480K WATA 9.2A+ Madden Genesis - trend or outlier?

[GPX | 1,369]

Ah Madden games.. Everyone has likely either played one or has seen/touched/sold one..

In a recent record breaking sale on HA, the most valuable Madden is currently sold at $480K. I feel this deserves a thread to dissect the price point. Because as far as I can tell, this is probably the biggest monumental jump in price percentage pre-WATA and post-WATA, for ANY game. Or perhaps I’m wrong, maybe it has always been valued highly (in monetary terms) within the inner circles of a few mad Madden collectors?

Whoever you are that had spent nearly half a mill on the record Madden, I congratulate you for your ground-breaking spending. Whether it’s a wise sum well spent is another topic however. One in which I would like to hear more thoughts from members here.

In case you guys may have missed the news, Mr. Madden has passed away in December 2021 with the respectable age of 85. May you Rest In Peace, sir Madden. Thanks for bringing so much gaming sequels for us gamers and collectors alike!

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

A) some rube got hustled level: epic

 

or 

 

B) Buyer is sitting on multiple copies that have decently high grades, has some capital and is gearing up for obvious easy market manipulation

 

madden games aren’t worth the original selling price lol

[GPX | 1,369]

This game is roughly the equivalent of a decent house with comfortable space. I’m not sure what to think anymore as a collector. What is “fair market value” these days?

[GPX | 1,369]

3 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

A) some rube got hustled level: epic

 

or 

 

B) Buyer is sitting on multiple copies that have decently high grades, has some capital and is gearing up for obvious easy market manipulation

 

madden games aren’t worth the original selling price lol

To be fair, we’re talking about a sealed game from the 90s and in pretty good nick. As opposed to a Madden CIB game. 

The question I guess, is what is it really worth to the collectors out there? And at what price should we start mocking and doubting the sales pitch?

[WalterWhiteJr. | 1,162]

No idea. But I’ll challenge anyone here to a game of madden. 

[OptOut | 8,884]

It would seem to be an outlier. This particular copy of the game came directly from the estate of John Madden himself after his death, and Heritage Auctions donated the buyer's premium to charity.

Combine that with the amazingly high grade and the fact that Madden's death is still fresh in the news and you have a perfect storm for an all time record sale.

No way we see a repeat of this price on this particular game, IMO.

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

It would seem to be an outlier. This particular copy of the game came directly from the estate of John Madden himself after his death, and Heritage Auctions donated the buyer's premium to charity.

Combine that with the amazingly high grade and the fact that Madden's death is still fresh in the news and you have a perfect storm for an all time record sale.

No way we see a repeat of this price on this particular game, IMO.

Is that providence true? 

[OptOut | 8,884]

6 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Is that providence true? 

Yep!

Our boy Greg is here with the lowdown:

Love them T-tops! @Maertens29 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

 I could see that price justified then. I mean, still to high stupid and outrageous, but I could see how that attached to it drives a high premium. 5 years ago 10k sounds good to me LOL

[inasuma | 1,203]

Instinct tells me this is an outlier purely on the fact it's a lower grade but is "from the offices of John Madden." That's some major provenance if I've ever seen it.

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

4 hours ago, GPX said:

What is “fair market value” these days?

For those who use HA?

[jonebone | 1,307]

I'm a huge Madden fan and of course that got a huge RIP Madden boost, first to market advantage.  All Madden games have been up (both in price and demand) since his death, but you aren't replicating those type of sales outside of HA.

I'm curious what a nice Genesis Madden CE will go for now.  That went for $50k last year and people were shocked, but I knew it would be at least $20+.  That's gotta be a 6 figure game easily now as well.

[GPX | 1,369]

9 hours ago, OptOut said:

It would seem to be an outlier. This particular copy of the game came directly from the estate of John Madden himself after his death, and Heritage Auctions donated the buyer's premium to charity.

