The current market, and where have all the games gone?

[PeteB]

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a distinct lack of games for sale over the past few months? Flicking through eBay and the other usual sources it seems there's not really much out there for sale other than new machines and some high profile used ones.

I noticed from the autumn up until Christmas there seemed to be a bit of a down turn in the market with games not selling as fast as they had been earlier last year, and now its like no one wants to sell at all. Even on this forum there appears to be more wanted ads at the moment than there is for sale.

Also, what's your opinions on the pricing trends at the moment? My feeling is the rising prices we saw over the last couple of years seem to have levelled off a bit now, although it won't stay like that if not enough games are on the market.

 

[ducks]

Perhaps not here, but elsewhere there has been a massive glut of sales. People are freeing up space and money for Hobbit & GB.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

Any day now I need to get a grip and sell a few. Though I've been saying that for ages ;-) Oh God it's a sickness this hobby.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

[johnwhitfield]

Where have all the game gone? I think there's a combination of more buyers overall and more BIG collections now existing in the UK. ebay now mainly seems to consist of very overpriced games which hang around for ages.
I thought prices seemed to be coming down for more recent Sterns but WMS/Data East games seem to be going up. 2k is becoming the new norm for a lot of the 90s games. Friday's Shadow is a pretty good example of this. Last year I'd have priced it as a £1200 game
NIB prices are also affecting the 2nd hand market. How many of us now are hoarding games knowing that if you sell then it'll cost a lot more to rebuy in the future? I know i'm guilty of it. I've got room for 16 and I'm back up to 18 at the moment and yet I'm still toying with picking up a couple more

 

[mark9]

Certainly noticed a lull right now, didn't seem that long ago there was a Fish Tales on eBay every other week. Or could it just be that people are more wary about selling on eBay nowadays? I suspect there is still a lot of trading going on within the community that is done on word of mouth and never needs to get to the advertising stage.

I'm not really surprised people are hanging on to their machines though.

Money in the bank earns little or no interest, stocks & shares are risky as we could be due another crash anytime, property's good for the long term but a lot of work involved, so hoarding pinball machines is probably the safest, easiest and could even be the most profitable investment right now!

I know I've snapped up a few recently that I don't have space for but I don't want to risk waiting and paying more, taking me up to 13

I disagree about Stern's prices dropping though, my hunt for TSPP, Tron and LOTR showed me that, turned down some decent ones because the price was too high only to end up buying for hundreds more over a year later (and I'm still looking for a LOTR ).

 

[Replay]

With NIB prices just going up and up and up, they have pulled the whole market up.

Prices are high but for anyone who has been in the market for a few years or longer, it is really hard to seek out a title that has gone up massively.

Everyone also seems to play the 'what it owes me' so prices trend upwards.

So, churning or rotating games has got way more difficult so sometimes better to stick with existing games.

 

[Paul]

Also- There's always a lul in the 2-3 months after Christmas, since people both have no £££ and also they are booking holiidays etc.

It'll be back....

I think a lot also depends on the titles out there. More and more coming into the hobby.... More and more people with "keepers".... It all adds up

As has been said before - Older machines - More attention needed to them to keep running....

Also - More people (as has been seen on here) saving machines that have previously been condemned to the scrapyard... which is a good thing