Watch Out! Your Video Games Are Dropping in Price

Just like new cars drop in price when you drive them off the lot, the resale prices of video games drop in price the day you buy them. In fact the resale price of video games released in 2007 dropped 0.24% per day. But do well reviewed games drop as much as poorly reviewed ones? We set off to find out.

For our analysis we looked at every game released in 2007 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii. A total of 322 games. We then gathered resale price data from VGPC.com and review scores from metacritic.com for each game. We then charted the review score vs the price change per day for every game to see if there is a trend (Every trendline show below is statistically significant with 99% confidence. See discussion below for more details). The chart below shows all the data points:

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There is an obvious trend with the lower the review score the bigger the price drop per day. Based upon the data, a game with a review score of 90 points would be predicted to drop in price 0.19% per day, while a game with a 50 review score would drop 0.24% per day. This might not seem like a huge difference but after a year the great game would sell for $16.70 and the bad game would sell for $7.38. The same basic trend holds true for each console too:

Xbox 360 Games: Review Score vs Resale Price

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Xbox 360 games had an average review score of 68.7 and dropped in price 0.24% per day. A game with a 90 metacritic score drops 0.21%/Day and a 50 reviewed game drops 0.27%/Day. Also worth noting, in 2007 the 360 had the highest average review score of the three main consoles.

PS3 Games: Review Score vs Resale Price

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PS3 games had an average review score of 61.6 and dropped in price 0.24% per day also. A Playstation 3 game with a 90 metacritic score drops 0.18%/Day and a 50 reviewed game drops 0.27%/Day. The PS3 is statistically the same as the 360 in terms of the price drop per day, which makes sense because many games on the 360 are also available on the Playstation 3.

Wii Games: Review Score vs Resale Price

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The average Wii game had a review score of 45.7 and dropped in price 0.22% per day. A Wii game with a 90 metacritic score drops 0.16%/Day and a 50 reviewed game drops 0.22%/Day. The average Wii review score is below 50 so companies are making quite a few bad games for the Wii. But at the same time the Wii has the lowest percentage drop per day. Maybe all those casual gamers keep the resale prices up.

Why does this matter to the average gamer though? The video games you buy are a depreciating asset. If you are the sort who trades your games in to buy new ones or sells them online after you beat them, be sure you don't procrastinate selling your games.

Now developers and publishers take note too. If you make a game with a good review score it will sell at a higher price for longer. We only analyzed resale prices but it makes sense that the bigger the difference is between used prices and new prices, the more people are going to buy the used game. You will have to keep lowering prices to sell the game. Another good reason to STOP MAKING BAD GAMES.

Nerd Discussion Below. Warning! Here is some more info for math/stats people out there who want to know all the details about the regression. For the complete dataset (the top chart) the r-squared is 0.0539, so only about 5.4% of the price variation is predicted by the review score. The trend is statistically significant though with a p-value of 0.000025, way below the .01 needed for a 99% confidence level. Here are the other r-squared and p-value numbers:


With this type of data we wouldn't expect one variable to predict a very large portion of the price changes so we think 5.4% is pretty good. In the future we would like to run an analysis with more variables in hopes of improving the r-squared. We are considering using these variables in future analysis:

• Days since released - price drops usually slow down the longer a game has been available
• Publisher - certain publishers like Atlus tend to publish games that keep their value
• Serial game or not - games that come out every year like sports titles drop in price faster
• Is it the last year of the console's life - games released in the last year of a console's support tend to become rare and don't drop in price

Hopefully with more variables we can increase the r-squared and be able to predict the changes in resale prices with more accuracy.

The Rise and Fall of Spyro

What happened to Spyro games for Playstation between October 2007 and January 2008? The resale prices for every PS1 Spyro game increased by at least 100% during this time. At first I thought it was Christmas, but Christmas 2006 (the far left side of each chart) shows almost no price change at all from December 2006 to January 2007. So it isn't just a seasonal increase in demand for Spyro games. Spyro Enternal Night was released in October 2007. Is that the sole reason for a price spike of more than 200% in some cases? If you have any other ideas for what caused this huge price increase last year let us know by leaving a comment.

Summer Movies Increase Game Prices. Go Speed Racer!

The summer movie season starts up in May and people rush out every week to see the newest big budget movies. After watching movies like Indiana Jones, Iron Man, and Speed Racer people rush out to buy the video games. The resale prices of old Indiana Jones, Iron Man, and Speed Racer games shoot up more than 170% in some cases.

Resale Prices of Indiana Jones Games

Every Indiana Jones game except for the Nintendo 64 version had price spikes after the movie release over Memorial Day weekend.

Resale Prices of Iron Man Games

People got excited for Iron Man on PS1 before the movie came out. The price shot up in February when the trailers were being released and has stayed above historic prices ever since.

Resale Prices of Speed Racer Games

Even though the movie wasn't successful at the box office the games both had big price increases. Maybe the people who did see the movie wanted to quickly forget about it by playing the game instead.



If there were Sex and the City or Mama Mia video games, I bet their prices would jump up a lot too. Thankfully no developer ever made them.

