Ye Olde Inn

It seems lately that the prices in ebay rise higher and higher for HQ and related games. Till recently i could see used or even mint sets auctioned for afew euros. Actually last year i won a regular and a master set for about 10 euros each. It cost more to ship them than actually buy them. Yesterday i was stunned to see that most HQ sets were sold more than 90 euros. Do you believe that there is more demand or some people are rising the prices on purpose of profit?
For example there used to be some people that for no apparent reason sold (buy now) expansions for over 200 euros, while at the same time there were sets for normal prices. As time gone by these ''normal'' prices vanished. Either the sharks got their hands on most of the sets around, or people saw the generally crazy prices and played along. Propably the same thing that happened to Warhammer Quest and now costs an arm and a leg, is going to happen with HQ.

My personal opinion is that offcourse there is offer and demand scale, but we must not forget that after all, its just a game. And a game that was printed by the thousands, not some crazy prototype or special edition, but a used one. So its absolute madness to cost 2-3 times more than the price tag it would have if it was introduced today. What do you think about this guys?

It is true that eBay stores specialising in HeroQuest will often purchase other sets for cheap, jack up the price and turn a huge profit. They also pick up bits and pieces to form complete sets to sell at high prices. The biggest problem is that people are willing enough to pay these exorbitant prices, which is why they stay high. Also, some people become desperate to get what they want in the heat of the moment as the clock ticks down. The average price for the North American Witch Lord pack went from $60 sealed to $130 sealed in a week after a few desperate bidders went crazy. Shortly after, all the "buy it nows" that were $100 jumped to $150 and the prices for everything else followed. It's like gas prices. They jack up the prices until people are used to it being the norm, then they do it again.

Hasbro is sitting on a gold mine right now and they don't even know it. Sure there's the problem of the name being taken after a lapse in Copyright, and the whole collaboration with one Games Workshop, but they could easily choose another name, make their own new sculpts etc. and remake it. But big companies don't often recognise the value in their IPs unless they've been around for fifty years.

drathe wrote:It is true that eBay stores specialising in HeroQuest will often purchase other sets for cheap, jack up the price and turn a huge profit. They also pick up bits and pieces to form complete sets to sell at high prices. The biggest problem is that people are willing enough to pay these exorbitant prices, which is why they stay high. Also, some people become desperate to get what they want in the heat of the moment as the clock ticks down. The average price for the North American Witch Lord pack went from $60 sealed to $130 sealed in a week after a few desperate bidders went crazy. Shortly after, all the "buy it nows" that were $100 jumped to $150 and the prices for everything else followed. It's like gas prices. They jack up the prices until people are used to it being the norm, then they do it again.

Hasbro is sitting on a gold mine right now and they don't even know it. Sure there's the problem of the name being taken after a lapse in Copyright, and the whole collaboration with one Games Workshop, but they could easily choose another name, make their own new sculpts etc. and remake it. But big companies don't often recognise the value in their IPs unless they've been around for fifty years.

Most of the time Im suprised by the amount of money, people are willing to spend on a used old game (even if its a great one).

For some reason all these dweebs think that once it's been done; it's old and stale and should never be done again.
G.I. Joe got rereleased by hasbro - but not the original materials that were sold in the 60's and 70's.

While some things are truly dated and can be done much better with today's manufacture processes, they totally miss that there are some classix that don't need retooling/sculpting/engineering AT ALL.

It makes me wonder if they don't destroy their molds when the production run is done.

el_flesh wrote:For some reason all these dweebs think that once it's been done; it's old and stale and should never be done again.
G.I. Joe got rereleased by hasbro - but not the original materials that were sold in the 60's and 70's.

While some things are truly dated and can be done much better with today's manufacture processes, they totally miss that there are some classix that don't need retooling/sculpting/engineering AT ALL.

It makes me wonder if they don't destroy their molds when the production run is done.

