How do you know what to hunt for (or beating the compeition)?

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tototheexplorer

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I've never really been in this sub-forum so this may be the wrong place to ask or discuss, but I was wondering how you get word on what games are going out of print or are at risk of becoming rare?

In the past I've hit sales at K-Mart and the like, dabbling at flipping stuff like GameCube Players. I haven't the time for that now, but lately I've had a little extra money so I've wanted to track down certain games. I live in a very, very small town and have never had trouble finding any rare game I need that's in the current generation. However, this week I've gone looking for games I've seen in droves, such as Lumines, Kirby: Canvas Curse and Advance Wars: DS only to find that someone has gobbled them all up (which is what would have to have happened given the situation of this area).

It's been frustrating and I feel totally out of the loop. I went to Circuit City today to look for the $17 DMC Collection and MGS: Portable Ops (I don't even have a PSP but plan on getting one after the redesign) and they were both nowhere to be found. Again, this is not gradual sales, as stuff doesn't move that fast here. I saw a stack of both a short time ago.

So what do I do? How do you guys stay "in the know"? If anything, it's frustrating looking for games that you've just seen and really want, only to have them all purchased by a hoarder or hoarders.:(
 
time, research, and succumb to the ultimate levels of nerdiness...
 
[quote name='Apossum']time, research, and succumb to the ultimate levels of nerdiness...[/quote]

QFT

Also, it helps to consider the publisher of a game. ie, a game with a limited print run from a more niche publisher like Atlus, Nippon Ichi, or Agetec will probably increase more in value over time when compared to a game from a major publisher like Electronic Arts or SCEA.
 
I agree its sort of instinct and a gift. There are definitely hoarders in all areas however I don't think most are smart enough to pick up on the fact that you must scan every item at kmart to see the real price, and in fact you should do this at every retail store that has a self scanner because I have never found a retail store that keeps up 100% with their price tags. Most of the ones around here run to best buy and CC for the clearances that are more advertised on other websites and are easier to profit off of and take less work, hunting at Kmart takes a bit of work but the results are lucrative.

Employees could also be gobbling up the games, or the stores could be sending the games back to corporate or back to the publisher since they are not selling especially if there is a large quantity of games. They also might be sending them to goodwill for donation like target does. I have seen large amounts of games (like a stack of year old madden games) disappear from our target without a trace and I know someone didn't buy them.

You have to go for items other than games as well, I cannot give you any hints but a lot of time things stay popular for longer than you expect and longer than the retail stores want to keep the items around. If you can pick up some cheap toy items or other items on clearance and hold them for a while you can make money when the popularity of an item remains but the stock does not.

This is a very urban area, people buy games like 50 cent, GTA, Gears of War, Bully, Madden, NBA and anything else that would be considered urban, hot and popular with the masses. People here do not mind dropping their money on that latest 50-60$ madden game rather than a copy of disgaea only to have its value depreciate in a matter of minutes. You won't see many copies of popular games like this left on the shelves on release day. RPG's are a foreign concept to most people here and anything that is not super popular and hot is ignored. If your looking for the latest Atlus or NIS RPG you should have no problem here. Although we did have a line out the door at the EBgames store here for the Pokemon D/P release, that one sold like hotcakes here despite the other Pokemon games luring about 1/4 of the crowd that D/P lured.
 
[quote name='SaraAB']I agree its sort of instinct and a gift. There are definitely hoarders in all areas however I don't think most are smart enough to pick up on the fact that you must scan every item at kmart to see the real price, and in fact you should do this at every retail store that has a self scanner because I have never found a retail store that keeps up 100% with their price tags. Most of the ones around here run to best buy and CC for the clearances that are more advertised on other websites and are easier to profit off of and take less work, hunting at Kmart takes a bit of work but the results are lucrative.

Employees could also be gobbling up the games, or the stores could be sending the games back to corporate or back to the publisher since they are not selling especially if there is a large quantity of games. They also might be sending them to goodwill for donation like target does. I have seen large amounts of games (like a stack of year old madden games) disappear from our target without a trace and I know someone didn't buy them.

You have to go for items other than games as well, I cannot give you any hints but a lot of time things stay popular for longer than you expect and longer than the retail stores want to keep the items around. If you can pick up some cheap toy items or other items on clearance and hold them for a while you can make money when the popularity of an item remains but the stock does not.

