I would venture to guess that these Sachens are rare. Compared to some games, no, but in general, yes. Not going to find these ones in Taiwan either, as they were marketed and distributed in Europe. Not sure if these ones were later sold to collectors in the USA during the whole Sachen import crisis of the early 2000s, but these are European releases. Not gonna find these in Taiwan.
On that note, if anyone knows where I can purchase Sachen games in Taiwan, please let me know. With few exceptions, it is quite hard to find this stuff on the island these days, and places like Ruten only have a few loose titles, every now and then
Regarding Ebay and the prices of games as a whole - If people are willing to pay $80 for AV Girl Fighting for that game on Ebay, then it sounds to me like that is the going rate, and the value of the game in the Western market. Not trying to be a smart ass, but value would be definied by supply and demand, I believe. Just like Rockman 1 - 6 collection, or even a legit Final Fantasy VII or Earthbound or whatever - if the market places the game at whatever price, it seems that this would be its price, even if the game is not so inherently rare (like Earthbound). Why would anyone offer the game on the cheap, if people are willing to pay the higher price? [/quote]Well, lots of unlicensed games qualify as that if you go that in depth about it, but Game Boy Sachen Multis aren't *super* rare. I'm sure they're easier to find if you know where to look (especially on European sites; I've done searches on Ebay UK and have seen a few here and there.) The multis themselves are some of the most common Sachen games; maybe not the European releases, but the GB multis are much easier to find than the single cart games.
Finding boxed Sachen stuff is a gamble. Stuff like 16 Tiles Mahjong are all over the place in Taiwan, but some of the other games like Tasac are harder find even loose. Generally you can search "聖謙" (Sachen) to find some of their games, but it helps to know the actual game title, as some (like a loose Sidewinder cart I found on there) only show up if you use their names.
And because something goes for a high price on the western market doesn't mean that it's a justified price. It's more of a weird catch 22 with westerners because they don't have a proper idea of the game's rarity and value, and people are more than willing to cash in on that. It tends to be much lower in the east not only because that's where they're from, but they're much easier to find there and they have a better sense of pricing with those games. Loose Famicom Sachen carts are rarely worth more than 500 TWD over there.
And Earthbound's pricing is a good example of what's wrong with values in the western market: it's a super common game you can find tons of copies of anywhere that has SNES games, yet it's priced
loose for over $150. I'm sorry, but that makes no damn sense even considering the high demand for the game; with that logic, you'd resell a copy of Mario Galaxy 2 for $200. And nobody's gonna set the price lower due to a combination of the aforementioned ignorance and people's greed. Even Earthbound's fans agree that the pricing is ridiculous for those very reasons, and I'm pretty sure the fact that these games are
still super common after all these years shows that only the really uneducated go for these games.