I think that there are two reasons why this happens.
a) They afraid that nowdays kids with all these new influences will think an exact reproduction as outdated. In some cases they are right but in others no.
b) I believe that the executives are trying to justify their salary and existence by even forcing things to look ''new and improved''. I guess that a sales/production/marketing/whatever manager will have a certain difficulty to open his mouth in the middle of a board meeting and say ''lets reproduce Hero Quest'' because the big head will propably lift his eyebrow and respond ''as is? Thats what my 5 year old son would think... and for free..''

Most of all a company must feel the particular market of each game and since we are dealling with mega-companies that is becomming more difficult. For example GI JOE might be outdated as it was a semifuturistic show/comic/toyline but in the fantasy gengre until the appearence of LOTR, Conan the barbarian, a movie of 1982 was the highest standard. Even today all the fantasy material looks back to it and the same illustrations by Frazetta, Boris, Kelly and Brom as source material. So HQ theme is in a sense ageless, but the suits cant see it because they are suits

el_flesh wrote:For some reason all these dweebs think that once it's been done; it's old and stale and should never be done again.
G.I. Joe got rereleased by hasbro - but not the original materials that were sold in the 60's and 70's.

While some things are truly dated and can be done much better with today's manufacture processes, they totally miss that there are some classix that don't need retooling/sculpting/engineering AT ALL.

It makes me wonder if they don't destroy their molds when the production run is done.

Hasbro sold their original GI Joe casts to Lanard, who used them to make a GI Joe knock-off lines called The Corps and Star Force. It's likely that Hasbro has make similar transactions with other toy lines they thought were outdated and would no longer be produced. This explains how Skyknight at Old Scratch's got a hold of the 4-ups for the Frozen Horror, Mage of the Mirror and supposedly, what ever 4-ups were made for the Dwarf Pack that was being prototyped.

drathe wrote:

el_flesh wrote:For some reason all these dweebs think that once it's been done; it's old and stale and should never be done again.
G.I. Joe got rereleased by hasbro - but not the original materials that were sold in the 60's and 70's.

While some things are truly dated and can be done much better with today's manufacture processes, they totally miss that there are some classix that don't need retooling/sculpting/engineering AT ALL.

It makes me wonder if they don't destroy their molds when the production run is done.

Hasbro sold their original GI Joe casts to Lanard, who used them to make a GI Joe knock-off lines called The Corps and Star Force. It's likely that Hasbro has make similar transactions with other toy lines they thought were outdated and would no longer be produced. This explains how Skyknight at Old Scratch's got a hold of the 4-ups for the Frozen Horror, Mage of the Mirror and supposedly, what ever 4-ups were made for the Dwarf Pack that was being prototyped.

I had the impression that he relates with somebody in hasbro or former MB thats why he doesnt want to show unpublished material.

I think it's gotten pretty crazy recently for stuff like this as well. I bought my copies of HeroQuest probably about 6-8 months ago and I paid about $50 for Return of the Witch Lord and Keller's Keep. Which I didn't mind too much since it was from the same guy so I got combined shipping, and his prices were the lowest I could find. However, I made a steal on my copy of the main game. I think I only paid like $40 for it when most of the others I saw were going for about $100.
I saw some guy who had the entire HeroQuest sets both North American and European, but he wanted $2,100 for it! I was like, "If I had that much money I would most certainly not put it toward that."

For those interested I was bored and looked on ebay. It's the European edition with the maze as the first quest for pretty cheap.
http://cgi.ebay.com/HEROQUEST-GAME-HERO ... 3a5bacc0d1

And bid on it while you can:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Heroquest-Hero-Ques ... 41502854c5

To tell you the truth Im not willing to pay that kind of money. When HQ was out in 91-92 it costed about 20 euros (the Greek edition dont know the english retail price). If it was produced today again and we consider the fact that it still blows out of the water anything similar in quality terms, it would propably cost about 60-70 euros. All new! Mint! With minis on sprues, wrap and everything. Reaching more than 100 for a used copy (even good condition one) its crazy.
Personally i prefer to print the files of the expansions and replace just the minis. I did it for the first 2 expansions and turned out great + i enjoyed the procedure.
All i needed was my trusty adobe suite, carton, my printer and spray glue.