Classic Gaming: Holy Grail of Nintendo collections for sale on Ebay, only $20,000

Old video games are starting to become valuable again. As time goes on, with no new copies of older games being made, and games becoming increasingly rare, their collector’s value is slowly climbing. Through the use of sites such as eBay, some older games are being sold for as much as, or even more than what they were originally worth. In some cases there are even games that can double their original retail price. And then there is the case of Stadium Events.

On Feb. 16th, an Ebay user known only as vals2girlz listed a sealed copy of the game for sale with a starting price of a mere .99 cents. Within 25 minutes of the game being listed the price was over $1,000 and by the next day it had skyrocketed to over $10,000. In two more days the price was well over $20,000 and as of Monday morning, the game is currently going for $21,200 with four days and twelve hours still to go before the auction is over. And this auction is not unique. Earlier this month, a mother from North Carolina selling her son’s old video games listed an old Nintendo Entertainment System along with a small pile of games. Lots like these are not uncommon on eBay and usually sell for around $50, yet because one of the games included was Stadium Events, the entire lot ended up going for over $13,000.

According to vals2girls, the seller of the game up for bid, the whole thing has been an unexpected event saying “Here’s the crazy thing…a week ago, we didn’t have a clue about any of this. If it wasn’t brought to our attention through the news, I was, within weeks of boxing everything up and donating to our local Goodwill for a tax write-off.

Featuring Olympic style events such as the one hundred meter dash, and the long jump, Stadium Events was not one of the more memorable games on the NES. As a game, the only thing that is unique about Stadium Events is that it was played by using the Family Fun Fitness Mat, one of only two games to do so. However, what is unique about this particular game is not in the gameplay but in the events surrounding the release of the game itself.

Originally released as a third party game in 1987, Stadium Events was one of only two games to ever be released to use the Family Fun Fitness Mat before Nintendo bought the rights to the FFF mat technology in 1988 and re-released it as the Power Pad. Due to this change, the initial run of Stadium Events was recalled after only being out a few weeks, and the game was also re-released under the title of World Class Track Meet, and designed to be played with the newly released Power Pad.

Due to the limited production time of the game, it is figured that only about 2,000 copies of the game were ever created with as few as 200 ever making it into circulation. What makes this particular game so rare though, is the fact that it is still complete with the instruction manual and box. While the game itself might sell for $1,200 if it is in working condition, like most NES games, boxes and instruction manuals for the game have long since disappeared. It is estimated that there are currently as few as 10 copies of Stadium Events with the box still in existence and the copy currently for sale on eBay is one of only two still sealed copies known to exist.

“The game has been sitting in my basement for all this time. I’m one of those guys that keep everything.” Says vals2girlz in an online interview. “I’m sure it was an impulse buy, around that time we were buying everything. My son and I would play games all weekend…fun times.”
Those who are interested in attempting to obtain such a rare game should beware of the specific aspects of this particular cartridge, which add to its value, particularly the fact that it is an NTSC cartridge. What this means is that the game is programmed for the United States. Some copies of the game are PAL versions which is the European standard.

The PAL version of this particular game is much more common and therefore less valuble than the current NTSC cartridge that is being auctioned. Though PAL copies of Stadium Fitness are more common than their NTSC counterpart, they are still rare enough to fetch prices above $300.

To stay updated on the current price of the auction, stay tuned to carolinianonline.com