Re: [SWCollect] Rarity Scale

[Stephen Emond]

Rarity, value and desirability are all difficult things to measure with any accuracy - especially when relying on eBay for information.   For rarity knowing production numbers WOULD be great, but finding the original numbers would not be easy. It also wouldn't take into account how many copies exist today. It's hard to even imagine, but there are people out there who just toss old games in the dumpster - who would want a 25 year old game??? (Ok, you can put your hands down now...)   Value is something that could be more accurately measured but it would take a LOT of research. Values also have a way of hitting extreme highs and lows based on how the auctions are advertised, who sees them, who has the money at the time, etc, etc, etc. Again over time things would even themselves out but for some of the rarer "once or twice annually" games it would take a while to get an accurate picture. Video Games are also far easier to price than Computer Games. With VGs (for the most part) you only need to worry about the overall condition a minimal amount of contents: Cart/CD, Manual, and Box. Older CGs often had a LOT more - just open up any old Ultima. That leads to a lot more "incomplete" pricing. "Complete minus Ankh", "Complete minus Cloth Map", "Complete minus Ref Card"... Plus there are far more platforms and prints to consider. Most VGs see one or two (noticeably different) printings. How many different Ultima IIIs are there? They would have to be valued separately since some are worth more than others.   Desirability can skew things further. Some rare items might have very low desirability leading to lower prices than you’d expect. Supposedly the special Sega Mega Drive conversion of the original SMS Phantasy Star only had 1000 copies - and only in Japan. That’s a lot less than Mt. Drash. So in theory it should sell for a lot more right? Strangely they usually end around $100. Other games are more common than dirt, but so many people want them prices end up being a lot higher than they should be.     All these factors can make creating such a rarity / price guide difficult - but not impossible. I’d say the best way to create such a guide is to start with a database. Since everyone here has their own particular interests (Ultima, Sierra, Infocom, etc.) we could all contribute based on those interests. Useful fields could include:   - Game Title - Platform / Format (5.25” / 3.5” / CD / etc) - Version / Printing - Completeness - Overall Condition (to be useful this shouldn’t be too obsessive - I suggest a simplistic “Good / Fair / Poor” system with perhaps a separate option for shrinkwrap) - Auction # (reference only - to avoid information duplication) - Auction Date (to see how many copies turn up monthly / yearly) - Final Bid (obviously for determining value) - # of *Unique* Bidders (not counting multiple bids by same bidder - to help measure desirability)   As the database grows the fields could be sorted and price ranges could be determined (as well as means & medians based on various condition levels, etc). Factors such as shipping “to US only” (damned Americans), high S&H fees, high/low feedback, etc all affect final bids but all the games are subject to these same factors, so they’ll balance over time.   If there are any suggestions please add them. If there are volunteers to actually manage such a database, good luck :)  I’d actually consider starting a project like this but I’m already in the middle of two massive collector’s guides. A third would likely kill me.   Steve     ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Chisarick To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 6:54 AM Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Rarity Scale I love the idea. While a clever acronym I'm not sure what is more rare than 'unique', let alone what word starts with 's' that embodies that. I'd suggest just letting 's' stand for 'scale'. Of course then you run into usage like "ATM Machine" (where if you expand the acronym the sentence sounds silly). As for rarity assessment wouldn't production numbers be needed? I mean there are loads of worthless games out there that you never see on ebay because no one would buy them, not that they are uncommon. Also the effect of one game selling well tends to 'scare' other copies up for auction. Someone commented that its hard to find "Black Magic", but I found it in the first 30 days of looking. But its possible that if one or two of these sold that others may follow. Still, I don't think that stops us from taking a swing at it. Start with a list, and amend it over time. Its bound to be a little off until it gets some feedback into it. I'd humbly suggest the original Akalabeth and Mt. Drash would be "Oddity". Stuff like Starcross and Suspended would probably be "Imaginary". What'd be *incredibly* cool would be to get the grading scale and the rarity scale integrated into ebay :) They have drop-downs for lots of other things, why not this? On Jan 27, 2004, at 11:44 PM, Hugh Falk wrote: Hey guys,   This group has tackled the issue of a condition grading scale.  Does anybody think it’s worth trying to put together a rarity scale?  You know…to judge how common a game is.  I’d recommend we call is the CURIOUS scale:   Common Uncommon Rare Imaginary Oddity Unique Shameless placeholder to complete acronym     Seriously, there are a few sites that do this specifically for cartridge-based media, but wouldn’t it be nice to have one for our hobby?  How would we judge rarity?  We could poll the list of collectors for starters.  A place like Brad’s computer game collector site (http://www.computergamecollector.com) would be ideal for tracking this info if it was supported by most of us.  We could then add more subjective info like the number of times a game was spotted on eBay.  It would be great if we could actually track this as part of the DB.   Anyway, I know this is ambitious…a lot more ambitious than the condition grading scale, but what do you think?   Speaking of ambitious, I’ll be looking into hotel conference rooms this week.   Hugh