GPX

I seriously doubt VHS tapes and iPhones were going at 7 figures. While sports cards and comic books had many decades of establishing their top-end markets. Then you have HA/WATA teaming up, and then an item magically transforms 100 times more than it’s going rate within the space of 1 year. Now we also have a lot of evidence that there is a lot of hanky panky going on, which you seem to have conveniently ignored and rather, to focus on “most other collectibles were going up too!” I’m sure there is market manipulation in all forms of market, but most of us here are likely to focus on the games market because…it’s a games forum!

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t much of a music fan when back in the 90s, particularly when it came to the gaming. Most of the music I’ve heard from games I can barely remember but I did enjoy Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi, Sonic and Castlevania Symphony of Night. Up until more recently, I came upon a clip on YouTube: When I saw this video, I could instantly recall the music from the title screen, to the varying stages of the characters Balrog, Guile and Ken. It was like I was instantly time warped into the past! The impacts of the sounds and music never really hit me up until now, and no doubt had played a crucial role in me having such fond memories of this game.

A pioneering YouTuber to dump roms from his own physical copies, and to play from said roms! You are indeed a pioneer!

I think there’s some sense to the madness. I mean, I can see people trying to get a nice grade on some of their favorite movies. I’ll be more interested if any of the graded DVDs end up being a million bucks and to see if @Gulag Joe agrees with the prices.

There is a serious false logical fallacy going on over the years, which is.. - people had received extra government financial assistance (true) - the people above are contributing to the bidding of 6 to 7 figures on HA (false) What some members on VGS were banging on previously weren’t the rise in market values, but more so the rapid trajectory, that it became obvious something was dubious. We just never really could tell the extent of this dubiousness. That is up until recent times, when actual lawyers and peed off clients are digging their teeth into the fine prints of the “what really went on”.

I think there are 2 separate issues here. Graded collecting was definitely a thing, even prior to the pandemic. It was never really a thing of 6 to 7 figure proportions. I would argue though that in time, natural organic growth of the market may well lead to those sorts of values. However, the inorganic manner such was the hype train from WATA and HA, promoted scam artists into participation rather than encouraging prior genuine graded collectors to collect.

I’ll try and answer this topic with my own collecting trajectory. Initially, I just wanted to buy some cheap games for nostalgic thrills and pieces that I had missed out that I had always wanted to try. Mainly stuff from the 90s. Then I started noticing sellers on eBay with humongous amounts of listings and I both admired and envied their collections. Effectively that lead me to the path of “follower” where I wanted to emulate others’ full sets, subsets etc. Somewhere along this collecting path, I branched out into my own variant desires as well as started to trim and add games that had fitted better with my collecting tastes and circumstances. Eventually, it’s got me now to the point I don’t care what others have, and I just keep doing my own trimming and adding to my collection, and at my own pace. I certainly stIll enjoy seeing others stack of goodies, but I now no longer feel the need to emulate anyone.

I haven’t played some of these games, particularly the Genesis-only games. Some quick comments: - Altered Beast was a cool early title, pack-in game. However, it’s shallow as heck and probably one of the weakest games in the poll list. - Greendog vs Turtles. No contest! - I loved Quackshot. Possibly one of the most underrated Sega games in the 90s.

I’ve seen around 20 on the list. I definitely plan to watch more of the titles on this list, but not keen on watching all of them. I like a good mix of US/English movies but also Eastern movies, where I love the action/thriller/ horror elements.

Just the other day I had a funny parcel story so I thought I share it here (actually 2 stories). 1. Recent story: 3-4 months ago I had purchased a cheap Sega Megadrive game around $20 AUD (including postage). A week then passed and on the tracking it says delivered on the official tracking website. I checked everywhere, front porch, front lawn, I didn’t see anything. So weeks go by and I honestly thought the package was either stolen or there was some dogdy stuff going on with the local postal office. 3 months later, I had completely forgotten about it..Until..my mother told me she found a package put in the garage shed which somehow nobody noticed! Sure enough, it was the Megadrive game from the eBay purchase at the end of 2023! The postman had the bright idea of leaving it inside my garage when the door was left open, instead of leaving it in the usual spot at the front porch! 2. Embarrassing tale: I would be interested if anyone else has ever done the same.. A few years back, I sold some stuff and sent one of the parcel with my details as the buyer and the buyer details put in the seller’s section. TLDR - I sent the package to my damn self!!

One of the most iconic games on Atari. Loved it when I had played in the late 80s. Hard to rate any Atari games with modern era games, but for pure simplistic fun, this one is a recommend. 8/10.

Yeah, ON PAPER. They were piggy backing their reputation from the NA forum and its members. Once they got a sniff of the momentum, it became an amazing disappearing magic trick.

