Wata to release initial pop report later this month - NES only, no seal ratings

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

59 minutes ago, RETRO said:

LOL! I agree with OptOut. The internet allows multi-layered data-sets via hyperlinking. The incredibly curtailed data package WATA is about to squeeze out like a turd it's been holding onto jealously for a dog's age needn't be—and surely won't be—arrayed in a single, analog-like spreadsheet page. This was never a hard hill for WATA to climb, they just weren't interested in publishing this data until new ownership and a series of public scandals forced them to do so. The three-year delay here (remember, Deniz said they were ready to publish full population reports in June 2018!) has nothing to do with a praxis or programming issue. This was just corporate politics, pure and simple.

I mean yeah, they are a business and their data was IP. They’d have been dumb to publish it before a sale from that perspective. Negotiations of this size usually take a long time, as well, which didn’t help. The sale likely played much more of a role in this release than Karl’s video, but nobody here is really claiming programming is what held this up to begin with. It’s more answering why there are no seal grades right away and figuring out the best way to do it.

Edited November 13, 2021 by ExplodedHamster

[inasuma | 1,215]

4 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

It’s more answering why there are no seal grades right away and figuring out the best way to do it.

I just gotta know what is holding them back… theoretically they’re about to receive a whirlwind of funding / resources from Collectors Universe. It isn’t as though they’re hurting or afraid of being hurt by the pops. 

[jonebone | 1,312]

It's obviously a bandwidth / SW issue that they are trying to brute force.  If it was a simple switch you'd just flick it on and turn it on for everything.  The fact that they are slow rolling this without seal grades and limited to one platform means they manually doing it somehow.

I can't visualize how it will look myself either, so many dimensions and not a simple stacked 2D arrays of name / grade like PSA cards.  I'd almost like you'd have to have a page for each title, then list variants, then you still have Seal / Box Grades to worry about which is multi dimensional.  Or even worse with CIB, 3 grades (plus GSI).  

If it were me, I'd concatenate the seal / grade together (9.8A, 9.2C+, etc.), but then filtering becomes more complex.  You also have to worry about presentation, something like a 9.6C+ would show higher in the pop than 9.4A++ which would clearly be the better game, but no way around that.

So it seems to be a visualization / database problem with understaffed resourcing.  It's a good first step but SW has never been the Wata stronghouse.  We were promised a Matrix for over 3 years running now that never happened.  

Either way, some people can remove their tinfoil hats and we'll just see what it looks like soon enough.  Instead of complaining about what's happening, I'm more interested in the over / under that it makes it out this month.  They must be getting close to make a public announcement, but we have Thanksgiving soon too.  I think if anything comes out this month it would literally be on the last day of the month (30 November), and I guess we'll see.

[Gulag Joe | 587]

I hope Wata doesn't read this thread and change their minds about releasing a pop report.

[GPX | 1,376]

23 hours ago, RETRO said:

I take your point, GPX, but I don't think "misleading" is the right word here, as—albeit that I can only speak for my own published analyses—they are very explicit and transparent about being "availability" analyses, meaning that if a game title is put on the market, bought, and then put on the market again, the analysis deems that it should count twice because it was made available to buyers for purchase via a public market twice.

Even putting that aside, because WATA didn't release their pop-report "matrix-reader" app in June 2018 as Deniz explicitly promised WATA customers in a media interview, it is harder than it should be to identify when a unique product is appearing more than once in a marketplace (not impossible, of course, as you can read the entirety of the front and back of a case for distinguishing characteristics if you're looking at a WATA case rather than a VGA case, but no one has the sort of time or resources to do that work for literally tens of thousands of video game titles).

As far as whether any human being alive can "track sales directly with their own eyes" across the 13-year period since VGA was founded—absolutely! They can. As to fewer than (say) ten titles out of the thousands and thousands of titles market analyses can capture. Like if a Ninja Gaiden expert tells me he has tracked 25 markets over 13 years to determine how many copies of The Dark Sword of Chaos have entered (1) public markets, (2) private sales, and (3) private not-for-sale collections across those more than two dozen markets over a more than a decade period, and if that collector has kept copious notes of these scores of transactions for over 10 years, and if I trust that person implicitly (because I know they're not a Ninja Gaiden reseller trying to over-hype products they personally own), I will take their word over a market analysis. But I can't imagine any other situation in which I would do so, as the idea that random collectors are tracking literally tens of thousands of transactions better than recorded market analyses is simply preposterous from every angle.

