PriceCharting | Price chosen based on Condition

Games CLZ Games Web
1

First of all, thanks for your always getting back when I have a question and, as always, cheers on an otherwise awesome tool that I enjoy using every single day!! It makes this hobby a million times better :star_struck: :muscle:t3:

My current issue is with the Price Charting implementation in CLZ. With almost 8000 entries, I’ve never really felt I can trust that the update value feature CLZ offers will work as I expect when it comes to PriceCharting. There are quite a few issues with how the implementation works that have existed as long as I can remember, and have already been mentioned by others (e.g. the ID field can’t be emptied without using a workaround, and the feature breaking omission of EU/PAL as a selectable region), but the most importent reason I’ve only used it very sparingly myself is that when the CLZ platform chooses a price for a specific entry, it doesn’t choose the one that I would expect. Here’s an example.

I have a game that’s CIB, for which PriceCharting shows the following pricing:

Loose: 10€
Loose + Box: €25
Loose + Manual: €12
CIB: €15
New: €65
Graded: €100

The most logical outcome, without knowing(!) when the records that yielded these prices where created on PriceCharring (which isn’t shown anywhere on the screen), would be that the system selects €25, not €15, as logically, without information about date of sale, the value of CIB > Loose.

I suspect it’s indeed due to the date of the sale that PC shares through their API, but since it’s entirely unclear, it at least feels to me that it’s wrong. To be honest, even if the date stuff would be the reason for how it works, I still don’t think that €15 would be the right conclusion in almost any case, especially if for example the date of sale of both entries are relatively close to each other.

There’s no sound way of solving this in a way that will yield an outcome that’s always correct, which is just due the fact it’s not a real assessment of current value (i.e. just a last sale value which depends on a date, and can be biased by a lack of knowledge the buyer in question had regarding the fair value of the item), but I would still like to have clarity on this and be able to choose the “strategy” CLZ uses to pick the value myself.

Regarding picking a different PC value manually, if I click on a different “condition” in the PC value chart, the Condition field is also changed accordingly… which isn’t what I want. I need to first click the column in the chart, then lock the value, and then change the condition of the game again, to then finally unlock it again if I would want automatic updating to work in the future, but… this would then not yield the price for the condition I expect anyway because it would choose the price for the set condition again :joy:

Maybe the CLZ team can clarify this? I looked on the website and in the online manual but couldn’t find any information on the topic. In any case, clearing the ID field and adding PAL/EU region as an option should really be added soon… it has been an issue from the moment PC was implemented and I already dread having to go back and go through my entire collection to set the right PC region, to then have to think how to fix the values again to boot.

Thanks for your time and hope this is helpful feedback!

2

I don’t see your reasoning here.

Your copy is CIB. Pricecharting says CIB is €15.
So that is price that CLZ should use.

I have no idea what you are referring to regarding sales dates :slight_smile:
We don’t have access to any of the sales information from PriceCharting.

That is exactly and ALL the pricing info we get from PriceCharting.

3

Hi Alwin,

Sure, but what is the point of including the value for something in a record if it doesn’t support the intended use/purpose your users have in mind for it?

I totally believe the data is exactly what you get from Price Charting (PC), but that’s not always useful or functionally correct.

If I try to create a tally of the value of my entire collection, it almost by definition won’t reflect its true market value very well, because in many cases my CIB games will have been valued at a lower price than the loose cart/cd/etc. of the same game. Here’s an example I found in the app:

https://www.imghippo.com/i/MEoo4620cFM.jpeg

As you can see the price of a Loose + Box copy is higher than that of a CIB. That makes 0 sense in regard to understanding a game’s actual value, without more context or preferably a different handling of the PC data by CLZ.

It just doesn’t support the goal of understanding a game’s value very well then, or do you think a CIB game will ever be worth less than a Loose one at any point in time in real life? That’s where the date the price was registered by PC is relevant, as that might explain the absolutely illogical discrepancy. Maybe the last Loose copy was sold today, and prices have gone up for it since the last CIB copy was sold, or maybe the price somebody paid for the Loose copy was due to the buyer overpaying a lot… Date of sale would at least give some context here.

I could care less that it just reflects the last value for a specific Condition perfectly as shown in PC. I want the most accurate assessment of its actual value so it has a true meaning.

Looking at the total value of my collection in CLZ currently has 0 value, unless I was careful enough to manually confirm and choose the value of individual entries.

Hope this explains my question a bit better.

4

I agree, that makes zero sense. I would recommend to just completely ignore the Box and Manual pricing from Pricecharting. These indeed do not make any sense at all. Separate box and manual sales happen so rarely on eBay that their pricing for those are complete nonsense and often just fabricated/generated.

If you have a CIB copy, you need to look at the CIB price from PriceCharting.
It really is as simple as that.

It just doesn’t support the goal of understanding a game’s value very well then, or do you think a CIB game will ever be worth less than a Loose one at any point in time in real life? That’s where the date the price was registered by PC is relevant, as that might explain the absolutely illogical discrepancy.

The sales data has nothing to do with it.
These separate box and manual prices are just bogus in 90% of cases. Just ignore them.

It seems you went down the rabbit hole just because of these box and manual prices.
CIB is CIB. Loose is Loose. New is New. It is as simple as that.

Take a look at the pricecharting pages for some of your entries and check the box and manual prices and check what they are based on.