This is a very urban area, people buy games like 50 cent, GTA, Gears of War, Bully, Madden, NBA and anything else that would be considered urban, hot and popular with the masses. People here do not mind dropping their money on that latest 50-60$ madden game rather than a copy of disgaea only to have its value depreciate in a matter of minutes. You won't see many copies of popular games like this left on the shelves on release day. RPG's are a foreign concept to most people here and anything that is not super popular and hot is ignored. If your looking for the latest Atlus or NIS RPG you should have no problem here. Although we did have a line out the door at the EBgames store here for the Pokemon D/P release, that one sold like hotcakes here despite the other Pokemon games luring about 1/4 of the crowd that D/P lured.[/quote]

Very well put! :applause:
 
[quote name='tototheexplorer']I've never really been in this sub-forum so this may be the wrong place to ask or discuss, but I was wondering how you get word on what games are going out of print or are at risk of becoming rare?

In the past I've hit sales at K-Mart and the like, dabbling at flipping stuff like GameCube Players. I haven't the time for that now, but lately I've had a little extra money so I've wanted to track down certain games. I live in a very, very small town and have never had trouble finding any rare game I need that's in the current generation. However, this week I've gone looking for games I've seen in droves, such as Lumines, Kirby: Canvas Curse and Advance Wars: DS only to find that someone has gobbled them all up (which is what would have to have happened given the situation of this area).

It's been frustrating and I feel totally out of the loop. I went to Circuit City today to look for the $17 DMC Collection and MGS: Portable Ops (I don't even have a PSP but plan on getting one after the redesign) and they were both nowhere to be found. Again, this is not gradual sales, as stuff doesn't move that fast here. I saw a stack of both a short time ago.

So what do I do? How do you guys stay "in the know"? If anything, it's frustrating looking for games that you've just seen and really want, only to have them all purchased by a hoarder or hoarders.:([/quote]

All of the games you mentioned are harder to find for a reason now:

Lumines(if you mean the original PSP version, that's because of an exploit that allows you to run homebrew stuff on your PSP, it goes for good $$$ on Ebay)

As for the rest of them, DMC is still a popular series, as is MGS and the other two portable games you mentioned are also in demand, which means finding a copy anywhere might be a major issue.

You just have to rely on luck and your cheap game hunting instincts to find the bargains. As for me, I'm just that damned skilled that I know where to find the best stuff. LMAO j/k

Seriously though, keep looking around, since you never know when or where you'll find that one game you've been looking for for forever.
 
One of the things that helps me determine which games will become scarce is to visit alot of retail locations that sell games on a regular basis.

If you only go to Walmart or Gamestop once a month, it wont help you.

But if you visit multiple GS's, BB's, Targets, CC's, etc every week, then you start to see what games are available everywhere, and what games you only see in one or two of those stores.

I remember looking for Outrun 2: Coast to Coast for the Xbox. I didnt preorder, but I was willing to buy it new cos I loved the last one. I started hitting up stores the day it was released. I saw copies of the PS2 version, but I never, ever saw even one copy of the Xbox version in stores. So right away I knew the game was rare, if not valuable.
 
I'm in the same boat. I went looking for Metal Gear and the DMC collection and didn't find them. I did do some digging and found a copy of Stubbs. The one thing I always do is actually check the racks. Many people just look at the front games and never really dig. I always look like the crazy guy in the store because I'm checking every single game. It's allowed me to get a bunch of games people look over. I also check the other sections because people like to "bury" their future purchases in another console's games. The best advice is to not let it get you down. I miss alot of games I want but I don't let it get me down. There's plenty of games in my backlog that I can play instead.
 
i mostly agree to apossum and pyro.

those are very crucial to knowing what will be hot tomorrow. also knowing the right people, the right websites, and the research that you put into it should pay off in the end. the end meaning it could be tomorrow, or it could be 3 to 5 years from now.

if you want to know a few things i guess you could say as a tip.

-boxsets are always in limited numbers due to manufacturing cost, and the fact that by now everyone should have the game(s) so its more of a collectors thing. no matter how big the company is, the amount of sets they can get are always limited. they can always re-order, but it'll be the same.

-if you bought a last gen console thats brand new at a CAG-price, hold on to it for awhile (for years). people are not going to want to buy it for alot of money unless its a special edition. but still even special editions sometimes has no value other than its original price.

