Heritage Auctions Thread

[FireHazard51 | 2,043]

5 minutes ago, Zach said:

I love this. How long on NA did myself and others call this stuff out for YEARS? We were told we were trolls, we were jealous, our posts were buried by dumb unrelated comments by idiots like Josh "qixmaster" Byerly (another unlisted partner of WATA). We knew people like Deniz were scammers from day one. This is the guy who somehow amassed one of the biggest collections on the planet by his early 20s by "getting up early and hitting the garage sales" lol. Yeah, okay buddy. We all said this was a scam from day one and the mods at NA, who are mysteriously silent now, deleted our threads and banned us. Tim Atwood tried to call this crap out and was also banned for daring to disparage a "trusted member of the community" like RareBucky. 

This is vindication for me and everyone else who were gaslit and silenced back then. Now the entire world can see what kind of lying, scamming, scheming, people these "collectors" really are

Not trying to defend anyone but it's hard to call someone a liar and scammer if there isn't viable proof.  It's hard to prove someone's intent before their actions are shown and reviewable.  But one should be able to sew doubt about things as caution and being a skeptic isn't something unreasonable to do.  But to drag someone's name through the dirt before you can prove it is a bit different I think.

So time may prove they were right, but it may not excuse their actions at the time.  I was never on NA but just throwing out some alternative ideas as why someone may of had their comment's muted.

[AdamW | 713]

1 hour ago, Mijael said:

I don`t know him as you , but i think his Wata idea is brilliant and i admire him for that but he is clearly manipulating the market by not disclosing the census

I still don't really get this argument. The people buying and selling in the market know there isn't a population report. They're choosing to get involved with full knowledge of that. There isn't any rule, legal or ethical, that says WATA has to produce a population report. The only thing WATA has broken by not producing one is their own earlier statements/publicity that they would, but a person or company saying they'd do something then changing their mind is not exactly front-page headline news, it happens on an hourly basis.

I'd like it if WATA posted population reports. So would lots of other people. But they don't have to, and saying that not doing so is "market manipulation" seems like a weird form of overreach.

[AdamW | 713]

1 hour ago, Teh_Lurv said:

I came across a link to this twitter thread on another forum's discussion of the video and I thought I'd share. It's a long thread, but the author provides some supplemental info that complements the video:

 

 

So, I actually saw that whole thing, and...Seth is presenting an extremely biased view of events there. Here is what actually happened...

He joined the WATA games group on Facebook. You know, the sort of place where people generally have a positive view of WATA and the sealed game market in general. He lurked for a week, then started posting gigantic messages daily which basically shilled his "population report" (which is not a population report, but a compilation of sales data; it's useful information, but calling it a "population report" is a lie, something people repeatedly pointed out to him but which he never stopped doing), which was at that point available only via a $5 monthly subscription. In these messages, and in massive comments in the threads (and you know how much I write, so think how much this guy was writing for me to think they were too long...), he spent paragraphs essentially arguing that everyone in the group was either an immoral/evil rich market manipulator (sellers) or idiot who knew nothing and could only possibly be saved by paying $5 a month for his subscription service (buyers). He never posted anything but hyperbolic ads for his subscription data.

People tried to be reasonable for three days of this. There was a lot of "hey, we're interested in your data, but can you not call it a population report, and can you stop advertising it every day?", and various people who had different opinions from him posted reasoned arguments for why they disagreed with him on various points. He ignored the former, and argued in very bad faith with the latter, writing responses that were ten times as long as the comments he was replying to, and on multiple occasions putting words into people's mouths that they never said.

After three days of this, the mods got kind of sick of it, changed the group rules to specifically ban the promotion of paid subscription services, and deleted his posts. He was not banned from the group. Instead, he quit and went off on a massive twitter tantrum, to the point of implying that people who sell graded games are literally evil Nazis:

You don't invoke "goose-step" by accident. Especially not in an epic Twitter rant which also takes pains to talk about "rich white guys" being "evil".

Basically, he brought the worst style of Twitter "debate" to a fairly chill Facebook group, then threw his toys out of the pram when people didn't want that.

