Supply and demand

One of the best things about kids is that you get an excuse to dust off your old Nintendo games and play together. Especially around Christmas when I have the time to do so. My boys have a couple of old Nintendo DS’s, and yesterday I was attending some online auctions to complete our game library with some mandatory classics for couch competition. My wife also wanted to complete her library but couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw that her desired game went for 1500-2500 SEK today. Consequently, she brought her Nintendo box and started to check online auctions to see if she had some desired and valuable game. Several of them were indeed quite valuable at around 700-1500 SEK. But the most inconspicuous game of all we found in the back of a drawer in an old cabinet. A mint condition Game and Watch, Mario the Juggler. Her reaction after searching for the title in some auctions was priceless.

It turns out that this old Game and Watch is one of the rarest Nintendo games ever released. Someone is selling a copy in Sweden today for 8000 SEK, and on eBay we found sold items for over 17000 SEK (!) I cannot wrap my head around this, it is simply too weird. They even sell custom acrylic display stands specifically for this ultra rare gem on eBay. I haven’t played this specific title, but I do remember Game and Watch from my own childhood. I remember that they sucked big time. And I see no reason why Mario the Juggler would be an exception to that. I guess I must pop in some new coin cells and find out. So, it is probably not the game itself that is so desired, but some other factor.

It is nothing short of a miracle that this yellow contraption survived all these years without ending up in a land fill. Apparently, it was released in 1991 and it was the last Game and Watch. I guess that means it was a small series, because they were really outdated even when they were brand new. Mario must have been though several relocations over the years, and that normally involves a trip or two to the recycling station. But this guy made it somehow, without a scratch. When considering how much the game itself probably sucks, it makes it even stranger. It was probably on the top of the throw away list… So, should we try and sell it? Nah, let’s keep it another ten years and maybe we can cancel the house loans with it. Maybe I should order one of those acrylic display things and put it on a pedestal. It is a very fun conversation starter for sure with fellow nerds.

What really captured my interest is why the value of some of these things skyrocketed? What is it that makes some people willing to spend a month’s salary on a primitive game from more than 30 years ago? It can’t be that they need the gameplay. That can be solved with an emulator running on a potato. I personally love retro gaming on authentic period correct hardware but with those, at least the games are exactly as fun today as they were back then. Games like StarCraft and DOOM 1 will simply never go out of fashion, because the game itself is so damn good. Maybe I am missing something here, but I am unable to equate this to Game and Watch. And that brings us to the second point; Nostalgia and the desire to collect things. Complete collections. That, I do not have any problem at all understanding. But then again, the game probably sucks!

I also wonder if the price of these retro gadgets has peaked now, because old guys like me are now spending their hard-earned cash on the toys they could never have as kids? That also makes sense. And does this mean that with time, as all the other nerds inevitably fade into the afterlife, that these old collectors’ items of today will hit a peak and then lose their value? If that is the case, the wisest thing would be to just sell it now and be done with it.

I don’t know where I am going with this now. I just wanted to share this story because I find it so weird and can’t stop laughing internally about it. I should probably order that display stand now. This is a funny artifact as a conversation starter and there is some real-world value right there. Especially if it makes people laugh, because then we have made the world a better place.