MinusWorlds.com debuts Tuesday- Thank You!

[tidaldreams | 654]

Looking at the pics, I think I can guesstimate who the sellers are for some of the items I think u got some pretty big names lol

[Dan64 | 66]

15 hours ago, tidaldreams said:

Have you seen this? 

 

Someone created a website that shows all of the HA sales data up to Aug. 31, 2021. I think it might be missing some sales, but this could help get you started. I saved the raw sales data file if you want it.

Yes, I like the effort here. My biggest hurdle is really how to format it to keep is digestible. We hope to do something similar but with all auction houses and ebay. The problem with ebay is really has to be manually combed through but we will figure out a way that makes sense. If there is a will, there is a way. 

I like the charts he did. The date of sales is nice touch. I think how I intend to do it is the seal grades are broken down in the box grades and you can open up the box grade row to see the seal grades. But we will test run a few different formats. 

Our goal really is really to be a neutral knowledge hub for the community. Our data will not be represented any differently than other data points. We are hoping to have links to each sale so it is helpful and transparent. But I am getting way ahead of myself, I get excited for what I know we will get to in time. 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Dan64

[OptOut | 8,895]

35 minutes ago, Dan64 said:

But I am getting way ahead of myself, we got s

D... Dan? Are you okay buddy???

Someone check on Dan, I think he just fell asleep at his keyboard, lol! 

[Dan64 | 66]

5 hours ago, OptOut said:

D... Dan? Are you okay buddy???

Someone check on Dan, I think he just fell asleep at his keyboard, lol! 

Whoops, I was rambling so I cut myself off

[Code Monkey | 2,023]

a) Why is it coded from scratch and not using an existing product like Shopify?

2) How are you dealing with privacy and security? I would need to know how the data storage works before I sign up.

d) I think I have a good idea of some of the mistakes you're making and why it's doing some of the things it's doing. I've been developing customer portals for a decade, let me know if you need any help with the back end. I can take a look for free and offer some consulting or I can send you an hourly rate to change things if needed.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Code Monkey

[Dan64 | 66]

2 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

a) Why is it coded from scratch and not using an existing product like Shopify?

2) How are you dealing with privacy and security? I would need to know how the data storage works before I sign up.

d) I think I have a good idea of some of the mistakes you're making and why it's doing some of the things it's doing. I've been developing customer portals for a decade, let me know if you need any help with the back end. I can take a look for free and offer some consulting or I can send you an hourly rate to change things if needed.

a) Shopify unfortunately does not have marketplace capabilities as well the customization and expansion we can do with investing in building this out right.  Having the ability to add any function we can imagine and go any direction was the right move. 

2) We do not store credit cards. We use stripe for credit cards currently. Feel free to read our privacy policy. We are not selling data to outside or sharing with third parties. 

d) Thank you for kind words. Will reach out in time if so and appreciate the offer. 

 

 

[Dan64 | 66]

I probably should mention that on Instagram my personal handle is d.a.n_64   

Some of you we have interreacted previously and you can get a sense of my collecting, podcast, work with artists, etc. 

 

Please do continue to post feedback, critiques, etc. I like if you have a contact and direct answer from myself than just assuming the worst. Here for the long haul. 

[tidaldreams | 654]

13 hours ago, Dan64 said:

Yes, I like the effort here. My biggest hurdle is really how to format it to keep is digestible. We hope to do something similar but with all auction houses and ebay. The problem with ebay is really has to be manually combed through but we will figure out a way that makes sense. If there is a will, there is a way. 

I like the charts he did. The date of sales is nice touch. I think how I intend to do it is the seal grades are broken down in the box grades and you can open up the box grade row to see the seal grades. But we will test run a few different formats. 

Our goal really is really to be a neutral knowledge hub for the community. Our data will not be represented any differently than other data points. We are hoping to have links to each sale so it is helpful and transparent. But I am getting way ahead of myself, I get excited for what I know we will get to in time. 

Ebay has an API you can use. You will probably have to scrape the data and parse out the grades/title of the game, but there is definitely a way to do it programmatically. A lot of other websites already do this (e.g. on PSA you can pull up all the listings for a specific card). But you just do it for sold listings instead of active ones.

[Code Monkey | 2,023]

4 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

Ebay has an API you can use. You will probably have to scrape the data and parse out the grades/title of the game, but there is definitely a way to do it programmatically. A lot of other websites already do this (e.g. on PSA you can pull up all the listings for a specific card). But you just do it for sold listings instead of active ones.

I already have this working and had it running for almost a year. He's welcome to license the data.

