inasuma

This isn’t the first time I’d notice this type of thing. Wata has been grading some very shoddy games way too high. I saw a sealed blue version with an extremely baggy seal get an A++ seal rating. Meanwhile my near-case-fresh gameboy games get A and A+. Edit: oh it’s just clouds how neat

Damn. That’s one of the fastest hikes I’ve seen a game have despite being such a new listing. Go Mario go

Posted these in the graded games thread but these came in the mail a couple days ago

It’s a fine line between offering advice and consulting. If someone is building a business, I’m personally uncomfortable providing design critique beyond a few key points, especially if it’s someone I don’t know. That said, I’m personally eager to have more competitors who can give a great service in a beautiful slab. I think you’re on the right track, and if could find a professional designer who can capture an aesthetic you’re seeking for the label, that’d be a much faster / more efficient approach than people on a forum As a tip, an industrial product designer could help you with the case shape given some key requirements on shape, security, and aesthetics. Hope this helps.

Not really critical to the discussion but a designer should be able to receive criticism, even from a client who doesn’t know any better. It’s fine to have opinions. Graphic design isn’t strictly “art” as its goal is corporate appeal, rather than aesthetic beauty. There are lots of ugly logos that are memorable and that’s part of the designers job to sell as such. Just my $0.02 That said, a clients ignorance is no excuse to not pay fairly. But that’s been beaten into the ground at this point haha

I appreciate your interest to add competition (please do) but please don’t look for spec work, here or anywhere. There are enough issues with graded video games as a market without the need for labor exploitation. Designers have bills too.

Wanted to chime in on this thread because the OP and some of the initial responses intrigued me. Keep in mind I’m not an investor or market speculator or any of that. I just like games and think grading is a great way to encapsulate my favorite childhood items. Please. For the love of god. This market is so broken, and the competitors are lacking in really crucial (yet different) categories. The two options are: - wata: amazing submission experience, no pop reports, market manipulation on the secondary market, kinda ugly cases, again no pop reports - vga: horrible submission process, limited or non-functioning pop report system, broken website This market is not mature at all. It needs more competition. More importantly, the two main figureheads need to fix some insanely glaring problems for anyone going into this hobby for anything other than personal collecting. For wata: as someone who builds software for a living, it can’t take this long to build a functioning, iterated pop report product that fits into watas brand. It’s just data entry + queries. I could make a basic version in a few months tops. I’m not saying this because I hate Wata or think they’re evil villains. I just feel bad for the unassuming collectors who are paying the obscene prices on the secondary market, of which wata is directly responsible for that market manipulation. It might be good business for them but it’s so cringe to witness. For vga: where to even start. Online sub process still relies on flash (can’t use it with modern browsers). Paper form version feels like I’m filing taxes. Website barely works half the time. Pages 404 and sometimes don’t even load. UV cases aren’t the default. They were the guinea pig in this market and it shows. Heres my problem at the end of the day: neither business seems keen to own up to their products in ways that benefit consumers. Watas lack of a pop report hurts collectors. Vgas lack of modernity hurts their customers (in addition to their shadow of a pop report). These are not good signs for a blooming market, yall.

lol wata’s founder is perfectly comfortable consulting on the prices of his own products on pawn stars. they are fully taking advantage of the situation by not releasing pop reports and it’s obv. cash money.

Sorry to double post, but another great return. Only took 3 months (2x their current turnaround).

Well, she was working there at the time. I don't see any reason for her to lie right before leaving. lol That said, Wata is clearly taking their sweet, sweet time.

I messaged Wata about this specifically a few months ago. Their communications person, Megan, indicated a pop report should be coming this year. Is it true? Who knows. One can hope.

basically all the n64/snes games from my childhood. i ended up only grabbing a few CIB N64 games. also managed to get sealed copies of f-zero and gauntlet legends because there's so many sealed cases all over the place lol otherwise, i generally haven't dipped in to buy games... just too expensive. my price memory comes from mid-2015 where everything was way cheaper. $30 for a cib golden sun lmao

I have a speedrun from mid-april, so good to hear yours is moving along. mine should be soon too then. as for post-grading turnaround, i think sadly this depends on the QA and encasement teams. i've had an order from march in post-grading for nearly a month now. hopefully that is speeding up now but who knows. EDIT: spoke too soon - my speedrun order just shipped. Was in post-grading for 23 days.

For just residue, I've found Un-Du to work great. WD-40 is also fine.

That's amazing! I wish I had my original copy. I played that game into the ground. hah

My sealed Metroid Fusion. By far one of the longest of goal games. Finally saw a mint copy show up for a mildly bank breaking price but considering said grail status I had to get it. Will probably never sell it.

their turnaround times have been increasing by about 1 month, each month. ive made four speedrun subs this year so far: right around the 20th each month of 2-3 games each. January: order back by mid-feb february: order back by mid-april march: order went into post grading three weeks ago. Should be arriving this month april: expecting to receive around august or sept. as an added metric, I’ve noticed my orders always being listed with an id about 700 higher from the last. which could mean wata is receiving a linear number of orders and is still losing momentum. I’m assuming the order id correlates to the order number in their system, so this could be wrong. lol

i've got a few completed mainline sets plus spinoffs and console bundles here and there. right now the big focuses are mega man battle network, mega man zero/zx, and pokemon. it might sound obvious but i haven't and may never finish a pokemon video game set (with the exception of its mainline entries). i dont think i have the patience or motivation to do all spinoffs anyway. hah the photos are kind of old so i've since added a few items to each set, such as the keychain bundle of pokemon ultra moon/ultra sun and pokemon stadium 2. i also added mega man battle network 6: cybeast gregar to finish the sealed my BN sealed collection (except for chip challenge which i dont care for, and network transmission just isn't in these photos, but i do have a couple copies of it). zero/zx has been done for a long while already. EDIT: oh this probably goes without saying but i dont collect label variants or really variants in general. i just go with what i can find within the umbrella of CIB or sealed, but sometimes will align subsets (e.g., gen 2 pokemon) to the same production runs (e.g. all y-fold or all double-ended boxes). (sorry images were deleted on imgur)

hi dad

Hi all. Figured I may as well join since this place appears to be an important hub of info for game collectors. I’ve been collecting my whole life pretty much. Started taking it a wee bit more seriously in 2019 where I pioneered to get every Pokémon game CIB or sealed (currently have all gen 4 and newer sealed, rest CIB!). And just this year started grading some of my game boy collection (bad timing considering price hikes but that’s just 2020-2021 I guess lol) Anywho, excited to meet some new people! Ta

I’ve started grading this year for my personal collection. I did one sub with 2D labels and another in 3D. Yay mismatch!