When you're standing in front of a bin of loose games at a thrift store, you usually can't scan everything. You need a fast way to decide what's worth your time. So I pulled the numbers from our own database: market prices on more than 66,000 video game titles, plus about 360,000 real game flips logged by Flippr users. It turns out the genre printed on the back of the case is one of the best predictors of value there is.
The numbers
Here's the median loose price (the disc or cartridge only, no box or manual) by genre across our dataset. Median matters more than average here because a few $500 rarities can drag an average anywhere.
- Shoot'em ups (think Ikaruga, old-school arcade shooters): $30.09 median
- RPGs: $20.03 median
- Consoles and systems: $149.23 median
- Platformers: $18.41 median
- Fighting games: $17.33 median
- First-person shooters: $9.75 median
- Racing games: $9.99 median
- Sports games: $7.66 median, dead last
The spread is bigger than most people expect. A random RPG is worth about two and a half times a random sports game. A shoot'em up is worth almost four times as much. And this isn't a small sample. The sports category alone covers nearly 2,800 titles.
Why sports games sink
The reason is simple supply and demand. Sports games were printed in enormous numbers, and each new year's edition makes the old one obsolete. Nobody is hunting for Madden 08. Meanwhile RPGs and niche shooters had smaller print runs and the people who want them today really want them. The game didn't get worse. The demand just never left.
What this means at the store
- Skip the wall of sports and racing titles unless something is sealed or unusual. The median says most of them are $8-10 games before fees and shipping.
- Slow down on RPGs, platformers, fighting games, and anything that looks like an arcade shooter. That's where the medians live above $17.
- Never walk past a console. Systems have a median value near $150, and even incomplete ones sell for parts.
- Condition still matters. In our sold-listings data, a brand new copy sells for a median of $27.95 versus $14.95 pre-owned. Sealed is nearly double.
The bigger point
Across the 360,000 game flips our users have logged, the average profit per game is $18.88 and the median is $10.13. Games are already one of the strongest categories in reselling. Knowing which shelf to start with just makes the same hour of sourcing worth more. When you can scan, scan. Flippr will price the whole shelf from one photo. But when you can't, let the genre do the first pass for you.
The genre on the back of the case is a price tag most people never read.