I'm 42 and still can't believe how many of the stores I grew up with are now gone. SO many of my games came from Toys R Us. I'll never forget the wall of tickets that you would bring up to the checkout counter.
Did they do that in the US too? Other games stores just had empty cases on a shelf, but Toys R Us in the UK had one case, in some sort of museum style glass presentation stand, and you had to take a ticket to the counter to pay for it.
Your thrift stores have 100 times more games and electronics than all my thrift stores combined. How sad is that? I don't even bother to go to thrift stores anymore.
I live on the West coast. My wife and I met when we both worked at a certain large bookstore chain; the store we worked at, as well as the GameStop, the movie theater, and most of the rest of the businesses in the shopping complex, are gone. It's a bit of a bummer.
GameStops really have anything anymore, Good wills send their crap to e-commerce, Facebook marketplace are full of ill informed resellers etc. ordering the game I want in the condition I want from eBay from the comfort of sitting on my toilet is probably the best way now
100% FB Marketplace is generally an absolute shit show or just plain overpriced. And sometimes the condition of the item is overstated. Ebay still remains the best choice, and also playasia for NOS but you have to slog their somewhat antiquated front end and sometimes deal with long backorder waits.
@@hakim8688 Facebook marketplace in my area is terrible. They never consistently want to meet up or give you the run around or have terrible quality. I’ve listed things and I’ve had people ask for me to deliver to their house, give them a ridiculous discount and I’ve even had someone ask me to deliver it to them and let them have it because they don’t have any money right now. Seriously wtf… i still check my local GameStop from time to time. Sometimes i get lucky and find something i was looking for or even a surprise game i didn’t expect to be there. But other than that I have a good retro store near me. I’ll always check with them for what I’m looking for first and if i don’t find it then I’ll go to eBay.
I was at the Exchange the other day and some dude was there looking for expensive titles to buy up so he could resell them in another state at a higher price. That's all i see anymore. Just people who don't play games who want to resell them for higher prices like some kind of investment. It's slimey.
I got up at 7am to go to some community garage sales to go hunting for the first time in years last week. I was there as soon as it started. Everyone I asked said “you’re the 3rd person that’s asked”. It’s so over.
I remember when you could casually find old Nintendo NES games for $1 at thrift stores. I have given up though. I have consistently gone in thrift stores for years, but I can’t anything anymore.
The internet and eBay ruined everything. It's been at least 15 years since you could count on some naive store owners underpricing something valuable. Nowadays anything remotely valuable is often over-priced.
My local charity shop posts all their finds online so they are basically swiped within the first 5 minutes. best chance these days is either fb marketplace but you only have a 1 minute window or flea markets but you have to be their as soon as it opens and even than others will hunt. Those days of finding good bargains everyday are long gone.
So glad I'm at the stage in my game collection that I am. If I tried to start it now I don't think it would be doable. Getting harder and harder to find those games out there that are on the list. Great video RNG.
@@RNGGamerYT Yeah you are definitely further out on that limb than I am. I really think that even finding good copies of what could be considered fairly popular games is getting harder now though. I think over the next 3 or so years we are going to see a seismic shift in what it is to be a physical collector. The stock ain't out there anymore so the big stores that rely on high turnover to stay profitable are going to be in a sire situation. I think alot of them won't survive. Then the market will be dominated by whatever prices people want to charge on eBay.
Online shopping means less deals, less customers in physical stores. The declining economy is kind of the nail in the coffin. Good will shops are empty because they are overpicked by flippers.
@@audreyscrapaloup definitely true and i guess goodwill decided instead of letting flippers buy stuff cheap and profit from it. They will just put the good stuff online at eBay prices themselves. I understand that in one way on their part but on the other hand their inventory is donated. I know they have wages and overhead but they should still charge less than eBay not too much but enough to make it not worth it for resellers to bother. That way actual gamers can at least get decent deals. And GameStop does a lot wrong but at least they keep most of their game prices lower than eBay to try and get people in their stores. It’s definitely sad to see brick and mortar stores disappearing.
Yep, it's the same with cars. I used to love to buy a cheap used car, drive it a bit and sell it at break even or a bit of a profit after i cleaned it up. And another problem is i've been deal hunting for so long i can't stand to pay retail for anything . So what i do now is just wait for deals to fall in my lap. Which basically means i buy very little.
I'm so glad you liked the video!!! So many people are dealing with the same issues as us. I'm sort of glad that my collection has grown so much that there really isn't any chance that I would find anything anyway =)
My thriftstores have old radios and broken sound equipment. When they have games, it's usually sports games for the xbox360 that they would have to pay ME to take from them.
When I was young I wanted EVERY GAME EVER MADE. My physical NES, GENESIS, N64 and PS2 collections are only games that I've ever actually wanted. Besides that, I emulate. HARD. great video. 👍🏾
Yes, Goodwills send a lot of their stuff to ECommerce, but also, the stores are plagued by resellers in all departments. Have seen people scanning the books, DVD’s, games, etc on their phones. Have seen people come in and just ask the workers right away if they have any expensive name brand clothing like Patagonia. Have seen people scan the kitchenware for expensive brands. It’s no longer a place for people to find the occasional great deal, it’s where the full time resellers just grab up everything.
I started collecting in 2000. I found everything. I found a decent copy of Stadium Events at a drive-in theater, swap meet in Whittier CA. Factory sealed NES games were still easy to find. My best haul was in Monterey, Mexico. I walked into a Julio Cepeda's, the equivalent of a Toys r US, and on the wall was Little Sampson and Panic Restaurant. Obviously, they weren't as valuable then, but it was still exciting to find. They were US $20.00. Swap Meets, movie rental shops, and indy game store were the best in the early to mid 2000s.
@RNGGamerYT I don't collect anymore. I'm 61 and don't have the desire. I opened Video Game Geeks in 2002 in So Cal and sold it to a kid who started working for me in 2007. The store is still open and doing well. I sold everything and moved to Florida. I sent the kid all my stuff. I have a Switch. Lol. That's it.
@@RNGGamerYT yeah they are part of the problem, for instance my local game store sells games 10-20 dollars over what you can get them at eBay and most of them are not in good condition or missing manuals.
There is always the hope today will be your day lol. Last year i came across a complete set of Roland Electronic drums for $250 at a Goodwill. These are Roland TD-25, a $3K set new and sell for $1500 on marketplace. It made my month, and i still play them like 8 hours a week, they work great.
I feel ya, collecting isn’t near what it was, but we’ll carry on. Good memories , it’s crazy how time flies and just seeing a building can remind you of better times. Good video
I’m young man I just barely became old enough to drink and I love my old ps2 games I’m jealous to see your god hand and blood will tell behind u I’m dying to own all these games keep it up
Everything is dying bro , it’s best to save your money nowadays, and contribute to the downfall of current companies , I’m tired of the scam , I’m tired of the laziness , and I’m tired of what’s going on in the world
Same in my area, we have one Gamestop which is garbage, no ma & pa shops, not even a Goodwill in my area, and I would have to travel an hour away to reach the next town, making it not even worth it after cost of gas and time sourcing. There are some small ma & pa thrift shops in my area, maybe I'll make some rounds through those see if there's anything to find.
I've noticed overall prices on PS4 physical on ebay auctions have been creeping up over the last two months. There are still deals to be found here and there but it's becoming more difficult. Still, the chase remains fun and engaging and complements my dedication to actual gameplay more rewarding.
I was excited to get my BG3 Deluxe. But part of me wants to keep it sealed and part of me wants to open it and start playing. Larian was awesome because they ran into production issues and had to add another disc to Xbox versions and kept the price the same and delivered a an awesome physical edition.
I had the same issue with my PS5 copy. I thought about it purchasing digitally, and keeping the Deluxe PS5 copy sealed. I couldn't resist and wanted the physical copy on my shelf, so I opened it, and never looked back.
I feel your pain dude! The past year has been terrible to game hunt in my area too. I used to find lots of good stuff in thrifts, at yard sales and to a lesser degree marketplace. Now marketplace has nothing but overpriced resellers or people who want more than things are worth. Thrift stores have all moved to online sales and have all but dried up. And tons of people who don’t even collect video games (resellers….(shakes fist like old man!) looking for a quick buck are clearing out the yard sales quick. I like the way you put this video together. Very unique pickup video even though you found nothing hunting you picked up some great stuff! 😂
@@RNGGamerYT I wish I could make it out there but that’s a little to far for me this year. I am going to PGX in Pittsburgh at the beginning of October for Saturday and I may make it to TORG in November if I am lucky.
