[quote name='vherub']To take the other fence, just because you lucked out during a clearance, doesn't eliminate an item from being rare. If anything, a clearance is a good indication an item may well be rare in the years ahead. There was a time when now rare games like Panzer Dragoon Saga or Radiant Silvergun could be had at a Toysrus clearance. But those days are long gone.
Ico may not be super rare, but it is becoming rare. It cannot be easily found online outside of Ebay where it goes for a healthy $20-$30+ used.
A pawn shop is not a good indication of rarity for any items, let alone videogames. Unless the proprietor is an avid gamer and collector of games.
Consider yourself fortunate that you can locate certain titles during their waning days, in 1-3 years most of these titles will not be readily available.[/QUOTE]
A lot of factors are tied to a game's rarity. Even if a game isn't rare, it can rise to the level of rarity merely because there are fewer people willing to part with it. Let's fact it, FFVII is not rare in terms of print-runs but even GH versions were selling for $50-60 at one point. FFVII was made rarer by the fact that fewer and fewer gamers were willing to sell theirs. I suspect games like ICO might be suffering from the same fate, though I suspect the print-run for that title was markedly smaller.
Oddly, a lot of rare games tend to be badly reviewed games. Let's face it, a lot of the titles being talked about here aren't exactly stellar titles -- reminds me of Sword of Berzerk for the DC -- now that was an allegedly rare title that was hardly "worth" playing. Sure, some collectors will pay anything for rarity nowadays, but fact is that rarity does not equal quality.
While I enjoy collecting, I suppose I also like to have quality titles -- so I'd rather try to hunt down, for example, a mint copy of Gitaroo Man, rather than try to find the mint copy of Samuari Champloo