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Wata & Heritage Auctions Game Scandal Blows Up
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- čas přidán 31. 08. 2021
- This video is sponsored by Roniu's Tale on Kickstarter! Go to retro.mom to order!
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Wata and Heritage Auctions respond to the graded game scandal allegations in the wake of Karl Jobst's video, and more details revealed!
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➡Support us and get goodies: shorturl.at/fswBU or on Patreon: / cupodcast
➡More info @kotaku.com/you...
#wata #heritageauctions #gamecollecting
Thanks again for Roniu's Tale for sponsoring this segment - you can check it out at retro.mom
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Where do you think the Wata/HA scandal goes from here? Will the FTC or another gov. entity get involved? Read a recap @kotaku.com/youtuber-accuses-million-dollar-retro-game-sales-of-bei-1847557296
13:00 dude alone the fact that people in some ways affiliated with WATA grade their own games at their own company is something that never can be a ok thing that should happen because those people obviously have interests to give their own games the highest (reasonable) grades which delegitimise the whole credibility of their grading system you can't pretend that you are a "objective" grading company when you have self interest to grade your own games and those same people are also in relations with the auction house that also gets a share of the sold items price so both those companies have interests to inflate "their own" games and both companys have interests to get more investors and more people in general interested in this market which gives them even more reasons to grade their games in the most favorable way and artificially inflate those games prices to the max. All in all this all is just one big scam
The WATA heel-turn is my favorite story line in gaming. Thanks for the accurate and entertaining coverage of the flim flammery.
Personally, I hope the game sales department of HA and the entirety of WATA get a big fine, as well as having to pay a fee per item not returned, and take customer-voluntary returns, covering all related costs until games are safely back with their original owner, AND THEN they have to close their operations / shut down WATA.
Realistically, I think Halperin & Co. perfectly executed this plan, as he sold the company, and might have to pay a very modest fine, while all the inv3st0rs will continually keep patching up the market by basically wheeling and dealing and doing sort of the same thing. And otherwise, I think we're still stuck with a market not willing to open its eyes. 😕
This is dumb. Nobody cares about Nintendo cartridges anymore
Sell sell aell
Karl is an ABSOLUTE LEGEND. Love his videos.
Karl is a fuckin GOD
I see what you did there.
No partial legend here, just pure uncut gem
The jump from $100's to $1000s to $10000 to $100000 to $1000000 took about 18 months. That is a pump and dump by definition.
Yep. When you grade games on WATA, you have to pay according the value of the game you expect to get from its grade.
Anyone that sends a nice sealed SM game to be graded needs to pay thousands of dollars.
That's why they boost the price with those fake sales.
@@madjoe8622 Thats the thing. They take a % of the expected value of the game if it exceeds a certain amount, so they are interested in having prices being as high as possible.. And that also creates another problem. Artificial scarcity.
I've been collecting games (mainly gameboy) for about 15 years (damn, I am getting old...) and I have a bunch of sealed games (non of them graded), including a couple super rare ones. I have a Shantae mint sealed, which just complete in box even if its a bit beaten goes for a few thousands. I don't know how much would it cost graded, (I don't know if there are precedents and I am too lazy to look at it, xD) but I know one thing. I can't afford to grade it. It will be way more that what I payed for the game.
A friend of mine has Mario Bros, MB2 and MB3 all of them mint sealed (non graded). He spent what was a good money on them back in the day because he wanted to have them. He would have to sell his house to be able to pay grading those now...
And I know a few other collectors in the same situation.
My point is, I am not saying those games are common, but I would like to know how many average joes like me and my friend, who have been collecting for the fun and love of it, going to conventions, yard sales and hunting them down, have sealed copies of some of this games that simply are not going to get graded because their owners can't afford it?
Non of use really care much about that because we are not intending to sell, but that creates a scenario were the most expensive games (specially if they are not really that rare, like the Marios) are ungradable for collectors that might have them because of the cost of grading. Therefore making that games population lower than it really is/would be.
