ExplodedHamster

The Mona Lisa was painted with the intent of being shown off as is. Video games were manufactured with the intent to ship them off to game stores so they could put stickers on them. Toys R Us, Kay Bee, EB, it’s all so much more exciting than imagining some assembly line pumping out cardboard and shrinkwrap .

I agree Mario and Zelda are neck and neck, but I’d have to give the nod to Mario, and it would seem to me 5-screw Zeldas are a significantly more “common” than first print Marios. I could definitely see a high grade sealed TM Zelda go for huge money, though. That and sticker sealed Mario are gonna be the standard. And gold NWC, which I think is lame, but that’s just my opinion .

I was criticizing WATA’s communication, if anything, which is why I didn’t understand your response. Their lack of structure for communication has been a ticking time bomb, and something like this was inevitable. I think RoyalT posting this has potential to be a good thing, because hopefully it can accelerate a fix to the problem. Hopefully, for his part, he’ll get his stuff back quickly and corrected and maybe got something else out of it. If I defend them, it’s because I have used the service and have seen the good. I also know Deniz is working his ass off, even if he’s made mistakes along the way. Some stuff I think is understandable and part of being a young person taking on a massively expanding business, other stuff like communication issues I think we’re even past that point. But when I see something like “no mistakes ever should be made,” yes I’m going to say I think that’s ridiculous. Ditto when implications are made it’s because they are too busy doing articles, when there have been like a handful over the course of a year. Let me put it this way, in sports there are “physical” and “mental” mistakes. Everyone practices to eliminate both, but there’s an understanding sometimes people will just fuck up in the course of work because that’s just life. Mental mistakes are less forgivable because they are more easily preventable and can lead to endemic issues that permeate performance or what not. In this case, I view messing up case tops as a physical mistake that’s just going to happen sometimes, even with QC set up, especially given the volume of work. The communication issue is, imo, a mental mistake that is consistently undercutting the entire business. So my point was essentially that I thought people were going a bit overboard and creating unrealistic expectations for WATA on the case/physical mistake issue, while I think the real issue is the communication. Had the proper communication structure been in place, none of us ever would have even known about this most likely. People usually understand mistakes and are forgiving when followed by proper communication.

Nothing, I’m just trying to insert some reason. Everyone makes mistakes, expecting them to never make a mistake like this is ridiculous. Claiming it’s because they “are too busy having articles written about them” even moreso. I said the issue here is communication, essentially exact same thing you said in your post. You’re still mad for some reason. Ok.

Goals and reality often do not align. Everyone can strive to be perfect, but in the end, nobody will be. The communication issue, as I stated, is a continuous issue that is well past the point of being excused. But the mixing up of tops on the same game from the same submission, stuff like that is just going to happen over time when you’re dealing with tens of thousands of submissions. And the “headlines” bit is a cute line, but I have a feeling they spend way more time in the shop doing labor than talking with reporters for a story every couple months. But maybe you’ve done the math. Oh, and “idiotic,” not “silly” mistake.

Nobody cares about outside the US stuff .

I think population reports over time will actually bump sticker prices back up, especially something like a matte SMB. After the big initial sale, a number of long-time collectors started dumping them at once, creating a false perception of how many are actually out there. For some perspective, despite the massive original SMB matte sale, WATA has only graded like ten of them. They’ve graded I believe 15-20 NWC. From a historical perspective, I think one could easily craft an argument placing the original run of SMB at equal or higher footing than the Nintendo World Championships. So I dunno, it’s definitely intriguing. Additionally, after the initial surge following the 22k sale, stickers, the natural “flow” of stickers showing back up has re-commenced, and outside of DH and Gyro for obvious reasons, it’s quite slow again. We’ll see what happens, but this is where eventual population reports will have an impact imo.

It’s literally not possible for a company run by humans to be “flawless.” It’s a silly mistake, they should apologize, fix it, refund RoyalT, and move on. The bigger issues are still communication and lack of expansion, which is certainly exacerbating mistakes like this. Not to speak for him, but if Royal had confidence this would be fixed quickly, I doubt he’d have posted this.

Yes, it happens automatically. It’s basically CL giving away the reserve with like a week left.

I sold a Bubble Bobble same grade for $4,000 this Summer. They were going for $1500 before the boom early in the year, doesn’t seem all that unrealistic an ask at this point. That 9.8 probably clears 10k on HA. Guess it depends on how you value 9.4 versus 9.8.

There have been “claims” a 75k offer for this particular copy was rejected. I was, and remain skeptical, but when an oval seal Tyson goes for 12k or whatever, anything’s possible. I think that Contra is headed for 15-20k, myself. I don’t own any btw, as I know we have sleuths running around connecting dots lol.

I think many of them did have hangtabs, just underneath the plastic ones, which were on shrink wrap and not the box itself. I can see them on KI, Metroid, Rush N Attack, Rygar, and a number more as well. Don’t think on CV, though, and the Mega Man is not a Dr. Wright, as I had presumed. A Dr. Wright in that condition is prob a $5,000 game in this new market.

