I am on a quest to try to figure out why this game is worth $500

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I am on a quest to try to figure out why this game is worth $500

Postby [Hyperize] on Sun Mar 28, 2021 2:32 pm

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This was a series of GameCube games... football, soccer, basketball and skateboarding. I had the soccer one growing up. Here is the price guide according to Amazon:

Skateboarding: $15
Soccer: $40
Football: $100
Baksetball: $450

They were all released in the same month... I thought perhaps basketball could've been the last released with few copies but that's not the case.
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Re: I am on a quest to try to figure out why this game is worth $500

Postby Andrew on Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:07 pm

I just searched for the game on eBay, and it's going for upwards of $1000 AUD, including postage. Sellers are describing it as "rare", and it looks to be an accurate description in this case. I've found a couple of articles talking about it. The first says this:

So, why is it so rare? This game is one that didn't receive great reviews, especially the GameCube version. Because of that, there were likely not a lot of copies sold. This means that a new copy of the game can cost $399 or more.


The reviews indeed weren't great, so it is very likely that there aren't that many sold copies now in circulation on the second-hand market. Another article notes that its price has increased over time, as people became aware of it as a rare collector's item:

In our our earlier guides, this game barely registered despite its rarity. You could easily find Disney Sports Basketball for between $10 and $30 through 2015. The collecting crowd finally caught on in 2017, when it started hitting its current range.


That suggests the cheap copies have been bought up, and as people have realised they've got a rare game and sought after collectible on their hands, the prices have continued to increase.
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Re: I am on a quest to try to figure out why this game is worth $500

Postby [Hyperize] on Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:46 am

Ohhh... I actually think I found my answer, and the bad review thing holds water.

The release dates I got from Disney Wiki were either wrong or referring to the GBA versions (all these got GBA versions, and the GBA got snowboarding and motocross as well).

Regarding North American releases, Soccer and Skateboarding were released first, thusly being the most common. Skateboarding is supposedly terrible while Soccer is passable, explaining why the former is cheaper than the latter. A month later Football hits... it's rare, but not in the same league as Basketball. By then, they were maybe deterred by the poor reviews of Skateboarding, but not enough to print as few copies as Basketball. So a month after that, Football is met with average reviews, Skateboarding is still stinking it up and they know they have an upcoming turd in Basketball so they print less of it lol... that's my guess. And by then, maybe they had enough data to know if the games weren't selling well... I would've assumed all of these to sell well though.
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Re: I am on a quest to try to figure out why this game is worth $500

Postby Andrew on Mon Apr 05, 2021 2:53 pm

It definitely adds up. It's rare, but there wasn't much interest until people realised how rare it was, and then the price went up as people try to capitalise on its value as a collectors' item. Often the way it goes.
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