Mass Effect Games Are Now Selling for $125 on eBay
This week, Electronic Arts sent a shockwave through the industry with its announcement that it had closed legendary video game studio BioWare and cancelled its new Mass Effect game. A day later, a trailer BioWare had for the game leaked online, showing a very promising RPG in the works for fans of the sci-fi series. Since then, a petition demanding EA reverse course on its decisions has quickly amassed over 128,000 signatures, and counting. Unfortunately, for these fans, EA is not going to reverse any decision. All Mass Effect fans can hope for at this point is that it sells the IP to someone else who builds out a new team from the ashes of BioWare. In the meantime, fans of the sci-fi RPG have been scrambling to secure pieces of the series’ storied past.
People forget because Mass Effect: Andromeda wasn’t great and BioWare hasn’t been good for over a decade, but the original Mass Effect trilogy is one of the best trilogies in video game history. It is a favorite of many hardcore RPG fans, as evidenced by the fact that these same fans are now paying over $125 for Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Specifically, the PS4 version. The Xbox One version is currently selling on eBay for just $20, but multiple listings have sold for the PS4 version in the $125 range. In other words, to be clear, PS4 copies of the remastered trilogy are not only being listed for this price, but are selling at this price. And these prices could continue to go up.
What’s Going On?
Why are copies selling for this price when you can often get a digital copy for as little as $6? Well, some prefer physical copies, especially collectors. And this could very well be the final printing of the Mass Effect trilogy on disc for various reasons. To this end, if the games ever get pulled digitally or become inaccessible digitally, this collection becomes invaluable. On top of this, it’s probably the final release in the series, and certainly the last physical release, so it has added value from a collecting standpoint in these regards as well. Even with all this under consideration, this is an incredible spike, but a testament to just how fervent Mass Effect fans are. Many of these fans have been waiting a decade for a proper new release, and to have it pulled from them toward the end of this journey no doubt has created some knee-jerk reactions.
Sometimes you will see scalpers create forced demand, and then cash in on this demand by buying up stock of any given market and then reselling it for more over time. This is surely not relevant here, though, because the price being paid is so high.