To many of us, collecting ‘retro’ stuff whether it be video games, comic books, vintage toys or baseball cards is about reclaiming our childhood. We love the stuff we enjoyed when we were kids and as adults we have the disposable income to buy the games we saw in the pages of Nintendo Power and the toys on the shelf at Toys R’ Us that we never received as gifts.

In the 80’s it began with comic books and baseball cards, which both saw their popularity explode as people who experienced them as children start snatching up them as as collectibles. This set the 80’s baseball card and 90’s comic book markets on fire, with those industries ramping up production to satisfy these markets. The problem was that the market wasn’t hunting down 1987 Donruss baseball cards or 1992 issues of Batman, they were buying up the stuff they had as kids which was 20+ years old by this point.

Children of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s grew up with video games, a product that simply didn’t exist before. As the first wave of adults who spent their childhood huddled around woodgrain console TVs while tethered to Atari consoles with 3-foot-long cords grew into adults, they started collecting Atari stuff to satisfy that sense of nostalgia. By the early 2000’s, the Atari retrogaming market was exploding in popularity, which sent the prices of games soaring.

However, as this generation snatched up the games they wanted for their collections, demand and supply inverted and prices started coming back down. Many who jumped in on the hobby got their fix, stopped playing the games and started selling the stuff they previously were hunting down. The market became oversaturated due to the nostalgia for that generation wearing off and the supply increasing as these people started selling off their collections.

The current bubble

---

_{^{Image: Pricecharting}}

We’re currently near or at the peak of the NES, SNES and Genesis nostalgia bubble. After prices ramping up drastically over the past 5 years, average prices seem to be mostly starting to level off. Some are even starting to come down, as the pool of collectors is shrinking because they’re becoming satisfied with the collections they’ve built. Demand is leveling off and more than likely, we’re going to start seeing overall prices start coming down over the next 5 years. The hardcore collectors will remain, but those of us who are happy with our collections or who now have families tying up time and money that used to be dedicated to retro gaming will be drying up.

This is the cycle of the nostalgia bubble. It builds, it peaks and it wanes. We’ve seen it with baseball cards, comics and Atari games. Its proving itself to be true again with the 8 and 16-bit generation of video games.

What’s the next bubble?

---

_{^{Image: Pricecharting}}

Based on what we’ve seen, its seems that the PS1/N64 era should be the next bubble, but there seems to be less enthusiasm for it than there was for the last bubble. Taking a look at the Atari bubble, it popped much faster than the NES/SNES/Genesis one and I attribute that to the fact that the later games are far more playable today than anything on the 2600. The bubble is extended simply because the games are just more fun to play.

Returning to the PS1/N64 era, we’re met with early 3D games that haven’t aged particularly well. PS1 games are made of highly pixellated and angular 3D models. The N64 games feature horribly muddy textures. While revolutionary, they’re just not as easy to come back to because the tech was too young.

Therefore, I feel the next big bubble will be the PS2/XBox/GameCube generation. These consoles have massive libraries and 3D gaming took a huge leap in both visuals and playability. These games just hold up much better today compared to their slightly older counterparts.

The one anomaly is Nintendo, which has a more passionate collecting community, which drives N64, GameCube and even Wii games higher than comparable titles on other consoles.

Attention collectors:

---

If I’m correct, we should be entering the PS2-era collecting bubble in the next 5 years or so. With a massive library and games that are still a ton of fun, right now is the best time to collect for this console. While we’ll likely never see another retro game market as crazy as the NES, the PS2 will probably be the closest thing we’ll see in post-2000 consoles.

If you want to get in on PS2 collecting, the prices are probably mostly bottomed out right now. So grab those games while they’re still cheap!

What do you think about how the nostalgia bubble effects collecting? Let’s discuss!

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!

^{Cover Images: Tracey's Blogapy and Zeldapedia}