Wata - A year and a half after

[Bronty | 187]

10 minutes ago, BeaglePuss said:

Everything you’ve typed is right, but you’ve still completely missed why people are not fans of WATA (but more-so GC and HA). 

WATA invited the Devil into our house, and fanned the flames as it burnt to the ground.  

The resentment HERE doesn’t stem from the fact people made a thousand bucks for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I’ve profited from the New NA for sure. 

The resentment stems from the insufferable shills and constant pumpers trying to capitalize on ignorant comic collectors, and the fact that the guy that helped make it all possible ruined out on home. That type of behavior is going to be less prevalent here because the community overwhelmingly disagrees with it. 

I really don't think so.

Resentment because Dain decided to leave, or resentment because we have to login to a new URL?   come on.   How petty can we get.   Annoying yes, but not wata's fault.    The whole gocollect transition was not well handled in my view but that's gocollect, that's not wata, and not HA and not clink.     Gocollect.  At the end of the day, I think Jeff had good intentions for the most part, but ultimately everyone is better off having transitioned to this site.

'Inviting the devil into our house?'  Who is the devil in that analogy, exactly?   'Comicbros' ?   And to Hamster's point, most of the people on the site really don't collect the material being bought and sold at these higher prices anyways.   

The truth of the matter is that it doesn't affect most people on this site, except for fear of change and or a tingling in their underwear that I'll describe as butthurt.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Bronty

[CodysGameRoom | 2,009]

[jonebone | 1,307]

It's just a completely arbitrary line between comics and games.  I don't own a comic, I've never read one and I don't give two shits about them.  Yet, Wata copies the comic scale and heavily markets video games as the next big thing at comic trade shows.  So what do you know, a comic guy comes in and tells his friends, they recruit more, the ponzi scheme continues, yadda yadda yadda.  It's about artificial acceleration of the hobby due to actively recruiting new money, many of which have absolutely no eye for condition or rarity as evident with a lot of sale prices.  

It's obviously a strategic move, as copying the coin scale and marketing to coin guys would have been futile due to demographic differences, and copying the card scale / marketing at card shows may not have made as much sense for a 3D item vs. 2D.  But still, while we all collect video games, there's other collectibles like sports memorabilia, vintage toys, art, sneakers, etc.  The new money could have been sold on anything other than games, but we injected them here.  

For as hot as we think games are, sneakers are even more ridiculous.  StockX ( http://www.stockx.com ) has literally turned sneaker collecting into a multi billion dollar online stock marketplace, they even had a SuperBowl ad last year.  Wata and HA are still chump change compared to the genius entrepreneur that put together StockX... which coincidentally, is also expanding to other collectibles.  Maybe video games will be on there someday too...

Either way, I assume most collectors expect their collection to go up in value.  But when it just blows up so stupidly it takes a lot of fun out of it.  So what, a lot of us had a good year selling, it's just money.  But it certainly makes it a lot more difficult to collect, which I assume is what most collectors like to do.  Normal organic growth is great, injected money is not. 

[Bronty | 187]

14 minutes ago, jonebone said:

 

Either way, I assume most collectors expect their collection to go up in value.  But when it just blows up so stupidly it takes a lot of fun out of it.  So what, a lot of us had a good year selling, it's just money.  But it certainly makes it a lot more difficult to collect, which I assume is what most collectors like to do.  Normal organic growth is great, injected money is not. 

There's no question that when things start getting sold on auction sites that have deep collector pools, prices generally go up which makes it more difficult to acquire new material.

On the other hand, the auction site constantly bringing things to market means that you don't have to search 4 years for a copy of some sealed title.

Availability and liquidity go up, price goes up.     The games you have are worth more, the games you want cost more.   You take the good with the bad I guess.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Bronty

[Bronty | 187]

31 minutes ago, jonebone said:

It's just a completely arbitrary line between comics and games.  I don't own a comic, I've never read one and I don't give two shits about them.  Yet, Wata copies the comic scale and heavily markets video games as the next big thing at comic trade shows.  So what do you know, a comic guy comes in and tells his friends, they recruit more, the ponzi scheme continues, yadda yadda yadda.  It's about artificial acceleration of the hobby due to actively recruiting new money, many of which have absolutely no eye for condition or rarity as evident with a lot of sale prices.  