[Dan64 | 66]

3 hours ago, tidaldreams said:

Ebay has an API you can use. You will probably have to scrape the data and parse out the grades/title of the game, but there is definitely a way to do it programmatically. A lot of other websites already do this (e.g. on PSA you can pull up all the listings for a specific card). But you just do it for sold listings instead of active ones.

Ebay does let you go back many years last time I checked with their api. Getting the data is not as hard is organizing it right. The other part is that Ebay really has to be combed to ensure relisted items arent put back up etc. 

We are working with auction houses etc to do this right. We are doing this as a free service because we feel it is really needed for everyone. We want buyers to be able to make educated decisions and most of us to simply enjoy researching easily. This projects take time to really get processes right so we arent going back and getting stuck on this one project when we can focus on the future. 

The one good thing is we spent a lot of time making a database of tens of thousands of games already and an identification system that we have as our back bone. You barely see it now but if you go to list a game, when you pick the system, it narrows the games shown to that system and if click on the game- it autofills the game developer and year of release. We still got to clean it up a bit but while seems simple, there is something like 18,000 games in our database. 

We will get there. While juggling a few major we are working on, it is critical that when we launch one it is right. Does not mean it is perfect but means when we launch we can learn and get it where it needs to go quickly. As many flaws as the MW website had, it performed amazing and many errors already fixes or will be fixed shortly. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tidaldreams | 654]

1 hour ago, Dan64 said:

 

The one good thing is we spent a lot of time making a database of tens of thousands of games already and an identification system that we have as our back bone. You barely see it now but if you go to list a game, when you pick the system, it narrows the games shown to that system and if click on the game- it autofills the game developer and year of release. We still got to clean it up a bit but while seems simple, there is something like 18,000 games in our database. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I thought this was pretty cool. It's pretty glitchy though (like most things on this site atm lol), it doesn't actually fill out for a few games I tried and when it does the date sometimes comes out as nonsense. 

The console list is pretty disorganized, it looks like just a random list, would be nice if you could alphabetize it.

[Seth | 172]

So Tom Curtin is going to create the sort of marketplace database RETRO is already doing for Intellivision and Atari and NES games, and which it has been doing for months, and which Tom publicly attacked me for doing.

I guess it all makes sense now. You guys really are sharks. Or perhaps some much smaller land animal.

In any case, I suppose you *can* do this work for free—instead of as one minor feature on a massive website that costs $2.90/month, like RETRO—when you're making money hand over fist as an unnecessary middleman in a market Tom helped inflate with years of bullsh*t, and when you work directly behind the scenes (as you say you plan to) with the very auction houses that also (like Tom) want these prices inflated.

God help us—or more specifically, buyers in this new market. Their actual advocates get steamrolled so that high-end resellers in bed with auction houses and grading companies can offer "free" services for the masses as they overcharge them by 25% to 50% for games. You guys made me feel like garbage for charging anything for hundreds of hours of research; little did I know that you were going to do the same work but make it free because you're making 1000x my monthly sub rate via up-charging.

I never was a shark like that. Didn't have the bloodlust for it.

This community gets what it deserves, candidly. It doesn't demand better, so it gets this. I'll continue buying the same games for three figures (sealed and graded) that you're selling for thousands. Make sure that when you tally thousands of sales at Heritage and 24 other markets (as I already have at RETRO), you leave off what things sold for. You don't want people seeing that at Heritage games go for half of what they're going for at MinusWorlds.

Edited November 27, 2021 by RETRO

[tidaldreams | 654]

16 minutes ago, RETRO said:

So Tom Curtin is going to create the sort of marketplace database RETRO is already doing for Intellivision and Atari and NES games, and which it has been doing for months, and which Tom publicly attacked me for doing.

I guess it all makes sense now. You guys really are sharks. Or perhaps some much smaller land animal.

In any case, I suppose you *can* do this work for free—instead of as one minor feature on a massive website that costs $2.90/month, like RETRO—when you're making money hand over fist as an unnecessary middleman in a market Tom helped inflate with years of bullsh*t, and when you work directly behind the scenes (as you say you plan to) with the very auction houses that also (like Tom) want these prices inflated.

God help us—or more specifically, buyers in this new market. Their actual advocates get steamrolled so that high-end resellers in bed with auction houses and grading companies can offer "free" services for the masses as they overcharge them by 25% to 50% for games. You guys made me feel like garbage for charging anything for hundreds of hours of research; little did I know that you were going to do the same work but make it free because you're making 1000x my monthly sub rate via up-charging.

I never was a shark like that. Didn't have the bloodlust for it.