No a pump and dump is when Rudy signs a marketing agreement with a new TCG like Metapoo and cons moronic kids into buying into it as if anything in will be worth price of a original Black Lotus. This with video games? Is legit criminal activity and money laundering, without a doubt.
Their pricing model for their grading services is proof enough that it’s a scam. It’s set up to benefit themselves and their rich investor buddies.
When they talked about inviting Karl to headquarters, I thought the same thing Pat did, only I pictured him getting whacked like Pesci in Goodfellas.
My god someone finally put it into words. What they would do is pull a Billy Mitchel and have shark lawyers ready.
And that’s that
It’s no secret Karl lives in Australia. They knew exactly what they were doing there. He didn’t need their validation in the first place.
"wadda you mean I'm funny??!!!"
I was picturing the helicopter scene from Scarface
Can’t wait for these “million dollar SM64s” to be sold for 80$ a few years from now.
@@bkirk0510 it happened with Atari Spider-Man.
The grades are being given by the people selling the games.
How can you know how rare the SM64 game was if they don’t report how many games they’ve graded?
@@jonny5alive123 Don't forget they also bought Nintendoage just to shut them down so they can sell NOT rare games at a stupidly high price. It's all about the population reports.
@@bkirk0510 It was bought out by people who see game collecting as an investment and not a hobby. They sucked NintendoAge dry of its data and then killed it. You can choose to view it anyway you want, my friend.
It will never happen for a simple reason.....those bast**** mentioned are faking the whole thing. They are selling and buying from each other so no real Million dollar was spent and may be the game it self did not move from the shelf.
The actions they are doing (Wata/AH/Khan/dentist/coin scam man....etc) should really be investigated as it may involve money laundry.
and if the guy in the report has more resources and access to social security system, he will find them all as nephews, old neighbors, step family or old colleagues.
I really hope that the people behind wata and heritage get what they deserve
go fund me a hitman thats what i say
I hope they get SEEEEEEEAAAAALLLLEED behind bars
FTC is looking at the claims.
Depends how connected they are to the powers that be
Jim has before. I worked for a coin and card grading company back in the Hay Day. He got Pinged
Say NO to graded games, dont buy them, dont use grading services, protect the hobby
This!!
Agreed. I'm hoping this fallout will turn people away from grading stuff.
I was going to grade my games a month ago...not any more !!!
Funny how you consider your shitty CIB collecting the same as sealed. Literally two different hobbies lmao. Get over yourself.
This fraud has hurt the retro gaming scene, I go on eBay and can’t find any real rare gems on sale anymore.
My wife doesn't care about gaming, but she's interested in this story overall. She told me she's been hearing about this over the past week. I said "Pat & Ian have been talking about this for at least a year!"
My wife
@@jakethesnakepkm?
Great user name!
@@leland242 thanks, it goes along with my music podcast and vinyl channel pretty well :)
@@InfectiousGroovePodcast I’ll be checking that out immediately !
If Karl created a defamatory video and was wrong we would have seen a lawsuit already. They won't sue because if they did they would fall under the legal practice of discovery. Where they would have to reveal everything going on behind the scenes 😂
Lawsuits don't actually move that fast. At least not in a way that 'we would see' it.
Dats a BINGO
One of the big red flags is a good number of the folks behind the scenes are the same folks who took part in the coin price fixing scandal in the late 80s, early 90s.
It's not a red flag, it's proof these guys are crooks.
James Halperin has literally been scamming since he was 13, go look at his Wikipedia page. Mail fraud has a teenager and now he's still at it. He turns 69 this year. A fitting age.
These con artists are sociopaths with no sense of ethics or morality. They would even go so far as to screw their own grandmother (not literally you sicko!).
Can't wait to see this bubble burst in real-time. Stay on it!
go watch the "Retro Rick" channel here on youtube, it already bursted on his face
@@chaosdimension6433 Any particular video to watch?
A true game collector you are my friend. Caring more about collecting and less about what our collections are worth. I also sincerely hope the market eventually collapses or bursts so they are affordable and people can reasonably collect without competing with resellers and sham speculators
@ElectronicWasteland Graded games literally have almost zero impact on your shitty CIB market. You're talking about two completely different hobbies lmao.
