By now, almost anyone involved in the antiques and collectibles trade is probably aware that old video games, especially in factory-sealed condition, can be worth a lot of money. Video games are one of the newest collecting categories and have gained a lot of attention these past few years. Along with sneaker collecting and the rise of collectible card games like Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering, video game collectibles help make up what some collectors consider to be the coveted new trifecta of pop culture collecting. I often like to study the history of various collecting categories and look at how they gained momentum. Video game collecting is something that I know an awful lot about simply due to the fact that I was an early video game collector and reseller back in the mid-1990s. Contrary to popular belief, video game collecting did not just become a thing in the past few years. During the pandemic, prices of certain graded video games were artificially manipulated, and, as a result, reports about vintage factory-sealed and graded video games selling for six- and seven-figure sums became popular fodder for mainstream news outlets. Make no mistake, very few video games are worth this amount (even if factory-sealed) and if you have a used older video game system and games sitting in your house, in all honesty, it may not even be worth what you originally paid for it at retail. That said, there are a handful of scarce vintage factory-sealed games in near mint-condition that command immense sums at auction, but this is not where video game collecting started, and this is definitely not the norm. Vintage video game or retro video game collecting, however you want to define it, actually started to gain traction in the early to mid-1990s. It was at that particular time when the very first video gamers remembered the impact the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, and Colecovision, among others, had on the early 1980s and set out to recreate their favorite childhood memories from only a decade before. It was also at this particular time that the internet was a new and vastly unproven technology as primitive online forums were starting to make themselves known. Early video game collectors would interact through these means and share information about how many games were produced for some of these early systems like the Atari 2600. Collectors started creating lists of games and just how easy they were to find at yard sales and flea markets. With the internet developing at a rapid pace and the rise of online auction sites like eBay occurring in 1995, it would not take very long for websites devoted to vintage video game collecting to premier. Digital Press, still in existence today, was one of the first to create a focused online collecting forum devoted to video game collectors. This was also in the 1990s, and given that the Nintendo Entertainment System came out in North America in 1985 and was produced until the early 1990s, the most popular systems to collect at this time were pre-Nintendo systems like Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision, and the Vectrex. A lot of collectors coveted the now out of print games for these systems. Prices for uncommon and scarce games for these now defunct consoles started soaring. This was the infancy of the very first video game collectibles boom as we know it. It was also at this time when a lot of money was made in this market. Without smartphones and social media being invented yet, early adopters of eBay and online auction sites had an advantage. The average person selling items at a flea market, yard sale, or antique fair maybe didnt even know that eBay existed or thought it was a passing fad and didnt want to take the time to learn it. Older flea market sellers missed out on a lot of early gains by simply not wanting to adapt to online selling. If you were an early adopter on any of these online auction platforms at the time, you could make a lot of money by using this to your advantage. It was not hard to find video game consoles and games like an Atari 2600 or a Mattel Intellivision being sold at flea markets for just a few dollars, knowing full well that they could be sold online for sometimes hundreds of dollars or more. In my humble opinion, this was one of the best times to be active in the antiques and collectibles trade, and it was very easy to make fast money if you lived in an area that had a lot of flea markets and good yard sales. The good times would not last forever, however, and smart sellers knew this. The great pre-Nintendo vintage video game bubble lasted for almost ten long years. Unfortunately by 2005, most video game collectors were tired of primitive video games produced by Atari and the like and were now gravitating toward what would be considered as older Nintendo games and systems. Prices for pre-Nintendo video games and systems collapsed, and today most of these games (with few exceptions) can be seen selling for just a few dollars or less. It is almost like the entire video game collecting boom that occurred between 1995 with the rise of eBay through the year 2005 never even happened if we look at this from a financial perspective. This is what makes long-term investment in pop culture collectibles so inherently risky. Still, even though the pre-Nintendo video game bubble dissipated, it did not mean that video game collecting died along with it. The groundwork was laid, and collectors just adapted to Nintendo related games and consoles, as Nintendo was able to do what early video game manufacturers like Atari could not. Nintendo became a cultural icon and is still relevant to this very day. This is not to say that speculating on older Nintendo games and related collectibles is not without risk. Had you bought into the graded vintage video game market back when grading company WATA Games entered the scene in 2018, in most cases you would be down substantially if you sold your coveted collectibles back into the market today. In conclusion, video game collecting is here to stay. Interest may wax and wane over time, and prices for most of these items may never again return to highs we saw during the pandemic, but make no mistake, much like toy collecting and trading cards, video game collecting is now a thing. You can bet your bottom dollar, but just be careful how you spend it because putting it in a vintage video game is still inherently risky regardless of how much someone likes Nintendo! Shawn Surmick has been an avid collector since the age of 12. He currently resides in his hometown of Boyertown, Pa., and is a passionate collector of antiques and collectibles. His articles focus on various topics affecting the marketplace.