Wata NES pop report now available

[OptOut | 8,883]

2 minutes ago, kell said:

I think this is how a lot of people feel these days…

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

35 minutes ago, Gloves said:

All of my money is in SHIB man, I'm in DEBT.

You didn't really convert all your BAT to SHIB did you?

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

Meh I’m bored of this

[OptOut | 8,883]

1 minute ago, a3quit4s said:

Meh I’m bored of this

I'VE NEVER FELT MORE ALIVE!!!! 

[Seth | 166]

FYI: Highest-ever-graded WATA copy of Castle of Dragon is on eBay rn for $469. 

Or you can wait for it to show up on MinusWorlds for $3,750. 

[Seth | 166]

FYI: Third-highest-ever-WATA-graded Dudes with Attitude (NES) is on eBay for $455 OBO.

[Dumars2001 | 164]

Very interesting/surprising to see that Super Mario Bros 2 is the rarest of the 3 Super Mario Bros by a pretty large number. I honestly thought it would have been Super Mario Bros.

Of course Super Mario Bros will always be the most desired of the 3 for obvious reasons.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

8 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

Very interesting/surprising to see that Super Mario Bros 2 is the rarest of the 3 Super Mario Bros by a pretty large number. I honestly thought it would have been Super Mario Bros.

Of course Super Mario Bros will always be the most desired of the 3 for obvious reasons.

Cause who would send a SMB2 for grading? That game sux.

[Driftwood | 209]

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

What proportion of comic book collectors collect graded comic books? What proportion of video game collectors collect graded games?

You need to know the answer to both of those questions in order to be able to relate the scarcity to the demand in each of these different hobbies. We already KNOW that the proportion of video game collectors interested in graded/sealed games is like 1% of the hobby. The supply is low, but so is demand.

What are the numbers for comic books or trading cards? I'm wiling to bet the proportion of collectors in those hobbies interested in graded items is MUCH higher than videogames.

1% would be a very very generous guesstimate

[Dumars2001 | 164]

I am seeing a lot of activity on Ebay with sealed Nes games being bought and/or taken down/price adjusted. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out, when the dust has settled a little. 

[OptOut | 8,883]

5 minutes ago, Driftwood said:

1% would be a very very generous guesstimate

I rounded up!

[Dumars2001 | 164]

 

[inasuma | 1,203]

Anyone else not a NES collector or have NES games at all, just twiddling their thumbs waiting for that full pop report? Just me?  

[Seth | 166]

Looks like the new high-end reseller/investor talking points are out.

1. Because everyone who grades a game with VGA "crosses over" that game with WATA to resell it under the 25% to 50% WATA premium that exists for... reasons... the WATA pop report data released today effectively takes into account every game graded by VGA in 13 years and can be treated as the "total" population of each sealed NES title out there. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

2. Only 9.6 and 9.8 grades actually matter, so you can talk about the "rarity" of a title by eliminating all instances of that title that don't have a 9.6 or 9.8 box and pretending that the "total" population of the game is however many 9.6 and 9.8 boxes there are for that game. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

3. After 15 years of being a niche hobby with about 200 practicing hobbyists, sealed and graded collecting is suddenly going to blow up, which means that there being hundreds of sealed and graded copies of SMB3 is amazingly good news for the hobby and anyone who has a sealed and graded copy of SMB3, as demand for these hundreds of copies will suddenly outstrip supply for the first time ever for... reasons. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

4. Though everything about the two hobbies is different—from the percentage of all enthusiasts who want sealed and graded copies of the product to how many years grading companies have had to produce sealed and graded copies, from the ease of entry into the hobby based on the cost of the lowest-tier exemplars to the length of time the market for sealed and graded copies of the product has existed in a healthy and stable state—sealed and graded video games can be casually, even flippantly compared to comic books. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