I had actually heard of the guy before he showed up (though had no idea he had any interest in games), and had a vaguely positive impression of him as a journalist. He completely ruined that with his behaviour, though. Even though I actually agree with quite a few of the points he was trying to make, his approach and attitude were absolutely awful, and I kind of regret wasting my time trying to interact with him in good faith.

Edited August 24, 2021 by AdamW

[Gulag Joe | 582]

39 minutes ago, WalterWhiteJr. said:

I’m pretty surprised that is your biggest takeaway lol but okay then. 

Big bad wata and vga are so scary nobody wants to share any population information that everyone seems to already have!

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

14 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I still don't really get this argument. The people buying and selling in the market know there isn't a population report. They're choosing to get involved with full knowledge of that. There isn't any rule, legal or ethical, that says WATA has to produce a population report. The only thing WATA has broken by not producing one is their own earlier statements/publicity that they would, but a person or company saying they'd do something then changing their mind is not exactly front-page headline news, it happens on an hourly basis.

I'd like it if WATA posted population reports. So would lots of other people. But they don't have to, and saying that not doing so is "market manipulation" seems like a weird form of overreach.

Sure, they don't have to. But lack of transparency in a company that does what WATA does will always be scrutinized. The longer they wait to release pop reports, the more credence they lend to the conspiracy theorists. Because, ultimately, the real question is... why NOT release population reports??

[AdamW | 713]

1 minute ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

Sure, they don't have to. But lack of transparency in a company that does what WATA does will always be scrutinized. The longer they wait to release pop reports, the more credence they lend to the conspiracy theorists. Because, ultimately, the real question is... why NOT release population reports??

Scrutinizing it is fine. But what I kinda dislike is the way people seem to be smooshing together all sorts of different things into a very vague idea that "THIS IS ALL A BIG ILLEGAL SCAM!" or something like that.

The appropriate level of "scrutiny" of the offence of "not releasing population reports" is to say "well, that's really their choice, but if you're a sensible person, you should recognize that this means there's substantial uncertainty in this market, and make your choice about getting involved in it sensibly". I'm not buying any graded games, or getting any games graded. But that's about as worked up as I'm likely to get about the issue.

OTOH, the suggestion that there may be shill bidding at HA auctions is a serious accusation, which could rise to the level of a criminal offence. But it's a completely different thing.

Basically, instead of an hour long video that kinda sloppily throws together a whole bunch of things of wildly varying levels of importance and severity, and then an even more unfocused discussion of it which ranges (in various places) from "lol what a nothingburger" to "OMG IT'S ALL A GIANT SCAM QUICK SEND THE FBI TO ARREST EVERYONE!" it'd be kinda nice if we could properly distinguish the different issues on the basis of what their actual nature and consequences are, and treat them appropriately. But hey, this is the internet, so I guess no chance of that...

[GPX | 1,369]

On 4/11/2021 at 10:03 PM, GPX said:

With news being plastered all over the place regarding rising game values, HA sales etc; I think there will be slow enquiries on the legalities of what’s happening. 

I believe there are definite genuine increase in interest in games collecting and investing since WATA/HA. However, among genuine sales and interest, there is high probability of market manipulation going on. We can’t turn a blind eye on this, because the market is currently affecting pretty much everyone to some degree, big or small.

The analogy would be no different to CIB collecting and monitoring the activities of scammers and repro sellers. If we support the hobby, we all owe a level of cynism as a community to questionable activities.

So good to see the recent video @Glovesposted. I knew it was only a matter of time before people would start to dissect more of what is happening with the astronomical price rise. 

[Rhapsody98 | 1,535]

I have no skin in this game but I’m following it because it’s fascinating.

 

 

 

 

Anyone want to start an auction company?   LOL

[Foxhack | 25]

Guys guys guys. It's fine! It's fine.

See? They investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. It's fine! So fine.

[WalterWhiteJr. | 1,162]

6 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Scrutinizing it is fine. But what I kinda dislike is the way people seem to be smooshing together all sorts of different things into a very vague idea that "THIS IS ALL A BIG ILLEGAL SCAM!" or something like that.

