Arcade price crash?

pacman71

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So I've been active and asleep in the the hobby several times. All I can say is what the heck. Prices are unbelievable right now.

Have prices hit the ceiling yet?

I am wondering if there's a crash ahead? when are guys growing up in the 80's and 90's going to decide, eh... I don't play it, I don't need it, and it needs to be out of my home.

What's your prediction?

My prediction is 2 to 3 more years of prices within 10% of what they are now, and then they will fall back to reasonable levels.

If I am wrong I'm really going to regret selling my star wars.
 
Honestly I see a lot more excitement/interest right now with the existence and multiplication of places like barcades. I've even have noticed a increase in actual arcades opening.

Retro is in, even with millennials.

I think there will be a decline in interest again and thus prices, but I'm thinking it will be 10-15 years from now.
 
Been collecting since the late 80. Don't hold your breath.
We all know that LCD 1n60 are really worth and yet they are still expensive..

I Never collect for investment I collect for personal enjoyment and the friends I find and keep along the way.
 
I don't see prices dropping. If anything I think they could double in the next few years. There is going to be higher demand and less and less supply as people are buying up cabs for their own collections. We're talking a pretty limited number of original working machines left in existence, compared to most collectibles.

I imagine a lot of console guys are going to convert over to arcade guys soon enough. Some console games run upwards of $100-$300... for a single cartridge. You can get most full sized working arcade machines for $500 or less.

I collected consoles growing up and now I just collect arcade machines. I sort of just phased out of consoles but collecting arcade machines is like collecting pieces of art you can play. Each game is it's own work of art... requires it's own care... has a history. Console games are like... oh cool, another cartridge/cd and a box... only 1200 more to go to complete the collection.


If anything, more people are hitting an age where they are feeling nostalgic and have disposable income. Look at all the retro stuff selling out nonstop right now... You can't find a Nintendo Classic anywhere and it's just a freaking mini NES with like 30 games on it. I don't think most people realize they can actually buy arcade machines and put them in their homes... or at least they haven't really given it much thought.

It's only a matter of time before this hobby becomes really mainstream and you're going to see a flood of thousands of new collectors... and a limited supply of games to collect.


My advice is to not wait on buying games you want, right now... Judging by the past decade, prices have been shooting upward exponentially each year.
 
Not only wont you see a crash anytime soon I think you are just seeing the beginning. Its just supply and demand and I dont see demand going down anytime soon.

Same shit happened with pinball a few years back.. everyone said prices were going up too fast and no way it could keep happening. Look what happened there..

I remember being told I was mental for trying to get 2K for a nice all original whitewater pin. Last similar one I saw sold for around 7k.
 
I don't see prices ever coming down. They may level off someday...but they are never going backwards.

Nintendo is never making Donkey Kong again.
Williams is never making Joust again.
Bally Midway is never making Pac-Man again.

These games getting harder and harder to find each day. It doesn't happen overnight, but little by little each game becomes more rare each day that passes.

It feels like the arcade world is having a bit of it's own "Renaissance Period" right now. Enough time has passed since the 80s...so Arcade games are cool again. Anything vintage is also hot right now. Guys that were kids in the 80s now have kids of their own and disposable income to spend on arcade games. And the older they get, the more money they can spend.

Other factors driving up prices are the increased popularity of bar-cades, and the CRT being on the endangered species list.

Another paradox to all of this is as game prices rise, one might think that owners will sell because they see dollar signs. However, I get the opposite feeling. If the price of a game that I own seems to be going up, it makes me want to only keep it in my possession more.

Ultimately, I think the value of games getting higher is actually a good thing. It's tough on our wallets but the last thing we all want is the bottom to fall out and have nobody value these games. That's exactly how they wind up getting hacked, mamed or trashed. The more people want things, the more they will go out of their way to preserve it.
 
Yeah I don't see prices going down anytime soon. The way it happened with me was weird, for whatever reason it never occurred to be to buy arcade machines even though I lived in the arcades in the early 80s. Then I started watching YouTube video after YouTube video of people buying arcade machines and bringing them home. That's when it suddenly clicked that hey I can do the same, buy these machines and bring them home. Why that never occurred to me before I have no idea, but seeing everyone else's videos of their home arcades made me realize I could do the same and I started buying machines.

My guess is more and more people are realizing the same, that they can put these games in their game rooms, garages or wherever and this is spreading like wildfire thanks to places like YouTube. I can't imagine this demand will go down anytime soon and yet supply will remain the same, hence prices I suspect will keep going up.

I'll tell you one thing though, when I moved the first batch of machines to my film house there were 6 games standing up in the back of a large pickup truck, games like QBert, Ms Pacman, Frogger, etc. I honestly lost track of how many cars stopped to honk their horns, squeal in glee at the games they saw, or just stop in amazement asking if they were real. It was awesome :)
 
Collector groups are very insular. Most people don't care about these games and as we grow older and don't want to haul them up and down stairs any longer they're going to depreciate.
Of the 39k members of this group only about 10% are active, that's less than 4K people.
while I'd love to see my collection exponentially grow in value, I'm pretty sure my kids will be cursing me for not collecting stamps when I die. Having to dispose of 100's of refrigerator sized relics is going to be a nightmare for them.
 
The price will drop off when the people with nostalgia age out and sooner if there's a barcade crash. But the high demand stuff will stay expensive while the common stuff just gets junked. Considering that we're only going to see more and more stuff get repro'ed cheaply (cnc cut cabs, fpga boards, etc) original cabs may lose value.

