The Market Runs On Vibes. We Run On A Formula.

No. On this list of 21 games, at least one shop beat us on 6: Sonic The Hedgehog, Spider-Man 2, Banjo-Kazooie, Super Mario 64, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Pokémon FireRed. Mostly the ones everybody already checks before they ship anything. Across the 16 games every shop quoted at matching condition, we paid $1,080.51 against $801.00 at the next-best shop — because where we lose, we lose narrow, and where we win, we win big. A page that wins every line isn't a comparison. It's an ad.

Yes. $1,113.43 against our $1,080.51 — about $32.92 more. That's four separate sales, four accounts, four boxes, four waits. We'd rather hand you that number than have you find it and wonder what else got left off the page.

Every figure — ours included — was quoted on September 7, 2026 and screenshotted before it went on this page. Each row states the condition the quote is for, because these shops don't all quote the same basis. Three titles (Okami, Tekken 3, Crash Bandicoot [Greatest Hits]) show every shop's real price but no comp — we never independently confirmed one, so we're not printing a percentage we can't back.

We don't know, and we're not going to guess. What's measurable: DKOldies and CATRP quoted the exact same Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, same day, same condition. One said $64.00. The other said $134.60 — 2.1x more. That's two shops, not us, and it's the cleanest evidence we have that "the market rate" isn't a real thing. Ours is a published formula. It doesn't move by title.

All offers are based on items that are in 8/10 condition or better. That's linked from CATRP's footer, not shown on the quote itself. QuickFlips: "The displayed offer prices are based on items in excellent condition — deductions will apply to those in average, poor, or broken condition." DKOldies states no floor at all — no condition criteria we could find anywhere on its sell page. We don't have a floor either. Every condition on our ladder prices, Mint through Poor, and a non-functional cartridge or console still prices As-Is instead of getting turned away. A disc that doesn't play prices at our resurfacing rate if it can be resurfaced, and $0 if it can't.

They're the quoted payouts, not the net. On our side there's nothing to subtract: the label is prepaid and tracked, it's insured to the full comp value of what's inside, the return trip is on us if you decline, and there's no minimum to clear first. We checked all three rivals directly for a return or decline policy and found nothing published for CATRP or DKOldies. QuickFlips locks a batch quote for 30 days, then recalculates it — and states separately that a rejected item isn't returned.

Checked directly: no. Not CATRP, not DKOldies, not MyQuickFlips. Worth saying plainly rather than letting it go unstated — that critique belongs to LukieGames and videogamecompany, further down this page, and nowhere else.

Quarterly, re-quoted as a whole list rather than patched row by row — a table mixing months while reading as current is worse than no table. This edition: September 7, 2026.