Wata - A year and a half after

[MinusWorlds | 193]

4 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

No offense to Dain, but his collection is no more worthy of a special title than any other large collection.

There is nothing inherently special about it just because he owned it.

And as far as I am aware, it isn't the most complete, or the first-to-complete for any specific system is it?

 

That said, I don't take issue with the pedigree concept, in general.

But I think it makes for an interesting ethics footnote when looked at in this case, where a "director" of the grading company gets their own large collection that they bought wholesale labeled with a pedigree.

Simply put, it looks bad from the outside in a way that discredits the perception of the  grading company's objectivity.

Whether it actually damages the objectivity is unknowable, but the Wata supporters in this thread seem way too quick to wave away the concerns as an "everyone is doing it", which when it comes to these kinds of things is a bad argument to make, IMO.

I don’t see that. I see consistency. Look at the Indiana Collection. I don’t see anyone paying a premium for that. I feel as if that deserves a pedigree, then Dain’s Collection certainly does. At least that has high quality, valuable, desirable games. The Indiana Collection was almost all commons stored for 20 years. Whoopty doo. 

This is another reason to simply not do pedigrees. But, let’s not act like Wata made a special exception for a Director and slapped a pedigree on their collection to give them an artificial price increase. They have been consistent with designating games as part of a pedigree collection. Whether we agree with that or not is another discussion. If you are going to do them I would have liked to have seen a more stringent approach. But, again, who cares about a damn pedigree? I don’t think many people do.

Are we really making it a big deal that Wata designated a collection as a pedigree? I mean, that’s what we are talking about here. Sure it’s a lively topic, and almost comical that we’re questioning if certain collections deserve pedigrees, but seems to me people are just looking for reason to hate Wata at this point. Fight the bigger battles people. 

[Bronty | 187]

13 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

 

People pay crazy money for all sorts of shit. Cars they never use, coins, comics, cards, stamps, houses, pinball machines, etc. I don’t understand it, but who am I to tell people what makes them happy? Everyone seemed thrilled for Bronty, as am I, but I gotta be honest, I could not possibly be less interested in game art. I’d rather have a sealed Contra than the original Contra art and the price difference could possibly buy a house. 

Why do people like art, anyway? 

(No offense, Bronty!)

I see this thread's still chugging along.

On your other point:   its not for everybody, but the short answer is:   because its awesome.     Once you've seen say, a high quality cover illustration for a game you like - in person, not as a jpg - nothing else comes close.     

Price is a function of supply and demand.   If there are people that really like them, but almost none exist, price ramps up quick.    

 

[Gloves | 11,795]

Yeah I see no reason to hate on Wata at this time. Disagree, sure, I myself don't like that Cibs are getting slabbed. But I don't hate Wata or anything. 

Be diligent, spread awareness, but no need to crusade. 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

5 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I see this thread's still chugging along.

On your other point:   its not for everybody, but the short answer is:   because its awesome.     Once you've seen say, a high quality cover illustration for a game you like - in person, not as a jpg - nothing else comes close.     

Price is a function of supply and demand.   If there are people that really like them, but almost none exist, price ramps up quick.    

 

I know haha. I didn’t mean it as a slight in any way, just a different strokes for different folks thing. And to point out money being thrown around for “useless” and “frivolous” items is not in any way confined to sealed video games. If anything, compared to video games’ historical and emotional impact on society, it’s still relatively low.

Edited November 8, 2019 by ExplodedHamster

[Bronty | 187]

6 minutes ago, ExplodedHamster said:

I know haha. I didn’t mean it as a slight in any way, just a different strokes for different folks thing. And to point out money being thrown around for “useless” and “frivolous” items is not in any way confined to sealed video games. If anything, compared to video games’ historical and emotional impact on society, it’s still relatively low.

Oh that’s fine, zero Offense taken.   I remember as a teen collecting comics and wondering WTF anyone would do with comic art (‘I’m going to have a single page on the wall?  Bizarre).   But you start taking part in some of the discussions and you get a little interested and whatnot and then I got my first game cover in the mail and in the half second I saw it I knew I’d be collecting that instead.    Tell you what if you’re ever in southern Ontario I’ll show you some and maybe and you can decide for yourself.   Cheers. 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

12 minutes ago, ExplodedHamster said:

Oh no, I complete understand and agree. But I just go back to my point that it’s essentially impossible to get a subjective grading company off the ground and operate in a thriving market without a large portion of people thinking that at some point. 

