Games that launch at $60, will soon discount $20, and in 10 years be $60 again

video games
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I had this in the recommendations thread but it feels like its own thing to me, now.

Recapping what I said there, I've been enjoying purchasing/anticipating high budget, but underperforming games when they quickly and inevitably hit $20, especially those that give the vibe that they'll be reappraised later in life and be worth more again, like now nier for 360 was dirt cheap after launch, then after automata went up to the mid $40s again.

[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/IXzLuOt.png]

Anyway, the point isn't the price, it's the vibe. I am convinced Balan Wonderworld is one of these.

So here's a list:

**Balan Wonderworld.** Interesting from stage 2 on, bloated and weird, but weird in a good way a lot of the time, anticapitalist dogma in the hub world.

**Stranger of Paradise.** Everyone ([except us](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1402-im-just-here-to-kill-chaos-stranger-of-paradise-final-fantasy-origin)) stopped talking about this after it came out. People liked the chaos stuff, they liked the goofy story, they liked the hat. I think they didnā€™t really like anything else about it. So thatā€™ll be fun to pick up for $20 soon.

**Ghostwire: Tokyo.** Worse Maken X with nicer graphics and nothing to do, is what Iā€™m hearing. 100% fell off everyone's radar. Definitely a hot candidate for a $20 pickup soon.

**Recore.** Suggested in another thread. This game remains an xbox exclusive, has those weird "imperfect, but trying" vibes, inafune is hand-wavily involved, and the prices are already going up on the physical release. I just picked up a copy based on the suggestion.

**Scarlet Nexus.** Bandai Namco saw fit to release two big budget RPGs simultaneously, Tales of Arise, and this one, which was co-developed by TOSE. apparently it sold a million units, so it did great! Maybe its starting with a positive fan appraisal and a mixed press appraisal. But I also feel like it fell out of the discourse super fast, and I did just buy it for $15 brand new, so... (please tell me if this doesn't actually fit the list here, I haven't played it yet)

**[Babylon's Fall](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1531-babylons-fall-its-kind-of-okhttps://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1531-babylons-fall-its-kind-of-ok).** It's at $30 right now on PS5. Another game that came out too close to the elden ring black hole, different though it may be. Curious about it!

**Sunset Overdrive.** Nobody cared then, but people like it now!

what other new, big budget games have come out in the last console generation+ (let's say xbox one/ps4 through to now) that have a little something interesting going on but which definitely did not make a splash? Kind of like how everybody bought Sunset Overdrive ten years later after never talking about it (sunset overdrive never went back up in price, it went up in appraisal, so the "price" thing is really a metaphor for appreciation of the game). That is to say, what are the most insert credit xbox 360 games of the current era?

1 Like
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Some of the first stuff I talked about on the relaunched forums was discovering how good Sunset Overdrive is

Here are some of my calls

PS3 / X360: Driver San Francisco - completely wacky underneath the 70's cop trappings, with an unique gimmick. Also delisted digitally

XBO / PS4: The Wolf Among Us - Consigned to be an incomplete story for most of a decade, with a sequel in the works it took me a minute to get a cheap physical copy where once they were in the bargain bin

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First thing that came to mind was Cruis'n Blast, and wow, Nintendo has already permanently reduced the price of that down to 20$ digital!! Physical has reached that a couple of times.

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I recently switched from buying mostly physical games, to mostly DRM-free digital.

Buying games on Itch and GOG when GOG has sales (which is all the time), I tend to mostly be paying single digit prices for games now. It's all digital so there is zero resale value, but my entire digital collection of over 100 games probably cost less than a handful of physical games.

P.S: This doesn't quite fit in this thread, but isn't worth making its own thread for.
Cost is mildly interesting sometimes.

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Iā€˜m going to add the caveat that this is all speculative based on what Iā€™ve personally seen happen.

### 3DS Atlus RPGs

I'm going to lump all of these together but to varying degrees the 3DS Etrian Odyssey, SMT, Persona Q games have all gone for cheap and are creeping up in price. I vaguely recall that Etrian Odyssey Nexus and Persona Q2 had miniscule print runs in Europe, and with the closure of the 3DS eshop imminent I can see physical copies jumping up in price. You could probably throw in Radiant Historia, and maybe even SMT 5 into this group, even though the latter has sold well.

### Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia

Speaking of the 3DS, this is the remake of the second ever Fire Emblem game if I recall correctly and as it was released very late into the 3DS' life it sold relatively poorly from what I understand. It's going for around Ā£20 in the UK but like other Fire Emblem games, I can see the price spiking in a few years time.

### Drakengard 3

I know this is a PS3 game but I'm counting it as it's a very late release for the system. I bought this on import for around Ā£20 shortly after its release and it still seems to be hovering around that price. In the UK at least it never received a physical edition, and with Sony threatening to close the PS3 store down, and with the popularity of the Nier games I can see it jumping in price eventually

### Star Ocean 5

I know this game tanked in terms of its sales, and I've seen it go for as little as Ā£10 in GAME of all places. I regularly feel tempted to pick it up, and if the next game is a return to form then perhaps 5 will get a new level of interest and demand.

### 428 Shibuya Scramble

I vaguely recall this selling pretty atrociously in the West and it's currently going for around Ā£20 here. I think between the growing popularity of Danganronpa and the Zero Escape games, we may well see an increase in interest in this game too.

### Deadly Premonition 2

This is the one that I'm least convinced will jump in price from this list. My understanding is that it sold "OK" and the negativity around its clumsy referral of a trans character has tarnished an otherwise half-decent game's reputation irrecoverably, even post-patch. That said, the first Deadly Premonition has experienced a significant revisionist reception from people saying that they always liked it so perhaps the second game will too, especially if it stays on Switch.

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Gravity Rush Remastered. Came out as basically a promo for GR2 with little fanfare, fell down to like $20 for quite a while, and then shot back up to $90+ for a long time, and seems to have settled in the $60-$70 range now. I donā€™t think GR2 will ever see the same kind of bounce back, it fell really quickly, they shut the servers down, and it has stayed bargain priced for years and years. Not a critical darling and fans are passionate but few.

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@ā€œrobinhoodieā€#p71603 PS3 / X360: Driver San Francisco

this one is the best thing I purchased on a whim at gamestop for under $5 as a young person

@"sabertoothalex"#p71609 the same thing kinda happened to GR2, as a fan of GR1 I meant to buy GR2 for like 3 years when it was constantly at sub $15 prices but I kept forgetting to, and now it's $60 again!

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@ā€œē©“ā€#p71610 shoot youā€™re right! It had been at basement prices for so long that I assumed it would always stay there! Thatā€™s rad, I hope people are actually playing it and not just treating the discs as collectors items.

Guess the whole series applies to this as the Vita version of 1 is also above retail now šŸ™‚

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buying video games is weirdā€¦ getting the timing right to buy something before it goes up in price has become a whole video game in itself

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@ā€œē©“ā€#p71613 I walked by where the Gamestop where I got most of my GBA and DS collection for next to nothing used to be and really thought about how much it meant to me and my tastes that I grabbed up that library that way.

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Do digital prices tend to fluctuate much in this way? No, right? You're just talking about playing the physical games market?

I mean, in this economy, with inflation, covid, all the games you bought should be getting more expensive
hehe, but yeah, anything niche pretty much. kind of stuff we know all too well that many people here are into...

similar to syzguy I'm really good at this but pretty unintentionally, I just always bought weird games.
my choices have lead to massive gains in the past:

  • - Picked up Chulip at goodwill for 4-12 dollars idr in 2007ish
  • - got Contact new when it came out
  • - got Cubivore at eb games for $13 in 2004ish
  • - purchased every king's field game when they were all bottom of the barrel prices, under $20 each
  • - SMT Strange Journey, pretty much all my DS era choices got really expensive. like lefish said I had a lot of those atlus games for 3ds.
  • - I nabbed incredible crisis for like $20
  • - I honestly don't remember. I've been doing ebay for over a decade now.

    • and, you know, any games you bought before Game Grumps played them was a good investment. I got kirby's dream course for like $12, then Game Grumps played it and suddenly it was an $80 game, haha

    Since I've always been in extreme poverty bracket, if I'm shopping games I'm shopping cheap, so, there's only one way to go from there (up!) hahahah. statistically I'm bound to get lucky.

    but you're talking about current stuff, kind of playing the market?
    all those From Software games the kids love so much, stuff like the xbox 360 version of Dark Souls 1 is cheap last time I checked, and the switch version of Dark Souls 1.
    I think digital availability will ensure a lot of games don't get too expensive though, you really see the gains for retro stuff.

