🖼️: 𝆺𝅥𝅮 How much is that Dogz 3 in the window?~𝆺𝅥𝅮

You're in your hometown high street. There is nothing here for you, a self identified 'gamer'. Nothing but CeX ^[1].

Following in the footsteps of the similarly horny Hard-Off^[2], CeX is an emporium of computer tat and unwanted disc-based media present in every British town, no matter how economically desolate. Most of the general public see it only as a pawn shop for smart phones, but it goes deeper than that.

Some quick points:

• founders include Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker (who also designed the logo)
• using the JustEat app, you can get a copy of FIFA18 for £1.15 delivered to your house within 30 minutes
• used to smell so strongly of B.O. it disuaded all but the most hardcore deal-seekers^[3]

When I needed an emergency copy of Mario Kart Wii for my birthday party, I confidently stepped into my nearest branch knowing I would be leaving with a £10 copy + chewed up Wii Wheel. You absolutely know what you're getting with CeX: 12 copies of Peter Kay Live^[4] and Petz: Monkey Madness on Wii for £1.

...except that's not always the case. See, CeX is also famous for something else.

In the window display, where they lock up their most alluring items, you'll often see something truly shocking.

🖼️: a christmas treat

#CeXwatch is a hashtag started by Bitsocket on twitter a few years ago where users share the fucked up pricetags on games in their local CeX, often with captions like "Jesus wept!"^[5],"I’m sorry what"^[6] and "Pokémon Blue is good but it's no that good"^[7]. These annecdotal reports from agents in the field really capture how fucked all this price stuff is to the normal CeX enjoyer.

As someone who has been casually tracking the creep in price of Pokemon Diamond (which I got as a kid from CeX for like £15 for my 6th birthday), I consider myself an reluctant detective for this issue. I'm not a collector, but someone who didn't get "new" games growing up, and had my early gaming experiences shaped by what was under £20 at CeX around my birthday each year. CeX is at it's best when you walk in with no idea what you want, and walk out with a bunch of affordable stuff to play: sometimes that'll be Pokemon Diamond, Mystery Dungeon or Mario Galaxy, and sometimes that's Lunar: Dragon Song^[8] and Sonic 06^[9].

There are actual sites that do track prices over time^[10], presumably to aid scalpers and "flippers", but they don't tell the whole story. I want to get to the bottom of these freak pricetags, and to understand not only what games actually are the most expensive in CeX, but also why. Beyond Rule of Rose, there's been next-to-no mainstream coverage of this insideous speculative market on our high streets.

I have scoured the entire CeX website for their most expensive games for each "retro" console^[11] and will present them to you here, along with my educated guesses as to why they cost That Much.

A few caveats:

• I will only cover games above £100, as that's far enough from the retail price to be a bit mental.
• This analysis will exclude special editions, bundles and other products that are purposefully scarce or made to be collectors items. I'm just interested in bog standard games.
• The main game I feature for each platform is not nessasarily the most expensive, but the one with a more inteesting story.

Okay let's go!

Playstation line

PS1

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night w/ manual, boxed

£595

The first of many Castlevanias (Castlevanii?) on this list. I can't explain exactly why this game costs almost £600, but i can walk you through the factors that contributed to "the Market" deciding it should be.

Firstly, the series: Castlevania is a very popular multimedia franchise around the world. It's had official english language releases since the 80s, and left it's mark on gaming as one half of the 'metroidvania' genre. At the same time, Simon Castlevania isn't like, Mario levels of famous. This is emo nerd shit. As such, the number of copies produced for each title in the series is lower than the current demand for them, which has been multiplied by the internet and stuff like the anime.

Symphony of the Night itself is a return to form after they tried some funky 3D shit. It wasn't regarded as particularly amazing at the time, but the combination of above factors have made it become known as cult classic.

