Gaming gains for one clever gamer

An American woman has proved once and for all that gaming is not just a waste of time and money, but is in fact an investment.

The woman, who remains unnamed, discovered a copy of Family Fun Fitness: Stadium Events, a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System that is generally considered to be one of the rarest games for the system.

Paying $8 for the cartridge, which was still in its box, the buyer then listed it on gaming auction site GameGavel.com.

The current bid is sitting at $12,000. Anybody want to do the maths on that?

The original purchase was made when the woman recognised the rare cartridge from an eBay auction a few years ago that fetched more than $10,000 due to the inclusion of the Stadium Events game.

Proceeds from this title will go to paying off the seller's student debt, making me one of the most jealous ex-students ever.

Ludicrously expensive titles are nothing new for GameGavel, with one copy of Red Sea Crossing for the Atari 2600 selling for $10,000 and, you'll have to bear in mind this is absolutely ridiculous, a copy of Air Raid for the original Atari sold for $33,433. That's right.

Currently sitting at $12,000, this copy of Stadium Events still has six days of auction to play out before the final price is settled.

To put that into perspective, however, the last copy of this game to appear on the site sold for that price and was in much worse condition than the one currently listed, minus instructions and with a munted box.

Check out the listing here and we'll keep you posted as the price escalates.