What Do you Want in a PriceCharting Mobile App?

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Please visit our forum topic about the mobile app and let us know what you want:
http://forum.pricecharting.com/discussion/11/mobile-app

When we roll it out we will probably need some beta testers too so let us know on the forum if you would like to beta test as well.

PriceCharting Forum Launches Today

We launched our forum today!

The video game forum is a place for gamers to talk about game collecting, buy/sell/trade games, discuss recent news, and exchange tips on great video game deals. There is also a section for movie collectors and discussion on any unrelated topic too.

Anyone can read the forum but you need to have a free PriceCharting account in order to comment or send messages. Create an account today if you haven't already.

Check out the forum today and let us know what the most prized game is in your collection.
forum.pricecharting.com

You can access the forum from any page on the site under the "All Categories" link in the menu.

OccupyMW3 - 1% of Games Have 56% of the Sales

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches tonight at midnight and it is expected to break sales records. One analyst is predicting over $1 billion in sales in the first six weeks.

Occupy Wall Street is protesting that 1% of people are too wealthy and have too much power compared to the 99%. Studies show the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 42% of the wealth in the USA. Wealthy American's have nothing on video games!

The top 1% of video games represent 56% of the total sales!

People should be protesting the injustices of sales inequality in video games. Won't somebody think of the other 99% of games.

Methodology: The 56% is based the dollar value of games sold on eBay during the last 30 days.

539 PAL SNES Games Auction - Every PAL Game Ever Made

A huge lot of 539 PAL Super Nintendo games is listed on ebay right now - every single PAL SNES game ever released. There are quite a few rare games included like Terrinagma and Whirlo.

200 of the games include the original boxes and instructions. And the lot includes some promotional posters to top it all off.

This is definitely a great lot for any Australian or European collectors out there who want a complete PAL collection or any other collectors who want to finish an international collection.

The listing price is about $31,000 US Dollars, which is a bit high, but is generally just the starting offer in listings like this. I'm sure they would be willing to accept a reasonable lower offer.

Some pictures of the lot below (Click to see more pictures):

Seasonal Video Game Prices - Games are Cheapest in November

Video games are a seasonal product. There are some purchases throughout the year, but demand increases a lot during Christmas. The time of year with the lowest prices - November.

Seasonal Video Game Price Chart

Below is a chart showing the prices from 2007 to 2011. The prices every January are indexed to start at 1 to show the seasonal trends.

Click to See Larger Chart

In three out of four years the lowest price of the year was November. 2010 was the only exception with the lowest prices during September.

On average prices decrease 25-30% from January to the low point for the year. Then during December prices jump 10-15%. If you are a game collector don't buy games during December or you will be paying a premium.

2011 is noteworthy in the chart above because prices have only decreased 15% so far for the year instead of the usual 25-30%. (See the section below for reasons why)

Five Years of Video Game Prices

Below is a chart showing the past five years of data on a continual basis instead of stacked to show seasonality.

Click to See Larger Chart

The seasonal spikes during Christmas can easily be seen but in general video game prices are decreasing.

Older consoles like NES, Atari, and SNES do not follow this same general trend. Their prices are increasing or holding steady in general as seen in the images below. I believe this is the cause for the smaller price decreases during 2011.

The newer the games are the more pronounced the decline. This can easily be seen by comparing Playstation 1, 2, and 3.

The curve down is much steeper with Playstation 3 than it is with Playstation 1, which means the prices are decreasing faster for PS3 than they are for PS1.

Methodology: Every licensed, commercially released, NTSC game is included in the prices shown. New releases are excluded during the calendar year they were released to remove upward bias when new games come out. You can read more about the price indexes for each console here.

Iron Man Steelbook Collector's Edition Is Very Expensive

The regular Iron Man on Blu-ray sells for about $12-13. A sealed Steelboook version is selling for $995 right now on ebay.

This is the first sale for the Steelbook version that I have ever seen so it will be interesting to see where it ends up.

The movie was an exclusive release at Future Shop, a Canadian electronics retailer, and is the Canadian version. Because the movie was only released in Canada a USA version does not exist.

12 Combo DVDs That Should Never Be Released

Combo DVDs with two or more related movie in a package are really popular with movie studios. Putting two or three second rate movies on one DVD and selling it for $10 each is an easy way for them to make a few bucks (See a few examples).

Below is a list of 12 combo DVDs that should never be made no matter how desperate the studios are for cash.

Thin: The Movie/Man vs Food

Thin is a documentary about eating disorders. Man vs Food is a guy who takes on food challenges all over the country. Both share a couple scenes involving vomit that are strikingly similar.

Sound of Music/American Pie

A movie about teenagers trying to have sex for the first time and a movie about a singing nun. The main characters are all virgins - is that enough of a similarity to warrant a combo?

The Hangover/Schindler's List

I'm not going to explain this one. It is just wrong!

Beach Party/Beaches

Both movies are about friends and have some memorable songs, but the similarities stop there. None of the teens in Beach Party has a care in the world, while the friends in Beaches deal with one tragedy after another.

Fight Club/Breakfast Club

Two very different clubs and two very different movies. I wish Joy Luck Club's first rule was "Don't talk about Joy Luck Club".

Citizen Cane/Gigli

The greatest movie ever and the worst movie ever together at last. Gigli should never have been released as a standalone DVD let alone a combo.

Capitalism: A Love Story/Atlus Shrugged

Michael Moore's anti-capitalist documentary about the failures of a market economy paired with Ayn Rand's magnum opus about the beauty of the markets and individuals. Michael Moore is strikingly similar to some of the antagonists in Atlus Shrugged.

Paranormal Activity/Bambi

Quite a few kids cry in Bambi when **SPOILERS** Bambi's dad dies but the scene with Bambi trying to walk soon helps kids forget. Paranormal Activity will give kids sleeping disorders and huge psychiatric bills for the rest of their life.

Beethoven/Cujo

Beethoven is covered in drool the whole movie while Cujo is covered in blood. Sounds like the perfect combo for dog lovers.

Star Trek/Star Wars

Some people might think this is a great combo idea, but it would only upset fanboys of both series. It would also confuse the non-Sci-Fi fans out there: "What? I thought those were the same movie."

Blue Lagoon/War of the Roses

The "Romance Combo". Blue Lagoon is the quintessential "young love" movie. War of the Roses is a married couple trying to kill each other.

The Passion of the Christ/Rosemary's Baby

Depictions of Christ's last days before crucifixion and the story of a woman who gives birth to the son of Satan. At least they are both religious movies.

If you can think of any other bad DVD combos post them in the comments below.