@@aceone2156 LMAO! Feeding your family off graded video games! Nobody gets shut down for auction fraud lol! This is gr8 b8 m8!
Why did Halperin buy that million dollar Super Mario Bros game from his OWN auction house that was taxated at that price by his OWN friends? That smells big time.
James Halperin has been scamming since he was 13. He turns 69 this year.
Magic Johnson’s finals game worn jersey went for 1.5 mil. That a one off, but is still less than a 3rd issue mario……..
Yeah... It's a load of crock as Wayne Gretzky's game used shit does not go for this much... WAYNE GRETZKY one of the greatest athletes who owns almost every record imaginable in the NHL. His shit goes for less than what that Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros (NES).
Which Finals game 😂 I’m just kinda curious if it’s that Boston Center game 😳
YEA DUDE PUMP AND DUMP SCHEME BASICALLY
You could get a Gretzky rookie, MJ rookie, all 12 back carded Star Wars figures, avengers issue 1, amazing spider 1. All decent grades for a lot less than a 9.8 graded super mario 9.8 really?
Yep you could buy all the 12 backs and own the star wars market. Lets not give people any idea. lol... Star Wars is still relatively still affordable.
With 2M you could buy like 7-10 MTG Alpha sets. Crazy. That SM game doesn't worth that. Fake fake price.
It's funny that other CZcams collectors still think their sealed/graded NES games are still worth thousands after this story broke. People refuse to see that the house of cards is about to collapse.
What CZcams collectors are downplaying this news. I’m curious as I’d like to check out their ‘response’
@Emiliano Hurtado I didn't want to name names but that is correct.
They're trying to get out of the market ASAP.
Lol “we don’t need no water…”
I mean sealed for thousands isn't too outrageous for over 30 year old games. those 10000s and 100000s to millions? nah.
As someone who Collects Videogames for 25+ Years ,this Sealed/Grading thing was allways suspicious for me.
Especially the last couple of Years,when total Dogshit Games (Sealed and Graded) where selling for High Prices!
But... that's because they have a high grade. That makes them valuable. Duh. :P
I trust wato cause his species can't be influenced by Jedi mind tricks.
@@ThereIsNoLord thank you, I was so proud of myself for that one. I like that pic, is that bad religion?
Thanks for continuing to cover this story. This situation is dripping with shady, manipulative, and unethical practices. A lot of people are going to get hurt when this bubble bursts and regular collectors are getting hurt right now.
God, these graded games. Such clowns
Kotaku doesn’t have journalists, they have bloggers. Stopped reading anything by them years ago.
@David Nash the best journalism I see is usually by amateurs on CZcams and stuff. There are people with a lot of talent for it but there really isn’t anything good on mainstream media
Good for you, no one cares.
@David Nash Reuters, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera. That's pretty much it
Same here. Also Kotaku is way too woke. No thanks.
@@Rountree1985 You cared enough to reply. Thumbs up!
I love how it looks like Ian is wearing a tiny mario hat. Love the podcast!
Dude. I can’t unsee it. 😂
😂
Pat said this from the beginning! You da man, Pat.
Also Ian, obviously.
@@supyo1 Maybe so, but Ian still has given proper reservations regarding this.
Ian's ok
I am so glad that this bombshell report came out sooner than too late. I was beginning to dread the idea of a dystopia future where thousands of loose carts are converted to being locked in sealed graded plastic like sports cards. Video games were meant to be played!
Whenever I get a game, I rip off the plastic in my car like I'm a kid. I used to work at egghead computers as a teenager. We would open up games, take them home and play them, and bring them back and reseal them.
I don’t see many graded loose carts out there… which ones are you referring to?
@@aceone2156 is a big difference between speculators, collectors, and enthusiasts. Very few mediums have interactivity the way video games do. Enjoy your boxes.
