Good Idea, Bad Idea: Priceguide

[spamcatch2004]

I was just curious on if it would be cool to list a priceguide up?

I just bought 12 games in the last 7 days and I am not sure what they are worth. What I am suggesting is that I would like to see a priceguide section in the main part of the site. It would help everyone out to see aproximatly what everything is worth.

I understand that sometimes prices would sway from $60 all the way to $180 for a PC-FX boxed system or something that has one small price like $10 and it always stays at 10. Even in extreme cases I  would like to see what items sell for.

I would like to suggest a 3-5 member board for this section so that price fixing would not be a question. The board members can discuss bi-weekly or monthly, what current prices each game sold for and how much each item should be valued at. I mention this because I use another unmentioned site and the priceguide is so screwed up. Only 2 people maintain it, but it hasnt been updated for 5 months. Some of the prices are 3 years outdated, but it was never changed.

I am actually interested in some feedback from other people about this topic.

[jlued686]

I think it's a fantastic idea.  I've been into the Turbografx/Duo for about 15 years, but I've just gotten into the PC FX recently.  This would be a great resource for people like me who want to make sure they're not getting robbed due to inexperience.

I'd volunteer to help in any way possible.

[Nutribrain]

I also like this idea. I could also give you some support with prices I see on eBay or Yahoo Japan. But I don't have this much time to update it on regular basis. But I'm willing to give all the support I can.

On the http://www.neo-geo.com/ you can see how the price guide for this system looks. It's well maintained.[/url]

@spamcatch2004: Which games did you buy and for what price?

[PCEngineFX]

This topic has been brought to my attention many times in the past, and it is a good idea...The reason why I have never really created one is because the prices fluctuate so much; it is first hard to track prices based off of auctions, and really auction pricing isn't an accurate way to price a game...however auctions are the only way for us to really get a picture as to what things are going for so there aren't many other options.

I'd be willing to help out in this regard as well, either by submitting info, or hosting the page on pcengine-fx.com....whatever works...I'll leave it up to you guys since you brought it up.

[spamcatch2004]

I also like this idea. I could also give you some support with prices I see on eBay or Yahoo Japan. But I don't have this much time to update it on regular basis. But I'm willing to give all the support I can.

On the http://www.neo-geo.com/ you can see how the price guide for this system looks. It's well maintained.[/url]

@spamcatch2004: Which games did you buy and for what price?

I bought Ah My Goddess, Angelique, Angelique Special 2, and Wakusei-kougekitai Little Cats for $70

I also got Voice Paradise, AnimeFreak 1-3, Sparkling Feather, Blue Breakers, Class Mates 2 and Farland Story for $60.

The Neo Geo priceguide is never maintained. The last time it was updated was 4 months ago and they only updated 1 thing. It was the most expensive game in world history. That priceguide is useless.  Its just used by the NG owner to price-fix and sell his bullshit at a higher price.

What I propose is to design a active priceguide that is updated 1-2 times each month to reflect the true North American and European markets. I know the prices are much cheeper on Yahoo Auction Japan, but when you buy it from a third party or have it shipped it adds to the cost dramatically. Realistically we are only dealing with the english speaking world so it would be moot to include the asian market. They always get things for much cheeper anyhow.

I think this would be important to our priceguide, a 3-5 person panel so that if someone isnt home or busy other people can handle the updates. Once a month all the priceguide people should get together and discuss how accurate the current updated prices are so that it keeps the page honest, unlike ng. If anyone else has something to add please do so. Opinions are the best way to develope a super kickass site.

I have other ideas to improve this site, but for now lets work on this. If we do more to show people this site is updated frequently we might have a lot more people visiting and staying.

Let me know what you guys think.

[jlued686]

Again, I think you have a great idea here and I'd be more than willing to help/contribute.  Like I said, though, I'm somewhat new to the PC FX side of things (I only own four games at the moment), but I'd be more than happy to do research on eBay and other sites.

Let me know what you need me to do and I'll get on it.

John

[Nutribrain]

I agree on the basic things with you spamcatch. But I think there aren't much games traded on ebay.com/ebay.de/ebay.co.uk etc. to have a price guide which updates twice a month. But anyhow, we have to start now to make this guide to be real.

Right now there are roughly about 15 titles/systems/peripherals on auction on ebay.com.  And one system on ebay France. So I think we'll have to watch those auctions and see if someone is willing to pay the quested amount or for which prices the things go away.

As it would take some time to detemine a price tag for all titles, I would suggest to also take the japanese prices, which aren't always lower than the prices on western markets, and give a rough estimate which also takes into account the shipping&handling to the USA/Europe. So it would give the people a rough price tag for rarer titles like Zenki etc.

BTW, I don't think the NeoGeo price guide is useless. Although it's not updated very regularly, it's a rough estimate for how much certain titles COULD go. A price guide is always something rough and names prices although some people don't like the numbers which it contains (like the NG one).

