VideoGameGradersLLC

Thanks @OptOut

Per our FAQs we are able to offer this option on request and may become a more prevalent part of the main offering eventually. Our turnaround on graded is very fast right now.

Probably not. But targeting 95% of the market instead of 5% is good business. Surely even you guys who are and always will be anti grading can see that math.

The collectors/hobbyist/investors who don’t know, understand or care about a font change on page 8 of a manual or a typo on a subscription card insert that was found once. In other words 95% of the market. Most of whom are more than satisfied with game codes for box, cart, manual and key common variants such as the Game Pak Game Boy label, printed in Japan moving, manufacturers changing on labels.

That’s a really big font. That clears it up.

Not in this group but to most people yes it is.

@JVOSS I won’t win with you that’s fine. But you’re making my point. We are simply staying the facts about what is printed on material (cart, box, manual) before encapsulating it. That will never change, the code on the cart and placement of Made In Japan won’t change. Specifically because we stop there, we don’t claim it was 1st or 7th we simply put the facts and the label and provide a pregrading photo to support that detail. A new discovery by you or anybody doesn’t change that so what is there to reevaluate. You are again confusing hardcore collectors with the other 95% of the hobby who just wants a highly graded game and can determine for themselves because we have disclosed the commonly used information to determine early late or mid print.

Grade is about condition not variations and versions, that’s up to the collector’s and investors to decide. The graders job beyond evaluating authenticity and condition is to accurately provide the details about what can’t be seen once in a case (as I said, codes on flaps, manuals, carts) not to decide if that is more or less important than a different variation so long as the parts aren’t drastically mismatched.

Absolutely agree and appreciated as previously stated. Varying motivations perhaps.

Thank you @JVOSSfor being the sole expert on the subject. Your continued criticism of my company seems misguided considering you’ve never had a game graded by us but we accept it as the norm in this group and move on. We have not misrepresented anything on any game we have graded. And we have not screwed anyone on anything. We have provided exactly the service we promise.

Of course it is and we understand that. Thanks for the added info.

No, I had dinner and spent the evening with my family. The thing about this hobby, what is fact and is, as you say, fake info or made up, is that little is truly definitive. The hobby (as with many hobbies) has come to accept certain things as believed to be and accepted as correct and accurate. This forum alone has millions of words proving this point - every week there is a new post with a new variation that makes everyone question where it fits in the order of things, was that before this or after that? Is this a rare previously unknown first version or a previously unknown late reprint? And then even if you figure that out what does it mean? Is earlier always more desirable? Is more rare even make it "better" or more desirable? No, it does not. As I often do and frequently suggest since it's a much longer much more established comparison, look to the sports card industry. 52 Topps Mantle vs 51 Bowman Mantle. The 52 is widely considered one of the great cards in the hobby, when you debate the Mount Rushmore of baseball cards, even more broadly, sports cards the 52 Topps Mickey Mantle is rarely argued against, an easier answer nearly all agree on. Sure the 3rd and 4th spots are often argued, there are good cases for many cards but the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle is THE card for a vast majority of card collector's. But wait, it's not even his rookie card. A full year earlier Bowman produced the first ever Mickey Mantle card - shouldn't it automatically be more desirable, more popular, "better"? Well, no. For a variety of factors (which I won't go into as I've already spent too many words on it) the market (I'll come back to this) has decided the 52 is more valuable (at least for now, at least for the last 70 years). It's this concept, the concept of the market deciding that bothers collector's like you, like many on this forum. True grassroots collectors, enthusiasts, and in the absolutely best sense - nerds of the hobby don't like that they don't decide what is fact, what matters, what is desirable and most importantly what is valuable - the market does that and the market is not entirely, or even close to a majority (thank goodness) made up of these collectors. The market is made up of people who look at it VERY differently. They want Mario because they played Mario, they played HOURS and HOURS of Tetris and Mike Tyson's punch-out, Donkey Kong, Zelda, etc...etc...etc.... They didn't play Clu Clu Land, Little Samson, Stadium Events, Insert Your Favorite "Rare" game here. They don't care about ROM codes or oddball variations. They like Mario. Should they care about other things, maybe. Will they someday, maybe. Do they today, not most of them, no. So the thing about your questions and your doubt of our knowledge - that's fair, we're new, we're unknown (but it should be acknowledged that not every collector or every person with the knowledge in the universe is on this forum all day every day for the last forever years). And I hesitate to use a sports analogy in this group but think about the NCAA Basketball Tournament - March Madness. People analysis the 68 teams and look at regions as this is the toughest, this is the easiest, this field is really loaded this year, my team got a terrible draw, look at all the hard teams in my team's region, etc... But here's the thing for any given team - you don't have to beat everybody to win a championship, you just have to beat the 6 (or 7 if there's a real Cinderella story) you play. Does our team know every single thing about every single variant of every single game on every single platform ever made? No. No one does (despite some believing they do, and again I point to weekly posts throughout this form that this hobby is still learning about itself) and we don't have to. We only need to know about the games we are grading. And unfortunately we aren't yet big enough for this to mean every single game, ever made. Of course we understand the difference between codes with no number after them vs -1, -2, etc... and that games, boxes and manuals don't always match exactly - another long running debate in this hobby where you want people to have definitive facts that simply don't exist - but that in most cases an early code game and manual will not be in a Player's Choice box. Yes we know there are variations of Game Boy / Game Link labels. And we will handle this as we handle all these same issues with NES games, if CIBs are truly mismatched we will indicate as such on labels but more importantly we are transparent about what is in a CIB we have graded through pre-grading photos, you (or a future buyer) can see EXACTLY what is inside the box and we take care to put details about the box flaps, manual, game and inserts on the label so people know what is inside and the consumer can decide if and how much it matters to them. To answer your very specific question so I don't get accused (again) of not answering questions, you asked "example what is the different of a v1 gb sml and a v7 gg sml box? cart? manual?" First of all is the gg a typo? Or are you asking if we know the difference between Nintendo Game Boy and Sega Game Gear? Surely even you can give us that much credit. A version 1 of a Game Boy Super Mario Land would generally be considered to have the code DMG-ML-USA in place on the game cart, manual and box flap. Later versions add a -1, and -2 to end of the code for Player's Choice versions and eventually the E Rating logo is added. Version 7 most commonly would refer to codes on manuals that were reprinted for various (not always obvious) reasons more frequently than game labels or boxes and the code updated and while a manual can go as far as DMG-ML-USA-7 game carts and boxes rarely do so not all codes on cart, box, manual always match. I've taken a lot of heat on this post about a variety of things, some fair, a lot not. Some constructive, most not and despite people believing to the contrary as long as you weren't attacking my mother or family (which happened - not literally physically, but in words) I answered as much as was realistically possible. And despite being wrongly accused of actually being the extremely rude and defensive guys that run IGS on Facebook I am simply trying to give collector's that want it (and just because not everyone wants, doesn't make it evil) an alternative to the established grading options by becoming an established grading company by doing things the right way, as transparently as possible. Are we the first to try, no. Are we the last, probably not. Will we succeed? Time will tell but we believe that it's okay to have a different scale, to not simply copy the WATA scale and that true UV protection in cases matters, transparency matters, grading reports matter, customer service matters. All we ask for is a fair chance - which for those that have given us that they are very happy with our product.

You are clearly anti-grading, period. So that’s fine, many are not. You asked my experience, which I have answered multiple times in this thread.

You lost me. Nor did you answer my question. But it’s all good. Doesn’t seem to me you’ve reserved judgment at all, you have passed it rather aggressively and negatively. But as I said, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Just to us or to any grading company? Either way it’s too late.