Ahh the Riverchase Galleria... a titan among malls at one point, and where I bought many of my games and consoles back in the day... EB Games above the food court and Babages down at the end of the mall... so many great memories😁
Unfortunatelly, the base version of Slay the Spire doesn't have the 4th playable character on disc. And there is no other physical version available for the PS4.
Yeah, I know. But luckily, the watcher is the worst character and was added after I played the game a bunch. So she doesn't matter too much to my memories
@@walterwhite7376 I started playing this game tonight. I usually get my games physical, but was tempted by an eShop sale. What a wonderful game! I played 90 minutes without noticing. The writing is so tiny, even on the tv with « larger writing ». I’m not sure I’m going to add a physical copy to my collection knowing it’s incomplete.
Funny you mention Autobahn Polizei. I came across that two months ago and it was 9.99. I was like why not, I had no idea what it was worth. Couldn’t believe the value I saw when I catalogued it.
In the last 5 years we've gone from 4 Gamestops to 1. Good Will is never good, ever and they just closed our "big" Salvation Army store. Got another much smaller one on the far end of town. Game hunting for anything other than new (sometime you can find a new game or two at Walmart) is mostly dead. My first NES and later my Sega Genesis came from a Sears store too 😢
As someone mentioned in the comments, you have 10 times more than in what we have in our respective countries and there is literally nothing but FIFA and CoD in our thrift stores and prices at stores that sell retro games are 2x the price of price charting. The problem with game collecting is that everyone and their grandmother has become a reseller nowadays. People make deals with thrift store workers, so they get a call the moment something comes in. Prices have bounced out of place to a degree that a lot of people are not willing to buy it anymore. Only the ones that don't care about money do, keeping these resellers alive. I used to import games from Japan, but since the wolves discovered this place, prices have trippled in 2 years time. So I, like so many other people, quit active collecting. When I happen to run into something fair priced and that is on my list, I will grab it. Otherwise I won't even bother.
Goodwill has a fairly big online operation both in house and on eBay. They won't let anything slip by if they can to the regular people. I shop at the goodwill outlets, even there they gut games and throw the cases in bins. At my bins there are a family of dedicated amazon scanners, so if a game does land in there, they get it and it goes to Amazon. Any yard sale gets bought out the morning it opens. EVERYONE is on to the retro game thing. It's been maybe 3yrs since I hit a good pick up at a yard sale. Good video though, important topic.
Only 1 Irem Arcade Collection on Evercade so far unfortunately. I think someone got wise to idea of putting 3 games at a time on a disc and selling them in limited amounts on modern platforms, so there may not be any more on the Evercade, we'll see.
That's a very familiar feeling. I can go to stores all day and find nothing I want. I can easily blow tons of money online, but to go to a physical location and shop is nearly always fruitless. I have a similarly sized collection, which means that the stores aren't so much barren as much as they just don't have the kinds of stuff I need. I went to one of the better local stores for me, and they'd just gotten in a bunch of Turbografx and Saturn stuff. Albert Odyssey, Shining: The Holy Ark, Burning Rangers... but I got mine over 25 years ago. The Turbo stuff was neat because it was sealed, but not rare. Alien Crush, R-Type, Dungeon Explorer... great games, but I have my open copies already. Such is life when you're old enough to have been buying games for so long!
Gamestop closed in whole Scandinavia summer 2020 here, and they were the ones surving longest. There is one local electronic chain that doesn't really count as they mainly stock random new Switch games. Sony and Xbox physicals have been dead for years so the stores only stock the yearly "FIFA" mostly for them. There is online stores of course, but without much competition the prices are higher than they should have been. Anyway. When Gamestop closed i bought lots of new unused games at 90% off, and also got collectibles at up to 80-90% off.
I'm glad you were able to grab some good stuff on clearance. That's always exciting! But it's a bummer that they closed at all. You're right about competition. You need it to drive prices down
@@RNGGamerYT Thanks. The sales of physicals is so bad online here too that no one cares about competing, so everyone is overcharging games because they can. Online discounts are worse than ever... At least they still stock as good as everything released. My wallet were wide open as i it were the last major sale ever. I overspent there, but it didn't matter as it were the end of physicals locally, and online sales went downhill after that.
Even if a game does play without updating, I think a bigger issue is the questionable longevity of some of these newer systems. Wii U's have been found to be dying, something to due with the NAND memory and constantly needing to be plugged in or it just dies with no hope of fixing it. Not sure if we'll find similar issues with other systems, but like the seal on PS5's liquid metal thermal solution is one I wonder about.
I’ve tried every goodwill within an hour of me in any direction and none of them put any games out anymore. They all go to the website. They don’t even always put out the good blu-ray movies consistently and when they do they mark them up too much.
Recently I started collecting PS1, PS2, and PS3 game's again, because personally I don't like the newer videogame's. I usually buy them from Ebay, or my local retro game shop.
Going only digital is a company's way of saying "Yes, we're scamming you, what are you gonna do about it?" Cause at any moment they can just take away your access from the game, cause you're not actually buying it, you're buying a license to it.
@@RNGGamerYT worst thing about it is that it's not even convenient enough to be worse the sacrifice, you're always limited to the console's storage. With a disc, you always have the game in your house and you'll always be able to reinstall it, But if it's only digital, you'll need to download it again, which will take much more time.
There are about 10 card shops around me.. but only the one gamestop! I hope it didn't go the same way as yours 😅 You can get the retail release of slay the spire!
Welcome to the Evercade club my friend! I’ve had one for a couple years now and I really love it. I have a couple different handhelds and about 20 carts. I played Full Void last year and r it was great. Short and sweet like Another World. Plus you can’t beat $20 carts brand new! Sucks everything seems to have dried up in your area. That Slay the Spire set is pretty cool as well. Great video and pickups brother!
They completely closed our 2nd and charles..now i have to drive to the next state over to find one...used to be a goldmine for games and now its an Ollies Bargain Market...
I was always intrigued by Evercade as I live by physical media and my first console was the 2600. But had to remind myself the Switch is a console that has cartridges of both retro and modern games. I just got RE4 on cartridge for the switch as well as Flashback and Another World on one cart. Long live the cart!👌
We've reached a weird point in the economic downturn of the United States (and much of the world, really) where prices are high because inflation is high, and so people put high prices on what they sell because they need the extra money to compensate for the high prices of consumer goods and utilities. But if the economic trends that we're experiencing continue, we'll find deals again for sure. They'll be the best we've seen in years, and in some cases ever. But for the wrong reason. We'll be in the fire sale phase, where prices are low because people need money desperately to cover continuing inflation with not enough wage growth, and most people won't be able to afford stuff like games, so the lower prices will be meant to draw someone, anyone, in to buy. The best thing we want to happen is for the economy to get better, resulting in people selling and giving deals again because they don't need the money that badly and feel inclined to pass on the savings as times are good. But as long as the current leadership remains the same, the arrangement of ongoing crises will remain the same, which means the economic downturn will only continue.
Exactly! Like I've said a million times. I would love nothing more than for every game to be $1. I don't care about the investment. I just want more games 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT And a lot of us want games to remain physical. Digital is a great option for people, but physical should ALWAYS be on the table. It's mindblowing that there was no word on a physical of Baldur's Gate 3 for as long as there was like you mentioned in the video. And I'm also bewildered as to why video game companies don't remake classic consoles to spec rather than those classic versions (like the Super Nintendo or the PSone) that don't even play the original games--they're just boxes with built-in emulators. If these companies did a limited run of 1:1 spec OG remake consoles, those would be sold out on pre-order within 24 hours of announcement. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, or even Sega could all do it and pretty much print money with that strategy. And if the companies did this repeatedly, it would eventually lower the cost of the OG consoles and games (if they did remakes of the OG games on OG carts or discs) in the long run on the market. It just makes no sense why companies like Microsoft, who's taking losses to the point that they're laying off people in their video games department, and Sony, who's guarantee to lose on the PS5 Pro given the outrage over its pricing, are taking losses like they are when they could pick up easy wins by simply catering to the retro gaming market. Yeah, they think the future is where the money is at, but if only they knew lol
It's dead to me. 90% of the draw years ago was getting them cheap. Once you attach a price to an average game that is the same of me buying an FPGA that has HDMI output and will play that game at 100% accuracy with no lag, what is the point? Sure i'd love to have to cart on my shelf but not at these prices. I would feel too much like a sucker. And no, i dont mean $30 bucks. I mean $5-$20$... That is what these old games are worth to me. A game being worth more than what i paid for it was always a nice novelty. I had a 1200 game collection at one point. Sold it for space. If i ever do get back into collecting i will only be buying "good" games. No crap, no filler, no mid grade stuff either. Just the greats. The only console i have an urge to have a complete collection for is the TG16.