This community gets what it deserves, candidly. It doesn't demand better, so it gets this. I'll continue buying the same games for three figures (sealed and graded) that you're selling for thousands. Make sure that when you tally thousands of sales at Heritage and 24 other markets (as I already have at RETRO), you leave off what things sold for. You don't want people seeing that at Heritage games go for half of what they're going for at MinusWorlds.

Who's Tom? I thought this guy's name is Dan.

Edited November 27, 2021 by tidaldreams

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

my listings were deactivated because I didnt provide 6 pictures and the pictures were not quality pictures

 

that makes sense and I agree with the policy, however other sellers had the same issues but were not pulled

i'll wait to see automated standards but went from excited to ---- immediately getting a king vibe

 

 

 

[Seth | 172]

9 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

Who's Tom? I thought this guy's name is Dan.

I was told by multiple people that Tom Curtin—who falsely accused me of labeling market research as grading-house pop reports because he refused to read the goddamn article he was attacking on Facebook—is involved in this project well beyond lending his VGS handle to it, much like WATA had many people involved with it at its founding who somehow (usually for very, very convenient reasons) stayed behind the scenes.

If Dan Allegra wants to swear to God before this entire community that Tom Curtin has contributed precisely nothing to this project besides his handle (not contacts or outreach or advice or games or anything else), OK—but don't hold your breath.

This project is by and for high-end resellers of sealed and graded WATA games, period. (I tried to see the thirty-something VGA games the site allegedly has out of hundreds and hundreds of games, and couldn't find them.) Consumer advocates who argue for the integrity and wallet and interests of three-figure buyers, people new to the hobby, and people who don't like market manipulation have been attacked by this crew at every turn.

And honestly? I said to my wife today that I don't know why I keep telling people this—as it only benefits me that I can use the data at RETRO to get games for three figures that will appear (from other hands) at MinusWorlds for thousands or even five figures. But then, I'm Quixotic—like most public defenders who become poets who become professors. If just one person hears anything I have written here or at RETRO, which I won't link to because Adam will drop another turd complaining about it, I'm happy, as it'll save one more relative newcomer to the hobby from falling prey to the jackals.

I mean I just watched a video by Dave Robbins, who is part of this crew, in which he says it's ethical to run claim sales that aren't real claim sales, auctions that aren't real auctions, and even orally agree to a deal and then take a subsequent offer. He's selling a copy of Renegade for $22,000 that I could get for $500 right now.

Everything possible is being done to keep this hobby closed to new blood unless they're foreign-dwelling multimillionaires and highly networked. Dress it up however you like, that's all this is—folks without ethics, who don't even know the language or habits of ethics, claiming to be doing a public service.

My God I hope no one falls for this.

Edited November 27, 2021 by RETRO

[O.G. CIB | 415]

35 minutes ago, RETRO said:

So Tom Curtin is going to create the sort of marketplace database RETRO is already doing for Intellivision and Atari and NES games, and which it has been doing for months, and which Tom publicly attacked me for doing.

I guess it all makes sense now. You guys really are sharks. Or perhaps some much smaller land animal.

In any case, I suppose you *can* do this work for free—instead of as one minor feature on a massive website that costs $2.90/month, like RETRO—when you're making money hand over fist as an unnecessary middleman in a market Tom helped inflate with years of bullsh*t, and when you work directly behind the scenes (as you say you plan to) with the very auction houses that also (like Tom) want these prices inflated.

God help us—or more specifically, buyers in this new market. Their actual advocates get steamrolled so that high-end resellers in bed with auction houses and grading companies can offer "free" services for the masses as they overcharge them by 25% to 50% for games. You guys made me feel like garbage for charging anything for hundreds of hours of research; little did I know that you were going to do the same work but make it free because you're making 1000x my monthly sub rate via up-charging.

I never was a shark like that. Didn't have the bloodlust for it.

This community gets what it deserves, candidly. It doesn't demand better, so it gets this. I'll continue buying the same games for three figures (sealed and graded) that you're selling for thousands. Make sure that when you tally thousands of sales at Heritage and 24 other markets (as I already have at RETRO), you leave off what things sold for. You don't want people seeing that at Heritage games go for half of what they're going for at MinusWorlds.

You just went on a rant and have the wrong person. Dan used the name Tom made famous. It’s not Tom’s site and as I understand has zero interest in. The rest of that Facebook nonsense can stay there and keep it out of here. 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Mr. CIB

[Seth | 172]

4 minutes ago, Mr. CIB said:

You just went on a rant and have the wrong person. Dan used the name Tom made famous. It’s not Tom’s sure and as I understand has zero interest in. The rest of that Facebook nonsense can stay there and keep it out of here. 

