Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: prices

Prices of Some Retro Games Are Very High

Posted on by Viljami

Prices are high. I bought this copy of Silent Hill 3 for PS2 that is now on this blog posts featured image for 30 euros back in 2017. Now the price is on a popular Finnish gaming webshop is 130 euros. The condition is promised to be OK and the game includes also the box and manual. So, the price has gone up 100 euros in just nine years. That’s pretty high price for this PS2 retro game.

Silent Hill games are expensive today. I saw a copy of Silent Hill – Shattered Memories for PS2 sold for 500 euros. Prices of Silent Hill games aren’t the only ones that are currently very high. I have taken notice that especially PS2 games prices have been ricing recently. It is very common to see a PS2 game to be sold for a price of hundreds of euros. This makes me think how good of a value actually these games have. They are PS2 games after all. They aren’t some beautiful big box releases or even “collectors editions”. They are just your regular PS2 games packaged in a some plastic box.

I have also noticed that many people are trying to get some profit out of buying a retro game for cheap from flea market and then selling it for a high price. So, you just cannot expect to see a lot of cheap games on sale in flea markets anymore. The flea markets are also very popular right now. You almost cannot find games there. That makes you to go to look for games in these gaming shops.

I do appreciate that there are so many of these game shops also here in Finland. I very rarely order anything from outside of my home country since it is a bit difficult to make an order. It is way easier for me to buy a video game from Finland. Althought there are many game shops that offer service outside  of my home country also. I am just not so familiar with them.

There are also the options that are available when you use something like emulation. This has been a very hot area of discussion recently. The game shops make some money selling used games. However the publisher or developer of the actual game doesn’t receive any income from a purchase of a used game. So, many times no body even cares about profits. There isn’t a way to buy the game so it ends up being something that is called abandon ware.

When a game is abandon ware it is even legally all right for everyone involved that you actually can download a copy if one is available for free. There are some very good websites that offer these games and they can be downloaded. I have to mention “My Abandonware” that holds some old PC games. Also be sure to check out “Vimms Lair”. They have a huge collection of retro console games. Just write these titles of websites as a search to your favorite search engine. I don’t like to provide direct links to almost any content here.

Vimms Lair actually has every popular video game console games as something referred to as roms. There are present every console from Atari 2600 and NES to as new as PS3 and/or Xbox 360. You do need an emulator for your chosen gaming platform. Setting up an emulator on your PC setup might seem a bit tricky but if you are a knowledgeable person you can get it to work. You can even go as far as installing an operating system dedicated to retro gaming.

These are my thoughts about prices of some retro games. I have to mention that I am thinking, maybe not so seriously, about turning this blog to a paid one. How would that fit in your life as a gamer? We will have to see how this matter progresses.

Prices of Retro Games Are Rising – But for How Long?

Posted on by Viljami

I have noticed that prices of retro games are rising. You don’t necessarily have to make a reasearch to find this out. It is enough to just browse through games and their current prices. Some already sold games, that still appear on a webshop, can make this very clear. It seems like this progression only took a short amount of time.

I got to think about this as I was looking for some GameCube games. The rising is present in PS1 games also. What will the future be like? Will we see more games with more increased prices? Who is buying all these games? Who is selling them? I think you do have to do some sort of a research before you sell your game related property nowadays.

Of course retro gaming systems are getting older alll the time. It would make sense that these consoles are going to be broken ones one day. I mean, technology doesn’t last forever. Where are all methods and ways to repair your broken gaming console? I guess we, game consumers and retro gamers, are too foolish to even demand a service like this. It seems easier to just buy another classic mini console. Well, I don’t think that everyone would have the opportunity to own one since there is a limited amount of new devices available.

“But Viljami…What about emulation?”, you might be asking. Well, that’s an interesting question. There are ways to install an emulator to so many different devices. You can use your desktop PC for this. You can also use Raspberry Pi. Why wouldn’t you get a dedicated PC and install Lakka OS or some other Linux type of operating system? There are lots of possibilities.

Aren’t game roms and emulation illegal? Yes, basically they are. But if you think about it, you might have to consider this with a common sense. Can you really buy a game? Is it really available in where you live? Of course, some games get published as remakes or something like that. But this is not the case in every situation.

Should we wait for a remake on every possible and popular retro game? I think old games are valuable. And I mean this in a way that’s not the actual amount of money you get from it. I actually think games are part of our culture. When you consider Commodore 64 games there already is a website that can be accessed by everyone that is dedicated to bringing C-64 fans their favorite games. I don’t know if this is actually illegal but it makes sort of a sense.

Should we just not care about copyrights anymore? Maybe there should be a more strict law that handles old video games. I think music has a copyright that gets sort of out of date when the music is old enough. What if there would be a law that makes a 20-year-old game to not have a copyright.

If we once more use our common sense, I think that if a game is not anymore available as a new game or even as a used game, it would make sense that it wouldn’t have a copyright anymore. And maybe we should just avoid some major cases where there is a certain benefit for someone in not respecting a copyright.