Scalpers and game colllectors are two sides of the same coin. Both take an out of stock item and jack the price up to screw you over.
Yet gamers hold a dislike for scalpers, while happily accepting that the collectors price gouging indicates the game's worth.
I think it's mostly due to attitudes when dealing with certain sellers of older titles. I've met all sorts of sellers over a decade or so and I've noticed it. People who scalp/mainly in it for the buck will only drop it for the highest price they find on some unsold eBay listing and won't even sell a dirty busted GBC cart for less than $20. Collectors/people more passionate about the hobby usually sell for at least some kind of discount, listen to offers, will be upfront about the game conditions, play them, etc.
Of course there are exceptions, met people in both camps who don't fit those descriptors, and there are some 'honest game collectors' just as scummy as scalpers.
A perfect example is Stadium Events on the NES, this would not be a multi-thousand dollar game if not for collectors because it's universally considered to be crap as a game. If all there were were retro gaming enthusisats that simply want to get games to play them, tons of high value titles today would be worth almost nothing.
Personally disagree. If the latter was the true reality, yeah prices would be a bit cheaper and Stadium Events/NWC would drop hard, but there'd likely still be demands going on, especially for NES games, which are just getting older and are popping up less as time goes on.
Contra's a common, but high-demand, game that sells for a bit more now than it used to. If all the fans suddenly wanted a copy of that right now, would that dry up stock even more? It's not even accounting into scarce/endyear games that are actually really good like Panic Restaurant, which I think would go for even more insane prices in that scenario.
It's all theory and I could be wrong and in that reality every copy of Pocky and Rocky 2 and Air Raid would sell for a quarter in bins everywhere. And it's not like I think it doesn't suck either; The market's really shifted from what it used to be and whether people are hoarding them or not my number of good finds are getting lower each year. But I feel like bigger prices were an inevitability at some point and only having 'retro gaming enthusiants' own them wouldn't drastically change issues people have with it.
Tl;dr Just get a flashcart if prices are that bad for you