It's obviously a strategic move, as copying the coin scale and marketing to coin guys would have been futile due to demographic differences, and copying the card scale / marketing at card shows may not have made as much sense for a 3D item vs. 2D.  But still, while we all collect video games, there's other collectibles like sports memorabilia, vintage toys, art, sneakers, etc.  The new money could have been sold on anything other than games, but we injected them here.  

For as hot as we think games are, sneakers are even more ridiculous.  StockX ( http://www.stockx.com ) has literally turned sneaker collecting into a multi billion dollar online stock marketplace, they even had a SuperBowl ad last year.  Wata and HA are still chump change compared to the genius entrepreneur that put together StockX... which coincidentally, is also expanding to other collectibles.  Maybe video games will be on there someday too...

Either way, I assume most collectors expect their collection to go up in value.  But when it just blows up so stupidly it takes a lot of fun out of it.  So what, a lot of us had a good year selling, it's just money.  But it certainly makes it a lot more difficult to collect, which I assume is what most collectors like to do.  Normal organic growth is great, injected money is not. 

Jone,

In truth though, weren't we largely already there?    I don't know about you but even before all this, I really wasn't too interested in buying a ton of new material at the prices prevalent even then.    Everything I might get halfway excited by seemed to cost 5k+ and I just wasn't feeling it considering I first started buying some of those items for 200 a pop.

5k or 50k I wasn't really going to buy new stuff.   The fun was kinda gone already in terms of sealed games.    It used be you'd have to outbid bucky and he'd put a monster snipe in to avoid losing anything good and keep a stranglehold.    Now you have to outbid a comicbro.   What's changed, really, besides the number you bid for the honor of being underbidder?

I mean... its even more exaggerated, now, sure, and maybe its spread to material you were interested in that you could get before.   But to at least some degree, this had already happened.

Now part of the reason that it is/was less fun for me personally is because as you know, I very interested in and dedicated to collecting box art, and my energy and money gets spent there.    Games themselves have been a secondary hobby for me to art since 2007 and it was getting harder to compete for games when they weren't even my primary interest anymore.    If I had 10k to spend I was sure as heck going to spend it on art over a sealed kid Icarus or something.

That said, I wonder how much sealed collecting I would have been doing anyways.    Its tough to get excited about buying something for 15k that you used to buy for 200 bucks.    

Edited October 31, 2019 by Bronty

[fcgamer | 4,792]

I've been collecting since 1998 or so, and have been gaming since 1989. For me personally, it's never been about the value or making a mint. Does this make me a fool, yes probably, in some instances it does. Will I ever cash out? Possibly, while I'd rather see more historical museums and displays set up where one could loan out their historically significant items, that's all still in its infancy and I really have no idea if we will ever reach this level, or if the market and interest will completely tank. If people stop giving a crap about this stuff, then I'm out, no use to burden myself or my kin with piles of crap that no-one cares about. Sharing the hobby with others is half the fun!

I personally have found some of the responses here to be quite interesting. I'm a small fish in this community, with shallow pockets; when I see others with much deeper pockets mentioning their complaints against these companies and their feeling that it has damaged the collecting community, then I listen.

[themisfit138 | 523]

5 minutes ago, Bronty said:

There's no question that when things start getting sold on auction sites, prices go up which makes it more difficult to acquire new material.

On the other hand, the auction site constantly bringing things to market means that you don't have to search 4 years for a copy of some sealed title.

Availability and liquidity go up, price goes up.     The games you have are worth more, the games you want cost more.   You take the good with the bad I guess.

That sounds well and good, but I have seen this happen to other hobbies. Usually leaving only the high end traders after the invasion. I use to buy and sell music gear. Custom shop guitar, boutique amps, vintage Les Pauls and whatnot. I use to be able to buy a 70s-90s LPC in ok shape for $500 or less and fix it up with original vintage hardware and pickups for under $1k total. Then after the big money came in I can’t hardly even find a pair of vintage dirty fingers pickups for under $500 and the guitars are $3k+ for a poor condition. I could go on and on about this. 

My point being when big money speculators invade a hobby it prices out the true hobbyist who just want to collect cool items.  

[Bronty | 187]

1 minute ago, themisfit138 said:

My point being when big money speculators invade a hobby it prices out the true hobbyist who just want to collect cool items.  

That's true to a point, as it is unfortunate when people get priced out, but don't forget that some of those people with big money aren't any less fans than you, and having a smaller wallet doesn't make you a 'truer' or 'better' fan.

What you're really saying is it got harder to compete, which sucks, I get it, but this idea that if you can't afford something you're better than the guy that can?   Is just the mirror version of the guy that thinks his fat wallet makes him better than you.  