My point from yesterday was that sometimes avoiding an apparent conflict of interest involves some measure of sacrifice from potential participants.

In this case, the conflict could have been avoided entirely by people who served as "directors" or "advisers" agreeing to not use the service, rather than risk the appearance of conflict that in turn damages the credibility of a subjective service.

 

In other hobbies, there is apparently plenty of precedent of people NOT being willing to make such a sacrifice, so in turn, it sounds like Wata and associated parties decided they didn't need to make that sacrifice either.

That is their prerogative, but now they have to live with the appearance of potential conflict of interest.

 

In terms of some of the advisers participating in early grading to get the service wrung-out before going public, that could have relatively easily been handled by slabbing all of those games with special "promo" / "demo" / "test" slab designations rather than having them as part of the normal graded population. 

 

 

It seems to me like the pro-Wata side of this discussion believes that everyone, no matter how involved, should be allowed to use such a service.

But this is a "can't have it both ways" kind of scenario -- either the service can be viewed as objective and anonymous, or it allows within-arms-lengths transactions that damage their credibility.

[spacepup | 2,405]

This is a bit of an aside, but I've never really viewed my collection as "collectibles."  I know that sounds a bit strange...but, it has just been my collection of games and something I enjoy doing and something I think most of us here enjoy doing.  We all have our different motivations, interests, etc., and that is totally fine.  For me personally, I really don't care how anyone else in the world views video games on the 'collectibles spectrum' and therefore, I don't have any interest in seeing video games 'legitimized' or earning their 'rightful place' or whatever.  If others do, that's fine - I've just never looked at it that way.

At the end of the day, I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing, and try to make the best of it.  I don't hate WATA or the rich comic folks - it's just not something I personally care about being a part of.  Obviously some do, and there's nothing I nor anyone here can do to change that necessarily.  My passion continues to be about video games - learning and documenting, making friends, participating in the hobby - and WATA isn't going to take that from me.  Things are changing a bit - some like the change, others dislike it.  I'm confident I'll still be able to find something to enjoy in all this, and I hope if things settle down, others can also.

 

 

[tbone3969 | 306]

This stuff started decades ago.  Does anyone remember the Becket baseball card price guide?  It may still be published, digitally at least.  They actually started a card grading company, Beckett Grading, right after PSA.  They were/are grading cards and then pricing them in their guides.  Always thought that was a bit fishy myself.

[doner24 | 1,197]

3 minutes ago, tbone3969 said:

This stuff started decades ago.  Does anyone remember the Becket baseball card price guide?  It may still be published, digitally at least.  They actually started a card grading company, Beckett Grading, right after PSA.  They were/are grading cards and then pricing them in their guides.  Always thought that was a bit fishy myself.

Can the execs/directors submit cards? We’re they selling them via an attached auction service?

[tbone3969 | 306]

1 minute ago, doner24 said:

Can the execs/directors submit cards? We’re they selling them via an attached auction service?

I do not see why their execs and directors wouldn't be able to submit cards for grading.  As far as them selling the graded cards via an attached auction goes.....  I don't think that ever happened but I am not sure.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,549]

2 minutes ago, doner24 said:

Can the execs/directors submit cards? We’re they selling them via an attached auction service?

Were they selling them to each other?...

[tbone3969 | 306]

Just now, Reed Rothchild said:

Were they selling them to each other?...

Selling them to each other...  lol

 

Now this is just getting silly.

[GPX | 1,370]

Guys I think the arguments have been sound on either side of the fence. However, I can see there are 2 separate arguments going on here:

Group (A)

- WATA is doing a decent job of grading their items, appearing to be done in a professional standard.

- hard to not be associated with perceived bias for the advisors/directors of the grading company, as they’re likely to have a collection themselves, and likely to sell them at some point now or in the future.

- other rich bastards jumping in and spending loads of cash is going to happen sooner or later. This has happened before and no reason why it can’t happen now or in the future.

Group (B)

- to add more objectivity and to lessen the perceived bias, WATA or the advisors/directors could be doing more differently to lessen the perceived bias, instead of adding more to the perceived bias.

