Top 10 Video Games That Are INCREDIBLY Hard to Find

One of the pitfalls of video games existing as downloadable content is that players are at the mercy of those platforms that make these games available. “Barbie: Groom and Glam Pups” was originally released in a physical format for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS back in 2010. It was also reissued for the 3DS in 2013, but the game is currently unavailable for download since Nintendo’s eShop closure. Second-hand copies are pricey commodities, as well with just the 3DS cartridge aloneselling for over seven-hundred dollars on certain second-hand sites. Oh, and if you want the box to go along with that cartridge? Well, that’s gonna cost you over a grand to make that happen. Yikes!

There’s both good news and bad news when it comes to the “Wrecking Crew” for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Firstly, the actual game itself is easily attainable as downloadable content on various platforms. However, actual physical copies of this embryonic Mario game can be challenging to obtain for collectors. There’s also good news on this front, since “Wrecking Crew” was bundled with original NES console packages, and saw many different packaging modifications within subsequent pressings. That said, if you’re seeking out any of the rarer variants of “Wrecking Crew,” such as stickered hang-tab pressings or Canadian variant pressings, then you’re likely looking at a few hundred bucks on Ebay.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Video games were steadily gaining in popularity, yet the influx of subpar, rushed cash-in products was about to help usher in the Video Game Crash of 1983. “Pepsi Invaders” was one of these games that were rushed-to-completion by corporations, in order to capitalize on this hot new trend. As a result, “Pepsi Invaders” isn’t really too fun to play, but it’s even less fun to try and track it down in the modern day. That’s because the game wasn’t made commercially available, but rather given to Coca-Cola salespeople at their 1983 convention. “Pepsi Invaders” may just be a rip-off of “Space Invaders,” but copies have still sold for over a grand on Ebay.

The long and frankly confusing story of “Poop Slinger” could take us all day to explain, but the Cliff’s Notes version is this: yes, this is a real game. It also may be one of the most elaborate (or at least elaborately out-of-hand) April Fool’s jokes ever committed, since this was the coincidental release date of the game. Eighty-four copies of “Poop Slinger” were reportedly mailed out to customers that pre-ordered it for the PlayStation 4 back in 2018. The website vg247.com details the story of how Twitter was used by a company called Limited Rare Games (no relation to Limited Run Games?) to push the one-day sales of this strange new game, after which the company apparently closed up shop.

SNK’s “The King of Fighters” franchise possesses legions of fans around the world, and this installment from 2000 can be played today. It’s just the original Neo-Geo cartridge that’s tough to find. This isn’t a surprise, really, since many games for the home Neo-Geo consoles were published in limited quantities, anyway, making them extremely valuable. “The King of Fighters 2000” was developed around the time SNK was entering bankruptcy proceedings, and fans estimate that perhaps only a hundred cartridges were actually published for the Neo-Geo. The release focus of “The King of Fighters 2000” was instead turned towards the Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 consoles, making an OG Neo-Geo version worth anywhere from 3500 to 5500 dollars.

A myriad of companies have tried (and failed) at bringing new peripherals to the Nintendo market, but we gotta give the Exertainment System points for originality. The idea was to combine bike riding and physical fitness with game play, and resulted in two games being designed specifically for this purpose. “Mountain Bike Rally” and “Speed Racer” were released separately by Exertainment, but were also combined within a single cartridge for the Super Nintendo. These cartridges only worked if you owned the exercise bike, which sold poorly, but the combo cart has become increasingly rare. Copies have been known to sell for nearly four thousand dollars factory-sealed, while box-less cartridges can go for over fifteen-hundred dollars.

The Exertainment System wasn’t the only Nintendo peripheral designed with physical fitness in mind. Enter “Stadium Events” from 1987, one of two games that were developed to work with the short-lived Family Fun Fitness mat by Bandai. Some of these mats were included inside copies of the other game in the series, “Athletic World,” while all three pieces of this strange Nintendo puzzle can go for a lot of money on the second-hand market. Specifically, “Stadium Events” once sold at auction for 12 thousand dollars. Meanwhile, PAL-formatted copies from Europe (where the game was more successful) can easily sell upwards of three thousand today. Or, you could just play Nintendo’s revamped version for their Power Pad, titled “World Class Track Meet.”

Today’s video game championship tournaments didn’t come to exist in a vacuum. Competitions have existed practically as long as video gaming itself, as evidenced by this rare duo of game cartridges. Both the Nintendo Powerfest game from 1994 and especially the gold “Nintendo World Championships” cartridge from 1990 are worth some serious bucks. The latter in particular was developed for a marketing tour and competition, and contained three games for contestants to play. Gray versions of this cartridge have been listed for big bucks, but the gold iteration, of which reportedly only 26 were made, was listed on Ebay back in 2021 for a staggering million dollars.

The story of “Gamma-Attack” is another long, strange trip, and dates back once again to a pre-video game crash 1983. The Gammation company decided to develop “Gamma-Attack” to sell alongside its Atari peripherals, but advertisements from the time have led gaming historians to believe that very few copies of “Gamma-Attack” actually sold. The game did make news headlines when a copy was listed on Ebay for five-hundred-thousand dollars, while the website Racketboy has estimated surviving “Gamma-Attack” cartridges between twenty and fifty thousand dollars. This is due primarily to the scarness of its unsold copies, and the low likelihood that many will surface, other than the one that currently resides in the collection of gamer Anthony DeNardo.

The Gaming Historian has published a fascinating story on the brief history of game developer and publisher Tengen that we highly recommend, and it was in this story where the rarity of “Tetris” comes into play. Or, at least the rarity of one particular version of “Tetris:” the recalled and canceled version for the Sega Mega Drive. Sega voluntarily canceled their version of “Tetris” due to Nintendo’s license of ownership. Only ten copies of the product were allegedly completed, and all were reportedly destroyed. That is, until one of those copies that were given to the game’s developers (signed by “Tetris” creator Alexey Pajitnov) was uncovered, and listed for a cool million bucks!