Meme push sends Cory in the House DS prices soaring amid Metacritic fight

Kotaku reports a meme-driven Reddit effort to push the 2008 Nintendo DS game Cory in the House up Metacritic’s user rankings has coincided with steep increases in secondhand prices for physical copies on online marketplaces.

The campaign aimed to unseat 2025’s Game of the Year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33; Clair is still holding a 9.5 user score while Cory has fluctuated — previously rising from 9.3 to 9.4 and now back to 9.3. Rating counts have climbed as well: the PS5 Clair listing moved from roughly 23,351 user ratings to 23,654, and Cory’s user ratings rose from roughly 2,400 to interim counts reported as 4,666 and 4,684 before reaching 4,697. Observers say the activity looks less like review-bombing Clair and more like reverse review-bombing Cory.

Resale watchers first flagged the effect after Cllct’s Will Stern noted a copy sold for $199 on January 14; Resell News then said prices had shot up by 'more than 3000% in the past 2 weeks' (tweet dated January 15, 2026), with some auctions reaching bids up to $721. Since then one copy sold for $299 and another for $399.97, and a Buy It Now listing at $1,704.83 remained unsold. A $721 auction was still open with bidding closing January 22. It remains to be seen whether prices will keep rising if Cory in the House ultimately overtakes Clair Obscur on Metacritic.

Key Topics

Culture, Clair Obscur, Metacritic, Nintendo Ds, Ebay, Reddit