I think the other side of this discussion that hasn't come up is how its actually the DISTRIBUTORS who should be more upset about this whole situation than anyone.

Their hands are tied (on most titles) for prices by the manufacturers. Every Stern LE that they are obligated to sell at MSRP and then watch it instantly flipped for a sizeable profit is money taken OFF of their family dinner table. This might be a temporary phenomenon but at this moment it is very real and the numbers are very large.

If I am a distributor and I get 10 LE spots and 8 of those buyers flip for 5,000 over MSRP before they even open a box or in many cases even take delivery, well you can do the math of how much the distributor is losing out on. If I am understanding correctly this is the side of the coin that feels a lot more like parasitic behavior. Willing buyers are willing buyers. People left out in the cold on NIB at MSRP are just that. Distributors are losing out on massive profit in this current environment. That might be the real travesty here.

Some seem to have found a "loophole" of sorts like Zach selling NIB Stern LE's well over sticker because he "took it in on trade". I am not trying to pick on Zach but does anyone (Stern) actually police that? How many **Wink Wink Nod Nod** NIB current run Stern titles can one "take in on trade" before raising suspicion? Seems like it would be laughably easy as a distributor to exploit this option. "sell the machine" to Uncle Joe at MSRP, file the paperwork, then sell the game to someone else on behalf of Uncle Joe on the open market because Uncle Joe traded me for an old game that no one can track, no one ever needs to see or has a right to see and is already off my inventory and off the books.

Again, I don't fault anyone in that scenario but it does seem like a pretty clever little way to get in on the frenzy as a distributor instead of sitting empty handed watching your down stream customers capture that cashflow.

Totally agree with you here that MSRP is incorrectly set which is exactly why the distributors are the ones hurt in this equation (as well as the manufacturers who haven't quite kept their price hikes up at the pace of the market).

The margins would be more fairly and appropriately aligned to the distributor if the manufacturer simply caught up with the price hikes. The Distributors hands are tied from hiking the price unilaterally so they are stuck between a rock (price ceiling) and a hard place (watching scalpers capitalize on margins that should belong to the distributor).

Either Stern and others need to jack their prices up more or they need to take the cuffs off the distributors and allow for "market adjustments" like the auto industry does. That restores the balance and would eliminate ALL of the ill will that goes around in these threads all the time.

scalpers add insult to injury every time they call their distributor and say " Hey bud, I decided to pass on Godzilla LE but I did you a solid and found another buyer, here is their info, just ship it to them and we are all square, catch ya next time!" and at the same time pocket wads of cash for nothing but passing through the responsibility of delivery to a person who wasn't even the distributors customer.