I know collectors—me very much included!—like to self-romanticize, especially when it comes to our knowledge base, but that's beyond the pale. Large-scale data-sets are best tracked via large-scale data analyses, not collectors hazily recalling rumors about game titles they aren't personally invested in (which, for all of us, is by volume well over 95% of all video ever games ever released).

I think you’re misunderstanding my previous post. I didn’t say “you’re being misleading”, but said “the sales data can be misleading”. In fact, I’m a fan of anyone doing some research to benefit for the games community.

Also, I think you are severely minimizing the benefits of being a long term sealed games collector to understanding how the sealed games market work. Private sales of high-end sealed and graded games have been happening since yonks ago. You don’t have to witness the exchange right there and then because a lot of it happens publically in forums (NintendoAge, Sealedgameheaven etc) where they’re advertised for members of such forums, and prices can roughly be ascertained through experiencing deals between the members.

I need to emphasise to you that I’m not one of those resellers who is hyping up the market. So when I say “private sales”, I say it from my own personal eyewitness and experience through genuine transactions. Thus I mean “legit and categorically genuine sales sold in private”. Knowing the pattern of the private sales in the past of the high-end market is what will give you a better understanding of the current market as a whole - what is hyped up BS and what is more organic growth.

[GPX | 1,376]

4 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

I hope Wata doesn't read this thread and change their minds about releasing a pop report.

If they change their minds after reading this thread then that would be laughable. We all know what the consumers want, and in the midst of allegations, this is the one action that can take some heat off of them. I repeat, laughable.

[Seth | 172]

59 minutes ago, GPX said:

I think you’re misunderstanding my previous post. I didn’t say “you’re being misleading”, but said “the sales data can be misleading”. In fact, I’m a fan of anyone doing some research to benefit for the games community.

Also, I think you are severely minimizing the benefits of being a long term sealed games collector to understanding how the sealed games market work. Private sales of high-end sealed and graded games have been happening since yonks ago. You don’t have to witness the exchange right there and then because a lot of it happens publically in forums (NintendoAge, Sealedgameheaven etc) where they’re advertised for members of such forums, and prices can roughly be ascertained through experiencing deals between the members.

I need to emphasise to you that I’m not one of those resellers who is hyping up the market. So when I say “private sales”, I say it from my own personal eyewitness and experience through genuine transactions. Thus I mean “legit and categorically genuine sales sold in private”. Knowing the pattern of the private sales in the past of the high-end market is what will give you a better understanding of the current market as a whole - what is hyped up BS and what is more organic growth.

I hear what you're saying, and it's very fair. 

[OptOut | 8,900]

It's really not that hard guys, with appropriate nesting and searching tools.

Separate out MAJOR variants under each game when you click on it, or you could even have them as separate titles if you want. For minor variants, these can be nested once you click through to see the more detailed ratings.

So it would be:

GAME-> MAJOR VARIANTS-> SEALED/CIB/CART-> GRADES-> SEAL RATING AND OTHER DETAILS.

You wouldn't need to see ALL the minute version differences and sub grades and grading details UNTIL you clicked through to the game you wanted.

You could also search for a specific variant, grade or seal rating right from the beginning, so if you knew what you were looking for you could find it immediately.

How is this hard?

[AnimalHouse | 117]

On 11/12/2021 at 1:36 AM, OptOut said:

There is no string of 4 letters in the English language more TERRIFYING to game collectors than U S P S... 

To be fair, it can happen with any carrier and it depends how well the sender protects your mail. 

[inasuma | 1,215]

3 hours ago, OptOut said:

It's really not that hard guys, with appropriate nesting and searching tools.

Separate out MAJOR variants under each game when you click on it, or you could even have them as separate titles if you want. For minor variants, these can be nested once you click through to see the more detailed ratings.

