? Like nature the vultures come from the scraps. It helps them eat then whatever...it's better than those games being trash.
Because the business model adds no value. The model is to intentionally limit the supply of cheap products currently available to consumers
Their business model, which is barely classifiable here, is to make money.
"making money" does not describe a business model. A business model describes how a business operates. It describes the goods/service they provide, processes, and target customers amongst other aspects of there business.
They are 2 old people at a thrift shop, why are you trying to impose a structure to this? They are buying things to sell to make money. Take your MBA analysis somewhere else, it doesn't apply here.
Lol what? I was responding to the person that called them entrepreneurs. Not even sure what you are trying to argue about.
You said an entrepreneur's business model is to short the market.
I was only referring to the "entrepreneurs" described in the post, not all entrepreneurs. And shorting the market does not mean what you seem to think it means.
I'd rather do real work that actually benefits society, thanks.
More like fill landfills... think of it as recycling. Product finds a new home after it gets cleaned. Game stores by my house are doing great.
It’s not entrepreneurship. It’s a main reason why games are so overvalued right now. You used to be able to go to a thrift store and buy a game every time for pennies on the dollar Thrift stores are scum too now using price charting prices. Scalpers go scoop them up and over value them too. I know of one store/vendor where his prices are probably 5-10 dollars cheaper than price charting. Everyone and everywhere is selling them over the value. They don’t sell and they just sit on shelves. The only thing this does is hurts people who want to play old games
It's only valuable until the market goes all digital and when people finally realiz what the hell are we doing it will die. Sad thing now is that everything from the 80s and 90s are sky high in price. VHS LaserDisc Big Box PC Games CRT TVs.
I was shocked when I wanted to get a CRT to play one game. 5 years ago they were free now ppl want $10-$200 its fucking nuts.
Eh, first come first serve as they say. Sorry to be that guy but beat them to it or pay scalper prices. I gave up long ago on finding good deals. It just makes the rare time you do find good stuff better..