ExplodedHamster

1 hour ago, Startyde said:

Uggg, that looks hideous. No offense to the owner. Would be like plastering dirty handprints all over the Mona Lisa.

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 .

14 minutes ago, killerkobra said:

I am sorry you feel that I am mad. I am just trying to make sense of your constant defending of WATA, because you always come off extremely defensive, that's all. 

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. 

16 minutes ago, killerkobra said:

So much do you have invested in WATA? smh

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. 

1 hour ago, killerkobra said:

Anything is possible, their goal should be to be "flawless". As a company you don't strive to be "good" you strive to be "flawless or perfect" especially when it comes to grading. Build a strong brand first, then let the happy customers promote your brand for you. Maybe WATA should focus more on quality control and customer service rather than trying to get their name in the headlines. As for RoyalT, he HAD to take this public since they were not responding to him in any way possible, which shows he had zero confidence in them when they choose not to take his issues seriously. I bet any money they responded in a hurry after this went public... Like Wolfman said this completely diminishes their reputation,  especially with their inability in correcting a idiotic (not silly) mistake like this, when there were told about it numerous times. Kinda hard to defend this one...

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.

1 hour ago, DefaultGen said:

Definitely. Everyone should spend a few bucks on an Famicom copy of Super Mario Bros, the game that changed the world! NWC is just some contest.

Nobody cares about outside the US stuff .

7 hours ago, JinxtheCat said:

Biggest takeaway for me on that auction was the ZERO BID for black box sticker seals.  There was a huge rush of demand after the initial IG storm of stickers hit, but that's clearly done now.   If you really wanted to start collecting stickers, and had no inventory that was a great auction to seed your collection.  

Admittedly, i was guilty of some of the hype chasing sticker craze.  With the prices i saw last night, begs the question whether its even worth paying WATA to certify and grade them!!!  

I think we're seeing the normalization of the delta between sealed games and CIBs.  CIBs were "rich" for a while there and are coming back down now.  Once the newcomers seed themselves with the education of CIBs vs Sealed differences, i think this spread will stabilize.  

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.

3 hours ago, killerkobra said:

Shouldn’t a grading company be absolutely flawless? I mean isn’t that why you would use that service? 
 

In RoyalT’s case this is straight up pathetic. I would be choked after waiting that long, especially with the poor customer service. There is no excuse for this. 


 

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. 

1 hour ago, Bronty said:

I think that happens automatically on the site when there is a reserve .    Same thing on heritage.    They show the star also.    The vast majority of lots have no reserve .      A couple days before auctions end if the reserve is not met it gets bid up to one increment under so that the reserve is revealed.    Basically if you see a star then discount the bid history.   

Im pretty sure this is all spelled out in the standard auction terms.   

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

4 hours ago, jonebone said:

That's what that * means?  Holy smokes.  Maybe someone fat fingered and extra 0.  

If someone is turning down an offer of $4900 to sell their Bubble Bobble in that grade, I really am at a loss for words. 

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.

11 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I think it could've gone as high as 7 or 8k, but wouldn't have been very profitable for a reseller at that price. I pegged that Zelda at $1500 (couldn't tell if it was a TM or R from the pics on his Facebook page, but it had a tear in upper back corner of the actual box). If you look closely at his pictures (https://www.facebook.com/DadWithTheToys/), essentially none of the boxes had stamped hangtabs (maybe Kid Icarus, but it's hard to tell), so I didn't value them much over $100 each. I put my high bid in the 4k range and I would have considered that a good deal. That being said, having the plastic wrap doesn't mean much to me as I usually just take it off, so I didn't want to push into the 5k range.

No clue why a first edition (TM, 5-screw) Zelda would go for $4200 since multiple have sold for less than $2000 in the past month, but sometimes bidding goes crazy on mint copies.

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. 

44 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

Obviously the value depends on the rarity of the individual games, but you could easily cash out at $100+/game for a mix of commons/uncommons. I was recently watching an auction for a bunch of CIB games in great condition with plastic wrap still intact and it ended up at about $100 per game, even though there were a lot of commons.

I say do what you love. Take the Marie Kondo approach: if you look at your sealed collection and it doesn't bring you joy, it's time to cash out. 

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.

1 hour ago, doner24 said:

They get that equity for capital infusion. 

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. 

4 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I'm not sure there's any money in grading services period.

