Quoted from Fytr:Nice. This is why the "hobby" has been destroyed.
It used to be a guy could scan the ads on the weekend over a slow coffee and be excited by the possibility of finding someone's "trash" that would be their next "treasure". Some old routed game that's already lived 5 lives but that you could see the potential in, bring it home for "fun money", and invest a little more and lots of elbow grease and make something out of it. Nowadays the hunt is all but dead, every game is scooped by large flippers with bots monitoring the ads, and if your old game isn't a 100% restored with a bunch of shit it never had in the first place (LEDs, CC playfield, colour DMD) it's a "POS".
Money ruins everything.
If “hobby” means financial gain then I agree. It’s all but dead.
Another factor is that grandma can google now too so she won’t accept 10% of value (and perhaps sellers getting near what games are worth is not so bad either).
However, if you mean “collector”, someone who bought cheap, fixed up and kept as part of their collection then there is still justice in the world. Since the value of these games have gone up along with the market, collectors can sell and still buy in the market since they were part of the market. This remains true even if games go to 50K per and beyond.
If you are relatively new, then of course you can’t expect to have the same advantages as those who have been in the market for many years. This is true for everything including cars and Tesla stock so everyone should be at peace with that.
Supply and demand economics is not some evil force attacking us but rather the sum total of all our human desires. This is to say that ultimately things might be closer to how they should be than most people think.
Edmonton, AB
I have a HoH preordered with P1 for the next run. I only have 