@@aceone2156 As a seller it's not surprising that market manipulation means squat to you and you shrug it off like flies and your opinion of illegal activity is "oh well it happens all the time" or you somehow lump fraud into "competing forces". If anything the inflated higher prices benefits you in the short term which is why you're defending it. What wata did is bad for the market as a whole and taints the reputation of graded video games even though most collectors don't care about graded or sealed games to begin with. It befuddled me that you're incapable of comprehending how bad it is to have news articles being published about "record breaking million dollar auctions" in video games when they were a illegitimate scam to begin with.
One doesn't need to be interested in buying sealed games to be interested in the entire retro video game market and concerned about the affects of the wata scandal. If you can't fathom that you're 1) in denial 2) in defense mode or 3) you just have a dim bulb upstairs in your head
@@aceone2156 lots of people have brought up youtube influencers as a product of driving up prices but it's not illegal for them to post CZcams content and sell games especially if the increased demand is an unintended result afterwards. What wata is doing is illegal and there is a possibility that this type of manipulation has been going on in the loose and cib market as well.. I'm done having a debate with you dude.
Found your channel through Karl’s video. Not a big VG collector really but I like what you do over here. Keep up the good work. Subbed
Id like to hear the explanation of how that Tomb Raider that looks like it got dragged 50 miles behind a car ended up as a 9.8...
I guess greed and drugs
Whenever someone regularly makes "mistakes" that always end up consistently in their favor, that is a scam
Genuine mistakes are more erratic: sometimes they hurt they person, sometimes they dont, but when its all goes ONE WAY its BS
Man, games are made to be played. It's such a shame that all these games will never be played because of an artificial hype...
They can just emulate the game. It's not like what's in the box is unique.
That needs to be a shirt! “If you can buy one of 20 copies at any given time, IT IS NOT RARE!!!!”
@@Jackie_Fhan did you not read what he wrote? If there are 20 copies of said item at any given time it's not rare. He didn't say anything about condition. Get a clue and re-read what he said.
@@Jackie_Fhan did you reply to the wrong comment? Nothing you wrote has anything to do with his comment
I cannot take credit for that comment, that was all Pat lol.
Looking forward to the time when more ears hear about this news. Any and everything video game related is crazy expensive right now. Mario and Duck Hunt games $35 at a yard sale because everyone thinks they're sitting on a gold mine. I can't stand it
Looking forward to the time when people aren't greedy fucks that seek to grease people.
It's a huge bubble driven by Millennials entering their peak earning years (a similar bubble hit comic books in the 80's and 90's due to Boomers getting lots of money and driving comic book speculation). Later generations won't makes such a big deal out of this crap, and values will decline (look folks, the market for video games in the late 80's and 90's was massive, there's no way such plentiful items deserve to be as expensive as the current collector's market thinks they ought to be. In the later 90's the comic book market crashed when people realized how common most comic books were (making them not so valuable).
@@ryanjacobson2508 exactly!! I laugh in the face of people that think that Mega Man 1 is worth $70 & Contra & Mike Tyson Punch Out is worth $40 when there are millions of copies out there.
VGA is rubbing it in WATA's face.
If Karl's video was truly defamatory, wouldn't they have sued? That's pretty much all the proof you need.
Wouldn’t it put an even bigger spotlight on the whole situation if they sued him? Hmmmmm……I hope they do it. ⚖️ ⚒ 💸
@@xyrzmxyzptlk1186 Exactly. They don't want the attention. They couldn't win a court case. But at the same time they couldn't completely ignore it because of how much it pulled the curtain back. They want to do damage control, but the cat is out of the bag.
I feel so bad for Pat now that his game collection is worthless. He must feel so disappointed and embarrassed.
I'm going to say there are at least 100 mint condition, sealed Mario 64 games given the total sales of the game and being only 25 years old.
Mario 64 was marketed to the 2nd/echo Boomer generation born in the late 80's/early 90's (birth rates were massive from about 1988-1992). Millions upon millions of copies were sold. We still have kajillions of vinyl records from the 70's (that are largely worthless) because so many were pressed to satisfy the ginormous Boomer market. Realistically many 90's video games should not be that valuable because so many were made.