Our thrift stores are absolutely dead here too and if you want to see a bad GameStop, come to Canada. They all suck in comparison. Where we score in Moncton is at our pawn shops, especially our local one that we frequent often. Just last week we got Valis CIB on Sega Genesis for the equivalent of $59 usd and its worth $90 usd. I also picked up a pal copy of Dead or School for $22 and its worth $38. And this is pretty normal for a few of those pawn shops. Always below price charting so you see a lot of new games all the time because they turn over their inventory fast. Oh and Days Gone is amazing. I played it a year after launch and only had one glitch towards the very end of the game that didn't really affect much of it at all. When you get around to playing it, I'm betting you'll love it.
This sad state of affairs has made it all the way to Canada!?! I hate to hear that. But I'm glad you grabbed some good stuff. Let me know how Dead or School is. I had it on my wishlist but ultimately passed on it. I can't remember why. That's an awesome deal on Valis!!! Thanks so much for watching. I'm looking forward to being on your show
@@RNGGamerYT We are absolutely super excited to have you on the show as well. Oh, and when you get a chance, don't forget to send me your list of games so I can get video footage for them
A major change to digital in general and now retro collecting is well known so prices get jacked up. The digital sales get better all the time. As much as i love physical, its just not the future.
@@RNGGamerYT I agree with you but its just where the market/future is going. I just buy games on sale and digital sales keep getting better while physical get worse. Its made me digital as im more of a deal hunter than collector.
22:10 😂LOL this is funny. As a collector I think of money in terms of how many game items I can get for the dollar amount. I need car tires for $1,000 man I can get a PS5 & Series X for that much haha. So I parked my car & rode my bicycle to get those consoles…
There are a lot of issues with "collecting" now, but the resellers and wannabes are the worst. I don't have an issue with local game shops, but Marketplace and other online retailers have made it so hard to sort through the overpriced junk to find any semblance of a deal that casual games like me just don't have the time. I focus mostly on modern gaming now because the older stuff is impossible to find in my area. Even as I look once or twice a week, the Marketplace offerings are the same items reposted over and over, at the same prices, for the same dirty stacks of sports and shovelware games that people want $5-10 per game on. My collection is becoming less important to me as I move forward because the object for me is to play video games, not spend my time hunting and worrying about the value of everything. I feel at some point people will just fall to emulation because the issues some of the roms have aren't a big enough deal to justify 3-4 figure price tags on games that were just ok to begin with. Once people try emulation and get it set up the way they want, they don't often come back. I don't get mad at the resellers though. I understand the idea of making money is enticing. I stopped watching these videos from flippers like Phoenix Resale and stuff because they stopped being interesting when the discussion switches from what they love about gaming to how much money they made and how YOU can also learn those skills in their discord. It's what they do, and that's fine, but it's not for me.
I've always been more of a gamer than a collector... although I have a pretty large collection. I'm not hunting much anymore... but it's nice to give it a shot
In all honestly it was the videos that made people aware of values(pawnshops, goodwill, etc). They watched the videos told friends, etc… and now that RJC and I are hitting GameStop hard, they are starting to change prices on retro games as well. They had caps where games wouldn’t go higher than 70/80 bucks. Now I’m seeing games go to 100 plus there. But it’s been over for awhile now…once in awhile if your in the middle of nowhere you can find stuff. Other than that I’m flipping for my current gen collection. I have about 700 switch games, just hit 500 ps5 games and I got it all for free…besides risking life going places, gas, and time. I’m going keep doing it until we all dry out and all systems switch to digital. Much Respect RNG, I have so many games I have to play them randomly. lol!
i hope more game companies do a all for 1 patches in a ultimate edition 1 year later. Also suing a town or city and buying one of the most wanted games ever is a huge win. 22:18 that's the biggest deal any modern collector of anything will find and the good thing is scalpers and resellers can't effect at all. Cool video. ^_^
This is sad in my opinion, I love collecting and playing games cuz its authentic, fun, and no downloading and updates lol. However, collecting will never be the same
Good video! Nice change of pace to get you out of your cave. I genuinely felt like I was on a marginally depressing ride along, which, I suppose we could do if I weren’t too lazy to drive 2 hours 😅 😂😂 😳😬
2nd & Charles used to be my absolute favorite place to go to for years. I thought it was so cool and they had such an awesome selection. Now though it's ...well, you know. You went there. lol It's a shame because I'm also into comics and graphic novels and they don't have anything worth a crap in that hobby either. They also will take a name brand guitar like Ibanez, and put their own logo on the headstock. How they don't get in trouble for that I have no idea.
I buy digital and physical. I also collect movies on physical media. After 10 to 15 years I got back into gaming with the Nintendo Switch. The thing it is so convenient to switch between games and not change the cartridge. Also you have your collection with you every time. The thing with physical is that you can get games cheaper than digital. Some will not agree. But the games in retail get discounts from the start or after not so much time. Especially Nintendo games. Then you have the second hand market. It is not so cheap as it was but you still can get great games. What I see on consols is that the games stay by the same price when there is not some discount. I am from Europe where the market is not like in the USA. So we don't have the great Walmart clearances like you have. "Resllers" are destroying game collection like the do with trading cards Sorry for rambling but I love physical media and your video is great.
Thanks! You make fantastic points. And I appreciate your insight. One thing I always forget about is that I don't really switch between games. I just play the one switch game until I beat it... or rage quit it 🤣 I also don't remember taking my switch with me hardly anywhere. My life here is just very difficult from the usual European's. But, it's saying a lot that the Switch still appeals to both of us.
Everything in life has a peak, and then a decline. A lot of my childhood games and N64 stuff came from Sears too, my dad had a trusty employee discount. We didn't have any concept of buying a "used" game back then, or any such store we knew of. Collecting has certainly reached unfathomable lows these days, and there's no denying the state of games today is declining too. So too is GameStop, haven't seen that many titles as what you show on their shelves, in years now. Thankfully tho, I'm sorta winding down my retro collecting after all these years, will be refreshing to step away from it eventually. To not be subjected to the insanity anymore.
Indeed, as far as physical media, we are in a drought. In time, I hope this will pass. In the mean time I here is a list of games I can recommend to remove from the back log ASAP; (Far Cry 5 and the sequel Far Cry New Dawn; play them both back to back the story is amazing and will make more sense), Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 remakes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Driver San Francisco, Wild Guns reloaded and the new Pocky and Rocky. All of these games have made an impression on me; Far Cry 5 so much that I even bought a Stetson. Drought or no drought, it is important to just be grateful for what we have; happy gaming and good health to you RNG.
@@RNGGamerYT They are good games. For me Far Cry 5 with its rustic setting, the music and the muscle cars, it is like a time machine that takes me back to my care free younger days. I can't time travel but I can enjoy the memories vicariously through the game.
Mail order games are once again the most reliable way to get a physical copy of a game. And if there's problems you have to pray they just decide to release a patched version. We are going backwards.
my brother and mom had Funko Pops characters my younger brother had OnePiece characters Funko Pops and my mom had different Funko Pops characters 17:12
Hi RNG Gamer! Thank you for the fun video. Odd question: Did you ever play Tabletop RPGs? The reason is that I am now wanting to collect my old gaming books. Although now they are about 50+ each. My greatest find this summer was Lollipop Chainsaw for the PS3, CIB, for 2 Euros. Another question: What do I get if I join your Patreon? Do you also have a Discord server? Thanks again and all the best!
I played a little tabletop stuff back in the day! I worker at a gaming store in high school. That's a good deal on Lollipop Chainsaw. The patreon membership gives you early access to all of my videos, I also post a member only video once a month. And yes, you get access to my discord!!! That's $1. If you want to support at higher levels, you can put a message in my videos, get your name in the videos, sponsor a segment of a video, or even pick a game for me to review on your behalf
Oh yeah? Played much sega saturn on your emulator? I have no issues with emulators, but it's not the same thing. Think of your grandmother's spaghetti. To you, it's the best in the world... there's nothing like it. One day, you learn about a chef in your town who can make it just like grandma did. It's exactly the same thing. Now tell me, would you rather eat that spaghetti sitting in that chef's restaurant... or would you rather have it made by grandma at her house?