    But here's a fact you've already heard, stuff goes up in price when the generation that had it as a kid grows up and has disposable income. Specifically age 50 is when you may wanna hit that sweet spot. Right now covid coincided with pokemon enjoyers turning 30 so that caused a huge spike. But normally a 50 year old starts buying old toys that are really expensive. Or at least that was the rule before. Now I guess millennials never stop buying that stuff. Probably because we had the coolest stuff growing upšŸ˜Ž

    Sounds like you nailed all the current discounted stuff that's gonna become rare in the original post. Maybe Metal Gear Solid V: Both Versions ?? Bloodborne??

    I was pretty amazed to see facts like Pokemon Sword and Shield sold like twice as much as Gold and Silver versions did. Video games are more mainstream than ever.

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    @ā€œtreefroggyā€#p71623 Funny you mention Incredible Crisis. I picked up the PAL version a few days ago and it's consistently going for less than Ā£20.

    I've been pretty good in the past about getting games on the cheap as up until my current job i was doing either part time or unreliable jobs. The most memorable cheap buys have been Persona 3 Portable for 10 Canadian dollars and Odin Sphere for Ā£5, both brand new.

    One game that I'm curious as to whether it will recover is Anthem. The going rate for it in the UK has been a fiver for ages, and as far as I know EA are still committed to overhauling it. I don't think it will actually get such a resurgence but it's interesting to ponder.

    14

    Weeby games on carts never fail. I donā€˜t have that many because I donā€™t actively keep track but I buy when I see them on Wario timeline for cheap(er). I have a couple of hands full of DS/3DS/Vita games I got at $15-30 range that are pretty high now. Just bought 13 Sentinels again this time on Switch for $30ā€¦.

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    Disaster Report 4.

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    I think I didnā€˜t emphasize enough that this is not actually about money or playing the game market!! Itā€™s about a certain kind of game that has a big budget, comes out full price guns blazing, instantly disappears, goes on sale for 20 bucks, but later comes to be appreciated by a new more discerning audience down the line. The price thing is just a way to exemplify that! Maybe I should've said critical appraisal instead of money, it just feels like ā€œon sale for $20 after a few monthsā€ is one of the best indicators we have that a big budget game has not succeeded critically and financially.

    And @"hellomrkearns"#p71651 absolutely! Dang.

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    Oh yeahhhh I gotta put Contra Rogue Corps on this list! What a load of nonsense that is. It should've been in my first post!

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    oh seeing the context that this split off from ā€œmore games like thisā€ā€¦

    yeah idunno man!! this is fun to speculate on though, makes me feel like Iā€˜m an angel investor of physical copies of video games! sure itā€™s not about the money, itā€˜s all hypothetical speculation for funsies :o)

    how about No More Heroes 3! Wonderful 101? Were those 60 bucks?

    I just simply donā€™t have encyclopedic knowledge of current games like I do for retro ones!

    I checked my notepad that has a list of switch games I want to play, removed all but the likely candidates, though I have no idea the pricing, I could see physical copies fetching an inflated price 20 years from now:

  • - xenoblade chronicles 1 definitive , 2
  • - travis strikes again, nmh3
  • - VOICE OF CARDS
  • - pocky & rocky remake
  • - Rune Factory 5
  • - shadowrun trilogy
  • - shadowrun returns
  • - river city girls 2
  • - getsufumaden undying moon

    • Rune factory especially, I think those have demand outweighing the supply

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    That Mad Max game that came out for the PS4 gives me those vibes. But I havenā€˜t played it so idk if itā€™s any good.

    Another game that i haven't played that maybe kind of fits here is Tearaway Unfolded, although it is from Media Molecule and who knows if we can trust them to make something without bad jumping.

    Maybe The Medium?

    20

    I get the feeling that some of the Wii U games that havenā€˜t made the transition to Switch will go up. Xenoblade Chronicles X and perhaps the two Star Fox games come to mind mind, though I donā€™t recall the former ever going for super cheap come to think of it. Itā€˜s already happening with Devilā€™s Third. Maybe the Wii U version of Zombii U too.

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    @ā€œē©“ā€#p71660 oh yeah, people did like that mad max game, and it definitely fell all the way off in the discourse very quickly. It was liked in a ā€œno, really!ā€ kind of way, which is certainly intriguing.