5. Even though high-end resellers spent years saying that certain NES games only had 5 or 10 sealed and graded copies (and so slapped the "RARE" and "GRAIL" labels on all their eBay listings despite having no data whatsoever to back either claim up), and even though it's now clear that some of those same games have scores of WATA-graded copies out in the world, scores of VGA-graded copies, and a "pace" of appearance on the market in sealed and graded condition that means they'll have many hundreds of copies on the market by 2026 with only (if past is precedent) a dozen or so potential buyers for each, today's pop reports are great news for the premise that you should buy {checks notes} copies of the most popular and readily available games for five figures. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

6. Even if you think this data is bad news for high-end resellers and investors, this is only NES data, which is misleading and not an indicator of anything because... reasons. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

7. Forget what the data means, the fact that it was released at all means that every unkind thing ever said about WATA is demonstrably false. Accuracy Rating (out of 10): 0

What am I missing here? What else is the "Video Games to 10 Million!" cult saying now that they started planning to say the second pop reports were announced in early November?

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by RETRO

[GPX | 1,369]

2 minutes ago, OptOut said:

I rounded up!

If you rounded up, 0.01% = 0%!

In all seriousness, it doesn’t matter how much percent the sealed/graded collectors make up the collecting pool. What matters is how many are willing to spend 4,5 and 6 figures. And I’m referring to genuine keenness to spend, not artificial bids. 

 

[OptOut | 8,883]

6 minutes ago, inasuma said:

Anyone else not a NES collector or have NES games at all, just twiddling their thumbs waiting for that full pop report? Just me?  

No, I am FAR more interested in the N64 stats, tbh...

I got a BIG wager on the line, if you know what I mean...

 

[AdamW | 713]

2 hours ago, OptOut said:

A lot of people might quickly come to that conclusion, but that's not actually true.

WATA has only been around for two years, whereas most comic book graders have been around WAY longer. Also, grading is only a TINY niche of video game collecting, whereas in comic books and other hobbies a much greater proportion of collectors are into collecting graded items.

I think you can argue this point either way, for sealed NES games at least. For newer things, especially anything like 2000 or later, whatever wata's numbers turn out to be, you can be sure there are way more out there. But for games from the 1980s, sealed...eh, I can see the argument that there aren't many more around to be found. Especially of games like SMB where it's pretty widely known at this point that sealed copies are worth serious money.

Comic books turn up because people read them once when they were a kid then threw them in a box that got put in an attic nobody looked in for decades. stuff like that. That will absolutely be the case for open video games. There are likely quite a few open SMBs lying around in attics that'll be found over time. But sealed ones...I'd say it's at least arguable there won't be too many. Not many kids would've got a new video game and never opened it.

[OptOut | 8,883]

2 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I think you can argue this point either way, for sealed NES games at least. For newer things, especially anything like 2000 or later, whatever wata's numbers turn out to be, you can be sure there are way more out there. But for games from the 1980s, sealed...eh, I can see the argument that there aren't many more around to be found. Especially of games like SMB where it's pretty widely known at this point that sealed copies are worth serious money.

Comic books turn up because people read them once when they were a kid then threw them in a box that got put in an attic nobody looked in for decades. stuff like that. That will absolutely be the case for open video games. There are likely quite a few open SMBs lying around in attics that'll be found over time. But sealed ones...I'd say it's at least arguable there won't be too many. Not many kids would've got a new video game and never opened it.

Yes, I agree!

But, once again, it all comes back to DEMAND. Video game collectors, on the whole, don't especially WANT sealed games, the sealed collecting scene is small. That's the real disconnect with the comparison, it's not on the supply side it's on the demand side, IMO.

I think that there is a case to be made for 6 figure NES games, absolutely, (I think the 7 figure sales MAY be OTT right now), and clearly there IS enough demand right now to sustain a range of 4 and 5 figure titles too. 

BUT, who are we kidding that so many more people are going to be spilling endlessly into this market to jump in both feet first at 4, 5 figures for years and years to come? The big money right now is being spent by a small number of whales, and people feeding on the hype. But regular collectors and even long-time sealed collectors are being totally priced out.

It doesn't seem like a healthy, vibrant market to me, certainly not a good prospect for long-term growth.