- not so much in isolation one factor that is contributing to the perceived bias, but the sequence of events from the parties related and the articles (which relates to the same parties), makes it altogether appear like a lump of hyper-hyping hype-fest.

[Bronty | 187]

47 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Oh that’s fine, zero Offense taken.   I remember as a teen collecting comics and wondering WTF anyone would do with comic art (‘I’m going to have a single page on the wall?  Bizarre).   But you start taking part in some of the discussions and you get a little interested and whatnot and then I got my first game cover in the mail and in the half second I saw it I knew I’d be collecting that instead.    Tell you what if you’re ever in southern Ontario I’ll show you some and maybe and you can decide for yourself.   Cheers. 

Excuse the tangent (its my favorite tangent) but just to clarify that a bit more.

We aren't sitting around in smoking jackets looking at the framed pictures on the wall gooing over the images.    (That's on Tuesdays).

Sure, sometimes we are in awe of the images (as I said, in person) but sometimes a piece isn't that great or is even kinda awful.   I still want that awful piece.    I still want that cover to Mega Man 1 (and would pay a lot to get it).

It isn't purely about art appreciation (and if it was, the market price for an artist to 'redo' a piece would be the same as for the actual published piece.     Let's say Bob Wakelin was still alive and he was willing to paint contra covers for 1000 bucks a pop.    That's what the 'art' part is worth, or would be worth.     The other 199k is because its not just 'a' pretty picture with contra, its THE original contra painting.     The one which all the boxes out there were made from.   

In other words, most of the price is a function of collectability not image.    The quality of image definitely is a pricing factor but the most relevant factor is the quality/desirability of the title itself.    If I think the painting on the cover of Bandit Kings of Ancient China is the best painting on an NES game, I'll still paying more for the hokey painting on the cover of mega man.

In other words, it may feel a little alien for those not interested in 'fine art' to hear about art collecting but collecting 'illustration' is a completely different market and there, what you're really valuing and prizing is the rarest and most aesthetically beautiful artifact associated with any given title.

As an example from comics, Herb Trimpe illustrated the first page that wolverine appeared on.    He's widely recognized as being, well, sub-par.   The page still went for 700k - not because he's a great artist but because its the first appearance of that character.    He could have redrawn the page for somebody and all that would be worth is the time spent ($1000?  not $700,000) because its not the exact page that went to print.    The $1000 version the artist can crank out one a day for the rest of his life if he wants to.    The $700,000 version... there's only one of those, and there will only be one of those, and it was created at the time not after the fact.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Bronty

[Bronty | 187]

10 minutes ago, GPX said:

Guys I think the arguments have been sound on either side of the fence. However, I can see there are 2 separate arguments going on here:

Group (A)

- WATA is doing a decent job of grading their items, appearing to be done in a professional standard.

- hard to not be associated with perceived bias for the advisors/directors of the grading company, as they’re likely to have a collection themselves, and likely to sell them at some point now or in the future.

- other rich bastards jumping in and spending loads of cash is going to happen sooner or later. This has happened before and no reason why it can’t happen now or in the future.

Group (B)

- to add more objectivity and to lessen the perceived bias, WATA or the advisors/directors could be doing more differently to lessen the perceived bias, instead of adding more to the perceived bias.

- not so much in isolation one factor that is contributing to the perceived bias, but the sequence of events from the parties related and the articles (which relates to the same parties), makes it altogether appear like a lump of hyper-hyping hype-fest.

Pretty good summary.   

[doner24 | 1,197]

25 minutes ago, tbone3969 said:

This stuff started decades ago.  Does anyone remember the Becket baseball card price guide?  It may still be published, digitally at least.  They actually started a card grading company, Beckett Grading, right after PSA.  They were/are grading cards and then pricing them in their guides.  Always thought that was a bit fishy myself.

It is funny that you brought up Baseball cards though as that’s my other main hobby and one I’ve spent substantially more on the last year. 
 

Beckett specifically is reeling from accusations of conflicts of interest in their grading, so much so that the FBI is getting involved in the case due to alleged fraud between the company/employees.
 

