How to Buy Retro Games

Some stuff came up this week and I didn't have time to record any videos, so I thought I'd write kind of a sister article to the one about how to clean games, this is about how to get them in the first place. This seems kind of obvious, but this topic comes up surprisingly often.


Step 1 - Know Your Prices

The most important thing when it comes to buying retro games is to know how much they're worth. The easiest way to do this is to go to EBay and search for the game (include the name of the system in your search if the game has a generic name), and look for auctions that have a "Buy it Now" price listed. Assuming that you find a bunch, the game's value is going to be roughly equal to the low-end prices it's being offered for.

In the event that you're searching for a game that not many people are selling (perhaps you only found one or no copies), the price can be harder to determine. The next step is to look for "completed listings", which you can find in the Advanced Search link on Ebay (do note that you require an Ebay account to see these). Here you can see what kind of prices this game has actually sold for.

If this still turns up nothing, you'll just have to use your own judgement. Clearly, the game you are looking for does not show up often and you may not be able to shop around anyway.

There's also the issue of complete prices (complete refers to having the box and instructions). In general, cart-only games are worth about half as much as complete games (disc-only games are worth even less), but for very rare games the complete price skyrockets. You can use this simple rule of thumb to determine if a complete game is a good buy or not.


Step 2 - Decide Where To Shop

Retro games are sold at a lot of places. Now that you know the value of the games that you're looking for, you are adequately prepared to shop for them.

By far, the best deals on games to be had are found at garage sales, flea markets, craigslist, and pawn shops, because the sellers here frequently have no idea what the games are worth and often sell rare games way below their true value. Of course, the downside is that you are in no way guaranteed to find what you want, so you've got to do a bit more searching, but if you're looking for a ton of games this is a good way to start out. Do be aware though that not every bargain will be good, but generally if games are super cheap ($2 or less) it's usually worth it regardless of system because you'd pay that much in shipping costs anywhere online.

Your next best option is probably online auctions or online stores, such as Ebay and Amazon Marketplace. Here, you must be very savvy when it comes to prices, because most sellers are aware of the value of their games and will purposely overcharge the unwary (or in the case of auctions, people may bid them too high). Still, there are still bargains to be had, and you can't beat the conviencence of having almost every game you could want right at your fingertips.

As for Ebay, a good way to get bargains is to buy a lot of games from the same seller, as most offer discounts on shipping or other goodies like free dust covers on bulk orders (don't forget to make sure the prices are acceptable on each game that you buy). You can also look at buying lots (multiple games bundled together), these can be helpful if you want all of the offered games, but make sure the combined price is a good one.

Another rare, but great opportunity to load up on games is when a collector dumps all of their stock on on auction site. You see this once every few months or so, when checking a auction listing you may see someone mention they're selling off their whole collection for whatever reason. This is an amazing time to load up on common or moderately common games for well below their standard prices, because other bidders will be too busy fighting over the rares. Collectors also generally keep their games in great shape.

Oh, and don't forget to check the seller's feedback when buying from online stores. I've only had problems once or twice in all of the time I've been buying games online, but bad sellers are out there and you want to avoid them. If someone has a ton of positive reputation, it's simply not worth it for them to screw you over and so you're pretty safe.

Of course, your last option (and it should usually be last) is to shop in a traditional game store. First of all, the number of stores selling old games is quickly decreasing, and those that do generally charge ridiculous prices for whatever games they do have. I almost never hear about good bargains coming out of game stores.


Step 3 - Purchase the Game

Okay, this is easy when you're dealing with any kind of store, but when using an auction site there is some work to be done here. The trick to auction sites is always to bid late (within the last 30 seconds if your connection can manage it), and bid the entire amount you're willing to pay. This way, people have very little chance of beating you before the time runs out (particularly because most people will just try to raise the price by a dollar or so). If you have to bid earlier for some reason, you'll just have to hope no one else wants the game as much as you do. Thanks to bid increments, people may leave you alone on a common game if they would have to pay more than the next cheapest option to take it from you.


Hopefully with the aid of these tips you should be able to find some great bargains on classic games. Just don't forget to keep an eye on your wallet, online shopping can be dangeously addictive.