Everything that I will be looking at today will be for new/sealed games. Note that graded games will not be included in the average sales prices. I will be comparing the average sale price over the past year and looking at 6 NES games that have declined in value. Let me know if anything surprises you!
#5: Stack Up
Over the year, Stack-Up has seen roughly a 6.5% drop in value. When other games are increasing by insane values - seeing something negative is striking. Stack-Up is one of two games that uses the R.O.B. and was released prior to Gyromite but wasn't as popular. This game is CRAZY rare. So if only one sold in the past year it still should have gone up in value rather than down.
#4: Gun+Nac
Gun+Nac has seen a 7.4% decrease. It was released in 1990 in Japan and 1991 in North America. What is funny is in 2019 the average price for complete and new went through the roof! Even during the COVID boost this game never reached those numbers again. There was a single graded version of this game graded last year that was an 8.0 A that sold for $780. I don't see any other sales to compare it to, but New/Sealed has gone down over $100 over the past year.
#3: Popeye
This game has gone down 23% in value over the past year for new/sealed games. the Complete and Loose options both were affected by the COVID bump, but not the new/sealed games. A couple of graded versions did sell last year, while only one sold in 2019. The one in 2019 was a 9.4 A+ and sold for $9,800 while the two from last year were 7.5/7.0 CIB's that sold for $336/$510. Funnily enough, the $336 was for the 7.5. The average price for new/sealed has gone down over $500 over the past year.
#2: Wrecking Crew
Runner up to the biggest loser position is Wrecking Crew. This game saw a 25% decrease in value over the past year. As with the other games here, the value of complete/loose did increase, but new/sealed went down over $600. Of all the games on this list, it does have the highest number of graded versions which makes me think that there are more of these available. While still rare, it's maybe not as rare as others. Most notably, a 7.5 grade game sold for barely over $80. To me, for a game from the 80s for the NES graded selling under $100 is amazing. I mean, new/sealed is averaged closer to $2k, so why do you think that 7.5 sold for so low?
#1 Lode Runner
The big looser. This game saw almost a 75% decrease in value over the past year. This game is very rare and is from 1985. So it is possible that because of the lack of availability (and since everything isn't graded,) one year some nice ones will sell, and the next year the badly conditioned ones will sell and it will look like it tanked. Now, there are quite a few selling right now that are listed for under than average sale price - so while this game definitely saw a decrease - I would be a little more skeptical to think it decreased THAT much. Why am I disagreeing with clear data? It's important to always dig a little deeper.
There are my 5 Video Games that are Losing Value. Have you been a lucky purchaser of any of these? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments.
