[quote name='SaraAB']Yeah, I agree with you guys, you have to wonder who is buying this stuff at these prices. Especially considering the games most likely do not work without a good cleaning, so the person is buying them, putting in the effort to clean them, and then reselling them? Most parents with children who play older video games don't have any inkling on how to clean a game. How much could they possibly be making considering the effort and time put in here, and the fact that many games just don't sell that well on ebay, you can't make a profit on just anything. It takes a pretty long time to clean batches of games, and I can vouch for that. I could see if they were cherry picking and leaving the crappy stuff, but if they were paying $5-6 per game and the game is selling for $4-$6 shipped on ebay plus fees, it doesn't really make any sense.
This is assuming that people who are reselling are buying the stuff in the thrifts, because I assume that the uninformed parent doesn't know how to take apart and clean games, which is necessary to make them work when you buy them from thrifts or other unknown source. If the parent is informed enough to know how to clean a game, then they are informed enough to check ebay's completed listings and probably know better than to buy an overpriced game.
I find that very few games I get these days clean up with just alcohol as well, they are just too dirty, you really have to have the proper tools to clean the games which means sourcing the proper bits to open them up.
At least if you bought the game on ebay for $8 (vs $20 on the shelf of the thrift) you know you are getting a working copy, but your buying stuff that is in very unknown condition from these stores, and paying more than what ebay costs. It just doesn't make sense.[/QUOTE]
I found out that several of the people I thought were resellers around here are just hoarders, they buy up any old games they see not caring what the price is, they seem to think if they hold onto them they will be worth more someday. I'm guessing there are alot of people like that around.