Retro gaming's nostalgia-fuelled evolution from niche hobby to global subculture
How "obsolete" video games and consoles became collectors' items. And why bad games are often so valuable.
中文版
This is Mick "Intrepid Class Gaming" Burrows.
A sparky by day, the 46-year-old Melburnian reckons he has one of the biggest private retro gaming collections in Australia.
His home is like a video game museum.
Across three rooms, shelves reach high up the walls, stacked with hundreds of consoles and thousands and thousands of games, handhelds, toys, controllers, marketing materials and more.
In his overflowing "main" gaming room is the set-up of a '90s kid's dreams.
This is where he and his mates play his classic consoles — he's got everything from Atari 2600s to Sega Dreamcasts — on any one of five CRT televisions.
All while reclining on a couch with feet on a coffee table shaped like a giant Super Nintendo controller.
From trash to treasure
Not so long ago, old video games and consoles were the kind of thing you found in hard rubbish — or maybe at a garage sale, wedged between a broken Breville jaffle maker and a box of VHS tapes.
Now, they're collectibles. Sometimes extremely valuable ones.
Retro gaming has grown from niche hobby to global subculture with online forums, YouTube channels and pandemic boredom helping push prices sky-high.
A handful of rarities still sealed with plastic or stickers from the factory have even sold for millions, though not without controversy over whether such sales reflect genuine value or hype-fuelled speculation.
Some of Mick Burrows's Game Boy collection. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser )
Over the past 30 years, Burrows has seen this evolution firsthand.
He first started collecting as a teenager in the late 1990s while working at a video game store.
"I used to go to markets and pick up, like, a Game Boy console for $5 or $10," he says.
"The games were like a dollar, because no-one wanted them.
"I would buy a lot of the consoles off friends as soon as the next gen came out, because they didn't want them anymore. That's what people did back then. As soon as a new console came out [mimes chucking-away motion] off went the old one.
"But now everybody's keeping their old stuff because sometimes it's worth more than the new consoles."
A wall of games in Burrows's retro gaming collection. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser )
Burrows playing on a Nintendo64 kiosk. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser )
Burrows says his collection was inspired by a visit to the famous Smithsonian museum in the US in 2003.
"I saw these old consoles in glass cabinets with little plaques and thought, 'I need to actually collect and display all this stuff'," he says.
"So that's what I did when I came back, and it just sort of cascaded. A lot."
For Burrows, collecting is like an "addiction".
"Once you've got it, you put it on the shelf and you're just like, 'What's the next thing?'" he says.
Retro gaming's rise
US-based collectibles consultant Shawn Surmick, best known for his YouTube channel Reserved Investments, says an underground scene for retro gaming first emerged in the late 1990s.
"Video game systems started getting into these predictable cycles, where every couple of years new hardware would be released and the old hardware would pretty much become obsolete," he says.
"People got nostalgic and said, 'Wait a minute, I still want to play these old games.'"
Super Mario Bros from 1985 is one of the most popular games of all time. ( Supplied: Nintendo )
As collectors grew more organised, they began to catalogue games and online forums and platforms like eBay helped solidify a market.
"Before [the internet], the market was fragmented. You had to go to specialty retailers, thrift shops or flea markets to find this stuff," Surmick says.
"With eBay, everybody could see what games were selling for."
In the late 2000s and 2010s, YouTubers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and social media further popularised the hobby.
Then, in 2018, grading company Wata Games arrived on the scene.
Grading involves getting an expert to examine a game's condition and provide a standardised grade before encasing it in a protective plastic case.
Surmick says Wata wasn't the first company to offer grading services, but its founders were more vocal about the potential for video games as the next big thing in collectibles.
Then came the boom.
'A nostalgia-fuelled binge'
In 2019, a copy of Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo Entertainment System — graded by Wata — sold for $US100,000 ($154,000).
Purchased by a group that included one of the founders of collectibles auctioneer Heritage Auctions, it tripled the previous record and made news all over the world.
An ultra-rare copy of Super Mario Bros for NES that sold for $US100,000 in February 2019. ( Supplied: Wata Games )
Surmick says the "pristine-condition" game was among the first copies sold in the US — indicated by the use of a sticker seal rather than plastic wrap.
Prices exploded and speculators piled in.
"Everybody caught on the bandwagon," Surmick says.
The pandemic added more fuel, with rare "factory-sealed" games selling for higher and higher prices.
"Everybody was stuck indoors, everybody had money and everybody was on a nostalgia-fuelled binge."
