Video game

The rise of the retro video game market: Eye-popping prices and risk abound in the latest collectible boom – The Athletic


First, it was vintage trading cards selling for hundreds of thousands and then millions of dollars.

Then, it was sports paraphernalia, particularly game-used jerseys, sneakers and equipment. Autographs, game tickets, and then the splashy and confounding arrival of non-fungible tokens captured the attention (and wallets) of sports collectors and speculators.

Spending huge sums of money on so-called alternative assets became a pandemic hobby for the wealthy and those hoping to become wealthy (or wealthier) by flipping items.

Retro video game collectors have been around a long time, and while rare games have quietly sold at Ivy League tuition prices over the past couple of years, it was this summer when factory-sealed and graded vintage video games got wider notice as a craze for deep-pocketed investors. It’s unclear how many buyers are actual collectors versus speculators.

Video games are a niche collectibles market that’s a fraction of the size of trading cards, but headlines popped in the New York Times and elsewhere when an unopened, still-sealed-in-box 1985 Super Mario Bros. video game for the original Nintendo console sold for a record $2 million on Aug. 3 via the Rally collectibles fractional investment site. The most expensive trading card sold earlier this year for $6.6 million.

The games that command the most money in this young market are rare, popular, still sealed in their original packaging, and authenticated and graded by a third-party company such as Wata or VGA, akin to how trading cards have long been bought and sold, often via online auction houses that specialize in such commodities.





READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.