I think there are several layers of greed at play: 1. WATA overhyping and overmarketing themselves to be superior than VGA. It was mainly all talk without the actual evidence. The only thing they’ve shown from the start was that they had more collector friends than VGA, who gave them their backing. Meanwhile, the products were yet to be served. 2. Jim Halperin facilitating the speedy market growth and his application of prior market manoeuvres (that benefits him but to the detriment of the collecting market). 3. Shonky bidding by HA participants which appear grossly disingenuous, relative to where the market was at. —————— I like your pig to hog analogy. Meanwhile, it’s sad to see how genuine graded collectors were instantly being priced out overnight with the top-tier items, and to see so many newcomers who obviously have no care for the hobby other than the monetary value to boast/hype/resell.

Ok, it’s time to man up. How much are they paying you?

Great read @PII! You're quite talented in various fields! In fact, I’m starting to realize this forum is actually filled with multi-talented geeks, rather than just plain game geeks! I’m not quite sure on your stance on the music thing. Maybe it was the type of music that you were playing that was more associated with depressive scenes? Lately, I’ve been heavily into sports and fitness, and music has been inspiring me to find my best self-version as opposed to a lazy hack that I used to be. Good luck with your novel writing endeavours!

I dunno, the Heritage Auctions thread is pretty epic. So much data mining to be had!

Prior to the WATA/HA cranial infestation, game collectors cared for the words “rare” and “mint”. First prints were rarely talked about simply because those were often mass produced and weren’t rare at all (for the most part)! I think rare print-runs and limited editions were more the fancy rather than first-prints. Sometimes first prints can be rare, so that would then be the obtainable challenge/goal. It’s a completely different concept to that of comics and other older hobbies, whereby first-prints would mean many decades old, and most would likely be trashed and looking very ugly by present day. Hence those would generally be all rare in nice condition and would be adored by any such collectors.

I’d like to think I was one of the first here to actually use the words “market manipulation”. These were posted on the official “Heritage Auctions” thread: Those thoughts above were me previously suspecting more the people at Heritage Auctions and the buyers being in some sort of collusion. I wasn’t agreeable to all the initial hype and WATA initial delays, but now seeing the full context of behind-the-scenes, it’s freakin’ amazing how they think they’d get away with all the shenanigans like this without rich people not going to be pissed off AND having the power to sue?!

On face value, I would pick either Mario or Castlevania series, as those are the 2 main ones I’ve played the most while completing a fair few of the games within the respective franchises. On deeper thoughts, I think it would have to be a series with close to unlimited replayability. I think I would personally choose Defense Grid, a tower defense game. This is the type of game I’ve been playing mostly for the past 5 years in short bursts. Have yet to try the 2 sequels on the Xbox One as I don’t own that console. Certainly something I look forward to trying out in the foreseeable future.

I missed out on the N64 era for the most part, but thankfully have tried a few of the top titles and this was one of them. I enjoyed Super Mario Kart on the SNES and this took it one step further with the better gameplay, graphics and depth a la adventure mode. I haven’t had the chance to play much of Mario Kart 64 so can’t compare the 2 main N64 kart games. However, I can judge solely on DKR’s own merits and say that this is a fine example of a racing game. It’s also a perfect example of a racer for those who aren’t normally into racing games, worth to give it a spin. 9/10

The circle of life - birth, grow bigger, get weaker, organs malfunction, death. The earlier we can accept this cycle, the more we can value our lives better and the lives of our loved ones. On personal reflection, my parents were below average in the parenting arena, having high expectations of me in academics and often emotionally neglected me while doing their own thing with their careers. My dad previously also had serious gambling problems. I used to have a lot of resentment for them as they never took the time to understand my goals and interests. The present day me is more accepting of life’s positives and negatives and I don’t feel the same level of resentment as I once had for my parents. In fact, both are now with elderly ailments, and I’ve been paying them a lot more visits and can appreciate now how parenting has its own life challenges that you can never fully understand as a child. Nowadays, I let the bygones be bygones and appreciate each day as it comes. My life advice for anyone is that you should remind your parents to do regular yearly health checks to better their chance of longevity. Our bodies often start to show a decline in our 40s and it becomes faster and more noticeable by the decades.

I voted Ghostbusters. So freakin’ iconic! I would like to also suggest this: (edit: just saw wongojack’s response; Pretty Woman song was absolutely classic retro and it fit the movie perfectly)

Makes me wanna try that game now. Some big semblance of Streets of Rage music with that 90s techno feel.

I recall the magazines at the time were raving about Sonic CD and its superior graphics and sounds. Something about the gimmick of past and future versions of stages which gives it more depth and a need for exploration more than prior Sonics. I’ve only played a stage or two with this game and can’t give it a proper review score. I can see though how this game can divide the fans, as this one favours more the experimenting and explorative nature of a 2D Sonic formula.

It’s hard to picture the grime/label arrangement to give a proper advice. Maybe pics could help. Have you tried a slightly wet tissue with a gentle rub of the grime?