Prices for retro video games skyrocketed during the pandemic. ( ABC News: John Graham )
The high-water mark was reached in August 2021 with the sale of a different copy of Super Mario Bros — graded in even better condition — for $US2 million.
Meanwhile, several journalists and YouTubers accused Wata and collectibles auctioneer Heritage Auctions of deliberately manipulating the retro games market for their own financial benefit, which the companies denied.
In 2022, dissatisfied customers filed a class action lawsuit against Wata, alleging it and Heritage artificially inflated a bubble while Wata failed to live up to promised delivery times on its grading services.
However, the case has since largely collapsed.
"Last year, the court in the WATA case ordered plaintiffs to remove the entire section of their complaint alleging market manipulation and referencing Heritage and its principals, because plaintiffs presented no evidence upon which they could have a valid legal claim," a spokesperson for Heritage told the ABC.
The case against Wata over the delivery times is continuing.
Neither Wata nor the plaintiffs' lawyers responded to the ABC's requests for comment.
Surmick says he and others had expressed concerns early on that the market was experiencing a bubble.
"Lo and behold, what happened after the COVID money dried up, after everybody was able to go outside? The price of a lot of this stuff came crashing down," he said.
"Does that mean video games don't have collectability? No, they do.
"People love this stuff. People will still buy loose carts. It just means the market got overheated. Now there's a pullback, at least with the high-end graded stuff."
Keeping the old hardware alive
Kon Milonakos runs retro game store Collectors Quest in the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough.
He says past generations of games and consoles continue to gain value in "waves" as the people who played them as children hit their 30s or 40s.
"When they've got a little bit more time, a little bit more disposable income," he says.
Collectors Quest sells a range of collectibles but mainly video games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Many of the second-hand games at Collectors Quest cost hundreds of dollars. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Kon Milonakos says Nintendo GameCube games are particularly popular at the moment. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
The PlayStation 2 has a huge selection of games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
The consoles he sells vary widely in price, with most around a couple of hundred dollars and rarer special editions going up from there.
He says the systems of the late '90s and early 2000s have most recently become popular.
Nintendo's Nintendo64 and GameCube and Microsoft's original Xbox are all big sellers but the PlayStation 2 — with its wide selection of games — is the "king".
"It won't be long before the generations after that start to catch up as well," he says.
He says in terms of genres, anything to do with Pokemon is always popular "regardless of the console, the system, the generation".
"Horror games are too, your Silent Hills for example, and any Japanese RPGs."
People in the "furries" fandom also have a particular interest in any games featuring anthropomorphic animals, he adds.
Nintendo64 consoles at Collectors Quest. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
A pile of NES controllers at Collectors Quest. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Kon Milakanos with a life-size statue of Link from Zelda. ( Supplied )
Independent shops specialising in retro video gaming have been popping up all over Australia.
Even major retailers have taken notice, with EB Games this year getting into the second-hand retro market.
Milonakos says part of his motivation to open Collectors Quest was to "keep the old vintage stuff alive".
He and his staff spend much of their time refurbishing consoles — cleaning, testing, repairing — and resurfacing old game disks.
He notes that game cartridges are remarkably robust.
"We had one that we're sure was run over by a car that still worked," he says.
While it's possible to play most retro games on modern hardware using emulators, Milonakos says it's just not the same.
"Nothing beats holding the original in your hand and having it almost transport you back to your childhood," he says.
"And I think that's what a lot of collectors really are after."
'Burning nostalgia'
Scarlett Noorman, an assistant lecturer in games and immersive media at Monash University, is one of those collectors who got into retro games during Melbourne's lockdowns.
She says she started off buying the titles she remembered renting from Blockbuster back in the day.
"There was always this sort of burning nostalgia for the games that I played as a kid."
Retro video game collector Scarlett Noorman. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Noorman's collection of PlayStation 2 games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Light guns for playing video games on the Sega Dreamcast. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Noorman's video game controllers. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
For her, the physicality of the games is part of the appeal.
"I love having a physical disc or cartridge to hold in your hands, to look at the artwork, to put it in the system and boot it up.
"It makes me feel like I'm a kid again."
Scarlett Noorman found her CRT television on the side of the road. ( Supplied )
Like Mick Burrows, Noorman has an old cathode ray tube (CRT) television, which she says not only provides a more authentic gaming experience but also displays retro games better than modern flat screens.
With demand from retro gamers, prices for good-quality working CRTs online and in second-hand stores have been increasing.
"Thankfully, I found mine in hard rubbish," Noorman says.