PS2

Rule of Rose, UK packaging, mint

£225

This is the most infamous Expensive Game. Much has been written on it, so I won't go on about it here; but basically, it's a pretty good J-horror game that got pulled from shelves in Europe because of a moral panic, and thus became Very Rare.

Special mentions: Silent Hill Origins (£135), Project Zero 3 (£190), King's Field IV (£170)

PS4

Godzilla

£275

(skipping right past the PS3 as it has no collectable games)

Godzilla was a PS4 exclusive and borderline kusoge: reviews panned it and it wasn't fun. It ended up getting one printing before the publishers decided to let the agreement with rightholders Toho lapse. When this happened, it was delisted from the Playstation Store as well. If you didn't already have it downloaded, or owned one of the few disc copies, you had no way to play it.

This caused the discs to immediately become sought after by both PS4 collectors and Godzilla fans. Demand from these two parties caused prices to rise.

Special mention: Tokyo Xanadu eX+ w/ manual, PEGI rated (£365)

PSP

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 w/ manual

£165

The first of many Shin Megami Tensei games on this list, a super popular series both in otaku and normie spaces. My theory as to why this series is so expensive secondhand relates to how publishers historically underestimated the numbers of foreign otaku: if something has anime on it, Americans will not buy it. Obviously we know this is stupid now, when everyone and their dad is doing "japan trips" and big name musicians rap about yaoi.^[12] But there was a time when anything openly anime or cute was considered 'sissy nerd shit' by default and limited to small releases (if at all).

Persona 2 was released in 1999 on the Playstation: that is, in Japan only. Because of all the above (plus a storyline featuring Actual Hitler) it didn't come to the west until this remake 12 years later.

I can't comment on the size of the print run, but with it being on the PSP + an otaku game, I can't imagine it being huge. Now SMT has a big western cult following, and late-to-the-party international fans fighting over the few english language copies has increased the price.

PS Vita

Silent Hill: Book of Memories

£110

This isn't the first time a Silent Hill game appeared on this list, and it won't be the last. Like SMT, Silent Hill has a cult following that's been slowly growing over the decades in the west, and the audience is now much larger than at release. Add to that a small print run and yeah, I guess I can see this being £110.

Special mention: Persona 4: Dancing All Night DF Edition w/ 2x CD keychain, pouch (£110)

Sega line

Master System

Buggy Run w/o manual, boxed

£230

This europe-only racing game was released in 1993, towards the very end of the Master System's life cycle. Few copies in circulation has increased the market price.

If I could make a Master System racing game impossibly expensive to aquire, I'd choose Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II.

Mega Drive

Pirates of Dark Water, w/o manual, boxed

£345

This is a tie-in game for a Hanna Barbera cartoon, both of which have mixed reviews. At the same time, biiiiiiig nostalgia posting going on on reddit about this. There were a lot of copies printed, but the sheer force of nostalgia has driven up the prices.

Special mention: Castlevania New Generation, w/o manual, boxed (£130)

Sega CD

Shining Force CD, w/ manual, boxed

£350

Shining Force CD is considered one of the best games on the system, which is refreshing after so many games being considered 'valuable' purely on the basis of their brand name. This collection of dense JRPGs was translated and release in english and german a year after coming out in Japan. I can't say if this was 'rare' in terms of copies available, but demand is high enough for there to be many fakes circulating.

Sega Saturn

Panzer Dragoon Saga (4 disc) w/ manual, boxed (w/ cardboard sleeve)

£695

The story of this game's development is completely insane. It was pushed internally by SEGA as their answer to Final Fantasy Vii, and ended up being like no RPG before or since. Two staff members were killed by stress, the atmosphere in the studio was fraught and there were constant creative disagreements. What resulted from this enviroment was a cult hit and the most expensive game on this list.

Panzer Dragoon Saga sold between 20-30k copies in America. In Europe, a mere 1,000 copies were printed. By the time of the international release SEGA had more or less given up on promoting it, as their focus had fully switched to the Dreamcast. It was never rereleased.