The appropriate level of "scrutiny" of the offence of "not releasing population reports" is to say "well, that's really their choice, but if you're a sensible person, you should recognize that this means there's substantial uncertainty in this market, and make your choice about getting involved in it sensibly". I'm not buying any graded games, or getting any games graded. But that's about as worked up as I'm likely to get about the issue.

OTOH, the suggestion that there may be shill bidding at HA auctions is a serious accusation, which could rise to the level of a criminal offence. But it's a completely different thing.

Basically, instead of an hour long video that kinda sloppily throws together a whole bunch of things of wildly varying levels of importance and severity, and then an even more unfocused discussion of it which ranges (in various places) from "lol what a nothingburger" to "OMG IT'S ALL A GIANT SCAM QUICK SEND THE FBI TO ARREST EVERYONE!" it'd be kinda nice if we could properly distinguish the different issues on the basis of what their actual nature and consequences are, and treat them appropriately. But hey, this is the internet, so I guess no chance of that...

While I respect your points, I do think it is unfair to say that the video "kinda sloppily throws together a whole bunch of things of wildly varying levels of importance and severity...". On the contrary, I thought the video was very well organized and direct. The only way to understand the full picture is by looking at the full picture. And yes, that means looking at several different themes together. That is good journalism and reasoning. Where would we get if we looked at everything in isolation? It does not make much sense. 

[AdamW | 713]

2 minutes ago, Foxhack said:

Guys guys guys. It's fine! It's fine.

See? They investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. It's fine! So fine.

I mean, what else would you expect them to say? Apart from the offence of confusing "refute" and "reject" (for which the only appropriate penalty is death, obviously) that's just, you know, of course that's what you say when a journalist calls and says "hey, this video says you're a bunch of market manipulating shill bidders, is that true?"

[dvertov | 205]

5 minutes ago, Rhapsody98 said:

I have no skin in this game but I’m following it because it’s fascinating.

Same. I am rolling around in popcorn over here and loving my trashy NES cart-only collection right now.

[retro.magnus | 136]

7 minutes ago, Foxhack said:

Guys guys guys. It's fine! It's fine.

See? They investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. It's fine! So fine.

bahahahha this reply gave me a good laugh

[AdamW | 713]

4 minutes ago, WalterWhiteJr. said:

While I respect your points, I do think it is unfair to say that the video "kinda sloppily throws together a whole bunch of things of wildly varying levels of importance and severity...". On the contrary, I thought the video was very well organized and direct. The only way to understand the full picture is by looking at the full picture. And yes, that means looking at several different themes together. That is good journalism and reasoning. Where would we get if we looked at everything in isolation? It does not make much sense. 

Fair enough. I guess I am thinking more of the response to it than the video itself.

[GPX | 1,369]

4 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Scrutinizing it is fine. But what I kinda dislike is the way people seem to be smooshing together all sorts of different things into a very vague idea that "THIS IS ALL A BIG ILLEGAL SCAM!" or something like that.

The appropriate level of "scrutiny" of the offence of "not releasing population reports" is to say "well, that's really their choice, but if you're a sensible person, you should recognize that this means there's substantial uncertainty in this market, and make your choice about getting involved in it sensibly". I'm not buying any graded games, or getting any games graded. But that's about as worked up as I'm likely to get about the issue.

OTOH, the suggestion that there may be shill bidding at HA auctions is a serious accusation, which could rise to the level of a criminal offence. But it's a completely different thing.

Basically, instead of an hour long video that kinda sloppily throws together a whole bunch of things of wildly varying levels of importance and severity, and then an even more unfocused discussion of it which ranges (in various places) from "lol what a nothingburger" to "OMG IT'S ALL A GIANT SCAM QUICK SEND THE FBI TO ARREST EVERYONE!" it'd be kinda nice if we could properly distinguish the different issues on the basis of what their actual nature and consequences are, and treat them appropriately. But hey, this is the internet, so I guess no chance of that...

I think the problem is that we can’t point fingers at anyone with absolute facts, because most of us on VGS aren’t part of the inner circle of those involved in the rise of the “million dollar games”. Granted, we have a seller of such a game on here, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the buyer hasn’t got questionable motives.

