Let's Talk About Pokémon Video Game Prices...

Nostalgia is the happiest yet saddest feeling ever

I can understand the frustration with how pricey the older OG games are. That’s just life unfortunately. Save up and grab the games you want. You’re not in a race. Get off social media, slow your life down, save money, and buy that emerald when you have enough. Life is fantastic ❤

I thought it would be cool if Pokemon Home would actually be like NSO and let us play the old games for a subscription price. Even if they bump up the price, to be able to play the old games again and fill up the Home DEX and even bring over those Pokemon to the Switch games.

If you don’t like the prices emulate it, it’s a collectors item at this point, vintage sells for more.

One of the biggest regrets I have is not rebuilding my Pokémon collection ten years ago when the idea originally crossed my mind. At the time with how cheap things were it was really just a "oh I can do it later" because at the time there was other things I was interested in buying. I played Yugioh, I collected kpop, and I had the most recent games at the time so worrying about older games and re-obtaining them never felt like a huge priority when I had other priorities. Fast-forward and here we are in a market that I don't think the me of ten years ago would have ever predicted. Getting into full odds shiny hunting also accelerated my desire to obtain these older games and while I'm quite close to finishing both a set of English and Japanese games it still feels so insurmountable to finish with these prices. And I unfortunately don't see prices going down ever just because that's the nature of it. Great video; always enjoy seeing takes on the absurd state of retro games Oh and my favorite game is probably Black 2/White 2

For me the problem is the people that buy them at these prices , if everyone and i mean everyone had a limit on how much they value the games the prices wouldnt be like this.

It really pisses me off because as a kid I had zero funds to my name so once I got a job around 2020 as a new adult, all of a sudden everyone is back into fucking Pokémon and the prices are high. This will sound like gatekeeping and please forgive me I'm just disappointed, but I remember when half these people didn't give Black and White 2 a fair shot and NOW look at everyone. Unbelievable. Now while I do have my respective copies, this is still insane. I like to think there are still so many loose copies out in the wild that does not justify these prices I mean they've sold millions. We just have to look towards remakes and the new generations now to get back those old experiences moving forward

Biggest troll ever would be if Nintendo one day miraculously said "we're going to flood the market with all the retro pokemon games from days past and make them easier to obtain for all" Would never happen though. Emulation it is I guess

It's hard to believe that just back in 2018-19 when I started buying the GBA games for myself I could get them for about $40 USD apiece loose -- and the most expensive DS game was HGSS at about $50 USD loose. The current prices are absolutely distorted. As much as I think resellers and scalpers have a role in that, I also think it's just the nature of Pokemon game collecting. Think about it -- most Pokemon fans tend to hang onto their games, which constrains supply. It's fascinating because few other games follow this trend. Try to buy a game that came out a decade ago on another console, like Skyrim for instance. It's depreciated in price, as have most others. Pokemon games somewhat break this rule as they've consistently appreciated in price. I also think some of it might have to do with the fact that Pokemon games only have one save file, which incentivizes accumulating multiple of the same game (I've done this for several) but this logic doesn't seem to hold for any game post-gen 5. XY are actually worth less than when they released, last I checked, and I can purchase games like Sun and Moon for similarly low prices too. I think this is because they remained available first-hand for so long, for one thing. The GB games (RBY, GSC) skyrocketed in price the moment the Virtual Console games became unavailable, at least at my local used video game store. I also think another factor is that generations that grew up with previous games are now old enough to have disposable income and indulge their nostalgia -- as I've seen the reputation of games like BW improve as the people who played them as kids grow into adulthood, their prices have also gone up. Just a few of my thoughts on this. The state of the secondary market for Pokemon is somewhat depressing. These games have become utterly unaffordable for all but the most dedicated collectors. It feels like almost everything has undergone ridiculous price inflation within the last few years though.

Sold off all my pokemon games made a ton of money. Thanks guys

Looking at these prices, I'm about to become king of the pirates ☠️

Glad I kept all my OG Pokemon games from Red and Blue to Pokemon Platinum when I was a kid 💯

Pokémon is the best franchise is the world. When it hit the rest of the world back in 98-99, it was unlike anything else. There’s a reason millions remember it as “Pokemania”. Glad I was born in 1990 and was able to be a kid for the beginning.

Great video! was very exited for this video and you made really good points!

I completed my non cib collection during Covid. I do have to admit that I was buying a bunch of lots of games and handhelds from OfferUp. I ended up keeping the best labeled games and selling off the rest. I built my collection almost for free, minus the time it took to hunt and buy the lots. With the amount of people doing it now I couldn’t imagine trying to hunt a full collection at a reasonable price and time.

I hope they just officially release all these games on current Nintendo consoles.

Well spoken. We can only speak from experience but the last few years i've seen loose games be at or above these prices in stores or at conventions. I can't really blame vendors for setting a price, the FOMO is real and both the vendors, collecting and thrift haul videos all contribute to that. Plus, add to that pokemon being the multi generational franchise that parents get their children into and you have a recipe for increased prices. I think if people have the money and can afford the prices, good for them, but some of these games are literally portions of my monthly rent so im sure its not cheap for others. I think the best we can do is educate people on prices, that yes, we can choose to NOT buy something, and to find ways to reduce those costs associated with collecting. My last three pokemon games were acquired from trading pokemon cards, which is not a cheap hobby to collect for, but something about not paying the full market price associated made me proud to finally get a deal, even if the cards were at a similar value. I got more to say but i'll leave it there, im curious about what everyone else thinks as well!

The best thing to do when prices get unreasonable is to take advantage of it and sell into the FOMO. I can play these games a million different ways now.

I sold most of my Pokemon game collection during the Pokemon Go boom of 2016. I don't regret it, as I used the money towards upgrading my gpu for my computer at the time and I got a ton of mileage out of that. But man getting the collecting bug in 2022 and realizing that the new normal prices were higher than the spiked prices I sold for was a sobering experience. I just got the games I really missed having and called it there. I feel for future collectors who are gonna be walled off if these games keep rising.

The weirdest the games are not rare.