Dain

I've never owned a WATA-graded game, so no. The only graded games I owned were VGA-graded.

When I joined WATA, I was originally going to be the CTO, helping to get the tech side of things going, which is why I was listed as an executive on the first SEC filings in 2017. I was also going to be an equity stakeholder in the company and eventually would be receiving a salaried position. That all fell through, and my email leaving WATA was me leaving my equity stakeholder and CTO positions: I no longer had any skin in the game. The advisory board position was basically Deniz asking a personal favor of me to stick around in that capacity to lend credibility to the WATA name. I did advise on two issues, however: I participated in the best test program, and made some suggestions to that process; I also sent an email with some constructive feedback on the new website. I was never in a paid position and never received compensation for anything.

Correct. At the time, everyone was using Martin's NES World, but it didn't have a searchable database, which was the impetus behind NA.

I sent him a message to this thread, so maybe he'll drop by.

Well said, and I agree.

Fair enough. We all have our own perceptions and experiences with these things.

NintendoAge has always had a bad reputation for being overzealous in the ban department. Just ask Pat!

Good to know I was only on my site 13 times! I entrusted the running of things to you and the other mods because, by this point in the NA timeline, I was trying to keep the site up and running and was constantly bombarded with PMs, emails, etc. The whole point of having a good moderator team is so that I *don't* have to hold your hand, which I didn't. So from your perspective, I "never showed up"; from mine, "I showed up when it was necessary to", and unfortunately, we're miles apart on why I had to show up when I did, which from my perspective, was due to that team being overzealous in the ban department. Agree to disagree on my communication skills with the mods, but don't insult me by insinuating I was never on the site. I was working on the site 24/7 for over a decade of my life.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Nice try, Brian. Some of you guys were ban-happy and you know it. It got to the point where you guys would swarm against me when I disagreed with your approach and I was in a pickle because all of the mods were ready to quit any time I reverted their decision. If you don't think that's the truth, I suppose I could dig out some of the Mod Squad threads here if you'd like; after all, I have the entire site sitting in front of me.

I don't disagree with this statement... a rift was forming near the end of NA between myself and the mods/admins as to what should be allowed on the site. I'm a free speech kind of guy, and we often bumped heads on issues regarding bannings and thread removals. It's one of the many reasons I walked away from everything.

Not at all. In fact, one of the people involved at that time (Doreen) seemed to be calling all the shots, and I found that to be very frustrating because I was effectively being ignored. I didn't care for her approach much and that was the impetus for me leaving WATA (I didn't want to deal with her, and I didn't like the direction she was taking the company). I'm sure others there at the time will vouch for this, as she and I had several screaming sessions in our early planning meetings.

If you're meaning the name, Cringe. It should've been the NintendoAge collection.

You've completely lost me now, I have no idea what you're trying to say

Now that I know who you are and who "RB" is... According to my spreadsheet, I got 25 games from Rarebucky and 4 from you, so that's less than 10% of my graded collection. Many of them I sent directly to VGA and were part of the large sealed game finds around 2007/2008. I also just got a bunch on eBay from random sellers, either sealed or already graded.

I'm not sure I even know who you are, can you tell me so I have some context? Also, who is "RB"?

What are you trying to say? Obviously your snarky reply is holding you back, so I invite you to say what you really mean.

There are two things here: legally part of an organization as an equity stakeholder and helping a friend as a subject matter expert. The former concluded in 2017, the latter was me helping with site suggestions and their beta test program.

Fair enough, and I've never blamed anyone for feeling this way. I totally get it and I do have many things to add to this conversation I'll eventually write about.

I was asked to be part of the beta testing program, where several games were sent to several subject matter experts to grade the games and return the grading results. This process was to hone the overall grading process. I also gave Deniz some constructive feedback on the WATA website after it opened. I had no skin in the game, I did these things to help a friend get his business off the ground. So that's what I did, I advised him where I had knowledge, such as sealed games and websites

Will this suffice?

No worries, I just wanted to clear things up because the timeline and context in the video weren't really presented in a way that showed how things actually transpired. For the record, I'm a huge Karl Jobst fan and have been since he started making speedrun videos... my son and I watch a lot of speedrun stuff so when we saw my name in one of his videos it was pretty bizarre.

Paul and I have a bromance.

Next up Braveheart will be here bitchin' about getting outbid by that Giskard duder.

WATA hadn't even finished designing the cases when I was meeting with them, so naturally they weren't even grading at that point. I've never owned a WATA-graded game. I was only at early planning meetings before WATA got off the ground. As an aside, I always thought the VGA cases looked better, but whatever.