Multiple people told me Tom is involved in this project. Again, if Dan wants to say that Tom has had no role of any kind whatsoever, I'll believe it about as much as I believe WATA saying Richard Lecce had no role in WATA but I will accept it.

As for the FB nonsense, I'm not going to let Dan pitch here as a valuable public service the same research that his crew elsewhere implied was without value. I lost sleep over those attacks—a lot. Seeing an idea I put into action months ago and got slammed for pitched here as a fresh, honorable contribution is not something I can or should let slide.

By all means, if Dan wants to say his crew was dead wrong about RETRO and that they want to build on my idea for widely available marketplace research on sealed-and-graded games, they can—but linking to a Reddit tool that is now offline and making no mention of RETRO while cribbing from it is BS and needs to be called out.

Edited November 27, 2021 by RETRO

[O.G. CIB | 415]

Just now, RETRO said:

Multiple people told me Tom is involved in this project. Again, if Dan wants to say that Tom has had no role of any kind whatsoever, I'll believe it about as much as I believe WATA saying Richard Lecce had no role in WATA but I will accept it.

This guy Dan (who I don’t know and only listened to his podcast) obviously is friends with Tom but that doesn’t make them business partners. The other case you cited with Rich …. 100% correct based on the information in the public domain.

Apples and Oranges in this case. 

[Seth | 172]

13 minutes ago, Mr. CIB said:

This guy Dan (who I don’t know and only listened to his podcast) obviously is friends with Tom but that doesn’t make them business partners. The other case you cited with Rich …. 100% correct based on the information in the public domain.

Of course they're friends. Everyone knows that. That's not my point. My point is that RETRO was contacted 2+ months ago by someone who is in this crew and they said that Tom was pushing "his new brokerage" hard in private conversations—and began doing so not long after falsely attacking my market research. Dan writes "we" repeatedly on MinusWorlds and mentions that he spoke with Tom about the project, so until Dan comes here to say that Tom has had no role whatsoever in this project besides lending his handle to it, I'm steamed.

Edited November 27, 2021 by RETRO

[tidaldreams | 654]

23 minutes ago, RETRO said:

I was told by multiple people that Tom Curtin—who falsely accused me of labeling market research as grading-house pop reports because he refused to read the goddamn article he was attacking on Facebook—is involved in this project well beyond lending his VGS handle to it, much like WATA had many people involved with it at its founding who somehow (usually for very, very convenient reasons) stayed behind the scenes.

If Dan Allegra wants to swear to God before this entire community that Tom Curtin has contributed precisely nothing to this project besides his handle (not contacts or outreach or advice or games or anything else), OK—but don't hold your breath.

This project is by and for high-end resellers of sealed and graded WATA games, period. (I tried to see the thirty-something VGA games the site allegedly has out of hundreds and hundreds of games, and couldn't find them.) Consumer advocates who argue for the integrity and wallet and interests of three-figure buyers, people new to the hobby, and people who don't like market manipulation have been attacked by this crew at every turn.

And honestly? I said to my wife today that I don't know why I keep telling people this—as it only benefits me that I can use the data at RETRO to get games for three figures that will appear (from other hands) at MinusWorlds for thousands or even five figures. But then, I'm Quixotic—like most public defenders who become poets who become professors. If just one person hears anything I have written here or at RETRO, which I won't link to because Adam will drop another turd complaining about it, I'm happy, as it'll save one more relative newcomer to the hobby from falling prey to the jackals.

I mean I just watched a video by Dave Robbins, who is part of this crew, in which he says it's ethical to run claim sales that aren't real claim sales, auctions that aren't real auctions, and even orally agree to a deal and then take a subsequent offer. He's selling a copy of Renegade for $22,000 that I could get for $500 right now.

Everything possible is being done to keep this hobby closed to new blood unless they're foreign-dwelling multimillionaires and highly networked. Dress it up however you like, that's all this is—folks without ethics, who don't even know the language or habits of ethics, claiming to be doing a public service.

My God I hope no one falls for this.

Well, I mean... if you really have a bunch of valuable data then why wouldn't you use it for monetary gain? It's not like your data is illegal or anything.

As for the names... Tom/Dan/Dick/Jane they can call themselves whatever they want, doesn't matter to me. Although the site is glitchy AF, i don't see any ill intentions here.

[Seth | 172]

Just now, tidaldreams said:

i don't see any ill intentions here.