Its the same type of thinking.    I have (fan love, money) so I am better than the guy with no (fan love, money).  

Either train of thought is unsupportable.

[qixmaster | 19]

I think Wata is great for the hobby - from both a collecting perspective and making money perspective. 

*I've been able to have Wata grade my items that VGA wouldn't nor had any clue on how to grade or what they were looking at.  I've also always had high grade CIBs and never been a sealed collector unless it came across my hands and was 9.6 or above. Wata brought something to me that was much needed - protection and clear transparency on the condition of what I own.To me, many of my items are priceless and important to the history of video games. 

*I've made very good money in a short amount of time doing this.  it's no secret and i'm okay with that.  I've also been able to obtain certain games and one of a kind items for my collection that I thought I would never be able to obtain.  I've sold and collected and resold and collected to fund my collection for years. I'm fortunate that I can now sell video games full time, work from home, be with my family whenever I please, collect what I love to collect and live comfortably because of video games. 

I think Dain had his motives for selling and nobody can or should fault him for that.

I think people can be wary and question the way collecting markets grow, but I also think we should be understanding and show empathy.

Going out on a limb here -  saying you like Deniz & Kenneth and think they are great guys is awesome, but then a couple posts later equating them to the downfall of NintendoAge and destroying the hobby that you loved is not mutually exclusive.  Wata is Deniz & Kenneth and Deniz & Kenneth are Wata.  You can't have one and not the other. 

Wata is a third party authentication company that has vested interested in growing their business and will do so how they see fit. It's okay if you take issue with they way they handle THEIR business.  It has no affect on the outcome of the rest of your life. Try to remember to be nice and what you say on the internet stays on the internet.  

To the mods and members who created this new forum, thank you :)

I look forward to the continued growth of this hobby, helping discover new variants and showing new people that not every video game costs the same as a $1000 Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

14 minutes ago, themisfit138 said:

 

My point being when big money speculators invade a hobby it prices out the true hobbyist who just want to collect cool items.  

Kind of true, but the main target here has been sealed games, which the “average game collector” never really cared about to begin with. The other stuff has been around for decades, either in abundance or rare and popular enough it’s been priced out of the average gamer’s range for years.

As of now, at least, a large majority of the market has been unaffected by WATA.

[Bronty | 187]

Moreover, unless trends in collecting markets change in general, wata will Really never affect that person because the 20 year trend has been that the truly special items explode in value and the typical stuff stagnates or declines.     

[MrMark0673 | 197]

16 minutes ago, qixmaster said:

Wata is Deniz & Kenneth and Deniz & Kenneth are Wata. 

WATA isn't Deniz and Kenneth though, it's also the advisory board like you, Bronty, Jim Halperin, and Dain.  It's HA and their ads that they ship back in WATA packages.  It's GoCollect and the "Carolina Collection".  It's the people hyping games that are both not uncommon nor previously desirable in even remotely the same capacity (like Spot games from the Omar days or TMNT now).

I don't think anyone sees WATA as those two individuals, nor should they in my opinion.  I think it would be incredibly unfair to use them as the names to point at when negativity is being projected at WATA while others get rich in increasingly suspect fashion, and those people are also officially associated with the company.

I think there is a reason their names haven't been used frequently, but instead the company mentioned, as WATA flatly isn't Deniz and Kenneth.

Edited October 31, 2019 by MrMark0673
Grammar

[Bronty | 187]

What part of ‘no advice since doors opened’ and ‘cumulative total of zero compensation is confusing?   Wata is Deniz and Kenneth and arguably the other owners.   (And I don’t know who all of those people are.   I am not an owner).   

Ha, clink, gocollect, myself, Dain, these are all separate entities.   

Yes some of us helped give them feedback before the doors opened?   So what?   I did the same for VGA before they opened.    I’d probably give similar help for anyone starting up a new hobby venture that asked.   

[MrMark0673 | 197]

3 minutes ago, Bronty said:

What part of ‘no advice since doors opened’ and ‘cumulative total of zero compensation is confusing?   Wata is Deniz and Kenneth and arguably the other owners.   (And I don’t know who all of those people are.   I am not an owner).   

Ha, clink, gocollect, myself, Dain, these are all separate entities.   

Yes some of us helped give them feedback before the doors opened?   So what?   I did the same for VGA before they opened.    I’d probably give similar help for anyone starting up a new hobby venture that asked.   

