The copies of the game being sold for $50-100+USD are. Especially by relative comparison of below $5USD for a redemption key.

Jacked up prices on big box games, which amount to jokers literally marking up cardboard and paper, are another thing entirely. If it were just the media the game is on, then they could sell a CD or DVD-ROM that was used as a paint palette for mostly peanuts + a shipping fee.

What are you saying? You don't care about physical releases?
Marked up or not, I'd argue that a physical medium + bits&bytes + paper and cardboard (+the fact that it will never be reproduced) is worth more than just bits&bytes (digital distribution).

The market value of something physical that had a limited run will always be different than something that's still for sale "new" (digital / online distribution). I'm not saying that game X boxed in pristine condition is worth 3 digits to me.

Yeah... that's not true at all. Entire submarkets of people selling reproduction boxes, manuals, etc. have popped up on plenty of sites within the last handful of years. True, not everything can be reproduced but there's plenty of stuff that can.

And I'm not saying physical media isn't worth owning, but there's a wide divide between the "it's worth only what you're willing to pay" crowd and the "how much can I squeeze out of these people who love having stuff?" crowd.

Could you share some of those websites? Do they sell faithful reproductions? (like classic paintings, only experts recognise the fakes)
That difference only exists for people that don't research before they lay down a lot of money (relative to the original price).

edit: Depending on what someone personally thinks a second hand game is worth, both "market value" or way above that can both be viewed as a scam. But enough of that, we're getting off topic.

Which leads back to what I said of it boiling down to jokers gouging up the prices because " box, paper". Few people in existence are going to pass up the chance to flip a profit off something that cost them $40-60 (in a low estimation, highly generalized).

As to your other question, we're talking reproductions and not multi-million dollar art forgeries so I don't know what you're expecting in terms of authenticity. I'm also not going to rattle off a list (you hate those, last I checked :D), but there's http://www.boxmygames.com/ and countless people running Etsy shops (which floored me when I first discovered such a thing) and so many others.

Sure that! But if I could live like I live now without having to work for it... I wouldn't care about making a profit. (I'm sure that I'm a rarity)
edit: "box, paper" isn't the reason, scarcity is.

Console games! I was just curious about the existence of commercial reproduction of classic big box PC games. hi5 for referencing one of my posts! ;-)

I wouldn't immediately dismiss the existence of some. Like I said, there's plenty out there for people inclined to look. The console end is likely to be bigger, undoubtedly.

Am I the only one who saw "Prey" and first reacted by saying, "Oooh, they finally got the 2006 game up? I've been meaning to play that one...." and then becoming really disappointed that it wasn't the 2006 3D Realms version?

Half agree, disagree. Otherwise you'd see "GAME DISC ONLY" listings equal to their counterparts. After all, it's all subject to rot.

Yep, you're a unique individual!

So do a lot of discs and plastic. But then we're back to the digital end, so I think we've successfully navigated the hedgemaze of this discussion. ;)

Well at least for those there are literally DECADES between them. And also whole cultures (with remakes at the highest meaning).

It was a bug in the DLC story mission. It has been fixed some time ago.

On eBay alone there are people selling reproduction cases/case art for some games, and other similar materials....the legality of such likely highly suspect.

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True, though searching for some of those films without the year as a search term is a hassle as well sometimes. :)