Everytime i say something to this extent someone always comments that same thing! " its the digital age, noone cares about physical anymore, get over it!" I dont understand these people....do you enjoy not owning anything!? Also, yes i have been looking for that version of days gone! Ugh, its so hard to find!
Game collecting has gotten harder for sure. The days of $20 boxes of NES games a garage sales is over. However, I'm starting to see more games at my local store. I don't know if it's the economy or all the "Johnny come lately' s" who are now getting out of game collecting. But I'm seeing more NES, SNES, Genesis and other cartridge based games. I snagged a CIB Double Dragon 3 on genesis yesterday for $30 at my local shop and an Ice Blue N4 controller for $35. I think the other end of this is businesses are staring to catch on to the fact that they aren't going to stay in business selling at eBay prices. So, I've also noticed more reasonable prices at game stores.
@@Gameremporium I'm never going to play it. I'll keep it for trade bait (I do a live trade show on my channel every year) or I'll flip it on marketplace for $50-ish.
I have to say... I think the mom and pop stores around here are worse. I constantly see them trying to rip people off. There's a local store owner who posts dozens of fake yards sales every week to drive traffic away from all of the real ones... just so he can get there first. Imagine 100 showing up to your house over the weekend because some jerk lied and said you were having a yard sale
I'm in a phase of replaying what I bought and trying to get my money's worth. I've reached a point where I'm only willing to pay a certain amount for old games, just in case they don't last on me (now, I think the ma and pop shop is quite reasonable here). The only retro games I've gotten recently are reissues, from like retrobit, or PCE Works repros, which in cases are better than the American originals. If companies stop selling physical games, it might be up to people like PCE Works taking on abandoned ware themselves. What's happening with SNES Doom is also interesting. Might open up the door for more companies to sell reissues, with bug fixes, better translations etc.
TH-camrs 15 years ago: "Here's a bunch of super rare video games I own that I got for cheap but are actually worth a lot of money!" TH-camrs today: "Why can I never find good games at good prices?"
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. these TH-camrs did it to themselves. They drove up the prices of these games and then wondered what the hell happened to the Hobby.
@@MrFIRESEAL117 And 15 years ago, some of them were saying prices were as high as they were going to get... Others were buying up a bunch of one game, then releasing a video about how good it was just because they knew they had a corner on the market. There was one guym Iforget who that everytime he dropped a video, all of the copies on ebay had been sold within the last month, and relisted on the same sellers account. Some people started just watching what that seller was buying, and getting ahead of him.
"we get older but we never grow up" Epic comment! Love it!
Said it with a tear in my eye
I hear you there brother.
@@RNGGamerYT We are actually Eternal Beings experiencing those linear moments that we called space and time.
Wii managed to attract 90 year old's because of Bowling.
@@V3ntilator I'm closer to 90 than I am to 30.
I'm 42 and still can't believe how many of the stores I grew up with are now gone. SO many of my games came from Toys R Us. I'll never forget the wall of tickets that you would bring up to the checkout counter.
I miss that, too! I was just telling my daughter the other day how it all worked. It blew her mind 😄
Did they do that in the US too?
Other games stores just had empty cases on a shelf, but Toys R Us in the UK had one case, in some sort of museum style glass presentation stand, and you had to take a ticket to the counter to pay for it.
@@hybridvigga Yup. That’s how it was here in NY. Memories…
Record stores used to have $2 sections with thousands of LP's. Not anymore. No different.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
Your thrift stores have 100 times more games and electronics than all my thrift stores combined. How sad is that? I don't even bother to go to thrift stores anymore.
It's not worth it.... when when they have stuff, it's super over priced...
Thrift stores are not worth going anymore these days
@osareme2462 they really arent!
Thrift stores may be high but pawn shops charge more than anyone.
Same here I use to find games at my good wills and thrift stores all the time. Now they never have anything anymore so I don't really bother either
I live on the West coast. My wife and I met when we both worked at a certain large bookstore chain; the store we worked at, as well as the GameStop, the movie theater, and most of the rest of the businesses in the shopping complex, are gone. It's a bit of a bummer.
It really is. Whenever I pass by an old store with my wife, we always say, "thanks for all the good times." It's sad
GameStops really have anything anymore, Good wills send their crap to e-commerce, Facebook marketplace are full of ill informed resellers etc. ordering the game I want in the condition I want from eBay from the comfort of sitting on my toilet is probably the best way now
100%
FB Marketplace is generally an absolute shit show or just plain overpriced.
And sometimes the condition of the item is overstated.
Ebay still remains the best choice, and also playasia for NOS but you have to slog their somewhat antiquated front end and sometimes deal with long backorder waits.
@@hakim8688
Facebook marketplace in my area is terrible. They never consistently want to meet up or give you the run around or have terrible quality. I’ve listed things and I’ve had people ask for me to deliver to their house, give them a ridiculous discount and I’ve even had someone ask me to deliver it to them and let them have it because they don’t have any money right now. Seriously wtf… i still check my local GameStop from time to time. Sometimes i get lucky and find something i was looking for or even a surprise game i didn’t expect to be there. But other than that I have a good retro store near me. I’ll always check with them for what I’m looking for first and if i don’t find it then I’ll go to eBay.
Just set the price limit to under 15 bucks and you're good.
I was at the Exchange the other day and some dude was there looking for expensive titles to buy up so he could resell them in another state at a higher price. That's all i see anymore. Just people who don't play games who want to resell them for higher prices like some kind of investment. It's slimey.
Classic arbitrage! At least there are a lot of new games coming out to collect and keep us busy
I got up at 7am to go to some community garage sales to go hunting for the first time in years last week. I was there as soon as it started. Everyone I asked said “you’re the 3rd person that’s asked”. It’s so over.
Same here! I get a lot of "they showed up last night and knocked on the door...."
What a bunch of jerks
@@RNGGamerYT problem is the huge majority of these people are not collecting or playing they’re just reselling
@pdovale1 that's very true! It's the same with the housing market
Gamestop hasn't closed; it just gradually moved into your game room!
lol... you make an excellent point 🤣
I remember when you could casually find old Nintendo NES games for $1 at thrift stores. I have given up though. I have consistently gone in thrift stores for years, but I can’t anything anymore.
I remember.... I remember too well
Why collect if you can’t take it with tou when you die
The internet and eBay ruined everything. It's been at least 15 years since you could count on some naive store owners underpricing something valuable. Nowadays anything remotely valuable is often over-priced.
My local charity shop posts all their finds online so they are basically swiped within the first 5 minutes. best chance these days is either fb marketplace but you only have a 1 minute window or flea markets but you have to be their as soon as it opens and even than others will hunt. Those days of finding good bargains everyday are long gone.
Inflation, an abundance of collectors and a finate amount of stock. Prices will go up.
I know... I just don't want it to be true 🫠
So glad I'm at the stage in my game collection that I am. If I tried to start it now I don't think it would be doable. Getting harder and harder to find those games out there that are on the list. Great video RNG.
Thanks! I'm in the same boat. Most of the stuff I'm looking for is so rare and obscure no one cares about it 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT Yeah you are definitely further out on that limb than I am. I really think that even finding good copies of what could be considered fairly popular games is getting harder now though. I think over the next 3 or so years we are going to see a seismic shift in what it is to be a physical collector. The stock ain't out there anymore so the big stores that rely on high turnover to stay profitable are going to be in a sire situation. I think alot of them won't survive. Then the market will be dominated by whatever prices people want to charge on eBay.
Yeah. If I was starting now............ it wouldn't even begin. 😎
Online shopping means less deals, less customers in physical stores. The declining economy is kind of the nail in the coffin. Good will shops are empty because they are overpicked by flippers.
100% correct!
Cheaper to buy on Amazon than Goodwill.
@@audreyscrapaloup definitely true and i guess goodwill decided instead of letting flippers buy stuff cheap and profit from it. They will just put the good stuff online at eBay prices themselves. I understand that in one way on their part but on the other hand their inventory is donated. I know they have wages and overhead but they should still charge less than eBay not too much but enough to make it not worth it for resellers to bother. That way actual gamers can at least get decent deals. And GameStop does a lot wrong but at least they keep most of their game prices lower than eBay to try and get people in their stores. It’s definitely sad to see brick and mortar stores disappearing.