I'm genuinely confused...

Your profile is literally displayed under "Who We Are", but you aren't them?

Jone was previously listed and no longer is.  I assumed advisors listed under "Who We Are" would be who "they" are, but you're telling me I'm wrong.

Edited October 31, 2019 by MrMark0673
Stupid grammar again

[Bronty | 187]

2 minutes ago, MrMark0673 said:

I'm genuinely confused...

Your profile is literally displayed under "Who We Are", but you aren't them?

Jone was previously listed and no longer is.  I assumed advisory listed under "Who We Are" would be who "they" are, but you're telling me I'm wrong.

What I am telling you, for the third time, is that the advisory board has been inactive since the doors opened.    We gave initial feedback.   That's it.

Now if Deniz or Kenneth called me and asked me for advice?  Of course I'd give it.   But the fact is they don't ask because they are busy and have their own opinions on how to run things anyways.

And that's fine.   

Edited October 31, 2019 by Bronty

[fcgamer | 4,792]

Imo one can like the people and not like the product (i.e. wata), likewise one can like the product and not like the people (i.e. bands with douchey members). Such separation seems simple enough to me.

[MrMark0673 | 197]

1 minute ago, Bronty said:

What I am telling you, for the third time, is that the advisory board has been inactive since the doors opened.    We gave initial feedback.   That's it.   

What I'm pointing out, objectively, is the website and company I'm referring to, WATA, has your image, accolades, and profile, prominently displayed under "Who We Are."

I'm also indicating that others (namely Jonas) had been previously listed, but no longer appear, so it's not as though the members listed there has been static since the doors opened.

When people think of WATA, they don't necessarily think of Deniz and Kenneth.  I certainly don't.  They think of the many, many other individuals and companies that have chosen to associate themselves with the business and their operation.

How you can take issue with me pointing out what I did strikes me as genuinely bizarre.  Hand to God, I don't "get" why I would be off base in my comments.  I mean, it's a link on the website.

[Bronty | 187]

Just now, MrMark0673 said:

What I'm pointing out, objectively, is the website and company I'm referring to, WATA, has your image, accolades, and profile, prominently displayed under "Who We Are."

I'm also indicating that others (namely Jonas) had been previously listed, but no longer appear, so it's not as though the members listed there has been static since the doors opened.

When people think of WATA, they don't necessarily think of Deniz and Kenneth.  I certainly don't.  They think of the many, many other individuals and companies that have chosen to associate themselves with the business and their operation.

How you can take issue with me pointing out what I did strikes me as genuinely bizarre.  Hand to God, I don't "get" why I would be off base in my comments.  I mean, it's a link on the website.

Because of your constant not so thinly veiled comments that this whole thing is an orchestrated pump and dump between various advisors and comments to that effect.

Its laughable, its incorrect, and its you looking for a conspiracy instead of asking genuine questions, if we are putting hands to god.

 

[qixmaster | 19]

yes the advisory board is meaningless at this point.  i'm on it, but do i actually advise anything?  no, i advise absolutely nothing - i have my face on there and i'm indexed by google, that's about it.

i consider both deniz and kenneth close friends.  Saying you don't like their brand is saying you don't like either of them.  That's a fact. 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

9 minutes ago, qixmaster said:

Saying you don't like their brand is saying you don't like either of them.  That's a fact. 

It really isn't.

I can pretty readily make a distinction between brands and products I like/dislike, and the people most closely associated with them.

Dave (fcgamer) made this same point, and I think he is spot-on.

[Californication | 1,490]

Why don't you guys do this on the Go Collect site. 

I thought we were going to leave all this noise over there.

This drama does not build the community.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,009]

Kevin Spacey is a creep but I'm still gonna watch Seven and The Ref.

[guitarzombie | 929]

Deniz is the kid that had his dad buy him a Stadium Events at 12 for $1000 right?  And his 'game room' is bigger than most stores I know.  How old is he again?

[zi | 144]

i've seen coins, comic books, and sneakers thrown around as collectables - but these things aren't pertinent. they've established a market based on condition so the product is secondary.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

9 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

Deniz is the kid that had his dad buy him a Stadium Events at 12 for $1000 right?  And his 'game room' is bigger than most stores I know.  How old is he again?

He's in his 20's at this point, I think.

His dad is some kind of big-time comic book collector in Chicago.  (which, presumably, is why $1000 for the top item in the gaming hobby didn't phase him  ;))

Edited October 31, 2019 by arch_8ngel