With all that, I can definitely see why people are willing to pay this much for it. Even I considered buying it lol.

Special mention: Enemy Zero (4 disc) w/ manual, boxed (£195)

Dreamcast

Dragon Riders: Chronicals of Pern w/ manual, boxed

£130

Let's play rare game bingo! This has

• UK only release
• kusoge
• established non-gaming fandom to fight over copies

Dragon Riders is an adaptation of a book series I've never heard of. Developed by Ubi Studios UK in Oxford, for whom this was their Biggest Game. Apparently it's not good enough for anyone outside the UK, even though the author is American?

Special mention: Sonic Shuffle w/ manual, boxed (£185)

Microsoft

Xbox

Castlevania Curse of Darkness w/ manual, boxed

£140

It's Castlevania again! Everything I said for the first one still applies here.

Xbox 360

My Horse & Me 2 w/ manual

£145

Now this is one of those games you'd see in your local CeX shop window and go "why the fuck is My Horse & Me 2 worth that much".

The boring answer is, as usual, it had a very limited print run. What complicates this is a new kind of collector that this console spawned; the Achievement Hunter. The Xbox 360 has achievements for completing various in-game actions: defeating bosses, collecting all the gear, etc. The story based AAA ones are really funny because something serious like your daughter dying will be interrupted by a popup going "Achievement Unlocked- 30G Watched Your Daughter Die".

To the acheivement hunters, My Horse & Me 2 is a shitty game with some comparatively easy achievements. It's also a physical-only release european release, and a low print number at that.

What made me sad while researching is I found multiple forums dedicated to horse riding, and horses in games, where women were desparately asking how to play their childhood game again. They were excitedly talking about this so-called "shitty, easy" game as something that meant a lot to them as horse girls. When one of these people would stray into more Achievement Hunter-y spaces, they'd be bluntly told to emulate it. Most people don't know how to emulate a 360! Shut up!!!! I hope a horse kicks all these "collectors" in the head.

Special mention: Blades of Time, mint (£170)

Nintendo

NES

Action in New York w/o manual, boxed

£130

A UK exclusive release. It was called S.C.A.T. in America? No wonder they want our version.

Special mention: Castlevania w/o manual, boxed (£130)

SNES

Terranigma w/ manual, boxed

£395

European release of a JRPG that didn't get a US release. It came in a big box with a pretty guide, like all RPGs should. Apparently bootlegs have helped balance out the "market".

Virtual Boy

Nester's Funky Bowling US, unboxed

£105

One of the last two games released for the Virtual Boy in the US, thus a low print run for an already unpopular console. Apparently it's not that great.

Nintendo 64

Mario Party 3 w/ manual, boxed

£295

Not rare by the standards of this list, just came out late in the console's lifespan and has high demand from Mario collectors. The European release is especially sought after, and having it come with the manual increases the asking price by over £100. Basically this is just pure scalper bullshit.

Special mentions: Conker's Bad Fur Day w/ manual, boxed (£280), Bass Hunter 65 w/o manual, boxed (£140)

Gamecube

Gadget Racers w/o manual, boxed

£470

This is the European version of ChoroQ (basically Hotwheels in Japan). It's only this version that's stupidly expensive, with the American edition costing like £12 secondhand. In mint condition it goes for £695, which would make it the joint most expensive game on this list. But unlike Panzer Dragoon Saga's historic JRPG status, Gadget Racers seems to cost this much because of a small EU print run and nothing else. It's not particularly good, and you can play it on other consoles and regions just fine. It costs this much because some scalpers say it does. Fucked. Hate this.

Special mentions: Frogger Beyond w/ manual, boxed (£350), Flushed Away w/manual, boxed (£125)

Wii

Silent Hill Shattered Memories

£72

Nothing majorly shocking on CeX right now, which is surprising to me: I expected Pandora's Tower and The Last Story and such to be up here. Only the Guitar Hero full band set breaks the £100 mark.

