It’se meee, Mario!
The 90’s were a great time for video game fans. Home consoles like the “Super Nintendo”, the “NES” and the “Nintendo 64” conquered the hearts of gamers in no time.
The children and young people from back then are now around 30 to 45 years old, many of them wealthy enough to pay high prices for childhood memories.
Whether it’s for play or just collecting, it’s mostly about nostalgia.
What is easy to forget: Video games can be an investment, with some you can make real money!
It’s not uncommon for Super Nintendo games, for example, to have tripled in value in 15 years.
The following things are decisive for the price to be achieved in online auctions.
BILD reveals which of the old gaming pearls you can now make a lot of money and what you should pay particular attention to.
1. Original packaging (OVP) still available
The original packaging is usually rarer than the game itself. We remember: At that time, video games from Nintendo (NES, SNES and N64) were still delivered in cardboard boxes that were shrink-wrapped in foil. Their fate is certainly known to many from one or the other Christmas celebration. Tear open, tape out, the packaging is disposed of directly by the parents with the wrapping paper. But anyone who has kept it for 30 years can look forward to owning a rarity. There are simply more bare cassettes on the market today than full boxed sets.
A so-called OVP (preferably with inlay and game instructions) can multiply the value of a game. The better the condition, the more money there is.
Originally sealed games from the 1980s and 1990s fetch several hundred to thousands of euros. But they should probably be in the basement much less often.
2. The game is popular
Basically, three points are decisive for whether your games are popular with collectors:
- rarity
- Historical Significance / Nostalgic Value
- Good gameplay
Rare games are worth a lot. In the gaming sector, these are often titles that were released at the end of a console generation. In the past, smaller titles in particular sold worse when the next console was already in the starting blocks.
Paradoxically, former top titles in their original packaging can also fetch high sales prices. The reason: there is a high demand for the classics. Not only for nostalgia reasons, but because these games also stand out in terms of play. Examples of popular Nintendo game series:
- Zelda games for NES and SNES
- Super-Nintendo-Rollenspiele: Secret of Mana, Lufia, Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, Illusion of Time
- Mega Man series for the NES and Mega Man X series for the SNES
A look at ongoing eBay auctions shows how popular your games are with collectors.
It pays to follow an auction to the end to get a very accurate indication of value. Buy it now offers usually paint the wrong picture. Their prices are almost always way too high.
3. Limited and special editions
Of course, rarity also plays a role here. Especially games that deviate from the norm because of their packaging, for example, are very popular with collectors.
With the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), these are the so-called bee grave OVPs, which are smaller and rectangular in contrast to the conventional square packaging. In the case of the Super Nintendo (SNES), maxi packaging used for games that were delivered with a DIN A4 game advisor fetch high sales prices of around 300 euros.
The SNES game “Lufia” just changed hands for 281 euros
What’s the best way to sell my games?
For all adult games, Ebay is definitely the best option. Simply set up a seven-day auction with a starting price of 1 euro. Be sure to capture the condition of the original packaging as well as possible with photographs.
For games in the original packaging or games with a value of around 30 euros, it is advisable to offer them individually. Everything below that can also be offered in a bundle. Put together packages of six to nine games.