@Biggsmech it's a non-profit... but it's a business 😅
Yep, it's the same with cars. I used to love to buy a cheap used car, drive it a bit and sell it at break even or a bit of a profit after i cleaned it up. And another problem is i've been deal hunting for so long i can't stand to pay retail for anything . So what i do now is just wait for deals to fall in my lap. Which basically means i buy very little.
Love that intro. And I feel you man. I live in Houston and there's never any good game stores around.
I'm so glad you liked the video!!!
So many people are dealing with the same issues as us. I'm sort of glad that my collection has grown so much that there really isn't any chance that I would find anything anyway =)
My thriftstores have old radios and broken sound equipment. When they have games, it's usually sports games for the xbox360 that they would have to pay ME to take from them.
They are depressing.... I went to a couple today that were out in the country.... absolutely incredible
When I was young I wanted EVERY GAME EVER MADE. My physical NES, GENESIS, N64 and PS2 collections are only games that I've ever actually wanted. Besides that, I emulate. HARD. great video. 👍🏾
Thanks so much!!! I'm going to be doing a video about emulation soon. Be on the lookout 😁
Game collecting turned into a TH-cam career. It stopped being about the games a long time ago and is only to rip off actual collectors.
I started collecting about 17 years before I did youtube.
Yes, Goodwills send a lot of their stuff to ECommerce, but also, the stores are plagued by resellers in all departments. Have seen people scanning the books, DVD’s, games, etc on their phones. Have seen people come in and just ask the workers right away if they have any expensive name brand clothing like Patagonia. Have seen people scan the kitchenware for expensive brands. It’s no longer a place for people to find the occasional great deal, it’s where the full time resellers just grab up everything.
You're right! It's inane how bad it has gotten
The ones in my area have had employees that sell online since around 2012. Anything worth selling is gone before it hits the floor.
His videos just get better and better. My family are huge fans
My videos get better!?!
@@RNGGamerYT we enjoy them
@@RNGGamerYT But are your gaming skills getting better along with it?? 😎
@@RNGGamerYT
I started collecting in 2000. I found everything. I found a decent copy of Stadium Events at a drive-in theater, swap meet in Whittier CA. Factory sealed NES games were still easy to find. My best haul was in Monterey, Mexico. I walked into a Julio Cepeda's, the equivalent of a Toys r US, and on the wall was Little Sampson and Panic Restaurant. Obviously, they weren't as valuable then, but it was still exciting to find. They were US $20.00. Swap Meets, movie rental shops, and indy game store were the best in the early to mid 2000s.
That's absolutely insane! I'm still about 8 years behind you. I found crazy stuff, but nothing like that. Congrats!
@RNGGamerYT I don't collect anymore. I'm 61 and don't have the desire. I opened Video Game Geeks in 2002 in So Cal and sold it to a kid who started working for me in 2007. The store is still open and doing well. I sold everything and moved to Florida. I sent the kid all my stuff. I have a Switch. Lol. That's it.
All these TH-camrs with game stores are inflating and taking all those good deals to resell at a profit in their stores.
They aren't helping. I can't stand flipping stuff...
@@RNGGamerYT yeah they are part of the problem, for instance my local game store sells games 10-20 dollars over what you can get them at eBay and most of them are not in good condition or missing manuals.
@Miller_Lite same here!
“The literal worst Goodwill”
-literally any goodwill
They are soooo bad!
There is always the hope today will be your day lol. Last year i came across a complete set of Roland Electronic drums for $250 at a Goodwill. These are Roland TD-25, a $3K set new and sell for $1500 on marketplace.
It made my month, and i still play them like 8 hours a week, they work great.
I feel ya, collecting isn’t near what it was, but we’ll carry on. Good memories , it’s crazy how time flies and just seeing a building can remind you of better times. Good video
Thanks for all the good times! Even though they ate different, I'm glad they aren't over 😃
I’m young man I just barely became old enough to drink and I love my old ps2 games I’m jealous to see your god hand and blood will tell behind u I’m dying to own all these games keep it up
You keep it up, as well!
Everything is dying bro , it’s best to save your money nowadays, and contribute to the downfall of current companies , I’m tired of the scam , I’m tired of the laziness , and I’m tired of what’s going on in the world
Preach!
Same in my area, we have one Gamestop which is garbage, no ma & pa shops, not even a Goodwill in my area, and I would have to travel an hour away to reach the next town, making it not even worth it after cost of gas and time sourcing.
There are some small ma & pa thrift shops in my area, maybe I'll make some rounds through those see if there's anything to find.
It's a sad state of affairs...
I hope you get an awesome score at the thrift shops. We don't even have those here 🫠
I've noticed overall prices on PS4 physical on ebay auctions have been creeping up over the last two months.
There are still deals to be found here and there but it's becoming more difficult.
Still, the chase remains fun and engaging and complements my dedication to actual gameplay more rewarding.
The chase will always be fun!
I was excited to get my BG3 Deluxe. But part of me wants to keep it sealed and part of me wants to open it and start playing. Larian was awesome because they ran into production issues and had to add another disc to Xbox versions and kept the price the same and delivered a an awesome physical edition.
I had the same issue with my PS5 copy. I thought about it purchasing digitally, and keeping the Deluxe PS5 copy sealed. I couldn't resist and wanted the physical copy on my shelf, so I opened it, and never looked back.
A game is to play it
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
The best drug!
I feel your pain dude! The past year has been terrible to game hunt in my area too. I used to find lots of good stuff in thrifts, at yard sales and to a lesser degree marketplace. Now marketplace has nothing but overpriced resellers or people who want more than things are worth. Thrift stores have all moved to online sales and have all but dried up. And tons of people who don’t even collect video games (resellers….(shakes fist like old man!) looking for a quick buck are clearing out the yard sales quick. I like the way you put this video together. Very unique pickup video even though you found nothing hunting you picked up some great stuff! 😂
Thanks, brother! I'm glad you liked the video, but I'm sorry things are dried up where you are.
Also, are you going to Rick's convention?
@@RNGGamerYT I wish I could make it out there but that’s a little to far for me this year. I am going to PGX in Pittsburgh at the beginning of October for Saturday and I may make it to TORG in November if I am lucky.
Make pawn shops great again
Make shops great again!
@@RNGGamerYT Lol I just fixed it. Thanks.
Ahh the Riverchase Galleria... a titan among malls at one point, and where I bought many of my games and consoles back in the day... EB Games above the food court and Babages down at the end of the mall... so many great memories😁
So many great memories there. Seeing them build it was one of my earliest memories 😄
Unfortunatelly, the base version of Slay the Spire doesn't have the 4th playable character on disc. And there is no other physical version available for the PS4.
Yeah, I know. But luckily, the watcher is the worst character and was added after I played the game a bunch. So she doesn't matter too much to my memories
@@walterwhite7376 I started playing this game tonight. I usually get my games physical, but was tempted by an eShop sale. What a wonderful game! I played 90 minutes without noticing. The writing is so tiny, even on the tv with « larger writing ». I’m not sure I’m going to add a physical copy to my collection knowing it’s incomplete.
Funny you mention Autobahn Polizei. I came across that two months ago and it was 9.99. I was like why not, I had no idea what it was worth. Couldn’t believe the value I saw when I catalogued it.
I wish I could find a cheap a copy of it!
its so refreshing to see someone who loves the hard cover games to play them and not as an investment to proft later of it
Yeah! I only buy to play! Although I collect, I'm a gamer first
In the last 5 years we've gone from 4 Gamestops to 1. Good Will is never good, ever and they just closed our "big" Salvation Army store. Got another much smaller one on the far end of town. Game hunting for anything other than new (sometime you can find a new game or two at Walmart) is mostly dead. My first NES and later my Sega Genesis came from a Sears store too 😢
I miss the good old days! But we'll just have to miss them all together. Misery loves company 😅
As someone mentioned in the comments, you have 10 times more than in what we have in our respective countries and there is literally nothing but FIFA and CoD in our thrift stores and prices at stores that sell retro games are 2x the price of price charting. The problem with game collecting is that everyone and their grandmother has become a reseller nowadays. People make deals with thrift store workers, so they get a call the moment something comes in. Prices have bounced out of place to a degree that a lot of people are not willing to buy it anymore. Only the ones that don't care about money do, keeping these resellers alive. I used to import games from Japan, but since the wolves discovered this place, prices have trippled in 2 years time. So I, like so many other people, quit active collecting. When I happen to run into something fair priced and that is on my list, I will grab it. Otherwise I won't even bother.