[spamcatch2004]

Nutribrain

I actually think the NG priceguide is really useless. I was in Akihabara a year ago and I saw one of the shop owners price Twinkle Star Sprites at $900. He had neo-geo.com right on his laptop. He actually gauged the price right off the page. What was worse was his copy of the game was in only excellant condition. How are you going to charge collectors MINT price for a crap condition game? I was thinking that when I saw the games. People dont use that as a gauge. They use it as a given price they should buy/sell at so inaccuracies would cause the writers of the site to benefit. That priceguide always pissed me off. about 1/3 of the prices are correct. 1/3 are close enough and 1/3 (mainly the higher end games) are totally overflated. Now that would be absolutely bad for the market if your priceguide is that off. If a priceguide is about 20% off then it would still be OK. It means the people maintaining the pages are working at getting everything fixed. At 33% error that means someone is trying to make a profit (IE the owner of Neo Geo). If we dont want this to happen we should put accurate prices per item.


If we use asian markets to gauge export we would need to add $12-15 per game + the third party fee (japanese ebay sellers). Basically if a game is $5 (on yahoo jp) you would have to add in what the handling fee for the ebay seller is, then you have to add on $12-15 depending on North America or Europe. So basically a $5 game has just turned into a $30-40 game. That is some horrorable pricing right there.


On the other hand some people travel to Japan exclusively just to buy games. In those cases the price will be cheeper because people hand-carry the games back to their region. BUT, if you spend $1000 on a plane ticket its not so economical to buy a $5 game. It works though.


Now about the system. For now we have to work the market. I know its really small, but most of the PC-FX items on ebay sells. Its such a small market that the collectors swarm when they find something they want. Lets just gauge the prices as that. I agree that it will take about 6-12 months to get a general idea of what the whole market should look like price wise. I know for a fact that boxed PC-FX machines go for $120-180 (depending on that is included in the package). No controllers are ever up for sale. I have seen some BMP cards and items of that nature. Games are a rarity though. Cutie Honey, Zenki, Tenchi Muyo, Ah My Goddess, Der Langrisser FX, and a few other titles are hard to get. Most of the PC-FX stuff is rare because no one ever sells these items.


I have been working hard to compile a list of games until Aaron sent me a list. Once I had that list I used it as a checklist for my personal games. I already have 15 titles as of today (17 total, 2 doubles). That is 25% of all the games. I am still working on getting up to 50% in the next month or so. My goal is to get a collection together in the next 6 months. With your guys help I might be able to get everything I need and develope the priceguide at the same time.


Now we just need a game plan. I will have a MS Excel spreadsheet that I update every 4-7 days with current and past ebay titles, prices paid and when the auction ended. With 15 titles it will take a long time to get all the 65 titles catalogued. This might be a super fun project. Since us 3 are the only active people working on this project then I guess we should share information. Does everyone here have MS Excel? If they do I can e-mail you my first findings and we can work it from there.


What do you guys think? Any suggestions to add on to what I already have? Aaron should add his 2 cents in also since he has been in this market for 5+ years now.

[jlued686]

I've got Excel, so I'm in.  I also just purchased a PC FX and four games, so I can add that info.  I've got all the PC FX stuff on eBay on my "watch" list as well, so I can monitor their selling prices.

My email is john@gamingworldx.com.

[Nutribrain]

I also have access to Excel ;-), so it wouldn't be problem to type all those prices in. I'll also have a watch on all those PC-FX items here in Europe. The thing is that there are even less than in the US. I could also add prices I paid for my items back the last year.

My add is: cwilmanns (atatat) web.de

[spamcatch2004]

Hay guys! Sorry I havent sent the excel file yet. The last few days I have been battling the GF, the mess in my friends house, the Sailors I know and time. The ferret that occupys the crawl space under my bed doesnt help me either (THAT LITTLE MONSTER). I will try to get this file done over this weekend and e-mail both of you the stuff I know.

I dont know what format the page should look like yet. I think Aaron should handle that one, but for now lets just focus mainly on the data.



NUTRIBRAIN I think for a base jumpoff point we should use the prices you bought them for a while ago. Then we should slowly update information as it becomes available. For now I am going to add $15 to the prices of each Yahoo JP auction because each individual game shipped from JP would cost the auction price + $15 shipping to a forign country.


I will keep you guys posted as to my progress and I will leave little notes per each game, where I got the info and how valid it is to our cause.

[PCEngineFX]

Cool guys, glad to see this taking off.  Once you get some good content then I can stick it on the main site (in the mean time since the PC-FX World is currently WIP).

[jlued686]

Any word on this yet?

[spamcatch2004]

Hold on. Stuff came up. I hate friends, but when they decide they want to leave my location perminantly I have to spend a few days saying bye to them. I have it about 1/2 done. I will e-mail everyone the second it is all compiled.

[jlued686]

Cool.  I've gathered a bunch of info over the past few days as well.

[Nutribrain]

I just want to let you know that I also started to compile an Excel-sheet. May you want to have a look on it: PCFX.xls

It's not final and its main purpose is to serve me as my list what I've got and for what price. I just added the two columns to show a rarity grade (1-5) and a price range for what the game was going on ebay.

Just state you comments on this one.

[spamcatch2004]

Contrary to popular belief, the SPAM has not died.


This week is another busy week. I will deffinately send some hard data out before next friday. Monday my week becomes normal again. And again sorry for the wait.


Be Back Soon....

[Nutribrain]

Good to hear something from you. No problem, I know this kind of busy weeks:-)