-for games, you always need to know what people want and what people are raving about, check reviews on mags and blogs online. what i usually do is i would check each game stores for those particular games and just basically try to remember if they have em or not. compare it to other stores see if they have the same stock.

an example, try to look for Phoenix Wright: Justice for All, notice theres less or no new copies at all. of course youll find these at online stores. but not everyone notices that. at eb/gs its almost as if they are controlling this by not restocking brand new ones and just selling it used (and btw they make very little money on new games, but they make double of what they usually pay you for used games. so they'd rather sell it used).

at gs/eb its easy to tell you can always ask them since its behind the register or just look at the shelf if they still have sealed copies. you should always try to remember which stores has what.

and that also applies to finding out how to tell if a game is out of print or close to being oop. another way is also to find out online and see which store still have em. some people i know checks amazon alot. alot of people doesn't realize how hard it is to sell on amazon with their 15% fee. so thats probably why their prices are jacked up. ebay prices are also different. but thats how you would actually know the value of the game.

there are so many others methods of knowing how.. alot of people wont probably tell you, i guess they are their trade secrets of somesort.
 
[quote name='phear3d']
there are so many others methods of knowing how.. alot of people wont probably tell you, i guess they are their trade secrets of somesort.[/QUOTE]


they kinda are, but they're very easy to figure out over the course of a few months of shopping.

I was thinking of writing up a post of all the tricks you need to know to flip games effectively, but....I'm gonna hold off on that.


I'll add one good tip though:
--when a sequel to a popular franchise is coming out, stock up on copies of the old games months in advance for cheap. It's tough to tell the right franchise though and how exactly the buyers will react--this too takes lots of time to figure out. Obviously, this doesn't apply to sports games and big name franchises with huge print runs like Halo or GTA, but something like Persona 3 is a sure shot. (Persona 1 is starting to go for around $100..near Suikoden II prices.) On the other hand, I thought for sure that the Zelda Collector's Edition would become really expensive when TP came out, but it's actually cheaper than usual now (thanks in part to the VC.)


the important thing, though, is to learn what you can, then apply it to the real stock market later ;)
 
Heres another tip. Overpriced, never on sale retailers can be your friend when a game gets rare. When everyone knows a store is overpriced, they dont shop there, and rare games can slip thru the cracks.

Example: The Circuit City by me is notorious for never lowering the prices of its games. Even games that had manufacturer price cuts. Its fun to browse thru the gamecube section and see all the games still priced at $50. But because of this, you can sometimes find gold in there.

Last week a friend was able to grab me a sealed copy of Rockstar Table Tennis for $20 from that CC. I havent seen that game available new since a month after it came out. Even used copies are scarce by me.

In the past Ive pulled some gems out of the stacks at my local FYE for the same reason. They never lower their prices on games. A couple years ago I was able to snag a sealed FF: Tactics for ps1, long after collectors had bought up every copy that wasnt on ebay.
 
Thanks for all the advice and I'll definitely take it to heart. I've actually found three copies of MGS 3: Subsistence in the past few days, so that's neat. I also found that my local Wal-Mart has MGS: PO, DMC 3: Special Edition and Tales of the Abyss in multitudes. I'm not really interested in Tales of the Abyss, but I purchased MGS: PO (for $39.99...ugh) since I can't find it anywhere else (I can get DMC 3: SE cheaper elsewhere). I'm going to keep an eye on those three games to maybe put a few copies back in the near future because browsing online and in other stores, it seems they're thinning out.

I really started this thread for games that I actually want, but I'm kind of getting back into the flipping game again. I'm keeping a close eye on that stack of Odin Sphere at Circuit City.:lol:
 
[quote name='tototheexplorer']Thanks for all the advice and I'll definitely take it to heart. I've actually found three copies of MGS 3: Subsistence in the past few days, so that's neat. I also found that my local Wal-Mart has MGS: PO, DMC 3: Special Edition and Tales of the Abyss in multitudes. I'm not really interested in Tales of the Abyss, but I purchased MGS: PO (for $39.99...ugh) since I can't find it anywhere else (I can get DMC 3: SE cheaper elsewhere). I'm going to keep an eye on those three games to maybe put a few copies back in the near future because browsing online and in other stores, it seems they're thinning out.

I really started this thread for games that I actually want, but I'm kind of getting back into the flipping game again. I'm keeping a close eye on that stack of Odin Sphere at Circuit City.:lol:[/QUOTE]



nice. now hold on to Subsistence and DMC for when their respective sequels come out (well, open a copy of MGS to play because that game freaking rules) ;) both games are pretty much gone in retail, and already selling for more on ebay.
 
MGS: PO is a game that will most likely get re-printed or restocked again since it is an original game for the series. things like that you should try to hold off in buying them at full retail price. ouch at $40 though, that would leave a dent on my cheap-ass wallet.
 
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