Kids born in the mid/late 90s and later aren't fueled arcade nostalgia and are more focused on consoles - I don't see that changing for most of them. Having one vid in your basement might be a nice conversation piece for a games collector with space and cash, but they just aren't going to have the same attachment.

Pins I think will keep going up. Everybody loves them.
 
These threads have been popping up ever since I started collecting (and likely before that as well). Not to say a crash can't happen, but it seems a lot of what's driving prices up is the lack of games to buy "in the wild". You used to be able to wait around and come across deals from people getting rid of games in their basement, ops clearing out warehouses/storage, auctions, etc. Now, a lot of those sources have dried up, and it's more collector to collector selling/trading, and collectors generally know what the games are worth, and aren't willing to let it go for a bargain.

There have also been shifts in the market. When I first started collecting, Ms. Pacs were expensive and a lot of the 90s era stuff was dirt cheap. Now the 90s stuff has gone way up, and common older games have dropped quite a bit. Maybe since arcades weren't really big in the 2000s, we'll see a price drop once the 90s games go past their prime... I dunno.

DogP
 
Collector groups are very insular. Most people don't care about these games and as we grow older and don't want to haul them up and down stairs any longer they're going to depreciate.
Of the 39k members of this group only about 10% are active, that's less than 4K people.
while I'd love to see my collection exponentially grow in value, I'm pretty sure my kids will be cursing me for not collecting stamps when I die. Having to dispose of 100's of refrigerator sized relics is going to be a nightmare for them.

I dunno man... I understand a lot of people don't care about these games... but these games aren't sprouting out of the ground. There's a limited supply... and that supply drops every day when games are trashed, burned, flooded, hacked/mamed beyond salvage, etc... Did you see the dude cutting up a perfectly good Pac-Man cab for Youtube views? That stuff is driving up costs.

I'm not saying invest all your money in arcade cabinets... I don't think they are going to be worth 10k a piece some day. But as collectors, I still think it's best to buy now while things are still relatively "cheap" because you'll be kicking yourself if you wait a few years and the game you want is now twice the price.

I mean... if I could have started collecting 10 years ago I would have been all over it. It's hard for me now. One game sets me back quite a bit. I look at old for sale threads where $900 games were selling for $250 or whatever and I just want to cry... lol
 
I'm just glad I started this hobby when I did.

Agreed!
I couldn't afford some of the games I have now with the current prices.

It also feels good to be at a point where I'm satisfied with everything I have and I am willing to wait now to find a good deal versus buying everything that is for sale.

Unfortunately I think prices will rise and more classics will be converted to LCD with 60n1s.
 
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Maybe there's a regional market effect as well. I've noticed a few big name titles listed (arcades) for $1000 or higher and not selling here in Pittsburgh. You see the same crap listed for months. They see the eBay price and list at that. Well , I have limits on what I can spend right now. So no, I will not pay $1500 for your unrestored dust covered hunk of shit donkey kong. Ultimately it will always be a buyers market because these games are only worth what you are willing to spend. Right now my cap is $600 arcades, and $2000 for a pin. I simply don't value them beyond that. They are a limited supply, but also a limited interest. If I exceed $1000 on something it will be a pin. Pins are going to go up. Arcades in the sense that I see them ( 79 through 86 ) have an aging fan base. I am 49. My 21 year old loves games zero arcade interest. Heck in 15 years I'm not sure if I want to be hauling these up and down stairs.


Caveat: if you have the cash (which would also probably mean you have the space) please spend freely and grab the games you enjoy. It's a short life . Get the games you want! If I had space and budget I wouldn't fuck around I would just get what I wanted. Most good arcade titles can be had for under $2000.
 
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definitely regional.
for example, In Des Moines, IA (which has a number of retro and bar cades) the prices are high on select items like an average crystal castles selling for 2k at the last auction.

but an hour and a half south, you wouldn't get that or even half.

A decent zaxxon with a missing bezel recently sat on the curb for a week in a small town near here. Someone finally picked it up. had great boards and the original manuals in it.
but that thing was seen as zero value in a small town middle america. trash collection wouldn't even take it, which was likely due to the crt.
 
The good condition stuff will always go up, until we all die out then many will be museum peices and the rest will get junked.

These games we love are too big to store and too heavy to carry; in 10 years time, an average Joe will not want to go through a grueling long distance drive to lift a few hundred pounds of game. The average age of the collector of classic arcade games might be around 55, at that time. Can you imagine guys at 60 to 65 doing this? We all don't want to think about how we are aging and changing, but it's happening... People downsize as they get older, no? What a DOWNER!

The message/lesson is: do whatever you want in the hobby now! Don't wait! Enjoy it, while you can still move Pac man around the maze, with some bit of your old reflexes, you old geezers!
 
I really wish there were less barcades and more Arcade Museums where these games could be concentrated into vast caches, like FunSpot's. We really need a FunSpot (West Coast Edition).
 
Like others have said, I don't think every game is going up in value, but there is a cyclical market value for specific games every handful of years or so, and regional demand plays into this as well.

For example where I live, 10 yrs ago I couldn't touch a Simpsons game for less than $500 even in fair condition. Then as of 5 years ago I seemed people couldn't unload them fast enough and you could get them anywhere from $275-400 in decent shape. Now as of recent I'm seeing them upwards of $700 to over a $1000. I suspect in a few yrs they'll drop again.
 
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