It's a Silent Hill game, late in the console's lifespan, and had a lower-than-average print run. At this point in the list, I surprised it's not £200 or some shit.

Wii U

Shmup Collection

£175

Pleasantly surprised this was even released in the west. Shmups are such a Japanese genre it's no wonder this only got a limited European release.

Game Boy

Castlevania ii: Belmont's Revenge w/o manual, boxed

£295

It's our old pal Castlevania again!

We've also got the original Pokemon games here, which range in price between £90 to £160 and are a staple of the CeX shop window.

Game Boy Colour

Pokemon Puzzle Challenge w/ manual, boxed

£295

We stand right on the precipice of Total Pokemon Bullshit. Unboxed this shoots right down to £20, so you're effectively paying £275 for special paper.

Pokemon Gold and Silver are £160 and £195 respectively. Remember that for later.

Special mention: Metal Gear Solid w/ manual, boxed (£160)

Game Boy Advance

Pokemon Emerald w/ manual, boxed

£325

This inflation bullshit drives me mad. English language Pokemon copies exist in the tens of millions, and yet if some "collector" is willing to pay £300 for a copy then that's what it ends up costing. There is no explaination for this price beyond greed.

I'd love to find a way to churn out 'bootleg' copies with working internal batteries (the main telltale sign of a fake is a dead battery) and flood the market with them. Who cares if your little piece of plastic and circuitry from China is different from my little piece of plastic and circuitry from China.

Special mention: Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance w/o manual, boxed (£130)

Nintendo DS

Pokemon HeartGold & Soulsilver w/ pokewalker, manual, outer box and insert

£245

Remember Gold and Silver from two entries ago? Well, they've got remakes now! This should make them more accessible- oh. Oh no. Oh god no.

How a remake me and all my poor friends had at school could be more expensive than the game it's based on is... pure market bullshit. I still have the box and pokewalker and such in good condition. Well, I think the pokewalker is in a box under my bed or something. Maybe I'm sitting on gold (well, SoulSilver) but all I can think of is how much fun I had biking around my small town, Pokewalker swinging from the handlebars, like I was hatching eggs outside the daycare. You can't put a price on that, but these chuds think that's about £250.

Special mention: Dementium ii w/ manual (£180)

Nintendo 3DS

Shin Megami Tensei iv: Apocolypse

£130

Circling back round to our old friend SMT again. No crazy prices to be found here, even for the Pokemon games. I guess the sweet spot for collectors is the GBA-NDS era, which probably aligns with when they were kids. Maybe S&M will shoot up in price once zoomers get disposable income?

Special mention: Etrian Odyssey V Beyond the Myth w/ manual (£125)

In conclusion

There were a few surprises in there, like Panzer Dragoon Saga, but mostly it's just random entries in popular franchises. I really was hoping there'd be more unique titles or like, odd shit.

Things like western sales data and print runs aren't known, and there's very little information out there on how 'rare' these games actually are. Researching this involved me searcing "(game title) rare" and trusting the reddit thread where some guy says "yeah it had a low print run".

It's all just spin, basically. If you can get out there the idea that the European release of Shrek the Third is super rare (and maybe buy out all the online copies), you're definitely in with a chance of boosting its market value. This whole scene is ripe for manipulation, like NFTs or Beanie Babies.

Now retro emulation is so accessbile and entire modern handhelds are made for that purpose, original hardware is actually dead cheap. You can get a 3DS for £30. Anyone who was buying these games just to play them has long been filtered out by the convenience of emulation and the expense of carts/discs, leaving only the maddest bastards buying physical copies.

To me, bootlegs of these games are like lab diamonds. I'd rather have a working Pokemon game than one that costs £150 because some chuds who collect toys like they're businessmen decided it should be. That's blood diamond shit and I do not want to monitarily support that "industry". I hope all their discs rot and their internal batteries die.