Combine that with the amazingly high grade and the fact that Madden's death is still fresh in the news and you have a perfect storm for an all time record sale.

No way we see a repeat of this price on this particular game, IMO.

This game came from the “offices of Madden”, which is making me starting to question a few things:

- is it actually owned by Madden?

- if not, then what the heck does “Madden’s office” mean?

- he passed away late December 2021, so they managed to sell it off, then grade it, then list it via HA all within roughly 1 month. That seems super quick compared with all the delayed WATA grading stories we hear about on VGS.

- could it be this item was actually already graded prior to Madden’s passing?

So many damn questions..

[OptOut | 8,884]

1 minute ago, GPX said:

This game came from the “offices of Madden”, which is making me starting to question a few things:

- is it actually owned by Madden?

- if not, then what the heck does “Madden’s office” mean?

- he passed away late December 2021, so they managed to sell it off, then grade it, then list it via HA all within roughly 1 month. That seems super quick compared with all the delayed WATA grading stories we hear about on VGS.

- could it be this item was actually already graded prior to Madden’s passing?

So many damn questions..

I will agree that the phrasing is a little vague... I assume they meant like literally this was from Madden's office, like his own personal copy from his business office. But then it might just be from "his office" like a copy held by his business holdings, but not necessarily he himself.

Either way the fact they gave away the buyer's premium to charity, it seems to me they had a deal with his office and/or his estate to facilitate the sale, in which case I could DEFINITELY see them getting the grading with WATA fast-tracked to get it out ASAP while his corpse is still warm and selling newspaper headlines.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

5 minutes ago, GPX said:

This game came from the “offices of Madden”, which is making me starting to question a few things:

- is it actually owned by Madden?

- if not, then what the heck does “Madden’s office” mean?

- he passed away late December 2021, so they managed to sell it off, then grade it, then list it via HA all within roughly 1 month. That seems super quick compared with all the delayed WATA grading stories we hear about on VGS.

- could it be this item was actually already graded prior to Madden’s passing?

So many damn questions..

Also, if the seal doesn't match the seal on, which is basically known to be authentic, then perhaps this one is even a reseal. Unfortunately many folks didn't realize that EA manufactured their own games AND started out unlicensed, thus their sealing methods likely wouldn't be the same as those used by companies that weren't involved in either of these things. 

Sloppy reseals by folks that didn't know better? Oops.

[GPX | 1,369]

2 hours ago, jonebone said:

I'm a huge Madden fan and of course that got a huge RIP Madden boost, first to market advantage.  All Madden games have been up (both in price and demand) since his death, but you aren't replicating those type of sales outside of HA.

I'm curious what a nice Genesis Madden CE will go for now.  That went for $50k last year and people were shocked, but I knew it would be at least $20+.  That's gotta be a 6 figure game easily now as well.

I think it’s fair to say there is a clear divergence in the games market. One is the market at play within HA. The other market is outside of HA, where a lot are refusing to follow suit to the price guide set by the HA bidding. 

4-5 years ago, I genuinely doubt any of the sealed Madden games would be worth 5 figures. It was never talked about in terms of holygrailness among any of the conversations from sealed collectors within the relevant forums.

[GPX | 1,369]

18 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Also, if the seal doesn't match the seal on, which is basically known to be authentic, then perhaps this one is even a reseal. Unfortunately many folks didn't realize that EA manufactured their own games AND started out unlicensed, thus their sealing methods likely wouldn't be the same as those used by companies that weren't involved in either of these things. 

Sloppy reseals by folks that didn't know better? Oops.

Plot twist: Madden himself resealed that WATA-graded game. Resealed in his office, “Madden’s office”, a secret hideout where he has stacks of reseal machines.

 

 

[Gulag Joe | 582]

24 minutes ago, GPX said:

It was never talked about in terms of holygrailness among any of the conversations from sealed collectors within the relevant forums.