Agreed—MinusWorlds overcharging by 25% to 50% isn't illegal, and arguably isn't even unethical. In a market, you can sell for whatever you like. But it certainly can't be presented as altruism. It continues to be the case that those who want to engage in this hobby for a reasonable cost must ignore almost 100% of what comes out of the leading folks in the High-End Collectors Facebook group. You can get fifty really good sealed-and-graded games for what Robbins is selling his Renegade for, I'm serious. And Renegade is considered one of the worst games on the NES.

[O.G. CIB | 415]

9 minutes ago, RETRO said:

Of course they're friends. Everyone knows that. That's not my point. My point is that RETRO was contacted 2+ months ago by someone who is in this crew and they said that Tom was pushing "his new brokerage" hard in private conversations—and began doing so not long after falsely attacking my market research. Dan writes "we" repeatedly on MinusWorlds and mentions that he spoke with Tom about the project, so until Dan comes here to lie and say that Tom has had no role whatsoever in this project besides lending his handle to it, I'm steamed.

Well hey not my fight but I will say “The Crew” that you mention is a real thing. There are a few select people in a circle that has made the sealed market what it is. Some people call it good business and others market manipulation. For me graded/sealed is not my cup of tea so I’ll just sit back and watch the fireworks. It shouldn’t get censored / deleted and swept under the rug like they do on the Facebook groups. 

[Seth | 172]

3 minutes ago, Mr. CIB said:

Well hey not my fight but I will say “The Crew” that you mention is a real thing. There are a few select people in a circle that has made the sealed market what it is. Some people call it good business and others market manipulation. For me graded/sealed is not my cup of tea so I’ll just sit back and watch the fireworks. It shouldn’t get censored / deleted and swept under the rug like they do on the Facebook groups. 

Oh, the crew is very real. In analyzing the market I had to figure out who was who and what they're doing (and their core philosophy, and their relationships with one another)—as a lawyer and investigative journalist and academic I don't like to be involved in any ecosystem I haven't researched; if you get into sealed and graded collecting without understanding what this crew is doing and why, you'll lose your shirt—and I discovered that the crew is so clearly defined that I had to come up with a name for them just to streamline my own thought processes and analyses. I came up with The Jackals.

[tidaldreams | 654]

Just now, RETRO said:

Agreed—MinusWorlds overcharging by 25% to 50% isn't illegal, and arguably isn't even unethical. In a market, you can sell for whatever you like. But it certainly can't be presented as altruism. It continues to be the case that those who want to engage in this hobby for a reasonable cost must ignore almost 100% of what comes out of the leading folks in the High-End Collectors Facebook group. You can get fifty really good sealed-and-graded games for what Robbins is selling his Renegade for, I'm serious. And Renegade is considered one of the worst games on the NES.

I was gonna edit my comment but since you replied already might as well reply to you here. I don't see any discrimination against VGA as you seem to imply. This isn't HA. Anyway, there isn't that many games on the site, a few people could sway the proportion in whichever direction they feel like.

Again, if you really have the data that can help you determine which games are undervalued, I don't understand why you're not using it for monetary gain.

[Seth | 172]

10 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

I was gonna edit my comment but since you replied already might as well reply to you here. I don't see any discrimination against VGA as you seem to imply.

Here's what I saw:

• WATA is referred to as a grading house, and VGA as a mere "authenticator." That is false.
• VGA's grading scale is misrepresented as relating to "authentication," while WATA gets two lengthy box-checking filters for the entirety of its grading rubric. By comparison, VGA gets a single slider (I'll put aside that the two grading houses aren't listed alphabetically or by age or by volume of games graded—any of which would have put VGA first—but by the site's clear preference for WATA).
• When you search for VGA graded games, even if you check the box, nothing comes up. WATA games come up just fine.
• There are three times as many WATA games as VGA games (and when the site first went up and I formed my opinion, it was about 10x WATA games), even though VGA has—over 13 years—graded substantially more games than WATA has in its 3.5 years.

You could argue that The Jackals simply prefer WATA because the Jackals hyped the market for WATA games to the point that WATA games always sell for more—that's why they (and WATA) push the preposterous idea of "crossing over" games needlessly; the only reason to do this is to sell your product for an artificially inflated price because it's WATA-branded (the sort of tautological reality that market manipulation is intended to create)—and that MinusWorlds.com is simply getting most of its up-charged product from Jackals, but that kind of proves my point. The whole milieu that birthed this site is a series of high-end resellers who act as WATA fanboys and shills for the sake of personal financial profit.

Edit: In the Knowledge Center, VGA is properly presented as a grading company. I'm referring to the most important part of the site: the game search.

Edited November 27, 2021 by RETRO