You're not wrong! Even I have slowed way down.
I feel like in the content creator community, I'm the only one who isn't a reseller...
Goodwill has a fairly big online operation both in house and on eBay. They won't let anything slip by if they can to the regular people. I shop at the goodwill outlets, even there they gut games and throw the cases in bins. At my bins there are a family of dedicated amazon scanners, so if a game does land in there, they get it and it goes to Amazon. Any yard sale gets bought out the morning it opens. EVERYONE is on to the retro game thing. It's been maybe 3yrs since I hit a good pick up at a yard sale. Good video though, important topic.
I hate that everything goes to the shopgoodwill auction site. It's often more expensive than ebay... 😅
Only 1 Irem Arcade Collection on Evercade so far unfortunately. I think someone got wise to idea of putting 3 games at a time on a disc and selling them in limited amounts on modern platforms, so there may not be any more on the Evercade, we'll see.
There are 2 already and volume 3 is up for preorder
That's a very familiar feeling. I can go to stores all day and find nothing I want. I can easily blow tons of money online, but to go to a physical location and shop is nearly always fruitless. I have a similarly sized collection, which means that the stores aren't so much barren as much as they just don't have the kinds of stuff I need. I went to one of the better local stores for me, and they'd just gotten in a bunch of Turbografx and Saturn stuff. Albert Odyssey, Shining: The Holy Ark, Burning Rangers... but I got mine over 25 years ago. The Turbo stuff was neat because it was sealed, but not rare. Alien Crush, R-Type, Dungeon Explorer... great games, but I have my open copies already.
Such is life when you're old enough to have been buying games for so long!
Yeah. No where is going to have the stuff I'm looking for these days. I love to hunt with other people so I can see them get excited about stuff
Gamestop closed in whole Scandinavia summer 2020 here, and they were the ones surving longest.
There is one local electronic chain that doesn't really count as they mainly stock random new Switch games. Sony and Xbox physicals have been dead for years so the stores only stock the yearly "FIFA" mostly for them. There is online stores of course, but without much competition the prices are higher than they should have been.
Anyway. When Gamestop closed i bought lots of new unused games at 90% off, and also got collectibles at up to 80-90% off.
I'm glad you were able to grab some good stuff on clearance. That's always exciting! But it's a bummer that they closed at all.
You're right about competition. You need it to drive prices down
@@RNGGamerYT Thanks. The sales of physicals is so bad online here too that no one cares about competing, so everyone is overcharging games because they can. Online discounts are worse than ever...
At least they still stock as good as everything released.
My wallet were wide open as i it were the last major sale ever. I overspent there, but it didn't matter as it were the end of physicals locally, and online sales went downhill after that.
Even if a game does play without updating, I think a bigger issue is the questionable longevity of some of these newer systems. Wii U's have been found to be dying, something to due with the NAND memory and constantly needing to be plugged in or it just dies with no hope of fixing it. Not sure if we'll find similar issues with other systems, but like the seal on PS5's liquid metal thermal solution is one I wonder about.
I worry about this every day... I'm just hoping the modding community figures out how to fix it all in the future
I’ve tried every goodwill within an hour of me in any direction and none of them put any games out anymore. They all go to the website. They don’t even always put out the good blu-ray movies consistently and when they do they mark them up too much.
Exactly... everything is shipped off to the auction site
I’m glad you covered the Evercade. I’ve been wondering about it.
I am going to film a first impressions and quick review of it today that I'll put on the second channel! It should be out in the next few days
Awesome, I’ll check it out!
Recently I started collecting PS1, PS2, and PS3 game's again, because personally I don't like the newer videogame's. I usually buy them from Ebay, or my local retro game shop.
Awesome! I'm so glad to hear you found something that makes you happy!
Days Gone is fantastic, definitely play that one!
I'm really looking forward to it!
I stopped collecting games due to insane price increase and not enough room in my house
I'm fortunate that the prices don't bother me too much, and I still have some space (for now). But that can't last forever 😅
Thats awesome you got the physical version of BG3. I didn’t even know they were going to release one
Going only digital is a company's way of saying "Yes, we're scamming you, what are you gonna do about it?" Cause at any moment they can just take away your access from the game, cause you're not actually buying it, you're buying a license to it.
So many people are willing to sign away their rights for convenience....
@@RNGGamerYT worst thing about it is that it's not even convenient enough to be worse the sacrifice, you're always limited to the console's storage. With a disc, you always have the game in your house and you'll always be able to reinstall it, But if it's only digital, you'll need to download it again, which will take much more time.
My local Gamestop is slowly turning into a Pokemon trading card store. Also, I want that Slay the Spire board game!!!
There are about 10 card shops around me.. but only the one gamestop! I hope it didn't go the same way as yours 😅
You can get the retail release of slay the spire!
I love the running train of thought commentary in this video...very entertaining.
Thanks! I'm an "In studio" content creator. So I have to tie in anything in the wild 😅
I remember in the late 2000's getting sega saturn games for 30 - 40 bucks. I remember thinking I broke the bank buying Guardian Heroes for 70 bucks 😂.
Same here! I paid $200 for an entire collection... I felt like a high roller at the time 🤣
Great video! Definitely need to pick up one if they are only $100. I didn’t realize that about Evercade.
Mine has an issue with the HDMI, but it looks like they are going to make it right. I'm still pumped for it
@@RNGGamerYT Oh no! At least they are going to make it right.
Welcome to the Evercade club my friend! I’ve had one for a couple years now and I really love it. I have a couple different handhelds and about 20 carts. I played Full Void last year and r it was great. Short and sweet like Another World. Plus you can’t beat $20 carts brand new! Sucks everything seems to have dried up in your area. That Slay the Spire set is pretty cool as well. Great video and pickups brother!
Thanks! I'm pumped about the evercade as well. I can't wait to dive in and put it through the ringer
They completely closed our 2nd and charles..now i have to drive to the next state over to find one...used to be a goldmine for games and now its an Ollies Bargain Market...
Oh no! And the fact that it became an Ollie's is even worse. I can't stand that place 🤣
It’s so true the days of analogue are far and away from my childhood. I miss vcr tbh.
I don't miss VCRs too much... but I miss renting them every Friday night sooooo much
I was always intrigued by Evercade as I live by physical media and my first console was the 2600. But had to remind myself the Switch is a console that has cartridges of both retro and modern games. I just got RE4 on cartridge for the switch as well as Flashback and Another World on one cart. Long live the cart!👌
Love them! I'm physical all the way
We've reached a weird point in the economic downturn of the United States (and much of the world, really) where prices are high because inflation is high, and so people put high prices on what they sell because they need the extra money to compensate for the high prices of consumer goods and utilities.
But if the economic trends that we're experiencing continue, we'll find deals again for sure. They'll be the best we've seen in years, and in some cases ever. But for the wrong reason. We'll be in the fire sale phase, where prices are low because people need money desperately to cover continuing inflation with not enough wage growth, and most people won't be able to afford stuff like games, so the lower prices will be meant to draw someone, anyone, in to buy.
The best thing we want to happen is for the economy to get better, resulting in people selling and giving deals again because they don't need the money that badly and feel inclined to pass on the savings as times are good. But as long as the current leadership remains the same, the arrangement of ongoing crises will remain the same, which means the economic downturn will only continue.
Exactly! Like I've said a million times. I would love nothing more than for every game to be $1.
I don't care about the investment. I just want more games 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT And a lot of us want games to remain physical. Digital is a great option for people, but physical should ALWAYS be on the table. It's mindblowing that there was no word on a physical of Baldur's Gate 3 for as long as there was like you mentioned in the video.
And I'm also bewildered as to why video game companies don't remake classic consoles to spec rather than those classic versions (like the Super Nintendo or the PSone) that don't even play the original games--they're just boxes with built-in emulators. If these companies did a limited run of 1:1 spec OG remake consoles, those would be sold out on pre-order within 24 hours of announcement. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, or even Sega could all do it and pretty much print money with that strategy. And if the companies did this repeatedly, it would eventually lower the cost of the OG consoles and games (if they did remakes of the OG games on OG carts or discs) in the long run on the market.