@@ryanjacobson2508 Exactly. It sold like 10 or 11 million copies. But in the 90's, the trend of collecting sealed things had already started. Whether it be star wars figures or video games or whatever. People are sitting on boxes of these things.
They shut Nintendo Age down as they didn't want any information about these games to be easily searched. That allows Wata to make HUGE mistakes on their "First game this bla bla bla" on the back of the case.
Also I think they if it hadn't been sold, it would have been updated with info about the graded games thus giving the world a place to catalog and make its own pop reports.
Wonder what Pat thinks about his good buddy Dain?
@@RetroHabit82 who?
@@thecianinator Rain Anderson. Nintendoage founder and who's collection was sold and later graded by WATA
@@RetroHabit82 Rain jumped ship when he saw the money coming in. NinAge was part of the deal for the "collection" but was also a way for Wata to control information, as GoCollect certainly hasn't been updated like promised, its barren.
I’m loading up on copies of Top Gun and Beanie Babies to supplement my retirement. We’re in the money!
Are you kidding Anthem and Fallout 76 will be in the billions in a few years.😆
Mommy buys my art for 10.000 dollars then I give it back suddenly my art is valued at 10.000, right people?! thats how it works?
Essentially yes, that's exactly what they're doing.
Mommy needs to slab your art in plastic first and stick it on the refrigerator. Then it’s official. You’ll be the next Picasso. 🎨 🏆 💰
They all act as if these games cant be resealed. When you are talking about this type of money, people will figure out how to reseal etc
Easily. They can hook up with a sealing company, and they pay them a cut for helping with professionally resealing the games. It's to damn easy to fraud.
This would basically be like PSA/JSA auctioning off cards they grade. Just not a good look.
Bought all my CIB NES games 15-20 years ago for around $10-$20 each. Will keep them forever because i still PLAY every one… Not interested in selling at all. They bring me much more joy than a small pile of cash ever will. Grading schmading! Dont care one bit about grading.
Possible market manipulation you say? In graded video games? Who would have guessed? ;)
Hehehehe
BUT SHAWN
Everything is manipulated by people who are in the same evil team. Which is why society has gone to shit so fast, and they're not done yet until the world is literal shit and we're begging for a new world order to come save us.
Putting aside these fraudsters, I think something has to be said about these people who are spending crazy amounts on these games to begin with. They've definitely got some responsibility. Clearly they're not very smart...
The majority of responsibility is on them. Prices won't rise if ppl don't buy them. The road is THICK with morons. All within the age of emulation, no less. I feel same about pre-ordering games. For impulsive suckers 99/100.
I mean to remember that at least some of the buyers where inn on the scam to begin with. But yeah people with more money than brain is a real problem.
@@SeattleSundown The prices are raising because these people are sellling the games to themselves to pump the price up. None of this would be going on without this wash trading scheme.
yeah no one is buying these games at the astronomical prices being shown, its the ppl who own the auction and grading companies who are 'buying' their own games and attempting to create an artificial demand for them, thats what makes it a grift
Karl is awesome.
His other content is extremely good but he definitely raised the bar with this story!
i hope this falls out from under them so hard they get left holding the bag and can never do this again
As a collector of baseball and Magic cards, I was SHOCKED that pop reports weren’t a thing. Paying hundreds of thousands and no access to that? I mean really, how silly.
Yeah. That's not scummy at all, given the company is being slammed for collusion and conflicts of interest.
Being a major in Museum and Heritage Studies, I've long pointed out the difference between worth and value. Just because something is valued at a certain amount doesn't mean it's worth it. The true importance comes from rarity (as many collections include items that ere never meant to be kept) and the story behind it, not speculative bullshit about condition. While an intact early civilization piece of pottery or something would be great, the reality is that you aren't going to find that many, so you settle with what you have so that you can tell that story and do the research, intact or not.
Here is my simple understanding of this "Kangaroo Auction" fiasco...
