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  #1  
Old Mar 3, 2024, 05:29 PM
Rrolack Rrolack is offline
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Default Is the market for VGM slowing?

Relative to 5 or 10 years ago, it seems like the volume of interesting albums for sale on YJA is lower than it used to be. My own sales on eBay have also been pretty slow.

Does it seem to anyone else like the market for VGM slower/less active than it used to be? Or is it just me?
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  #2  
Old Mar 3, 2024, 07:08 PM
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That's where the statistics page helps: it can show the historical year-over-year trends.

https://vgmdb.net/db/statistics.php?do=release_year

So yes, the data agrees that the overall number of releases has been slowing down for the past few years.

(of course re-selling selection is different than new-release selection, so make of it what you will...)

Last edited by Carl; Mar 3, 2024 at 07:11 PM.
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Old Mar 3, 2024, 07:55 PM
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That drop could just be because there's a delay between when new albums release and when someone actually finds and adds it to the db. vgmdb contributors have had an extra year to add releases from 2022, two for 2021, etc. I know Japanese enclosures in particular seem to fall through the cracks like all the recent Valis ones.

For older releases it seems most of the sought-after albums are in the hands of collectors by now and so they're being sold less frequently and for more money.

Last edited by Aifread; Mar 3, 2024 at 07:59 PM.
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Old Mar 4, 2024, 08:22 AM
Rrolack Rrolack is offline
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I was actually asking more about views on secondary market activity (e.g. YJA, eBay), rather than the primary market (i.e. new releases).
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Old Mar 4, 2024, 08:40 AM
Zorbfish Zorbfish is offline
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That chart is useless because it does no aggregation of data so it is not indicative of only "VGM" releases
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  #6  
Old Mar 4, 2024, 09:03 AM
Zorbfish Zorbfish is offline
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I've been a bit disappointed by the current state of the market. Large developers/publishers only releasing to digital or vinyl. That or as FOMO limited prints in their walled garden online shops instead of as general distributions. And then those new releases half the time are out of print if more than 6 months have passed. Haven't bought much because of it lately
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Old Mar 5, 2024, 05:11 AM
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LuxKiller65 LuxKiller65 is offline
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Same as games. As so many collectors have been sucking up all the stuff for many years, with only a fraction going back for sale later on (usually for higher prices), the amount of good oop stuff can only decrease.
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Old Mar 5, 2024, 07:35 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zorbfish View Post
Large developers/publishers only releasing to digital or vinyl.
I've found that frustrating too. It means that you can't easily obtain the music in lossless; in-game files are usually lossy compressed, digital releases often don't have lossless options, and digitizing vinyls is time consuming and even then vinyl can be prone to artifacts.
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Old Mar 5, 2024, 09:04 AM
Zorbfish Zorbfish is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LuxKiller65 View Post
Same as games. As so many collectors have been sucking up all the stuff for many years, with only a fraction going back for sale later on (usually for higher prices), the amount of good oop stuff can only decrease.
Yes it certainly feels like soundtracks have caught up to the awful practices of games now. I am all for digital and supporting greater accessibility of music to everyone but not if it's tied to centralized entities with no quality control.
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Old Mar 5, 2024, 06:54 PM
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Thankfully you don't really see that from Japanese side. In fact, they'll often take those LRG/SLG releases and do wider distribution domestically--and since most people just want the game you'll usually see the bonus soundtrack CDs on YJA or Mercari for dirt cheap.

Then you have Cassetron and Clarice Disc doing god's work with new releases of old stuff that never got proper soundtrack releases before, as opposed to tchotchke vinyl and cassette releases that are usually retreading old material anyway.
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Old Mar 6, 2024, 12:05 AM
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ilef ilef is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fusoxide View Post
I've found that frustrating too. It means that you can't easily obtain the music in lossless; in-game files are usually lossy compressed, digital releases often don't have lossless options, and digitizing vinyls is time consuming and even then vinyl can be prone to artifacts.
Lossless options for digital releases are becoming more common, thanks to the likes of Bandcamp, Deezer and Qobuz… but one still needs to pay attention, some of those releases they claim are lossless are actually transcodes from lossy (a similar thing could be said of certain vinyl releases, having the same audio one would find on the CD release).

I'm glad I don't really care about any of this, perfectly fine with lossy stuff, I'm happy they bother to give us something official.
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Last edited by ilef; Mar 6, 2024 at 12:08 AM.
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