It just makes no sense why companies like Microsoft, who's taking losses to the point that they're laying off people in their video games department, and Sony, who's guarantee to lose on the PS5 Pro given the outrage over its pricing, are taking losses like they are when they could pick up easy wins by simply catering to the retro gaming market. Yeah, they think the future is where the money is at, but if only they knew lol
1:46 i had those exact speakers for my old computer for SO long , lol.
That's awesome! We're they any good?
I don't collect I resell so it's not the same. But most of the time I just find crappy sports titles whether it be goodwill or tag sales
You're pretty much right!!! You rarely find anything anymore 🫠
It's dead to me. 90% of the draw years ago was getting them cheap.
Once you attach a price to an average game that is the same of me buying an FPGA that has HDMI output and will play that game at 100% accuracy with no lag, what is the point?
Sure i'd love to have to cart on my shelf but not at these prices. I would feel too much like a sucker. And no, i dont mean $30 bucks. I mean $5-$20$... That is what these old games are worth to me. A game being worth more than what i paid for it was always a nice novelty.
I had a 1200 game collection at one point. Sold it for space. If i ever do get back into collecting i will only be buying "good" games. No crap, no filler, no mid grade stuff either. Just the greats. The only console i have an urge to have a complete collection for is the TG16.
That's a great way to think about it!
The games mean a lot more than that to me. But I also make bad decisions 😅
Our thrift stores are absolutely dead here too and if you want to see a bad GameStop, come to Canada. They all suck in comparison.
Where we score in Moncton is at our pawn shops, especially our local one that we frequent often. Just last week we got Valis CIB on Sega Genesis for the equivalent of $59 usd and its worth $90 usd. I also picked up a pal copy of Dead or School for $22 and its worth $38. And this is pretty normal for a few of those pawn shops. Always below price charting so you see a lot of new games all the time because they turn over their inventory fast.
Oh and Days Gone is amazing. I played it a year after launch and only had one glitch towards the very end of the game that didn't really affect much of it at all. When you get around to playing it, I'm betting you'll love it.
This sad state of affairs has made it all the way to Canada!?! I hate to hear that. But I'm glad you grabbed some good stuff. Let me know how Dead or School is. I had it on my wishlist but ultimately passed on it. I can't remember why.
That's an awesome deal on Valis!!! Thanks so much for watching. I'm looking forward to being on your show
@@RNGGamerYT We are absolutely super excited to have you on the show as well. Oh, and when you get a chance, don't forget to send me your list of games so I can get video footage for them
@RetroRivals I'm going to work on the list this week!
Playing perfect dark as we speak on rare replay. You kind of got me into these 20 in 1 retro collection games.
I'm glad to hear it! They are a fantastic way to collect!
A major change to digital in general and now retro collecting is well known so prices get jacked up.
The digital sales get better all the time. As much as i love physical, its just not the future.
True. But the problem with digital sales is a lack of building equity
@@RNGGamerYT I agree with you but its just where the market/future is going.
I just buy games on sale and digital sales keep getting better while physical get worse. Its made me digital as im more of a deal hunter than collector.
22:10 😂LOL this is funny. As a collector I think of money in terms of how many game items I can get for the dollar amount. I need car tires for $1,000 man I can get a PS5 & Series X for that much haha. So I parked my car & rode my bicycle to get those consoles…
Exactly! I'm going to start measuring everything in little Samsons 🤣
That Alone in the Dark big box looks so beautiful, amazing! For 40 too, well done!
Thanks! It brings back memories, for sure 🤣
i saw the front mission 4 for the ps2 on your back wall so good 😮
I only played it a little... but so many people have been telling me I should give it another shot!
There are a lot of issues with "collecting" now, but the resellers and wannabes are the worst. I don't have an issue with local game shops, but Marketplace and other online retailers have made it so hard to sort through the overpriced junk to find any semblance of a deal that casual games like me just don't have the time. I focus mostly on modern gaming now because the older stuff is impossible to find in my area. Even as I look once or twice a week, the Marketplace offerings are the same items reposted over and over, at the same prices, for the same dirty stacks of sports and shovelware games that people want $5-10 per game on. My collection is becoming less important to me as I move forward because the object for me is to play video games, not spend my time hunting and worrying about the value of everything. I feel at some point people will just fall to emulation because the issues some of the roms have aren't a big enough deal to justify 3-4 figure price tags on games that were just ok to begin with. Once people try emulation and get it set up the way they want, they don't often come back. I don't get mad at the resellers though. I understand the idea of making money is enticing. I stopped watching these videos from flippers like Phoenix Resale and stuff because they stopped being interesting when the discussion switches from what they love about gaming to how much money they made and how YOU can also learn those skills in their discord. It's what they do, and that's fine, but it's not for me.
I've always been more of a gamer than a collector... although I have a pretty large collection.
I'm not hunting much anymore... but it's nice to give it a shot
In all honestly it was the videos that made people aware of values(pawnshops, goodwill, etc). They watched the videos told friends, etc… and now that RJC and I are hitting GameStop hard, they are starting to change prices on retro games as well. They had caps where games wouldn’t go higher than 70/80 bucks. Now I’m seeing games go to 100 plus there.
But it’s been over for awhile now…once in awhile if your in the middle of nowhere you can find stuff. Other than that I’m flipping for my current gen collection. I have about 700 switch games, just hit 500 ps5 games and I got it all for free…besides risking life going places, gas, and time.
I’m going keep doing it until we all dry out and all systems switch to digital.
Much Respect RNG, I have so many games I have to play them randomly. lol!
Your story rings so true! When everything goes digital, I'll probably just play my old stuff
i hope more game companies do a all for 1 patches in a ultimate edition 1 year later. Also suing a town or city and buying one of the most wanted games ever is a huge win. 22:18 that's the biggest deal any modern collector of anything will find and the good thing is scalpers and resellers can't effect at all. Cool video. ^_^
I would have hired a team of attorneys.... if only I had tripped....
@@RNGGamerYT Hopefully no accidents happen in the future. ^_^
Only for big payouts@-@
@@RNGGamerYT Sometimes restaurants don't put wet floor signs. ^_^
We need Resident Evil 1-3 Evercade collection and we need a Snatcher remastered. Most of old systems are going to quit working over time so enjoy!
Amen, brother!
gee, no kidding? We've all known this for years
I'm just trying to commiserate, not inform
This is sad in my opinion, I love collecting and playing games cuz its authentic, fun, and no downloading and updates lol. However, collecting will never be the same
It will never be the same... but it can still be good!
Good video! Nice change of pace to get you out of your cave. I genuinely felt like I was on a marginally depressing ride along, which, I suppose we could do if I weren’t too lazy to drive 2 hours 😅 😂😂 😳😬
Come do it! We can be depressed together 🤣
2nd & Charles used to be my absolute favorite place to go to for years. I thought it was so cool and they had such an awesome selection. Now though it's ...well, you know. You went there. lol It's a shame because I'm also into comics and graphic novels and they don't have anything worth a crap in that hobby either. They also will take a name brand guitar like Ibanez, and put their own logo on the headstock. How they don't get in trouble for that I have no idea.
I've gone in there a million times actively trying to spend money... and they always fail me 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT Yeeep last 2-3 times I've gone, same here XD
My first console was an Xbox one all digital I bought for my kids. My kids have destroyed many CDs, so for that reason, i prefer digital.
That's an extremely valid reason
i remember that i can't believe how unfriendly that employee is 6:30
I'm glad I never have to see him ever again 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT same
I buy digital and physical. I also collect movies on physical media. After 10 to 15 years I got back into gaming with the Nintendo Switch. The thing it is so convenient to switch between games and not change the cartridge. Also you have your collection with you every time. The thing with physical is that you can get games cheaper than digital. Some will not agree. But the games in retail get discounts from the start or after not so much time. Especially Nintendo games. Then you have the second hand market. It is not so cheap as it was but you still can get great games. What I see on consols is that the games stay by the same price when there is not some discount. I am from Europe where the market is not like in the USA. So we don't have the great Walmart clearances like you have.
"Resllers" are destroying game collection like the do with trading cards
Sorry for rambling but I love physical media and your video is great.
Thanks! You make fantastic points. And I appreciate your insight.
