Video games are something I’ve started out with as a toddler back in the mid 80s with an Atari 2600 playing Pac Man. I’d play the games caring nothing about the intrinsic value of any of these plastic cartridges would hold. Eventually a video game store called Funcoland knew something that the general public didn’t. These video games of ours will maintain some type of value. Later on in the future they’ll be renamed into GameStop and EB Games, and they’ll start removing older games and replacing them with current generation games. But, GameStop has come to realize that a lot of these older games are worth more than today’s games. I never knew video game collecting would become so valuable to so many people. Gamers who had given up their childhood gaming habits for, understandably, responsibilities now want to relive their childhood. I’m far gone from the nostalgia craze that may have left a long time ago in my 20s with me being almost 40 now. I’m more into current video games, but I stopped trading in my video games a long time ago after feeling ripped off for getting pennies for my Nintendo games at a Funcoland when I was eight years old. I still remember feeling the griminess after being almost giving away some of my favorite games away. Ever since then I haven’t wanted to give up my games. I have amassed a collection over 800 games, and I have few that are worth quite a bit. Here are my top 5 most expensive games:

1. Shantae and The Pirate’s Curse (sealed) ($564.30): I don’t remember exactly why I bought this game. I think I was in the crossfire between forum dialogue and reading gaming magazines touting the greatness of the Shantae series. I do remember paying the actual retail price of this for probably $30 -$40 because I would have not paid $500+ for this game since I’m not a fan of the series, and have never played one. I did test my luck by buying a few more Shantae games to see if they would appreciate in value, but collectors and resellers are already privy to what Shantae can do in the market of game collecting. Many have a copy of Shantae games these days.

2. Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra (sealed) ($298.33): Back in my teenage years, playing JRPGs was fitting for someone my age since many of the protagonists were around my age. I bought every JRPG I could afford working at Stop & Shop living with my parents including this game. I’ve only played a little bit of the first in the Xenosaga series. When I heard the game was over 80 hours I became intimidated by the amount of time I would have to dedicate. And this is the time when I started to realize I’m not going to be able to finish all the games I have. So I started to leave a lot of my PlayStation 2 games I had sealed, and I thought I’d eventually get around to them. That never happened with Xenosaga III. It started to appreciate in value over the years, and I decided to just keep it sealed. I’ll never grade it because I do believe there will be a remaster thus causing depreciation in value.

3. Final Fantasy XIV Collector’s Edition (sealed) ($228.75): The price of this game on EBay is selling between $7k - $8k. But, I’m going by price charting. This may be the most expensive game in my collection if I go by EBay prices. I bought this game as soon as it was released. I was so excited to play it, but it was such a fiasco that Square Enix took the servers and rebirthed Final Fantasy XIV to the successful MMORPG it is today. I played the most up to date version for a little while, but I didn’t want to get too involved with the game because I had more responsibilities in my life to take care of like school and work. This game may be the most expensive thing in my house, and I may never sale it.

4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (sealed) ($199.99): I bought this game at retail price hoping to get into the Trails of Cold Steel series. I never really liked the look of the character designs so it never really drew me in to play it. So I kept collecting the other games in the series because I had a hunch that these types of games would appreciate in value. They’re JPRGs, highly acclaimed, and their niche. That’s a recipe for a video game likely to appreciate in value.

5. Transistor (sealed) ($180.70): I love the come up story of Greg Kasavin going from video game editor to a video game designer of Super Giant Games. I played Bastion, and didn’t like the game all that much, but it was cool hearing narration during gameplay since it was considered a novelty back then. I never opened Transistor and probably never will because my support for Super Giant Games goes as far buying the games, and most likely never playing them. I did buy Hades which is also made by the same developers, and plan on getting Hades 2 just to show suppport.

According to price charting, my collection is about the price of a used mid ranged car that’s about five years old which is around $22k. My intention wasn’t to amass a collection this big, but to buy the games and hopefully get around to playing them. That doesn’t seem like it’s going to be possible with work. Retirement will be when I tackle a lot of these games. I may have retired from collecting with the forcing of the digital age upon us. I might buy the occasional video game here or there, but I don’t think I’ll be buying as many video games as I once did back in my 20s and 30s. However, writing this article has awoken a bit of a desire to at least go looking at some of the prices of others games that have potential to appreciate in value.