Judge : WATA
Jury : Collector Universe
Persecutor : Golden Auction
Defense Attorney : Pat
Defendant : Gamers
Do Pat and gamers stand a chance to win in that court?
heck no.
So many scams in the graded game and card world
Queen of the comic book grifters Nerdy Girl Comics is also a graded video games collector and seller. Surprise, surprise, all her games are WATA. She is not a gamer or comic book reader at all. DO NOT support grifters in our hobbies!!
All this reminds of a guy called Pat Contri, trying to sell a 300.000usd video game at pawn stars.
Ya got an extra zero there bud
The reason Kotaku and others ignored the issue when you guys brought it up, is because Karl did the difficult research part FOR THEM. They wanted to write an article but not have to do any real research. Good job Pat and Ian for sticking to it, and continuing coverage.
Well, that, and mainstream gaming journalism doesn't expose corruption, it sucks up to big money hoping for sponsorships and such.
Listening to WATA and Heritage act like innocent victims while committing fraud right out in the daylight is both hilarious and disgusting.
Heritage is selling me a bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge slabbed & graded? Nice! 💰
That SM64 on Goldin Auction is UNCIRCULATED - that mean that it came from a factory sealed case fresh box of 6 pcs !!!
Interesting!!
Good catch. A guy working at WATA probably has that box and the 5 remaining games 🤣
Thanks for the coverage guys. but I noticed there is a slight beeping noise on the video audio. I have noticed it just recently. Regardless, Keep the good content coming!
I really wanted to get a few special games that I had extra copies of graded because of sentimentality. After all this, I’ll put them in an acrylic case instead. This has really pissed me off. I’m a collector & gamer. When I pass, the games are to go to my kids. Yea I have some worth money. But they go to my kids. I NEVER got into gaming to sale my games. I’ll trade all day long, but will not sell any of them. This is not only my childhood, but my kids grew up on these retro games too. I can only hope when I’m gone they pass it on to their kids as well. Thank You @Pat & @Ian for your reporting on this. You have swayed this guy to stay far away from it. ✌🏻
The retro collectible game market is now in a huge bubble driven by Millennials entering their peak earning years (a similar bubble hit comic books in the 80's and 90's due to Boomers getting lots of money and driving comic book speculation). Later generations won't makes such a big deal out of this crap, and values will decline (look folks, the market for video games in the late 80's and 90's was massive, there's no way such plentiful items deserve to be as expensive as the current collector's market thinks they ought to be. In the later 90's the comic book market crashed when people realized how common most comic books were (making them not so valuable).
13:00 dude alone the fact that people in some ways affiliated with WATA grade their own games at their own company is something that never can be an ok thing, it should never happen because those people obviously have interests to give their own games the highest grades which delegitimise the whole credibility of their grading system you can't pretend that you are a "objective" grading company when you have self interest to grade your own games and those same people are also in relations with the auction house that also gets a share of the sold items price so both those companies have interests to inflate "their own" games and both companys have interests to get more investors and more people in general interested in this market which gives them even more reasons to grade their games in the most favorable way and artificially inflate those games prices to the max. All in all this all is just one big scam
CGC keeps a census for all their comics and when you get your grades back you get that info...excited for them to get into the gaming space.
Is that good or bad
@@GamerBoy870 its good. So lets say you get a grade in a 9.8. They tell you how many there are out there and then how many in each grade have been graded since Day 1. So if they start from scratch w videogames people will have a better idea of whats going on.
This whole thing is very dodgy, in the UK it may be investigated by the Competition Commission due to a potential conflict of interest. You have Wata who may potentially over grade a game to raise the valuation so the Auction part of the overall company can claim extra commission.
For some reason I pictured that helicopter scene from Scarface when he was invited to their headquarters.
Karl should show up at their HQ with a camera crew.
We need people to talk about the non-graded stuff. Loose games, complete games, it ALL is way high from all this. The game market in total needs to go down. The same stuff with Wata is what is going on with games like Crusader Of Centy, Keio Flying Squadron, and others that are chosen and forced to go up.