Scarlett Noorman's Sega Dreamcast. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Noorman with a copy of Tokyo Bus Guide. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Noorman says the games she likes best are offbeat simulations.
Her favourite? Tokyo Bus Guide — a Japanese bus driving simulator where players must follow traffic rules exactly or be brutally penalised.
"It's so unbearably difficult … but I love being able to just sit there and absolutely zone out to these low-resolution environments of Tokyo and drive a bus."
Tokyo's Akihabara district is well-known for its huge retro video gaming stores. ( Supplied )
A shelf of games and consoles in Japan. ( Supplied )
Four of the games Scarlett Noorman bought during a trip to Japan. ( Supplied )
Noorman found a rare Wavebird controller for the Nintendo GameCube in a shop in Japan. ( Supplied )
Like many retro game collectors, Noorman has travelled to the mecca of retro games, Japan, but she's also scoured shops in the US, Canada and New Zealand.
"Sometimes the shop won't realise a game's value to collectors," she says.
"They'll price them like junk, and you get a really great deal.
"For me, there is absolutely no feeling in the world quite like finding a good deal on a game."
Collecting Australiana video games
Sam Crowther, from a town in regional Victoria, has fond memories of playing video games as a child, but he considers himself more a collector than a gamer.
He says heading to a garage sale or seeing a good bargain gets his blood pumping.
"The endorphin rush is very real," he says.
"I'm 100 per cent a junkie … in a collector sense."
Sam Crowther with a Game Boy as a child and as an adult. ( Supplied / ABC News: Will Jackson )
Over the years, he has managed to track down every "Oz-coded" Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System title, including obscure variants, packaging revisions and region-specific oddities.
Probably Crowther's most valuable game is a never-opened Australian-release copy of Super Mario Bros 3, still sealed with an intact foil sticker.
Wildly popular and considered a landmark title, a US factory-sealed copy has sold for more than $100,000.
Sam Crowther with his copy of Super Mario Bros 3. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett )
Crowther reckons he probably got his copy off eBay for less than $100 but doesn't remember specifically when.
He did most of his game collecting between the early 2000s and mid-2010s — before sealed games were considered so valuable.
"There were lots of things that I was able to find that people today are looking for and are much harder to find or much more expensive," he says.
One of Crowther's rare Australian exclusives is Agro Soar, featuring the eponymous Cartoon Connection puppet.
It was developed for Game Boy by Melbourne's Beam Software in 1993.
But rather than building the game from scratch, they just ported, or rebranded, another title, Baby T-Rex, which they released in Europe.
"Essentially, they just swapped out the sprite for Agro," he says.
Agro Soar was a port of Baby T-Rex, which was released in Europe. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett )
Sam says it isn't a good game — he has only played it once or twice — but according to price-tracking sites, a good-quality copy is worth more than $1,000.
"It's very sought-after by collectors here in Australia and internationally," he says.
When bad games become collector gold
It's one of the quirks of the retro games market that some of the most expensive games are those that were commercial flops on release.
Jason Ashman, owner of Icarus Tech Games in Melbourne's north, says the title My Horse and Me 2 released in 2008 for the Xbox 360 is a classic example.
"It's atrocious," Ashman says.
"It looks terrible, the controls barely work … it's shovelware."
A copy of My Horse and Me 2 on Xbox 360. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Despite that, copies in their original boxes can sell for hundreds of dollars.
Ashman says commercially unsuccessful games tended to get shorter print runs than popular games.
My Horse and Me 2 was also only released on Xbox 360 in Europe.
"The unfortunate thing about collecting is that most of the really expensive retro games [are the ones] you probably would never want to play," he says.
"But if you're in that collector mindset and you want to have the number to tick up, it's something you have to justify."
Jason Ashman opened Icarus Tech Games in Melbourne about six months ago. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
A range of retro video gaming consoles is available at Icarus Tech Games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Ashman says Icarus Tech Games is intended to be a hub for retro gamers. ( ABC News: Will Jackson )
Ashman says the games he sells range from a few dollars for common titles up to as much as $1,000 for rarities.
The condition of an item makes a huge difference — any damage torpedoes the price with mint examples in their original boxes, or even sealed in plastic from the factory, worth exponentially more.
However, hardcore collectors only make up a small proportion of his customers, he says.
Most are just excited to get back into the games they played when they were younger — and share them with their own children.
"I'm very much the same," he says. "I love playing these games with my kids as well.
"It's very heartwarming to see that kind of thing."