That ended low, actually, because it was poorly listed. There were some top notch CIBs legit mint like 5-screw Zelda, hangtab Metroid and Kid Icarus, Hangtab Castlevania etc. Had that been listed better it would have gone for 5 figures. A few hours after it ended, a 5 screw Zelda in likely slightly not as amazing shape went for $4200.

Right, but my main point is that equity likely would not entice enough people to invest money into a grading service if they were also agreeing to not enter the market. The margins are simply not high enough to make it back in a reasonable amount of time, absent a buyout. I am not an investor and cannot speak for them, but I have to believe the potential of an increased market is very likely a major part of what got people to invest. I could be wrong, but I do strongly believe they’d have never gotten off the ground with those restrictions.

Yes, I similarly said no. The two ways to make money are from the market itself and/or a buyout. Otherwise, you ain’t gettin’ your money back before you die. I also didn’t have the money and probably thought they were crazy at the time .

What’s the date on that filing? I’m not sure of the requirements, but it’s quite possible they raised more after the fact, isn’t it? I legit don’t know any of these rules or procedures for filing, so genuinely curious.

Equity is one possibility, but you still need money for operating costs, legal fees, etc.

I’m not sure if that’s the case in other big money hobbies or not, but my guess is where start ups requiring big money to get off the ground are concerned, it’d be next to impossible to raise money from people if you limited their ability to participate in the market. ROI is going to be far more easily obtained via the market increase than in the grading service itself.

I know haha. I didn’t mean it as a slight in any way, just a different strokes for different folks thing. And to point out money being thrown around for “useless” and “frivolous” items is not in any way confined to sealed video games. If anything, compared to video games’ historical and emotional impact on society, it’s still relatively low.

Oh no, I complete understand and agree. But I just go back to my point that it’s essentially impossible to get a subjective grading company off the ground and operate in a thriving market without a large portion of people thinking that at some point. As to the pedigree, no Dain doesn’t have the largest collection or most valuable, but I’d definitely argue in a world where pedigrees exist, his collection should get one. I don’t think it would be particularly controversial had anyone else submitted it.

Yes, I think a lot of it just comes down to people not liking the idea of the change and a different class of people entering the hobby, even though the very large majority will never actually be impacted by it. There is a very populist feel to this thread, which is both understandable and predictable. The same thing has happened across the hobby-to-collectibles spectrum with other items. What admittedly sucks is being caught in the middle a bit. I have been a collector and enthusiast for many years, and my opinion is that, in a world where the collectibles market is a billion dollar industry or whatever, I’m glad video games is finally getting its rightful and historical place. That was Deniz’s goal from the start, and, believe what you will, but I’m quite confident that is his primary motivation in all this, even if in the end he will end up benefitting financially. Especially because I believe there is still absolutely room for the people who have been collecting for decades to operate much the same as they have. As I’ve mentioned before, most of the games moving now sat on Ebay for years without anyone caring. So, like I said, I understand the anger and reluctance to accept something that has been thrown onto the community so quickly, but I think there’s been some overreaction and tribalism occurring that is making me uncomfortable. There is plenty of room for people to do their WATA thing, not do it, or to do both.

It’s only objectively a problem if you can establish Deniz and Kenneth are “fixing” grades on the games to benefit them. This also, again, gets back to the inherent issue with grading companies and perceived conflict of interest. In every other business, people can invest in a company and use their products, and nobody bats an eye. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to avoid a perception of bias where subjective grading of items is concerned and money is flying around. So I think we’re right back to whether you trust Deniz and Kenneth to act ethically in their grading. All the other relationships are standard business relationships - investors partnering up, promoting one another, etc. Deniz, btw, is refusing to sell any of his games, even raw, because he thinks it would be unethical. I completely disagree with him where raw games are concerned, but I think that shows the kind of effort he’s putting in here to stay within bounds. I don’t think someone going to those extremes is risking his reputation and livelihood to rig grades.

Eh, the named part is perfectly justifiable because the collection objectively is worthy of a pedigree. If anyone else had bought it, it would similarly have gotten a pedigree based on its own standing. I understand not liking collections pedigreed, but in a world where they exist in comic collecting and now video game collecting, it’s entirely legitimate that Dain’s collection would get one. There are at least two others out there for video games, so it’s not like this is a first for WATA, either. Ha, nice timing MW!

Yeah, I believe they got so big so fast they had to get a bigger office.

I don’t think you’re addressing me, rather Bronty, but I will say I think this actually further highlights the difficulty of creating a grading company free from perceived bias. Generally, there’s no issue with investors partaking in businesses they invest in, consuming their products, or profiting from them. Where grading is concerned, it’s essentially an impossible relationship to create and foster without creating the perception of bias. I don’t think anyone would ever invest in a grading company if they were told they were unable to participate in the growing market, however, so therein lies the problem. I think what’s essentially left is whether people trust Deniz and Kenneth to grade free from bias. From a PR perspective, of course, most people don’t know them like we do. That’s a tough obstacle to overcome.