Dain

15 minutes ago, Crystalis88 said:

I’m aware lol. I wonder if he was in a position to negotiate the grades like someone else probably did.

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

30 minutes ago, Alder said:

 

Is "I am a member on the Advisory Board of Wata Games" not considered to be "part of WATA"? Dain said he was "legally" done with WATA in 2017, so is the "Advisory Board" just slang for being a friendly advisor, or is there a legal interpretation with that phrasing?

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.

7 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

If I remember correctly from the time, NA was not started to be a forum, it was started to be the penultimate database of information for the NES, as information was scattered over multiple websites and forums, and finding it was a goddamn chore for all but the most hardcore of us.  The forum was added more as an extra than anything.  With all the other communities out there at the time, there was really no need for another one.  The site was meant to be a database right from day one.

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.

10 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

At this point, me too.  Still waiting on Tim Atwood though

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

10 minutes ago, phart010 said:

This threads kind getting stale, just wanted to add one last thought for the day.

I think the discussion about the ending of NA is healthy. Relationships sometimes end nasty. Re-establishing communications where there were none are most always a good thing. Even if that means in the process people have to blow off some Steam and voice their frustrations. 

@Dain I want to thank you for signing up and adding some new context to the ending of NA situation. Can’t tell you how much it is appreciated not only by me, but others I’m sure.

@B.A. Hopefully we can put the disagreements in past. All that stuff has already happened and it was years ago in a whole different setting.

Well said, and I agree.

3 minutes ago, spacepup said:

I can't speak to the years before me, but I feel that during my tenure at least, for the later years of NA, that the portrayal of the staff being overzealous and ban-happy is quite unfair if I'm being honest.  The staff that was in place that I remember, tried very hard to keep things going well, balancing out freedom with preventing toxicity.  And it is largely due to a lot of said time and effort, that forum communities are kept from becoming toxic and overly negative.  Nobody wants to ban people or over-moderate.  I NEVER got that impression / vibe / understanding from the culture over at NA, including BA and everyone else on staff.  I also don't recall butting heads with Dain or seeing arguments with Dain on the issue.

I didn't even want to drag myself into any drama in this thread, but I feel I have to support Brian at least somewhat in this regard.  Again - I can't speak to all of NA's existence, but at least for the last several years, I don't feel Dain's description was really accurate, and I always felt very supported by Brian and the rest of the team.

I hope this will be just a brief distraction.  Everyone at VGS has worked VERY hard to try to start fresh, and look forward and not backward.  So I really hope to not see this recent chain of discussion devolve into complaints or issues regarding NA.  

 

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

2 minutes ago, B.A. said:

Not all of the staff caried over, but all of the staff here at VGS now were staff at the end of NA. Which makes more sense, everyone changed their personality with a new site? Or we weren't the ban happy censoring monsters some like to make us out to be? 

I'm not saying things were perfect, but we did our best with zero support from the site owner.

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

1 minute ago, B.A. said:

Because you would show up once a year or so knowing nothing of the work we had done, the conversations we had, and throw your weight around completely undermining us. If you bothered to talk to us and learn the entire situation it wouldn't be an issue. That's why everyone would threaten to quit.

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.

27 minutes ago, Foochie776 said:

Wild to see some old timers, great to see you around @Dain even if it’s not under great circumstances. I’ve since stopped being so bitter about the demise of Nintendoage and I hope you’ve been well. I never got to say it before but i appreciate all your hard work over the years and helping truly kickstart my love for video games 

Thanks, I appreciate that.

3 minutes ago, B.A. said:

What a joke. You were completely absent from anything to do with the forum for the better part of a decade. You would have had to show up for any "bumping heads" to have occurred. You just sat back and let us get shit on, some things never change.

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.

23 minutes ago, Zach said:

Back in the NintendoAge days, these people controlled the narrative, and now they can't. If this was a thread on NA, it would have been immediately locked and half of us would have been banned. 

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.

1 minute ago, SealedWholesale said:

i got the impression Dain was calling the shots because he had the most experience by miles

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.

2 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Just one question dude, the only one I have for you, honestly... If you answer this, I'll be happy forever, I swear!

So... Here goes:

 

The CAROLINA COLLECTION.

 

Cringe or not cringe? 

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

2 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

ookaayyyyy but those "random sellers" prob got them from RB

'provenance' would be a huge undertaking but if you're going to stop on the earliest collector it would be RB and the way you guys did it didnt  ask me where they came from

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

15 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

your name was the only thing that had me even looking at those emails. Sitting on a board and advising a company are totally different but i can see the difference now that you pointed it out

 

The Carolina collection is a big deal. All those game I sold you are most likely from RB so i'm curious if you 'advised' them that most of any collection has gone thru rb or if you were asked to research your own games where they came from

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.

3 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

your name was the only thing that had me even looking at those emails. Sitting on a board and advising a company are totally different but i can see the difference now that you pointed it out

 

The Carolina collection is a big deal. All those game I sold you are most likely from RB so i'm curious if you 'advised' them that most of any collection has gone thru rb or if you were asked to research your own games where they came from

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

3 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

LOL. looks like you're all good on paper then

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

2 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

so you quote an email from 2017 not to "be a part of wata " as your official stance and then become an advisor shortly after where Deniz can advertise you to investors?

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. 

32 minutes ago, Vectrex28 said:

Oh, nice seeing you here! I really enjoyed the video.

Dain may have had good intentions but there were a few things that could've been handled better, such as giving the mod team a bit more insight when selling the site

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.

1 hour ago, SealedWholesale said:

@Dain_ did u know wata was using your name after

  --- September, 2017 (legal papers were signed on October 18, 2017):

 

because I remember how weird it was seeing your name in March 2018 w was like ---- well if he supports it, it might be alright

so your name was the only one that seemed like it wasnt what it was and likely caused a lot of people to invest who otherwise wouldnt have

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

7 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

When is Joel going to make his glorious return and weigh in? He has to have some pretty hot takes on the situation.

Will this suffice?

4 minutes ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

I went back and reread my post that you replied to. I can see how it might be interpreted as I was saying you were lying. I post on my phone and it looks like my first sentence is a bit confusing. My intention was to say that I believed what you were saying, but that the referenced SEC filings don’t actually prove that. Once again, I’m sorry if it came across as me accusing you of lying or spinning something. I was intending to explain what the filings actually represented.

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.

2 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Ok thanks. I asked you that question many years ago and never got an answer, it's nice to get info straight from the source. There was a guy named paul who kept attacking me to defend your honor. I think he was secretly in love with you. 

Paul and I have a bromance.

10 minutes ago, MrMark0673 said:

Giskard returns, my dude.  Pretty wild.

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

1 hour ago, BriGuy82 said:

Hey @Dain_, did you have your games graded while you were still part of wata? I understand that you are saying you sold them after you left. 

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.