Retro gaming under a cloud
While the games of previous generations are enjoying a renaissance, the future of the hobby is uncertain.
Physical games are becoming rarer as more and more publishers move towards an online-only model where gamers buy — or even just rent — the right to play games downloaded or streamed from the cloud.
Movements like "Stop Killing Games" have emerged in a bid to force publishers to provide ways for consumers to keep playing their games once online support has been discontinued.
Games on the latest generation of consoles are normally downloaded or played online. ( Supplied: PixieMe - stock.adobe.com )
Frank Cifaldi, director of the US-based Video Game History Foundation, says the shift presents serious challenges not just for collectors, but for history itself.
In the US, laws prevent libraries from providing remote access to archived games even if there's no way to buy them anymore.
Cifaldi says the only legal way to access many old games in the US is to find the original hardware and a second-hand copy and hope it still works.
In some circles, Citizen Kane is still regarded as the best movie ever made. ( IMDB )
He says it's like if Citizen Kane were only ever released on VHS — and the only way to watch it now was to hunt down a working VCR and an intact tape.
For purely online games or those that are constantly being updated — like World of Warcraft, Farmville or No Man's Sky — preservation gets even more complex.
It's not about just trying to save the games' code, Cifaldi says.
"It might make more sense to preserve the stories, you know, the oral history of its players and its creators, video and photo and things like that."
World of Warcraft has been continually updated throughout its history. ( Supplied: Blizzard Entertainment )
Mobile games like Farmville are difficult to archive. ( Supplied: Zynga )
Regardless of whether physical games disappear, Jason Ashman from Icarus Games says he believes the retro video game cycle will continue.
Nostalgia will always bring people back to the games they played as children, he says.
"In 25 years, people are going to be paying some ridiculous sum for a game on the PlayStation 5 the same way they do for My Horse and Me 2 on Xbox 360 now."
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Melbourne-based filmmaker Kristina Kraskov followed six teenagers on the road to the 2023 edition of the competition in Florida, for her first feature documentary, Spreadsheet Champions. It's been billed as a "heartwarming tale of formulas and friendship". It's certainly a quirky subject for a low-budget documentary and Kraskov says it's ultimately a lovely human story. "We find out what can happen when you just allow yourself to love what you love and you really go for your dreams, despite what everyone else thinks," she said. Spreadsheet Champions had its world premiere at SXSW in the US in March and will screen at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August. The filmmaker travelled the world to interview Excel national champions in the USA, Greece, Guatemala, Cameroon, Australia and Vietnam. For some of them, winning in the US equals life-changing offers of jobs, scholarships and better housing. Australia's entry, Queensland high school student Braydon, openly admits he didn't do much training before taking out the national titles. "I kind of just winged it, then won it," he said. His campaign for the global title involved a week of practice. The laid-back 17-year-old says he wouldn't describe himself as a nerd or a geek because he believes there's too much negativity about people who are good at technology and computers. "It's important to recognise that the people who call others "nerds" or "geeks" really just aren't able to do what they want with technology themselves," he said. So for those like Braydon who have the ability, what does it take to become global champion of the cells? As well as building spreadsheets, competitors were also tested on their ability to find data hidden in documents - and remember the dates of important program updates. While even an accountant might only use about 20 per cent of Excel's capabilities, those vying for spreadsheet glory also need to know almost everything the program can do, Kraskov explained. "They're solving different problems and they're being marked on speed and accuracy, so they have to be really fast. They can't make mistakes," she said. Kraskov, 31, has worked for various Australian television productions including Emergency (Nine), The Dog House Australia (Ten) and Dancing with the Stars (Seven). Experienced at capturing the action for these shows, she filmed Spreadsheet Champions with a two-person crew and gear that would fit in a backpack - only to discover the challenges of filming in tropical humidity in Vietnam. "I was a bit freaked out at how much my lens would fog up ... it was just me on the camera, so I had to not panic and get it done." The production received Screen Australia and VicScreen funding and support from the MIFF Premiere fund but the filming was self-financed. The full program for the Melbourne International Film Festival is out in July. Two dozen titles revealed so far include the Australian premiere of Julia Holter: The Passion of Joan of Arc, the US composer's live score of the classic 1928 French silent film that will be performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre. There's also the world premiere of When the World Came Flooding In, an immersive installation and virtual reality documentary about life following a natural disaster. Spreadsheet Champions screens on August 12 and 22 at the Australian Centre for Moving Image and the Melbourne International Film Festival runs August 7-24.