So it would be:

GAME-> MAJOR VARIANTS-> SEALED/CIB/CART-> GRADES-> SEAL RATING AND OTHER DETAILS.

You wouldn't need to see ALL the minute version differences and sub grades and grading details UNTIL you clicked through to the game you wanted.

You could also search for a specific variant, grade or seal rating right from the beginning, so if you knew what you were looking for you could find it immediately.

How is this hard?

The ui designer in me smells a challenge.  

[OptOut | 8,900]

4 minutes ago, inasuma said:

The ui designer in me smells a challenge.  

 

Do it bro!

Show these pompous frauds at WATA how it's done!

[GPX | 1,376]

Guys, let’s not forget the population data was already talked about by WATA at its beginning. So they should have some clue as to how to implement the info. And besides, they’ve had another 2-3 years to think about it. 

Personally, I think any sort of data showcase is better than nothing. Then they can adjust things to a more complicated level as time goes on. It doesn’t have to be rocket science right from the start.

[Gulag Joe | 587]

9 hours ago, OptOut said:

It's really not that hard guys, with appropriate nesting and searching tools.

Separate out MAJOR variants under each game when you click on it, or you could even have them as separate titles if you want. For minor variants, these can be nested once you click through to see the more detailed ratings.

So it would be:

GAME-> MAJOR VARIANTS-> SEALED/CIB/CART-> GRADES-> SEAL RATING AND OTHER DETAILS.

You wouldn't need to see ALL the minute version differences and sub grades and grading details UNTIL you clicked through to the game you wanted.

You could also search for a specific variant, grade or seal rating right from the beginning, so if you knew what you were looking for you could find it immediately.

How is this hard?

Idk how I feel about clicking all those times. Def too many clicks. I'm more of a one click guy and if it takes more than that the next click is the X in the top corner

[OptOut | 8,900]

3 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

Idk how I feel about clicking all those times. Def too many clicks. I'm more of a one click guy and if it takes more than that the next click is the X in the top corner

Perhaps you should stick to two dimensional collectables printed on cheap cardstock!

[tidaldreams | 654]

What do you think will be the pop on this?

[inasuma | 1,215]

i'm still rolling at the fact people think that's real

[CodysGameRoom | 2,009]

37 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

What do you think will be the pop on this?

Rated D for delicious

[Gulag Joe | 587]

Anybody want to take a guess at which NES game has been graded the most by Wata? Or rather, what the top 5 most submitted games have been?

I have no data on this but I think it would be Mario 3 at the top of the list (highest graded population).

[tidaldreams | 654]

2 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

Anybody want to take a guess at which NES game has been graded the most by Wata? Or rather, what the top 5 most submitted games have been?

I have no data on this but I think it would be Mario 3 at the top of the list (highest graded population).

I was gonna say plain ol' SMB but could be SMB3 as well.

[ApebitMusic | 130]

So I was listening to the Completely Unnecessary Podcast today and Pat said something that just confuses me.

He said some thing like.. "you think your game is rare and then the pop report comes out and there are 78 of them and you realize it's not rare at all". 

Does Pat really believe that 78 copies are a lot, when you consider the sheer number of video game collectors in the world? 

Let's say WATA has graded even 1000 sealed SMBs. To me that is not a lot of copies! How huge is Mario in pop culture and in video games? That seems to me like 1 copy to go around for every 1,000,000. (don't quote me on that but you get my point). 

Just food for thought: PSA has graded 20,000 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookies, give or take, minus resubmissions, etc. 

I can't imagine there can be anywhere near that number of sealed SMBs in the world... am I wrong about that?

I've posed this sort of discussion before and it will be interesting to see how collectors interpret the numbers.

[WalterWhiteJr. | 1,187]

Such a joke of a company. Sad that people still give them money.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,009]

25 minutes ago, ApebitMusic said:

He said some thing like.. "you think your game is rare and then the pop report comes out and there are 78 of them and you realize it's not rare at all". 

Does Pat really believe that 78 copies are a lot, when you consider the sheer number of video game collectors in the world? 

