Aatos

It’s not the first time in this thread you make this argument that the alleged collusion/market manipulation (whether illegal or just unethical use of position) was ultimately irrelevant since the prices would’ve hit these highs eventually anyway, which is quite flawed in my opinion - it’s like you’re saying timing is irrelevant factor in investments, even though it’s literally Finance 101 that interest, opportunity cost (ie.deciding what one should invest in) etc. all critically depend on the timing of the investment. To me it’s kinda similar to saying shill bidding is ok if the real bidder was still willing to pay the artificially inflated price, which I doubt you’d agree with.

So on top of everything, the douche who single handedly destroyed NintendoAge is actually a(n undisclosed) director for Wata, and people here still use the service? Wow. Sounds like you give him free pass for at least the clearly apparent market manipulation / unethical utilization of his position to drive up the market to his own financial benefit? Like he isn't an adult making those choices for his company himself, but just some kid caught between some questionable company? Like somehow the fact that he's a sweet kid and genuinely passionate about videogames somehow means it's ok if he does something unethical that hurts other people? I'm not sure I understand your logic here. If you (and several others here) know him so well, maybe you should raise some of the serious issues mentioned here?

My personal view on this: still nope! First of all, it’s only an investment in the sense that buying dogecoin is an investment. No sensible financial institution would probably call it that or recommend it (since actually it’s just a game of hot potato). It’s just speculative. Second, collecting miniscule subset of videogames (aka ”popular sealed first print”) might be that (”investment” aka hot potato). Collecting videogames in itself certainly isn’t. There are still thousands of cheap games and even buying the more expensive ones (what constitutes expensive in itself is relative) doesn’t automatically qualify them being an ”investment” (game of hot potato). Third, very personal opinion here but I don’t think buying 1/nth share on SMB1 in a acrylic box held somewhere counts as collecting videogames either. (Can you imagine in the future some dude coming to you like ”dude, you gotta see my awesome video game collection, it’s crazy!” then leading you to his filing cabinet and pulling out a dusty binder full of these ”shares” neatly organized inside ).

Well, this practice for CIB I find quite distasteful too, but I’m not sure if it’s really gotten that much traction, even after how many years has Wata being around now? I mean has it really affected any CIB games supply and price meaningfully? We all do buddy, but let’s be honest - the reason it’s happening is still not really the speculators or sealed collectors or wata or even scalpers - it’s the ever increasing popularity of the hobby. Besides reasonable price is really dependant on when you entered - I started in 2012 so no the prices today seem hardly reasonable to me, even though the guy who started in 2006 probably thought the same in 2012.. There’s still enough great games for all platforms to be discovered for all price ranges and interesting and affordable subcategories to collect too. Furthermore, the little attention that Keio Flying Squadron got despite the indisputable rarity & hidden gem status just proves the guys currently in this big money game aren’t even interested in the real gems/rarities that are out there, so there’s probably even lesser impact there to ”us real collectors/game aficianados”.

Is it though? I don’t see how this or the 1.56M sale in any way affects our ability to hunt and collect and play interesting and awesome games, more than we have time for in a lifetime! (I assume that is the hobby you’re referring to, not collecting overprized totems sealed in acryl tombs to sit on your mantel).

Agreed, thanks for clarifying. My sincerest apologies if this at all seemed like peddling conspiracy theories, that was certainly not intended but I’m sincerely excited to understand what’s behind this. I really really appreciate you taking the time to participate in this discussion and identify yourself as the seller. I too recognize your nick from NA times and in my eyes this greatly increases the legitimacy and my understanding of the sale. I definitely don’t mean that you had any obligation to legitimize it to others in any way, I just really appreciate personally being able to understand it better. Congratulations for the sale! It is a big thing and like someone said a huge milestone for recognizing the value of video games as cultural icons they are - you should know this sale eg. made the Economy -section of the biggest daily newspaper in Finland yesterday .

Was gonna come post the same thing. Heritage Auctions having been actually sued for shill bidding in the past doesn’t really increase my trust in this sale being legit..

Sure it matters - I mean not in cosmic sense of course, but it's interesting distinction to me and many others if a) The game was actually sold at all - again I don't know for 100% this exchange actually happened, nor do I know if I should trust what I see on the website. I don't actively doubt them, but again the more senseless this particular purchase right now is, the more sus the whole thing becomes b) What kind of logic went into buying the game. I mean what you suggest (they just had disposable income) is just one possible explanation. Or was it a huge gamble banking on finding the bigger fool to buy this game, was there some rich bitcoin mofo who really loved this game in particular and decided to get this no matter what, was this part of the big push to lure coin/comic collectors to "invest" into big video game names now while the market is still relatively young (which we know certain parties have been pushing for few years now), or what? It's really interesting and relevant because looking at the facts - the title, the sales price and arguably the rarity, it doesn't make too much sense. Also, I think we all can agree people buying NFTs are just megarich out of touch idiots or people who try to make a profit out of it? So if the buyer of this is someone similar to those people, that would be actually pretty interesting and relevant too because that kind of person could not be further away from someone who you see here, who collects games and even sealed games out of the passion for the art. And one more point, since you mentioned Stadium Events in particular - that's probably the worst counter-example you could pick specifically because the way its price and valuation has developed in the collecting community is really kind of polar opposite to this. SE's price has developed super organically in my opinion, over the past 15 years, because the concept of full set collecting has developed and deep understanding and appreciation for it along the way, whereas this SM64 seemingly increased in price literally like 100-fold overnight.

Okay then.

Uhh.. I thought you just acknowledged the 12? Either way I've been here (well, over there) for 10 years too and based on what I know of the people here I too trust Jonebone's assessment over yours, sorry (it makes more sense intuitively as well, considering e.g. the sales numbers and overall Mario's popularity at the time of release of this vs. something like SMB1 etc.). But anyway again you dodged my actual question here - why would Super Mario 64 in particular be any kind of sensible purchase for 1.56M ? Or is your final answer to just hang with the "it's just so incredibly rare which legit makes it worth 1.56 million dollars" ?

I thought your reasoning for the high price was that there was only 1 were only 2 though. That's 600% increase. Anyway as you seem to be in the know (even though not too many people seem convinced here yet), I'm still looking for an explanation why Mario 64 specifically - what makes that the most valuable game in history by a long stretch? Again I know any other collectibles market poorly but it seems equal to someone paying $10M for Superman #164 from 1963 in pristine condition and arguing they just really really wanted the one of few really mint copies.

I thought VGA was grading these when Wata founders were literally still in school, what about them?

I know nothing about those cards, but as the person above said, this is Mario 64. An important game for sure, but not this important. Like, again I know nothing about those cards, but this is like Mario’s 5th (6th if you count Yoshi’s Island) or so mainline game, on Nintendo’s least popular console, not verifiably first print or anything either, 11 years after SMB1, released measly 25 years ago, and it’s already worth half the value of most reveared and valued comic book collectable that is over 80 years old? I just think the magnitude of the sale is way off.

Yeah I mean if one could snatch a copy of something that ”legit” went for 1.56 million for say… 300k, one would jump on it immediately and feel pretty good about it? If they would just happen to have more supply available? Also with this much potential profit on the line, should we really take this sale, ie. just the number visible on the HA site at face value evidence that this exchange was really made? It’s a sincere question as I just personally don’t know anything about the HA or their background or people behind it. I mean funnily enough this was even reported here in Finland by the national news broadcaster but I doubt they vetted this any more than anyone else, just based on the auction listing.

Money laundering? Pyramid scheme where the still relatively low prices as of last week were artificially driven up ? Perhaps you should make it even way less ambiguous to those of us who can’t afford it?