It's straight up fraud from the evidence provided. Since the company hasn't issued a proper rebuttal with explanation, I'll assume they are involved directly with fraud.
As a comic book collector CGC has the solid reputation of years behind them in comics industry. They will take over the video game grading industry as the leader within a few years. WATA is likely doing a OOOOOH F---CK hearing this. I don't do graded comics (I own 1 graded comic lol) but the company has years behind it.
You would have to be very shallow minded to think these sealed games would be worth anywhere near the prices they were bringing...things were very fishy stinking long before these recent allegations.
I always said Wata was junk...
The one that really makes me laugh is the $600 sealed Skyrim for 360. A game so widely available it’s become it’s own meme.
How many copies do you have?
lol a third of my 360, PS3, PS4 games are still sealed. Sealed games for these consoles - are - not - rare!
@@madjoe8622 do you have Skyrim’s? It’s not about rare. Are Pokémon cards rare they go for that much? Bitcoin is a VIRTUAL currency with 18 million Bitcoin and its $40k. That’s not rare and it’s trading for $40k.
I use to throw the game in the trash and keep the case for other games that had bad cases.
Bryant Arlington, Stop been stupid by asking that to everybody as it proves something. You can still buy a new, pristine, sealed Skyrim 360 on amazon for about 30$.
I had a golden auctions add pop up on my Facebook timeline advertising that they were selling wata graded games. I reported the add as a scam. Haha!
🤣😂🤣👍
you showed them
Sunlight is always the best disinfectant, now that this is out there in the mainstream with so many details openly available to everyone. People with more resources and connections will start digging deeper to see what else is out there.
Media is meant to be used there is very little value in keeping items sealed except for the joy of owning a sealed copy. The item may be defective in box.Vintage Vinyl records are often opened to insure quality. Often times on discogs sellers will note that they opened a sealed copy to insure quality. Play grading is the highest form of grading to insure the record is what it is being represented correctly. I was buying and selling records when Atari came out. The vintage record collecting community is way older than the video game community and there's never been 3rd party grading.
Pat and Ian reporting on the Game Grading Scam is second to none.
Protect our hobby everyone. Don't buy any graded games. Making a fair profit is one thing. Inflating prices ruins our hobby.
its like goldin didn't even watch the video. I do not think the guy put anything in his video that he could not backup
This just shows that the value of graded games will depend on how consistent and transparent the grading company that are grading them is. Why is magic the gathering card grading popular and consistent? Transparency that makes people trust the grading.
Meaning better guidelines are still needed for videogames. Clearly they need to reduce fees, as 2-2,5% fees on a variable value of a game is just stupid as there is no real set value, and they need to improve the grading procedures - imo games can't have the similar guidelines as comics, as the sealing and case damages aren't comparable to comics, paper damage, and they need to start adding a brand hologram sticker that if tried to be removed leaves a part of the sticker (like in pharmaceuticals, they use these stickers to check if a box was indeed opened), so people can't resend the same games to get a better grade.
Population reports are needed too so investors know what's going on and how rare what they are getting is.
An actual review or individual report of a game you are submitting needs to be given to you, too.
Wata can probably reform themselves but as a new company with new key people without any of the guys running the show there right now. They already showed they are shady and cannot be trusted and shouldn't be part of this type of hobby/investment. These people need to get out ASAP or investors will end up losing a lot of money.
Karl's example of the graded tomb raider full of holes shows how grading is WORTHLESS
You guys are really good at what you do. Always enjoy listening when I can. Cheers!
It sounds like a collector outside the system trying to guess at what the most popular game would be and having no idea. Mario 1 being picked makes it fishy as hell. Anyone who was around pawn shops back in the 90s saw Tecmo Bowl and Mario 1 flooding all the cases. There's no way any form of Mario 1 no matter how rare would go for that price unless its someone outside the industry who picked it because it's Mario 1. Like someone trying to make the best guess they can make when trying to manipulate the market based on what they think is a collector's item. I'm not sure why they'd pick SM64 either outside of it being popular in speedrunning. The methodology of why the fraud picked these specific games as their specific auction 'value guess' is more interesting to me than the overall fraud because it shows the way outsiders think about game rarity.