He's talking about in the context of graded collecting. In this context, 78 is a lot more than 1 or 2. His point makes perfect sense. 

[ApebitMusic | 130]

3 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

He's talking about in the context of graded collecting. In this context, 78 is a lot more than 1 or 2. His point makes perfect sense. 

Sure, 78 is more than 1 or 2, but that doesn't mean 78 can't still be "rare". 

Also food for thought. There are thought to be ~60 T206 Honus Wagners in existence, and that card is considered "rare" by pretty much anybody in the hobby and has been for years.

Whatever, the term "rare" is open to interpretation, but you can't say 78 of anything remotely desirable is a plentiful amount. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by ApebitMusic

[Gulag Joe | 587]

14 minutes ago, ApebitMusic said:

Sure, 78 is more than 1 or 2, but that doesn't mean 78 can't still be "rare". 

Also food for thought. There are thought to be ~60 T206 Honus Wagners in existence, and that card is considered "rare" by pretty much anybody in the hobby and has been for years.

Whatever, the term "rare" is open to interpretation, but you can't say 78 of anything remotely desirable is a plentiful amount. 

I've already argued this on previous threads. Some people still believe there are only about 100 people out there who collect sealed video games. That may have been the case in 2005, but there are like 5 video game grading companies in existence these days and every one of them are backlogged with submissions. "78" is not a number that screams market saturation. Now if that number were in the thousands, it would be a different story. But it's not even in the hundreds FFS.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Gulag Joe

[Seth | 172]

3 minutes ago, ApebitMusic said:

Sure, 78 is more than 1 or 2, but that doesn't mean 78 can't still be "rare". 

Ah. The propaganda begins. (Anyone who wants to know what the WATA data is likely to show can see the website link at the very bottom of this post, or, failing that, the image below this text, where the very beginning of the 800-plus-title market analysis I did reveals that SMB3 will be the most-graded WATA game and that SMB, SMB2, and all the other games WATA pumped up in sometimes unethical ways since 2018 will make the Top 25.)

As to "78 is rare." 

Yes, it is rare.

Some rare things—like many rare baseball cards—are worth as much as $10! A whole ten bucks! Other things that are "rare" are worth millions. A sealed-and-graded title can be both rare *and* overpriced. When people say "this game isn't rare" they don't mean there are tens of millions of sealed-and-graded copies, they mean that the number of copies does not warrant the prices being paid for these titles.

That said... the number ain't 78, chief.

Pat is quoting from my website RETRO, which his excellent podcast (to my everlasting awe) often does. RETRO has located (now) 91 copies of SMB3 that have been in the market since January 1, 2019. But here's the thing: that's just the public-market copies; it's possible a handful of copies escaped the tally; no private sales are considered; no private gradings that led to games going right to private collections are considered. Oh, and it's only since January 1, 2019—and WATA began grading 8 months before that and VGA {checks notes} a full decade before that. So when Pat says 78, he'd agree that we're talking, in fact, about hundreds of SMB3s that are sealed.

The other thing you're missing is the element of time in the other direction, i.e., how many copies will be graded in the next year or two years or three years at the pace of grading we're now seeing from WATA? Most of the copies listed at RETRO are WATA copies; WATA is grading about 25 copies a year all by themselves, which means that if the market stays tiny—which it won't!—we'd expect just that one grading house to grade another 250+ SMB3s in the next 10 years. And 10 years is a perfectly credible window to look at when we're talking about games often (usually) being bought as investments.

So we are quite clearly going to be talking about well over 1,000 sealed SMB3s in this market. Possibly in the low four-figures, like 2,000 to 3,000. And that's one damned game on one damned system. You imply that all video game collectors want that game. What? Only a fraction of collectors are high-end NES collectors who like Mario. It might be 20%, but it's still a fraction. And again, we're not talking about "is 1,000 or 2,000" rare, we're talking about, "What should anyone pay for something there are thousands of and only a relatively small number of people care about?"

And I'll answer that question: about $400.

Not $400,000.

And WATA damn well knows it, which is why they've been getting while the getting is good, and so many others have, too.