Gulag Joe

I own a PS4 and haven't bought a single physical copy game for it. Every game I have lives in a cloud in my PS account. Its already begun. Denial is not a river in Egypt. Sell your physical media story to Netflix or the music industry.

I want it to be clear that I believe this rise in price is attributed to a mass influx in new collectors entering the market coupled with deep pocketed new speculators with disposable income entering the market as a result of the media attention this hobby has been getting. PS5 has a digital console. The future of games will live in a cloud and there will be no physical copies. A certain nostalgia in gaming will be lost. Some people are recognizing this. The other part is some of these people know the scarcity of some of these vintage factory sealed games in mint condition. 2020!

Some of these speculative replies are merely that- speculation. Are there cases of popular titles? Of course, but using that speculation as an end result to conclude its stupid for people to spend 6 figures on a certain title is arrogant. There are also cases upon cases of 1986 fleer basketball out there that have still yet to be opened. If those surface and get broke open, does that mean Michael Jordan's rookie card will become worthless? No. Back in the 80s the Mickey Mantle rookie card was a few thousand dollars. A guy known as Mr. Mint had a "warehouse find" of close to 50 mint condition Mickey Mantle rookies. Did that make the value go down? Nope- it actually did the exact opposite. The media attention attracted troves of new collectors to the hobby. Many of you are under-speculating the amount of interest in video game collecting.

"More than you anticipate or even know.... the people who really have the stuff don’t post regularly in Facebook groups nor on Instagram nor hang out on forums on a regular basis." And then sealed video games suddenly started selling for 6 figures.

I disagree with almost all of that, considering I've been watching my collection closely for nearly 2 decades and see maybe one or two games a year surface. Sure, there are a lot of Left Bros out there, but how many are sealed and in 9.2 or better condition?

SE is an example of game that didn't have demand. World Class Track Meet was not a game people lined up to get. This point circles back to my original question- which is prestigious collections containing cases of games that were in high demand. Even if some do have cases of circle seal Zelda- 6-12 sealed games isn't very many games for a hobby that could potentially have a collector base of over a million people within the next 10 years. Video game collecting has always been a niche hobby with a small collecting base. Its exploded over the last 2 years. The thought of video game grading 8 years ago was not well received within the community. Now there are 2 companies, and one of them is on TV and in the news often. Get your Non Rev-A Double Dribble carts now while they're still under $10!

But I do think quite a few people have the inside scoop on an idea of what the populations are for some of these games, and thats why we are seeing some of these prices.

The best time is right now. However, new collectors are entering this hobby at an unprecedented rate. I don't expect the achieved prices we are seeing right now (84k for a white label mario) to plummet anytime soon. I expect them to keep rising, as do many others. Short print sports cards and high grade comic books (both of which have pop reports readily available) command high dollars. Some of these key sealed games are likely even scarcer, but we won't know until we see a pop report.

I'm deciding on whether or not its a good time to sell. A long time ago before sealed games cost a fortune, I picked up a bunch of "key" games across NES, SNES, Genesis, N64 and PS1. I've been tracking auctions for over a decade between eBay and Heritage. The infrequency some of these games come up for sale, for example- Red Label Mario Kart 64, leads me to believe that few sealed versions exist. The selling prices of some of these "key" games enforces that theory. We are living in uncertain economic times right now with this pandemic. I was expecting a lot more of these sealed key games hitting the market than we've seen over the last 10 months, which leads me to believe there are in fact zero collections that have cases upon cases of factory sealed Contra.

Pardon me for not using the word pedigree. I take it the answer to my question is likely no. No key games, just a bunch of random "rArE" games that need a power pad to play.

I've looked through many of these threads as well as auctions to see if these "Prestige collections" had any "key" games in them. These massive collections are cited to discredit the rarity of sealed vintage games. I've found that these collections primarily contain many games that went unsold with a few exceptions here and there but just want to make sure I'm not overlooking anything. Does anyone know if these prestigious collections included cases of NES sealed Mario (any release), Zelda, or other popular games that were mostly bought, torn open, and played rather than saved in a factory sealed state, or are these Prestige collections made up of what I found- which is mostly games that didn't come close to breaking 1 million units in sales?