I agree with you that it may well not be as big of a scam as what’s insinuated from WATA/HA’s end, but it’s certainly worth pondering on where the angle of manipulation is coming from. I believe there are many layers of market manipulation at hand, and time may reveal more the situation (hopefully).

[Foxhack | 25]

4 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I mean, what else would you expect them to say? Apart from the offence of confusing "refute" and "reject" (for which the only appropriate penalty is death, obviously) that's just, you know, of course that's what you say when a journalist calls and says "hey, this video says you're a bunch of market manipulating shill bidders, is that true?"

Maybe "We find these accusations to be baseless and we will follow up on this." I dunno.

[Zach | 186]

2 hours ago, jonebone said:

I usually don't take the bait but yes, I would go to bat for his reputation any day of the week.  It's not my job to be his defender but he had the Wata idea started very early in his life.  All of these conflict of interest arguments were made 2.5 years ago and I agree they aren't the best look.  But that's for them to worry about, not me.

I just know that as a person, Deniz is not just one of, but probably the most humble and genuine collectors I ever met.  If others around him have muddied the waters that will never change my opinion of him.

See everyone? This is the kind of insanity that went on daily at NintendoAge. Some "respected member of the community" is exposed as a scammer and they will defend the person at all costs because it might affect their ability to get more video game crap in the future (inb4 bUt i dOnT cOlLeCt aNyMoRe!) 

Same crap that happened with Tim Atwood and RareBucky 

[FireHazard51 | 2,043]

47 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I still don't really get this argument. The people buying and selling in the market know there isn't a population report. They're choosing to get involved with full knowledge of that. There isn't any rule, legal or ethical, that says WATA has to produce a population report. The only thing WATA has broken by not producing one is their own earlier statements/publicity that they would, but a person or company saying they'd do something then changing their mind is not exactly front-page headline news, it happens on an hourly basis.

I'd like it if WATA posted population reports. So would lots of other people. But they don't have to, and saying that not doing so is "market manipulation" seems like a weird form of overreach.

It just isn't about breaking the law.  Bad ethics is still bad, even if not illegal.  And that's the point with me.  The lack of transparency, when people dig there is VERY questionable ethics involved.  These things just get rolled up into a big ball of shit.  WATA wouldn't be the first LEGIT company to get into ethical and legal trouble.  But if the founders and major players are colluding to pump the value of retro games artificially then that is a massive issue for me.  That's something that will burn the company's name even if they company gets rid of the original founders.

Anyone who deal in a profession knows ethics exist because laws can't always cover everything wrong that a professional could do.  Many times they overlap but honestly you'd be surprised at how many people lose their professional licenses and never face criminal charges.

Edited August 24, 2021 by FireHazard51

[spacepup | 2,404]

5 minutes ago, Zach said:

See everyone? This is the kind of insanity that went on daily at NintendoAge. Some "respected member of the community" is exposed as a scammer and they will defend the person at all costs because it might affect their ability to get more video game crap in the future (inb4 bUt i dOnT cOlLeCt aNyMoRe!) 

Same crap that happened with Tim Atwood and RareBucky 

I don't really know Deniz personally so I can't really make a fair assessment, nor am I going to in this particular response.  But, to be fair, jone simply shared his own perspective on him as a person, in what I thought was a calm and respectful manner.  He wasn't argumentative or overly aggressive - he simply shared his personal experience and knowledge with an individual.  I don't think it's fair to take him to the coals for his specific response here.  

He obviously disagrees with some others about Deniz, but it's not like he's going out of his way to make some huge campaign defending him, attacking others or silencing them for dissenting views.

I mean all in all, people are obviously free to express (and have been expressing) their views on this, and we are clearly keeping the thread open for conversation.  As long as people are civil, all opinions are fine to share here.

[AdamW | 713]

8 minutes ago, FireHazard51 said:

It just isn't about breaking the law.  Bad ethics is still bad, even if not illegal.  And that's the point with me.  The lack of transparency, when people dig there is VERY questionable ethics involved.  These things just get rolled up into a big ball of shit.  WATA wouldn't be the first LEGIT company to get into ethical and legal trouble.  But if the founders and major players are colluding to pump the value of game artificially then that is a massive issue for me.  That's something that will burn the companies name even if they company gets rid of the original founders.

