In this video I’m at Frank & Son with a pretty simple question that somehow has a completely unhinged answer: what happened to physical games? I used to buy Game Boys for $5, and for years you could grab stuff like Pokemon FireRed for cheap at GameStop. Now you’re looking at well over $100 for a scuffed cartridge, and sealed or graded copies can jump into the thousands. So I dig into how we got from “games are basically disposable” to “this costs more than a brand new Switch.” A big part of it is real scarcity—discs rot, drives die, consoles break, and every year there are fewer working copies out there. But the market also got warped by grading (especially once WATA showed up and million-dollar headlines reset everyone’s expectations), aggressive refurbisher markups that dominate Google, and yes, content creators (including me) pumping demand with haul videos and retro hunting. And while physical media on modern consoles is fading—day one patches, server dependence, and even “Game Key Cards” that can become useless—playing old games has never been easier via re-releases, emulation, mini consoles, and subscriptions. The hard part now is actually owning the real physical thing.