I see the "not for resale" version of Drake's Fortune showing up recently with high asking prices across the board. Does anyone know what the production run is on those bundles compared to the original retail version?

There have been 90,000 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards graded. Mint 9's are commanding $200 right now. I do not believe there are 90,000 factory sealed copies of left bros. Demand is what is driving these prices. Its being speculated that these population reports are being kept hidden so insiders can buy up to sell even bigger as the interested buyers continue to multiply. This isn't limited to WATA. Game Value Now could easily determine populations simply based off of its users who have freely entered their collections into their database.

I attribute the escalation in prices to the frequent media exposure the hobby has been getting. Pawn Stars, daytime TV segments, news articles, etc. Video game collecting seems to be in the news nearly every week these days. That exposure is bringing in new hobbyists at an unprecedented rate.

There is good reason to think that the sealed game market is limited and prices will only grow as more collectors, many of whom were part of the junk wax sports card era, enter into this nostalgia realm.

PSA is still king, and their graded cards tend to fetch a higher price compared to BGS. That very well could be the case in the long run for VGA, considering WATA hands out 9.4 grades to games with giant holes in the back of their boxes

I recently sent a VGA 90+ game to WATA for a regrade. It came back 9.8 A++

With card grading (PSA and BGS) they return the card to you ungraded if they determine it was trimmed or altered in any way. WATA is damaging its credibility with little things like this. I fully agree- the &$^@%#* box has a giant hole cut out of it! When you're in Europe, or anywhere outside the USA for that matter, and you try to exchange a dollar bill with a small tear or even wrinkle in it, they reject it. Just take WATA graded video games with holes cut out of them, that might make for a more reliable currency exchange!

The logo branding for the rating changed in the middle of distribution of Pokémon yellow. Pokémon red and blue, which were released prior to yellow, have a white E rating. I've also seen WATA graded cibs with IMP for the no rating yellow version that had a white E cart. Again, these are all based on my own observations as I've been tracking Pokémon yellow closely since early February. However, these are only conclusions I've drawn from that data, I could be wrong.

I'm familiar with 3 primary variants in regards to Pokémon yellow for gameboy. Early production has the white E on the box. Mid production has no rating on the box but the cart has a black E, and then later production has the black E on the box and cart. The variant that has the least amount of listings on eBay over the last 6 months is the mid production variant with no rating printed on the box. I found this information in various forums and chat threads.

This is what they told me,in regards to the pop report: "We have future plans to release it as a merchandisable guide book."

Interesting points from Reserved Investments. I agree, every other graded collecting market has population reports readily available.

Is a searchable population report/ census of games available on Game Value Now? For example, can I type in "Castlevania" for NES and see how many people have a sealed version of that game as part of their collection? If not, will that option be something that is eventually added as a feature?

Xbox Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is arguably one of the greatest games of all time.

I sent some sealed games to VGA in 2014. I was very pleased with the experience, and the cases were very nice and clean. 4 years later I hear about WATA. I was reluctant to send games to them because a) internet feedback hated all over one video game grading company already- VGA, and b) another pop up made me think about all the grading companies that sprang up for card collecting in the early 2000s, which somewhat delegitimized the whole 3rd party grading segment of the hobby. However, a few things WATA does swooned me. They grade the seal separately, they grade CIB games, and they list the variation types right on the label. So I sent them some games. When I got them back, they were packed nice and safe, the grades were what I expected, but the cases were not the best in my opinion. Some scuffing on the INSIDE of the cases and dust/debris trapped inside the case with the games was very offputting. I'm sure if I contacted them they would re-encapsulate them, but having to go through the effort of repacking and resending back to them when it should have been done right the first time is simply too much of a hassle. Ultimately, I'd like a service that is a combination of VGA cases with WATA grading methodology.