While this may be true, I never frequented or participated in forums like this until some titles started selling for high amounts and there was no population report in sight. With that said, I've always been tracking original Genesis Madden as well as the IBM and Apple versions since 2000. They are few and far between. Most of the Genesis Maddens I've seen offered had too much damage for my liking. Should've bought the broke ones when I had the chance.

[GPX | 1,369]

44 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

While this may be true, I never frequented or participated in forums like this until some titles started selling for high amounts and there was no population report in sight. With that said, I've always been tracking original Genesis Madden as well as the IBM and Apple versions since 2000. They are few and far between. Most of the Genesis Maddens I've seen offered had too much damage for my liking. Should've bought the broke ones when I had the chance.

Sometimes you don’t need population reports to deduce how pricey a game is. Historically thru yearly Ebay sold listings, Madden games (including sealed games) have been of little value or if at the pricey end, has always been the more affordable among the most sought after franchises. Coupled with the fact, no one ever makes a big scene about the bargains they got from buying up a Madden stack of games on forums/YouTube/etc. No one that is, before the crazy prices have popped up out of nowhere on HA in the recent 1-2 years.

What you’re doing it seems, is seeing the current prices on HA, and then extrapolating that to mean the title is “holy moly” rare. Which I don’t think this is the case here. 

[Gulag Joe | 582]

4 hours ago, GPX said:

Sometimes you don’t need population reports to deduce how pricey a game is. Historically thru yearly Ebay sold listings, Madden games (including sealed games) have been of little value or if at the pricey end, has always been the more affordable among the most sought after franchises. Coupled with the fact, no one ever makes a big scene about the bargains they got from buying up a Madden stack of games on forums/YouTube/etc. No one that is, before the crazy prices have popped up out of nowhere on HA in the recent 1-2 years.

What you’re doing it seems, is seeing the current prices on HA, and then extrapolating that to mean the title is “holy moly” rare. Which I don’t think this is the case here. 

No. I was pointing out that people do collect Madden. Me. I agree that they've been relatively inexpensive when available. But again, all the ones I've seen have been around the 8.5 or less grade range and they rarely come up for auction. I'm not talking about HA. I'm talking about the last 15 or so years on Ebay and how infrequently they pop up for sale. 

[doner24 | 1,196]

Pretty crazy pricing but lots of drivers as others have pointed out above. Nuts that this game is probably worth as much as my collection. In totally unrelated news, if someone wants to spend that amount, they could buy my entire collection including full CIB sets of NES through GameCube and one of the best paper/guides collection in the world  

[Tetris | 3]

On 2/3/2022 at 6:26 AM, OptOut said:

I will agree that the phrasing is a little vague... I assume they meant like literally this was from Madden's office, like his own personal copy from his business office. But then it might just be from "his office" like a copy held by his business holdings, but not necessarily he himself.

Either way the fact they gave away the buyer's premium to charity, it seems to me they had a deal with his office and/or his estate to facilitate the sale, in which case I could DEFINITELY see them getting the grading with WATA fast-tracked to get it out ASAP while his corpse is still warm and selling newspaper headlines.

It was consigned to Heritage well before he died; the auction even opened for bidding about a week before he passed away. Watch the video lot description for more details: 

 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

So another words, we know that if other copies of Madden go for big money it’s pure market manipulation. Got it!

[GPX | 1,369]

3 hours ago, Tetris said:

It was consigned to Heritage well before he died; the auction even opened for bidding about a week before he passed away. Watch the video lot description for more details: 

 

Do you have further info regarding the term “Madden’s office”? Where exactly did it came from? 

I’m starting to think the timing of this sale wasn’t a mere coincidence with Madden’s passing. As in someone possibly knew he was in imminent decline, and they sold it at a time where maximum attention would be given globally to the name “Madden”.

[OptOut | 8,884]

5 hours ago, GPX said:

I’m starting to think the timing of this sale wasn’t a mere coincidence with Madden’s passing. 

...

 

Just the first place my head went to...