GPX

Not "kinda", it IS an injury! Carpal Tunnel is probably one of the most commonest RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) that's out there. As for me personally, just the typical thumb sore/blisters from playing too much Street Fighter 2 back in those days, and more recently playing several consecutive hours of Geometry Wars 2.

That's not just a price sticker, but an orgy of stickers!

It’s been roughly 4 weeks since the start of this site. Unbelievable amount of support shown from the NA masses! Thanks Gloves, BA, and whoever else played a part to make the transitioning from NA seem seamless! Congrats on the amount of traffic thus far! Who wooda guess?

@OP, Just to clarify, when you say “MINT”, do you mean mint box? Or mint box AND seal? VGA focuses on both the quality of the box and the quality of the seal and puts it into one score. So even in a VGA80, with seal damage, it’s still possible to have a MINT box. WATA gives their main score regarding the box condition and a separate grade for the seal condition. If you don’t care as much about the seal quality (eg. minor scuffs or very small tears), then it seems more easier to obtain a mint box via WATA grading. On the other hand, if you genuinely want VGA95 condition for all games, my advice is that you should really understand VGA/WATA grading first before you jump headfirst into those cluster of graded scores. Also look around on eBay search and see how common VGA95’s are, and this should give you a rough idea how gigantic (and possibly delusional) of a task you’re setting yourself up for.

I’m very proud to own these trio of sealed PS2 Oz Pal games. All were purchased at different times from different owners - took about 2 years to find all 3!

First truly impactful (at least to me) threesome was Sega: - Sonic, Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage Regarding Nintendo, the best gameplay and atmosphere immersion on 2D: - Zelda LTTP, Super Mario World and Super Metroid.

I dabble in variants on occasions. I don’t focus so much on the cart but more the box cover, particularly with unusual labels or cover labels you rarely see on common games.

So umm, is that a “yes”?

Depends how you look at it. Will prices come down to pre-WATA prices? Maybe not. Will some come down to a more feasible and sensible value? Likely yes. Bearing in mind like any collectibles, some will continue to rise and some will drop in value. Not everything will end up being $100,000 or more. Even millionaires who wants to jump into the WATA scene surely need to spend money on food and bills also.

I guess it now depends on how many collectors wishing to grade via WATA and go the pedigree route (if applicable). Would love to see how things are titled if a handful of collectors are from the same location.

Following on from the point above, at the end of the day, the labelling of pedigrees or “near enough” pedigrees shouldn’t really affect any of us except for those who wish to care about such things. Personally, I see it as a small issue compared with the over-exaggeration of the gigantic price leap in game values.

The decision on the “Carolina Collection” seems more of a short term marketing ploy/profit rather than a long term vision. Down the track, I can see several problems relating to collections coming from Carolina. Examples: - what if a collector has a bigger and better stack than Dain’s? - what if a collector has a genuine new and one-owner “pedigree” collection? - what if a collector is genuinely famous like a movie star or pop star, who owns a valuable set of games? What will they then call it? The “Carolina Collection not owned by Dain”?

All you need to do now is paint it in gold and it will be awesome!

Home: 1. Playing Sonic 1 for the first time ever (Megadrive being my first 16-bit experience). Totally got blown away by the graphics and sound, from the previous Master System experience! 2. Playing Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. No longer the need to spend on coins in the arcades! Also probably the game most played with friends around back then. Shops: - buying Megadrive console with Altered Beast, with my dad. - being in awe of so many games I wanted to buy in the early 90s, but had no cash to buy them all. I remember the prices back then were comparable to now, which means prices back then were actually very expensive, comparatively! Other: - Gaming Expo in the mid-90s where they showed a soon-to-be-released Sega Mega CD. The game shown was the arcade shooter Sol-Feace. I was blown away by the arcade graphics and sound quality. That was roughly the time you could say a console could match it with the arcades. I think the price for it at the time when first on sale was something ridiculous like $700-800 AUD. From the mid-90s, that was a freakin lot of cash!