Anyone who deal in a profession knows ethics exist because laws can't always cover everything wrong that a professional could do.  Many times they overlap but honestly you'd be surprised at how many people lose their professional licenses and never face criminal charges.

I guess it's just a matter of expectations. I don't know if there even is a professional code of ethics for auctioneers. I'm pretty sure there isn't one for video game graders.

So, I mean, yeah, if you were expecting an auction house that sells sealed video games on commission and a company that exists to grade sealed video games to act according to a strict code of professional ethics when it comes to "whether sealed video games should be expensive", I can see where you'd be disappointed. I guess I generally have very low expectations in that direction, so nothing about any of this seems particularly surprising.

edit: thinking about it a bit more, I guess I would have expectations, but kinda specifically limited ones. I would expect WATA to play fair when it comes to actually grading things; if it was shown that they were grading generously for friends/employees or harshly for enemies or something like that, that would be something I'd get kinda mad about. But for me, stuff like "Deniz going on TV to talk about what a high price a game his company graded should be worth" is, you know, meh. Of course he's doing it because it's good for his business. I wouldn't really expect differently.

Edited August 24, 2021 by AdamW

[FireHazard51 | 2,043]

1 minute ago, AdamW said:

I guess it's just a matter of expectations. I don't know if there even is a professional code of ethics for auctioneers. I'm pretty sure there isn't one for video game graders.

So, I mean, yeah, if you were expecting an auction house that sells sealed video games on commission and a company that exists to grade sealed video games to act according to a strict code of professional ethics, I can see where you'd be disappointed. I guess I generally have very low expectations in that direction, so nothing about any of this seems particularly surprising.

https://www.faheysales.com/resources-2/code-of-ethics/#:~:text=Members must%2C in conducting an,fair dealing at all times.

https://hbr.org/2019/05/how-to-design-an-ethical-organization

There is a professional organization for auctioneers that has ethics.  And of course ANY business should have ethics.  Now the ethics may not fall in line with other people's ethics but without ethics why would people do any business with them.  Ethics prevents scams and shady deals from happening.  

[Brickman | 3,986]

Some of the responses in here are pretty crazy. No wonder why these scammers get away with it for so long. They suck people in with their nice guy act and make it seem like their illegal activities are ok because well it’s only a little conflict of interest or they don’t really have to discuss their business ties. As long as you’re making mega bucks who cares about everyone else?

I’ll say one thing that people should ponder on, some of the most successful con artists and criminals have appeared to be the most friendliest, humble people around until they get caught.

[TDIRunner | 2,740]

1 hour ago, AdamW said:

I still don't really get this argument. The people buying and selling in the market know there isn't a population report. They're choosing to get involved with full knowledge of that. There isn't any rule, legal or ethical, that says WATA has to produce a population report.

WATA initially sold themselves on being transparent, which was something VGA wasn't.  Lot's of people were excited when WATA was first announced because on paper it looked like a great thing.  They were going to come into the grading market and fix all of the issues that people complained about with VGA.  Unfortunately, their transparency hasn't been nearly what was promised. 

And the lack of a population report can certainly be considered unethical considering that the value of these games is being built up on (in part) by their theoretical rarity.  Population reports would show that many of these games are much more common then the buyers have been lead to believe.  

[TDIRunner | 2,740]

1 hour ago, Zach said:

Tim Atwood tried to call this crap out and was also banned for daring to disparage a "trusted member of the community" like RareBucky. 

 

While I don't disagree with most of what you say, for what it's worth, that is NOT why Tim Atwood was banned.  

[AdamW | 713]

10 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

WATA initially sold themselves on being transparent, which was something VGA wasn't.  Lot's of people were excited when WATA was first announced because on paper it looked like a great thing.  They were going to come into the grading market and fix all of the issues that people complained about with VGA.  Unfortunately, their transparency hasn't been nearly what was promised.

You cut out the second part of my post where I specifically mentioned this.