Effect of New Releases on Out-of-Print & In-Print Game Prices

NPD released the March 2008 video game sales data this past week, and God of War Chains of Olympus and Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core were the 5th and 6th best selling games during the month. We showed earlier that new releases raise the used prices of other games in the series, but this is a perfect chance to look at the price changes for old games that are out-of-print vs games that are still in-print.

Both God of War and God of War II for Playstation 2 are still being printed by Sony, but Final Fantasy VII for Playstation 1 is no longer in print. Do the prices of out-of-print games increase more with a new release compared to in-print games?

God of War Series
God of War Chains of Olympus was released on PSP on March 4th. In general you can expect some number of people who played the new game to want to buy one of the older ones. I am sure this happened with God of War, but you wouldn't be able to tell by simply looking at the prices for the original games.


God of War's price has stayed very steady in the high $8 range for the last three months. God of War II's price dropped significantly during April because the game was added to the PS2 Greatest Hits line so the new price dropped to $19.99. This lowered the used price of the game too.

These charts make it pretty clear that any price increases for God of War series games were damped by the low prices for brand new versions still readily available at retail. People could go buy the games new and didn't have to resort to buying the used versions online.

Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core was released March 25th in the US. Anyone wanting to play the original though had to buy the game online because Square Enix no longer sells the game at retail. This caused a huge spike in the price.

Final Fantasy VII went from an average price of $61.80 in March to $73.16 in April, more than an $11 increase in one month.

Its basic Econ 101. The supply for out-of-print video games can't increase but when the demand increases the prices increase as well. The demand for the in-print games increases too but the supply of games increases as well causing a much smaller (if any) increase in price.

If you are planning on buying a sequel video game in the future be sure to replay the games in the series BEFORE the new one. You'll save yourself some money.

Price of 10 Best NES Games Nobody Played

Toplessrobot.com wrote an article about the 10 best NES games nobody played. I decided to look at how much those games would cost now so people can play these forgotten treasures on their Nintendo consoles.

Metal Storm: $25-30
Little Samson: $50-55
Shatterhand: $2-3
Secret Ties: Never released. ROM available online
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom: $20-24
Gun Nac: $20-22
Vice Project Doom: $2-3
Clash At Demonhead: $1-2
Mr. Gimmick: No US release. Imports are available for $180
The Guardian Legend: $1-2

You can pick up quite a few of these games for almost nothing. If you still have your NES these would be some great games to buy to get some cheap entertainment. Others are pretty expensive now. $20-50 is quite a bit for just the cartridge of an old NES game. But I don't think any of these titles have a chance of being released on Virtual Console so if you want to try them out you will have to fork over the money.

2007 Video Game Prices in Review

This is a feature with a review of video game prices in 2007. We will be looking at what the big winners and losers were price wise during the past year. How the average video game price fared during 2007 with charts of daily prices. And what our predictions for 2008 prices are and which games we think are poised to increase. This feature will be updated regularly until almost the middle of January so check back regularly for the latest analysis.

• Ten Games with Biggest Price Increases in 2007


• Ten Games with Biggest Price Decreases in 2007


• Chart of Average Video Game Prices in 2007


• Console Wars: Average Game Prices for All Major Consoles


• 2006 Released Video Games - 2007 Price Chart


• Predictions for Prices in 2008

Thank You for 2007, Here Comes 2008

I am away on vacation for the rest of the year so there won't be any more major updates to the blog until the first of the year. I wanted to take the time to thank you all for a great 2007 and the start of this new blog about video game prices. Thank you for reading the articles, adding great comments, and providing fantastic article ideas. Let us know what you have liked so far in 2007 and what you haven't liked too. Hopefully 2008 will be even better with more historic price analysis, pricing trends, and charts of the movers and shakers in the video game world.

At the beginning of the new year you can look forward to our "Video Game Price Report 2007" with:

• Ten Games with Biggest Price Increases in 2007


• Ten Games with Biggest Price Decreases in 2007


• Chart of Average Video Game Prices in 2007


• Chart of 2007 Prices for Games Released in 2006


• Summary of Biggest Stories Affecting Game Prices


• Predictions for Prices in 2008

Enjoy your Holidays. We will be back with more articles in 2008.

Super Mario Galaxy Isn't Enough For Me

This is what many gamers are saying after buying 1.1 million copies of Mario Galaxy in November. The price for Super Mario Sunshine for Gamecube increased more than 70% in November! Did the Mario love extend any further than Super Mario Sunshine. Let's find out.

The chart below shows Mario Sunshine's price during 2007.


The chart shows the price rising from $10.50 to roughly $17 in November. Our daily updates show that the price has continued to rise to $18 as of 12/19/07 though this isn't reflected in the chart yet.

Mario Sunshine is the only other Super Mario platforming game that can be played on the Wii without using the virtual console. It makes sense that the price would increase so much. During the holidays prices increase in general for video games but on top of this parents are probably thinking 'Tommy likes Super Mario Galaxy maybe I should get him another game like it.' Does this logic extend to other Mario games on the Wii?