I was approached when wata started to be a possible investor.

A) I didn't have the money; and

B) looking at the plan, I didn't see where any money was going to be made.   Sure, you get 40 bucks or whatever for a grade that takes you three seconds but its all the other time spent that kills your margin.     You open a box.   you unpack it.   You put it in a queue.    Damn, the customer never filled out the submission form.   Call them.   Cant reach them.   They call you back three days later.   You grade them.    Customer didn't specify how they want it shipped.   One of the games has to be rejected.    Have to explain that to the customer.   They fight you on it, they don't think its a reseal.

There are just so many potential time sinks.    Just unpacking, getting the order sorted out, casing, and repacking and shipping is a PITA.

You need a lot of volume to make it work.   Maybe they have that now, but it was far from a sure thing IMO

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 .

2 minutes ago, doner24 said:

Yeah, I’m sure. But typically you don’t disclose that to the SEC unless you are raising capital from outside investors, weather accredited or unaccredited. Hence the $220Kish they seemed to have raised for equity stakes per that document. 

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.

1 minute ago, arch_8ngel said:

I'd think you'd just put them in a position of equity and profit-sharing, and it is up to the investor as to how much compensation they want for their risk.

It doesn't seem like that tough of a problem to get around.

 

Yes the ROI is "easier to get" by letting them use the service, but that is the trade you make to have the service avoid the appearance of conflicts.

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

41 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

My point from yesterday was that sometimes avoiding an apparent conflict of interest involves some measure of sacrifice from potential participants.

In this case, the conflict could have been avoided entirely by people who served as "directors" or "advisers" agreeing to not use the service, rather than risk the appearance of conflict that in turn damages the credibility of a subjective service.

 

In other hobbies, there is apparently plenty of precedent of people NOT being willing to make such a sacrifice, so in turn, it sounds like Wata and associated parties decided they didn't need to make that sacrifice either.

That is their prerogative, but now they have to live with the appearance of potential conflict of interest.

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. 

5 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I see this thread's still chugging along.

On your other point:   its not for everybody, but the short answer is:   because its awesome.     Once you've seen say, a high quality cover illustration for a game you like - in person, not as a jpg - nothing else comes close.     

Price is a function of supply and demand.   If there are people that really like them, but almost none exist, price ramps up quick.    

 

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.

11 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Simply put, it looks bad from the outside in a way that discredits the perception of the  grading company's objectivity.

Whether it actually damages the objectivity is unknowable, but the Wata supporters in this thread seem way too quick to wave away the concerns as an "everyone is doing it", which when it comes to these kinds of things is a bad argument to make, IMO.

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. 

4 minutes ago, MinusWorlds said:

The rich stay rich man. None of the new buyers are going to skip a beat if the video game market does crash. People throwing tens of thousands of dollars at games don’t worry about losing that money. 8 years ago everyone was calling one buyer an idiot for what he was spending, and guess what? If he sold today he’d make money. And I can tell you with certainty, what his games are worth doesn’t keep him up at night. He has f you money, as do the majority of the new investors, errr I mean collectors. 

We don’t have to like it, but that is the truth.

 

 

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. 

3 hours ago, MrMark0673 said:

Nothing I posted with the SEC form D link is open to interpretation.  I made definite, factual observations based on the legal documents.

Either Dain, Jeff, or both had a formal financial interest in WATA Inc when the "Carolina Collection" was being graded.  That set of games was later (and is currently) being sold, for profit, by a formal member of WATA Inc and that person has a specific financial stake in that company.

If people don't see that as a conflict of interest, I can wager to guess why.  If anyone would like to prove that anything I posted in the underlined above is definitively untrue, I'll edit my post with a correction.

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. 

57 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

 

The SEC filing issue above is a bit different than that, though, because here we're potentially talking about a guy having a pre-existing stake in the grading company going on to have his own very large collection not just graded but NAMED as a "special" collection of some sort.

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!

6 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

Ah ok I was confused looking it up.  They must of moved quick cuz I think it was only a year ago?  Nov of 18

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

39 minutes ago, BeaglePuss said:

If you think that someone submitting too many games can be viewed as a potential conflict of interest, I'd have to imagine you'd take a far harsher stance regarding Jeff's direct involvement with WATA.  I have a sinking suspicion certain people will be ok with it though.  

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.