Why Are Retro Games More Expensive Than Ever?

According to the personal experiences of Matt and Wes of Nerdthusiast, retro games flew off the shelves once COVID hit (or at least after stores reopened). During that time, Matt worked at a GameStop, and he claimed the company couldn’t give Nintendo Wiis away before the pandemic. His GameStop had so many spare Wiis that they refused to buy any more off customers, yet come the first holiday season of the pandemic, his store sold out of Wiis. More importantly, as stocks dwindled, prices rose (which is the nature of supply and demand).

Indeed, Wiis now commonly sell for around $100 (assuming you can find one). Admittedly, $100 isn’t much for a console, but again, GameStop previously had trouble selling the things at all. Now, the company has trouble keeping them in stock.

That’s really the biggest takeaway here. There were many factors that caused people to turn to retro video games during lockdowns, but for the moment, it’s enough to know that prices for retro gaming hardware and software rose during lockdowns while the stock of those same items drastically dwindled. Even if the retro gaming market was trending in that direction before 2020, the events of the last couple of years have only accelerated that trajectory.

Some High-End Retro Gaming Auctions May be Part of a Massive Speculation Scam

Nearly every time a sealed copy of a retro game sells for record prices, another copy fetches an even higher price. Normally, that could just be written off as auction houses competing to one-up each other in a bid to make it into the Guinness Book of Records. However, most of those record-breaking sales happened at the same auction house, which is the kind of thing that should raise red flags.

In 2017, one buyer purchased a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for over $30,000, but in 2021, someone else bought another mint-in-box copy for $660,000. Why did the latter fetch a significantly higher price? Because it was graded highly by WATA: a professional service that grades the physical quality of retro games. That company would later grade a copy of Super Mario 64 that sold for $1.5 million, as well as yet another sealed Super Mario Bros. cartridge priced at over $2 million. Nearly everyone was shocked by those deals, but some suspected that those transactions represented something darker than the actual value of those titles and a sudden renewed interest in retro gaming.

Investigative YouTuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst found some troubling facts about WATA and posted several concerning videos on the firm. WATA was co-founded by Jim Halperin, who also founded Heritage Auctions: the company that sold those aforementioned games. Halperin has experience in grading collectible items, although his reputation has been called into question over the years. He has been accused several times of “overgrading” coins (i.e., claiming they were worth more than they actually were) and has paid millions in restitution because of it.