The charts below show prices for other notable Mario games for Wii and Gamecube (both playable on the Wii).



Unfortunately, we don't enough data to show an interesting chart for Super Paper Mario but you can check it out if you want to.

The charts show some interesting results. The only other Mario Wii game shows a very small price increase in December but a decrease in November. On the other hand the other two Gamecube Mario games showed price increases of more than 50% from October to December. I think the Wii price doesn't change as much because the game is still available at most retailers brand new, which keeps the price from increasing very much. But Gamecube games are hard to come by at most major retailers so many people have to resort to buying the games on eBay, Amazon, or other second hand locations. This forces those Gamecube game prices up while the Wii price stays the same.

These prices and other Mario game prices can be found at VideoGamePriceCharts.com.

Hunters Love Video Games

Every Fall across the US people start getting excited for hunting season. Hunters start practicing their calls to attract the animals. The Cabela's stores across the country fill up with people buying camouflage outfits and new shotguns. And State Wildlife Divisions start issuing hunting permits. Through all of this preparation for the new hunting season, hunters still find time to buy a bunch of video games. The prices for all the hunting video games shoot (pun intended) through the roof starting in August.

Cabela's Video Game Price Charts for 2007




In each of these historic price charts, the price of the game has decreased most of the year and then come August the price starts increasing only to accelerate in December. There are many more examples of this including Cabela's Deer Hunt 2005 for Xbox, Cabela Outdoor Adventure for Gamecube, and all the Big Game Hunter games.

Wikipedia says that hunters spent over $20.5 billion in their industry in 2001 and hunted for an average of 18 days. 18 days must not fulfill the hunting urge for most of these people because they seem to buy quite a few hunting games with this $20+ billion.

The price increases might also be due to wives buying the games for Christmas presents in hopes that their husbands won't leave on more hunting trips (I know women hunt too). This would explain the even bigger price increases right before Christmas time.

Whatever the reasons for the price increases. Hunters start paying about twice as much for their electronic hunting fix in December as they do in August. But its still a lot cheaper than a hunting license.

Distribution of Price Changes by Genre

In my previous article I talked about the price changes so far in 2007 by Genre. RPG's declined in price the least and sports games declined in price the most. A reader commented that with only a 7% drop in price for the average RPG, there are probably some RPG's where the price increased. I decided to look into this and see how many games's prices actually increased in 2007 by Genre.

I looked at the same major genres; Action, Sports, RPG, Fighting, and Racing and plotted the distribution of the price changes from down 50 percent to up 50 percent. The charts below show the number of games for each genre and how much they dropped in price from January 1st 2007 to August 16th 2007.







Most genre's have the largest percentage of their games with price drops 50 percent or larger, with sports games showing almost a third of the games dropping more than 50 percent. Then there is a steady drop in the distribution until only 1.8% of games from all genres show a price increase of more than 50%.

In my last article I showed that RPG and Fighting games showed the smallest drop in prices overall during 2007. Their graphs above show why this is. RPG and Fighting have their peak distributions at higher points than a 50 percent drop. RPG's are more normally distributed than the other genres, with the peak at no price change. 31 percent of RPG's actually increased in price during 2007, while 52% dropped. For all games, only 16 percent increased in price while 74 percent dropped. So RPG's were two times as likely as all other games to increase in price.

See the graph below for a comparison of RPG price changes vs all genres.



Below is the table with actual distribution percentages for all genres.



It is interesting to me that all genre's have some games with price increases of 50 percent or more. And that the percentage is roughly the same for all genres, between 1-3 percent. If you were to randomly buy a video game, it wouldn't matter what genre it was; you would have pretty much the same chance of hitting a home run and the price shooting up more than 50 percent.

The biggest difference is on the up side at the 10 and 20 percent ranges. 11 percent and 7 percent of RPG's increase 10 percent and 20 percent respectively, while all other genres show 6 and 4 percent chances of rising the same percentages.

How can you use this data? If you decide to collect some video games you should probably focus on RPG's because they have the best chance of increasing in price, but be sure to choose selectively. Most RPG's still drop in price, you just have a better chance of not getting burnt.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

How Are My Video Game Prices Determined?

This blog will contain lots of data about prices and you might wonder how do I actually get the data and can it be trusted as accurate. The prices are based upon a propriatery equation I have developed that takes into account actual prices gathered from Amazon, Half, Ebay, and JJGames. I can’t tell you the exact equation because it is a trade secret, but I use it at www.jjgames.com to determine our prices so I definitely believe it to be THE price.

I have daily prices for thousands of games using this equation, but most of the blog posts and graphs will use 7-day averages instead of the daily prices. I do this because daily prices for video game are really volatile and a 7-day moving average gives a better indication of where the prices are going. Below is an example for daily prices vs the 7-day moving average for Super Mario 64.

When I show charts in future blog posts, the price will be the 7-day moving average NOT the daily price. I think this helps a lot with comparisons between different video games and allows easier discussion on trends, which is what this blog is all about.