Check Your Attic: Madden Video Game From 1990 Fetches Ridiculous Price at Auction

Photo: Heritage Auctions

If you grew up playing video games like us, you have memories of tearing open wrapping paper on your birthday or Christmas and revealing the hottest, most popular video game of the day. Sure, the first thing you did was rip off the plastic, tear the case or box open, and throw it directly into the console without even looking at any of your other presents. But what if you could somehow go back in time and tell your young self not to open it at all. To keep it in pristine shape and save it to sell it in the future for an inconceivable amount of money. Well, if you’re anything like us, you’d probably tell your future self to shut up and open it anyway.

The fact that you, I, and everyone else couldn’t wait to rip open a video game package is the reason sealed classic video games fetch such a fortune at auction. The most recent example is a sealed John Madden Football game for the Sega Genesis.

The first console version of the now-iconic brand, a 1990 sealed copy just set a world record for the highest price ever paid for a sports video game. Some Madden fan paid a whopping $480,000 for this game. Yes, you read that right. Almost a half-million dollars for a video game that, at the time, retailed for less than $50.

But don’t go scouring your attics and crawl spaces looking for sealed classic video games. Heritage Auctions, which sold the game to the highest bidder said the copy actually game from John Madden’s office. The former NFL coach and broadcaster, for who the games are named, died in December at the age of 85. The auction house is donating the buyer’s premium of the sale to a charity founded on Madden’s honor,

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