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

2 hours ago, OptOut said:

Yeah, but why is it fair to compare a population report from a grading company that has been around for two years with one that has been around for decades?

Sealed games are not comparable to open and used comics. People opened the games and played them or stores threw them out. Hardcore collectors who have been collecting since the 90s know how rare this stuff is. They have seen the natural flow of product before anyone cared about collecting them. The more time goes on, the less likely significant finds will occur. And, despite all the press about values of games atm, relatively few items have come to light. It’s extremely likely that the lion’s share of sealed games from, say, 1999 and before, have already been made public in one form or another.

Yes, VGA will add to the numbers, but a large number of those will be crosses, and even if you added the numbers together it would still be scarce overall. WATA in the past 3 years has had way more momentum than VGA ever had, and a tremendous number of submissions, so to assume VGA pops will be 3-4-5 times WATA is almost certainly not going to bear out. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by ExplodedHamster

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

28 minutes ago, OptOut said:

 4, 5 figures for years and years to come? The big money right now is being spent by a small number of whales, and people feeding on the hype. But regular collectors and even long-time sealed collectors are being totally priced out.

It doesn't seem like a healthy, vibrant market to me, certainly not a good prospect for long-term growth.

 

are there any low qty 1991-1993 nes games?

 

or any games that dont have a relative high amount mint copies?

 

 

 

[AdamW | 713]

58 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Yes, I agree!

But, once again, it all comes back to DEMAND. Video game collectors, on the whole, don't especially WANT sealed games, the sealed collecting scene is small. That's the real disconnect with the comparison, it's not on the supply side it's on the demand side, IMO.

Oh, I think you're right that that's what it comes down to. But I think, realistically, nobody knows how future demand is gonna pan out, especially at that end of the market. Seth doesn't know, DetonatedGerbil doesn't know, you don't know and I don't know. Are sufficient numbers of rich people, in ten or twenty or thirty or whatever years, going to think it's neat to own a sealed copy of Super Mario to keep the price in that 6-7 figure range? I have no idea. I don't think anyone can say for sure.

Edited November 30, 2021 by AdamW

[Gloves | 11,776]

3 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Oh, I think you're right that that's what it comes down to. But I think, realistically, nobody knows how future demand is gonna pan out, especially at that end of the market. Seth doesn't know, DetonatedGerbil doesn't know, you don't know and I don't know. Are sufficient numbers of rich people, in ten or twenty or thirty or whatever years, going to think it's neat to own a sealed copy of Super Mario to keep the price in that 6-7 figure range? I have no idea. I don't think anyone can say for sure.

In 30 years I expect to be deep in the resource wars, and we'll all look back on such conversations like "is Mario 64 really a 1.5m dollar game?" and laugh, then cry. 

[AdamW | 713]

Just now, Gloves said:

In 30 years I expect to be deep in the resource wars, and we'll all look back on such conversations like "is Mario 64 really a 1.5m dollar game?" and laugh, then cry. 

Look, I live in Vancouver. We've got all the water here. So much water. Too much water. Please take some!

[OptOut | 8,883]

2 minutes ago, Gloves said:

In 30 years I expect to be deep in the resource wars, and we'll all look back on such conversations like "is Mario 64 really a 1.5m dollar game?" and laugh, then cry. 

I'm not planning to live that long! 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

15 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Oh, I think you're right that that's what it comes down to. But I think, realistically, nobody knows how future demand is gonna pan out, especially at that end of the market. Seth doesn't know, DetonatedGerbil doesn't know, you don't know and I don't know. Are sufficient numbers of rich people, in ten or twenty or thirty or whatever years, going to think it's neat to own a sealed copy of Super Mario to keep the price in that 6-7 figure range? I have no idea. I don't think anyone can say for sure.

Demand, nobody knows. Supply? I think we have some pretty strong evidence where that’s gonna be. Seems to be some wishcasting supply will grow exponentially, which goes against 20+ years of observation from long-time collectors and data from grading companies.

Edited November 30, 2021 by ExplodedHamster