I think to the contrary they know what they are doing. Associating Mario with a high price tag is a good publicity. All news outlets will take that story. A lot of people don't know anything about these games but they all know about Mario. They will be more easily interested and curious in an articles if they know it's a Mario game.
But, I think Pat is right. They just went to greedy and now they are getting "bad" attention because it looks like a scam.
There's a Kahn-Quest going on it seems when Deniz Kahn is leading the charge in video game collectibles and for wrestling it's Nick Kahn in WWE and finally Tony Kahn in AEW and each one is forever changing their respective markets.
6 mega corporations control all entertainment and media. And those 6 corporations are in the same evil team. It's like one single dragon, with multiple heads.
Will be interesting to see how it all plays out, thanks for the info
an unreleased console one of a kind PS+SNES sells for 200k+ yet a game for a console that has been printed in the 100's of thousands possibly even millions sells for more? What is this world coming to?
Fair play pat you was speaking upon theses issues years ago
We dont need no WATA let the mf burn :))
If it walks like a duck ,smells like a duck & quacks like a duck guess what!!!!! IT’S A FUCKING!!!!! DUCK!!!!
That's possibly the first advertisement I've actively watched in my live.
i loved seeing news articles posted and on my google feed same day as that dudes video
Naierman, Meyer, Gieg, Halperin, Haspel. Find the common thread.
Collectors universe is PSA wow this isn't good
I love it, I love everything about it. Let's take down these retro con men.
We gotta take them down quick, before they cover up their tracks and get away.
When someone says "alternative", think "illegal".
Bring on the bubble burst please. I just want to be able to play fucking games again without spending thousands of dollars
Goodwill should burn in hell for selling that sealed Zelda 1 on their auction site for $400k
LOL at the responses of those involved in light of the recent sales data. Whoops.
You have seen the folks are doing the same crap with sealed VHS? And these eBay CZcamsrs have been pushing that crap too
If Wata and Heritage were smarter/ more well informed, wouldnt they have attempted to drive up a game thats more rare, like starcraft 64 or conker's BFD?
I feel they just faked that sale to boost the sale price of WATA. Or they just don't care because they probably think they are SO smart.
Maybe Heritage Auctions just saw your Rampart segment.
Sounds like insider trading.
They know exactly what the're doing and the'lll get away with it.
It will continue for years and years.
People who lay down those amounts of money dont watch youtube.
Oh.. Karl 'll probably get sued...
Exactly man.. the criminals gotta go down fast and hard. Cause they'll cover up this story real fast, and they'll manipulate the internet media to where the exposer looks like the bad guy. It's the same shit as always.
It might be too late for a coverup this time. Stay tuned to this channel for BIG BIG updates. 🎙
I understand grading sealed games.
But grading used games is too much.
Sealed games preserve it. Used games are everywhere so you can play all you want!
WATA will start downgrading ones that their directors don’t own.
Start? The grade you get is already apparently a bit random, which people 'exploit' by paying to have same game graded again in the hopes of getting a better rating. (An 'exploit' WATA may very well welcome, as they make money off of every grading.) There are also things like the photo of the "A++" graded game with visible holes in the front of the seal, even though WATA's own public guidelines say that no holes are allowed even to get an "A+" rating. (Realistically, the game might should have been a "B+", as even "A" only allows "miniscule" holes.)
#WataGate help bring them down. And by them I mean prices. That CIB Flicky for the Genesis is just to expensive. 😁
I work for an auction house. I completely understand and agree with the frustration over the market manipulation. I've been collecting games since the mid 90's and it's awful to watch this happen to what was once a niche hobby. But please don't think that auction houses are dishonest businesses because of these people. There are scumbags in any walk/region of life. The auction business is literally the most fair way of selling items possible.
I skip past anything WATA related due to all the conflict of interest. Shenanigans be gone!