I am in no way insinuating anything fraudulent is happening here, but it goes back to what Arch said earlier today, this didn’t have to happen this way. You can do this by eliminating as much conflict of interest as possible by limiting the near term ability of equity holders to make profit hoping that long term business is secured by an elevated sense of trust between the company and the market. 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

41 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

My point from yesterday was that sometimes avoiding an apparent conflict of interest involves some measure of sacrifice from potential participants.

In this case, the conflict could have been avoided entirely by people who served as "directors" or "advisers" agreeing to not use the service, rather than risk the appearance of conflict that in turn damages the credibility of a subjective service.

 

In other hobbies, there is apparently plenty of precedent of people NOT being willing to make such a sacrifice, so in turn, it sounds like Wata and associated parties decided they didn't need to make that sacrifice either.

That is their prerogative, but now they have to live with the appearance of potential conflict of interest.

I’m not sure if that’s the case in other big money hobbies or not, but my guess is where start ups requiring big money to get off the ground are concerned, it’d be next to impossible to raise money from people if you limited their ability to participate in the market. ROI is going to be far more easily obtained via the market increase than in the grading service itself. 

[guitarzombie | 924]

14 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Sure, sometimes we are in awe of the images (as I said, in person) but sometimes a piece isn't that great or is even kinda awful.   I still want that awful piece.    I still want that cover to Mega Man 1 (and would pay a lot to get it).

Just a side note, if you can get this I would love you forever.  

[doner24 | 1,197]

18 minutes ago, ExplodedHamster said:

I’m not sure if that’s the case in other big money hobbies or not, but my guess is where start ups requiring big money to get off the ground are concerned, it’d be next to impossible to raise money from people if you limited their ability to participate in the market. ROI is going to be far more easily obtained via the market increase than in the grading service itself. 

I don’t agree with this at all. Plenty of money out there wanting to make money. I mean, the amount of capital released in the 506B was peanuts and I’m sure Deniz could’ve just gone to his dad for that much capital. Hell, they could’ve gone to me and I would’ve had no problem not using the service on my games. This was a definite misstep IMO. 

[doner24 | 1,197]

Just so everyone’s clear on my official stance. I believe in Kenneth and Deniz, and don’t believe they would ever do anything fraudulent for their personal gain. I think it would be in their best interest to untangle their conflicts of interest, as more than often perception can become reality. 

[Bronty | 187]

8 minutes ago, doner24 said:

I don’t agree with this at all. Plenty of money out there wanting to make money. I mean, the amount of equity released in the 506B was peanuts and I’m sure Deniz could’ve just gone to his dad for that much equity. Hell, they could’ve gone to me and I would’ve had no problem not using the service on my games. This was a definite misstep IMO. 

Not my place to give specifics, and its probably neither here nor there, but the start up costs were waaay in excess of that from what I've heard.

[Bronty | 187]

10 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

Just a side note, if you can get this I would love you forever.  

I'll see what I can do  lol

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

11 minutes ago, ExplodedHamster said:

I’m not sure if that’s the case in other big money hobbies or not, but my guess is where start ups requiring big money to get off the ground are concerned, it’d be next to impossible to raise money from people if you limited their ability to participate in the market. ROI is going to be far more easily obtained via the market increase than in the grading service itself. 

I'd think you'd just put them in a position of equity and profit-sharing, and it is up to the investor as to how much compensation they want for their risk.

It doesn't seem like that tough of a problem to get around.

 

Yes the ROI is "easier to get" by letting them use the service, but that is the trade you make to have the service avoid the appearance of conflicts.

[doner24 | 1,197]

Just now, Bronty said:

Not my place to give specifics, and its probably neither here nor there, but the start up costs were waaay in excess of that from what I've heard.

Yeah, I’m sure. But typically you don’t disclose that to the SEC unless you are raising capital from outside investors, weather accredited or unaccredited. Hence the $220Kish they seemed to have raised for equity stakes per that document. 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

1 minute ago, arch_8ngel said:

I'd think you'd just put them in a position of equity and profit-sharing, and it is up to the investor as to how much compensation they want for their risk.

It doesn't seem like that tough of a problem to get around.

 

Yes the ROI is "easier to get" by letting them use the service, but that is the trade you make to have the service avoid the appearance of conflicts.

Equity is one possibility, but you still need money for operating costs, legal fees, etc.