wiglaf

Again, that is NOT inflation. You are using the term incorrectly. Inflation occurs when there is TOO MUCH supply and it causes the value of something to go DOWN. Inflation is the opposite of what you are talking about. Xueli is correct, goods are worth exactly what a person is willing to pay for them, this is called the "reservation price" of a particular consumer and whomever has the highest reservation price will set the current market value. Scarcity raises prices because consumers compete in this way to obtain the good. However, as those willing to pay the highest price do so then the market price actually will lower as the highest reservation price becomes lower. This continues until a unit is sold at margin, which is when you reach a point that to sell lower would mean selling at a loss. With a situation as described in this thread the item will not be sold at margin, it will always be sold at a premium due to scarcity (a scarce market as opposed to an inflated market). That is just smart business unless you believe that you can create a larger profit by selling more units at a set lower price, but that is getting in to equilibrium price and quantity.

That isn't inflation of the game market. Inflation would make the games worth less by flooding the market with supply. Gamestop is a business and they need to make a profit to continue to exist and pay employees. They ARE sort of a ripoff compared to other methods of gaming and are certainly less fair on trade-in values and used game price discounts than they once were. I highly suggest that everyone take the cash that they would place on a next gen console and build a nice gaming PC instead. Go buy games on STEAM folks. The games can have much better graphics/sound than console versions, keyboard/mouse is far superior for most any game, many games have console menu options unavailable to consoles (confusing I know... console system vs console commands), and best of all... you can catch games at RIDICULOUS sale prices. I bought Skyrim for 30 bucks when retailers were still selling console copies for 60 bucks. I got fallout new vegas ultimate edition for 5 bucks. Not to mention all of the PC only titles and indy games. Don't just forget gamestop... forget the console folks, you're ripping yourselves off and playing inferior versions. Not to mention the gaming rig you could build for the same or similar price as a new console can do a lot of things BESIDES gaming. I seriously have over 100 titles on Steam and paid less for them than I would have 10 or 15 console games. And they're better versions. And they're tied to my account not my system or a disc. And hey.. forget paying insane money for puny hard drives on a console. My PC right here is packing 1.5 Terabytes of HD space. Lay down your consoles and come play with the big boys :D . You should all at least be playing Team Fortress 2 with your current systems anyway! lol Edit: And I almost forgot to mention.. with PC gaming you can use MODS. Mods to improve or change just about any part of a game. It's like having millions of post-production devs willing to create optional improvements or DLC free of charge.