The market for retro video games is booming. Companies come out with remakes of old classics; consoles are reproduced as mini versions with many built in games of yesteryear; and now online retro gaming is making its way into people's lives.

There is of course also a healty market in the real deal: people collecting original copies of old games that they may have played as kids, or because they never could play it as a kid because it was too darn expensive.

While the Atari/Commodore arguments may have cooled down a bit, the demand for retro-games has not. The way games are sold has changed too. Were you able to go to your local retro game shop, or even a thrift store and score a cartridge or two a few years ago, nowadays most trading is done online. This makes it easy and convenient to find that rare game from Japan that may never have been released in the US.

Prices for retro games have never been higher. A copy of Super Mario 64 was sold for a whopping $1.5 million at an action. Barely a month later another copy was sold for the astonishing price of $2 million.

The biggest reason that games are turning so expensive is rarity. Mint condition, unopened games are super hard to find, and that makes them very lucrative investment objects. Just like that comic book that you held on for for years, a mint condition game that is highly wanted AND rare, can make you quite a nice fortune these days.

Of course this is not great news for the average Joe the Collector. Some games will just be out of reach, and it becomes increasingly hard to expand a retro game collection. On the other hand however, if you have some of those mint condition games yourself, you may want to check and see if you don't hold the key to a nice fortune.