I've missed these kind of threads. I wasn't even aware prices had risen. Has it gone up a lot? Is there something I can do about it? Should I sell all my games now? If Covid One Nine goes away, does everything drop? I need to know, because I don't want to get stuck with all these games if the bubble pops. They would only be good for drinking beer with friends as we stare at them.

There are differences. A couple years before the remakes, I remember watching a sale of an MM at a tournament in Maine (yeah, people in the northeast know where I mean). I was stunned at the price, but both the seller and the buyer were happy with it. I even helped the guy load it. After I asked the wise old pinhead WTF was with that price. His answer was very appropriate at the time... “They ain’t making any more of them”. It was so true, until it wasn’t.

The difference between then and now is that JJP is still a viable business. And someone in that business is good at math. And there is a simple equation that contains price, demand, costs to build, costs to license, good will, opportunity cost, and the actual number of games they think they could sell (which is different from demand). And if that equation tips towards the positive, there will suddenly be more copies of Pirates that lower the current value of the games.

You’re probably right. I only say “probably” because I don’t think there is a big enough market for classic SS games like the old Bally and Stern games. Personally I’d love if there was, but realistically they wouldn’t sell enough remakes to balance the cost structure. But then again, I said the same thing before Stern did that run of Iron Man.