Nostalgia - we all dwell on it, so let's get straight to the point: What are your fondest memories relating to games from: - your home - the shops - any other location?

1. If you don’t think there is any relevance to who is the director/board member/buyer/seller/journalist, then perhaps I can paint 2 scenarios: i). seller of an expensive item is the brother of the buyer of said item. The buyer then let it sell via an auction house owned by their uncle. The winning bidder happens to be the son of the uncle. The rapid rise in value of such an expensive item is leaked to a journalist who was first to do a news article. The journalist was the mother of the cousin. ii). seller A sold rare item to seller B, which then gets auctioned at an auction house owned by C. Winning bidder was D. Journalist E hears about this amazing chain of events and wrote an article. A,B,C,D,E are not related and have never communicated before prior to these sequence of events. Which scenario would gain more of your trust out of the 2? Or you don’t think it really matters? 2. Glad you’re saying you want the hobby to thrive. Though I believe there is a misconception that more money is being chucked into the hobby means the hobby is thriving. If the hobby is in the direction that it brings in 100 potential new collectors but ends up potentially losing 1000 collectors, then is the hobby actually “thriving”?

Seems like we had initially played games at a similar era with your mention of Sonic and DK series. Regarding the Pal N64 set, loose carts is very manageable apart from a few of the top 10 or so rare games. Mario Party 3 is one of the rarer ones, but if you want to up the challenge/costs, try collecting a CIB Australian variant collection. It will make you cringe!

Yes..that was super depressing to read. But thanks for sharing some personal issues! Goes to show though, that games have so much more value than just its monetary value, but other intrinsic benefits that only the owners can gain from. Helping people forget their stresses and allowing a temporary exit from reality is something that is highly underrated.

Very awesome choices in all the above! Personally, I would say gaming-wise: 1. Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2 (N64/Wii) 2. Shinobi, Shadow Dancer, Revenge of Shinobi. (Arcade/Megadrive) 3. Streets of Rage 1,2,3. 4. Street Fighter 2, Steet Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Street Fighter 2. The above games are the only notable franchise that I've genuinely completed in full. Collecting-wise, I have a ton of favorites, but this is probably my current favorite thus far: The Trilogy of Atelier Iris 1,2 and 3 - extremely rare (but pretty) Pal Australian versions, all evenly graded VGA 85+.

I noticed this a few days ago but didn’t get around to making a post. You guys could pass off as being each other’s twin! Or are you actually the same person using 2 accounts?

I think the poll makes it seem like this thread is an all out attack on WATA as a grading service company. Where in fact the majority of the discussions are surrounding the circumstances and hype of the sales, specifically relating to WATA-graded games.

Guys I think the arguments have been sound on either side of the fence. However, I can see there are 2 separate arguments going on here: Group (A) - WATA is doing a decent job of grading their items, appearing to be done in a professional standard. - hard to not be associated with perceived bias for the advisors/directors of the grading company, as they’re likely to have a collection themselves, and likely to sell them at some point now or in the future. - other rich bastards jumping in and spending loads of cash is going to happen sooner or later. This has happened before and no reason why it can’t happen now or in the future. Group (B) - to add more objectivity and to lessen the perceived bias, WATA or the advisors/directors could be doing more differently to lessen the perceived bias, instead of adding more to the perceived bias. - not so much in isolation one factor that is contributing to the perceived bias, but the sequence of events from the parties related and the articles (which relates to the same parties), makes it altogether appear like a lump of hyper-hyping hype-fest.

What are your favorite stack of three games? They could be a trio from: - trilogies - within the same franchise - similar theme titles/cover

There’s actions by the selling parties, and there’s the consumers’ opinions on the actions of the selling parties. The selling parties can do what they want (as long as it’s legal), but their actions are directly responsible for the consumers opinions, whether rightly or wrongly. This is a fact of life. I do feel the articles that reported the recent big sales actually didn’t do them a favor. It felt too much of a fake hype rather than genuine news.

Outstanding display! Count me in the group of “wish I had the space and time to do this type of setup!” One day, I tell ya!