One thing I always forget about is that I don't really switch between games. I just play the one switch game until I beat it... or rage quit it 🤣
I also don't remember taking my switch with me hardly anywhere. My life here is just very difficult from the usual European's.
But, it's saying a lot that the Switch still appeals to both of us.
Everything in life has a peak, and then a decline. A lot of my childhood games and N64 stuff came from Sears too, my dad had a trusty employee discount. We didn't have any concept of buying a "used" game back then, or any such store we knew of. Collecting has certainly reached unfathomable lows these days, and there's no denying the state of games today is declining too. So too is GameStop, haven't seen that many titles as what you show on their shelves, in years now. Thankfully tho, I'm sorta winding down my retro collecting after all these years, will be refreshing to step away from it eventually. To not be subjected to the insanity anymore.
Indeed, as far as physical media, we are in a drought. In time, I hope this will pass. In the mean time I here is a list of games I can recommend to remove from the back log ASAP; (Far Cry 5 and the sequel Far Cry New Dawn; play them both back to back the story is amazing and will make more sense), Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 remakes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Driver San Francisco, Wild Guns reloaded and the new Pocky and Rocky. All of these games have made an impression on me; Far Cry 5 so much that I even bought a Stetson. Drought or no drought, it is important to just be grateful for what we have; happy gaming and good health to you RNG.
Brother... you better believe I already own all of those games 🤣 Those are some of my favorites!
@@RNGGamerYT They are good games. For me Far Cry 5 with its rustic setting, the music and the muscle cars, it is like a time machine that takes me back to my care free younger days. I can't time travel but I can enjoy the memories vicariously through the game.
Mail order games are once again the most reliable way to get a physical copy of a game. And if there's problems you have to pray they just decide to release a patched version. We are going backwards.
You're not wrong!
Did you get a chance to play siren on ps2 yet? I remember you saying a while back it was on your backlog.
I haven't! But survival horror gets picked quicker because all of October is dedicated to it
my brother and mom had Funko Pops characters my younger brother had OnePiece characters Funko Pops and my mom had different Funko Pops characters 17:12
I'm so tired of Funko Pops being everywhere....
@@RNGGamerYT I understand
I’m glad I have what I have. Still wouldn’t mind adding some more duplicates of my snes games that don’t have one.
I'm glad we have what we have, too! 😃
What mall was that you went to? Cool video by the way.
It's called the Galleria
Hi RNG Gamer! Thank you for the fun video. Odd question: Did you ever play Tabletop RPGs? The reason is that I am now wanting to collect my old gaming books. Although now they are about 50+ each.
My greatest find this summer was Lollipop Chainsaw for the PS3, CIB, for 2 Euros.
Another question: What do I get if I join your Patreon? Do you also have a Discord server?
Thanks again and all the best!
I played a little tabletop stuff back in the day! I worker at a gaming store in high school.
That's a good deal on Lollipop Chainsaw.
The patreon membership gives you early access to all of my videos, I also post a member only video once a month. And yes, you get access to my discord!!!
That's $1. If you want to support at higher levels, you can put a message in my videos, get your name in the videos, sponsor a segment of a video, or even pick a game for me to review on your behalf
all the gatekeepers on here like MetalJesusRocks bought them all up and are selling them for ridiculous prices. i blame them for this.
The resellers are definitely changing things. But it's not the youtubers. It's the local flippers doing it
@@RNGGamerYT True but who do you think the resellers mostly cater to? They are obviously in it together thats just how i see it bro.
i never any of it sticking out once 21:55
I could have died 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT lol xd I know
I own literally every retro game.
Emulation is the solution!
Oh yeah? Played much sega saturn on your emulator?
I have no issues with emulators, but it's not the same thing.
Think of your grandmother's spaghetti. To you, it's the best in the world... there's nothing like it.
One day, you learn about a chef in your town who can make it just like grandma did. It's exactly the same thing.
Now tell me, would you rather eat that spaghetti sitting in that chef's restaurant... or would you rather have it made by grandma at her house?
Caught you slipping in that Goodwill, you missed some fine Air Fryers... Haha ;)
I already have one that I never use 🤣
@@RNGGamerYT My wife swears by hers, I use my Big Green Egg BBQ all the time though! Hope you are well pal :)
Everytime i say something to this extent someone always comments that same thing! " its the digital age, noone cares about physical anymore, get over it!" I dont understand these people....do you enjoy not owning anything!? Also, yes i have been looking for that version of days gone! Ugh, its so hard to find!
I don't want to live in a world where I have to pay for my socks with a subscription service!
You'll find a copy of Days Gone! Have faith
Game collecting has gotten harder for sure. The days of $20 boxes of NES games a garage sales is over. However, I'm starting to see more games at my local store. I don't know if it's the economy or all the "Johnny come lately' s" who are now getting out of game collecting. But I'm seeing more NES, SNES, Genesis and other cartridge based games. I snagged a CIB Double Dragon 3 on genesis yesterday for $30 at my local shop and an Ice Blue N4 controller for $35.
I think the other end of this is businesses are staring to catch on to the fact that they aren't going to stay in business selling at eBay prices. So, I've also noticed more reasonable prices at game stores.
That's a great find! Hopefully, they keep themselves stocked
I Would have took that DD 3 for genesis right back! It is a garbage port of a great game.
@@Gameremporium I'm never going to play it. I'll keep it for trade bait (I do a live trade show on my channel every year) or I'll flip it on marketplace for $50-ish.
@@CMRetroGaming ah ok gotcha!
Game hunting isn’t as fun because resellers exists
Dudes on eBay trying to flip something instead of like a mom and pop game store staying afloat
I have to say... I think the mom and pop stores around here are worse. I constantly see them trying to rip people off.
There's a local store owner who posts dozens of fake yards sales every week to drive traffic away from all of the real ones... just so he can get there first.
Imagine 100 showing up to your house over the weekend because some jerk lied and said you were having a yard sale
@@RNGGamerYT thats rough. I recently went to a game store in pensacola called Video Game Trading Post and it is the biggest game store I've ever seen
I'll have to check it out... If I ever make it back down to PC again
I'm in a phase of replaying what I bought and trying to get my money's worth. I've reached a point where I'm only willing to pay a certain amount for old games, just in case they don't last on me (now, I think the ma and pop shop is quite reasonable here).
The only retro games I've gotten recently are reissues, from like retrobit, or PCE Works repros, which in cases are better than the American originals.
If companies stop selling physical games, it might be up to people like PCE Works taking on abandoned ware themselves.
What's happening with SNES Doom is also interesting. Might open up the door for more companies to sell reissues, with bug fixes, better translations etc.
I buy from PCE works regularly 😁
Try out Project Retro Games as well
That's why those Japanese most famous stores are merciless with their prices so you can find basically any game that you want.
Super Potato is like that! Insane stock... but you're going to play up for it
@@RNGGamerYT Exactly Mr. RNG
TH-camrs 15 years ago: "Here's a bunch of super rare video games I own that I got for cheap but are actually worth a lot of money!"
TH-camrs today: "Why can I never find good games at good prices?"
What about being both!?! I was a collector 15 years ago...
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. these TH-camrs did it to themselves. They drove up the prices of these games and then wondered what the hell happened to the Hobby.
@@MrFIRESEAL117 And 15 years ago, some of them were saying prices were as high as they were going to get...
Others were buying up a bunch of one game, then releasing a video about how good it was just because they knew they had a corner on the market. There was one guym Iforget who that everytime he dropped a video, all of the copies on ebay had been sold within the last month, and relisted on the same sellers account. Some people started just watching what that seller was buying, and getting ahead of him.
Just yesterday I was looking online for a copy of Diablo for ps1 and almost had an aneurism when I saw how much it was going for.
I know, right! It was like $50 over 10 years ago
@RNGGamerYT Dude that hurts both my soul and my wallet. I'll probably wake up at 2am, order it, then survive on rice for a week. 😆
That's the spirit! Don't let hunger stop you from slaying those demons 🤣
that actor looks so familiar 2:36
That's Kevin Hart
@@RNGGamerYT ik my mom first saw him when she was a young teenager way before I was born
My town is even worst, i go game hunt all see is sport games, i guess my town love sports games. 😅
Sports games really are a curse!!! You can't even give them away
21:50 Buying a wall worth of Litte Sampson copies with your lawsuit money would definitely be worth it lol😅
It would be the best thing that could ever happen 😂