ExplodedHamster

4 minutes ago, avatar! said:

My impression is that shill bidding is not that you can't pay up, but you just bid to artificially raise the price. For what it's worth, wiki says

A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with said person or organization.

People who drive prices in favor of the auctioneer with fake bids in an auction are called shills or potted plants and seek to provoke a bidding war among other participants.

Although WATA/HA probably did not have a bidding war in mind for that SMB, but it certainly seems like they used shills.

The SMB was not auctioned, it was a direct purchase from well known collector and NA member Bronty. 

Just now, SealedWholesale said:

i dont understand if dain sold to jeff and dain doesnt grade anything then why are dain and wata related?

That’s the point lol

1 hour ago, GPX said:

 

- a “board member” should well be seen as an “employee”. If anything, they have the power to guide the ethics of any company. So keeping silent on Jeff being a board member whilst promoting transparency “employees can’t get their games graded” IS a BIG misrepresentation of the situation. 

See, this is something that came up years ago I have a fundamental disagreement with. Advisory board members are not employees. It is common in business, particularly with startups, to have advisory board members who are business partners and participate in the business. Mark Cuban, for example, can be an advisory board member for items he sells in his sports arena, and be a large customer of those businesses. That’s totally normal.
 

This is kind of where a grading company is a bit unique. So much can be subjectively construed as biased that it’s probably best to just not have official advisory boards. 

7 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

Don't know if any of you have been paying any attention, but factory sealed VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s are exploding in price right now. I wonder if it's Dirty Wata and the Boys messing around with that market, too.

Oh God, talk about a suspect grading company (IGS)…

45 minutes ago, Ozzy_98 said:

I don't think they did anything against any laws, unless you want to try RICO which doesn't really count. But they may be breaking some regulations which will amount to the same thing. Just a ton harder for normal people to find what regulation say.

 

Curious which parts, specifically, you think would break regulations? Investors can utilize the service, provided they aren’t on the floor grading or overseeing it, I’d think. The Pawn Stars thing I highly doubt breaks any regulations, no matter one’s opinion. Board members participating and promoting their businesses in conjunction with another company is pretty standard stuff. 

I suppose it’s difficult if we can’t find the regulations lol.

But put it this way: We know live in a world where one parent company owns two of the biggest grading companies in the world (PSA and WATA), and one of the biggest auction companies in the world (Goldin). How strict can these things be?

1 hour ago, Ozzy_98 said:

I'm not taking sides, and I dislike how people seem to have teams; once you pick a team, you stop listening to the other side generally, and over-inflate small bits of info to make your team seem better. That said, a bit of info here.

For it to qualify as legal slander in the US, it would need to be spoken, since this was broadcast, it would be libel. Libel would be very tough to get when the one saying the comments is in another country, he would just about have to show up in America to be served. (And didn't Heritage say on twitter he should contact them, and come view the site?)

What, exactly, was untrue that he said? Speculation is not libel, old SEC filings that never amounted to anything wouldn't qualify. 

And then there's the argument, does Heritage qualify as a public figure, and if so, that would mean in US law actual malice needs to be shown. Actual malice in this case means 1) knowing the statements are false, or 2) reckless disregard for the truth. These are VERY hard to prove.

I think Australia follows UKs MUCH stricter libel laws, so if they had a registered business there, they would have a much better case.

Unless something he said was plainly false, and he doesn't correct it, I don't see how he could have been considered libel, *EXCEPT* his intro and thumbnail are crossing a line in my eyes. If you skip past the first 5 or so mins, it's better. But meh, he's always been a drama queen.  

And yes, I still talk this way.  And yes, most people here will assume things about my post and assume I'm on one side or the other, and I fully know no one would ever bother asking me to explain what I mean if they misread it.  And no, I'm not staying long, I actually swung by for reasons OTHER than this drama  Also, <insert generic penis joke here>

 

 

 

You are correct, it’s a logistical nightmare with a lot of hurdles. On top of that, you have insane legal expenses and gotta prove damages. Not worth it unless you have FU money to burn and want to make a point.

I thought Slander would apply since he spoke them on a medium, but I am not sure of it at all. I would assume you are correct.

But he left open to interpretation and arguably suggested that Dain was associated with WATA in 2019, when his then-former games were graded, which is demonstrably false and such info was readily available. He should correct it for numerous reasons.  

Oh Jesus. I think there’s a four pronged test to determine if someone is a public figure? Lol taking me back a decade. NYT V Sullivan, I think.

7 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Wrong. Watch the video. He's simply stating that if WATA has a policy of employees not grading or owning graded games from them, but then are actually allowing it, that it is wrong. He never said anything about a crime. You don't know what you are talking about and you are the one who needs to stop. WATCH THE VIDEO AGAIN if you don't understand the points Karl was making. 

Or you can keep saying the same thing, because it will CERTAINLY change my mind if you repeat it enough.

Yeah and my point if Dain was not an employee when someone else 2 years later graded games they bought from Dain, maybe people should pump the brakes a bit where Dain is concerned. That’s all.

6 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

He wasn't, but hey who am I to argue with a millionaire?

What the hell dude? It’s stupid ad hominem class warfare like this that ruins shit and devolves conversations. I have been a member 9-10 years between NA and here, well before I ever bought a sealed and graded game. I’m not here to say I am better than anyone, but I should be allowed to have an opinion, I’d say.
 

To the point, the clear suggestion was Dain was part of some conspiracy with the Carolina Collection and schemed with WATA to destroy NA, and the timeline does not support. Forgive me if I have a different opinion.

5 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Yeah that was exactly my point, because you seem extremely biased and you also seem to take my objective questions personal. Like you have skin in the game. 

I would say more that I independent thoughts and opinions that differ from yours, which is totally fine. It’s not personal to me, but I am upset for Dain if he was misrepresented and Karl’s word is just taken as gospel. 
 

Look above, all that is public, Dain’s name is 2017. NA sale/Carolina Collection was 2019. It does piss me off a bit Karl could not either discover this on his own or at least reach out and ask. I also benefitted hugely from NA and am appreciative if the forum Dain designed and maintained for us for a long while. Now people are dumping on him based on bad info and I don’t like it one bit if I’m being honest. I’m sorry if I take a tone with you over it, it’s not personal towards you.

5 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Hey @ExplodedHamsterdo you still have that grey nwc? Is it graded? 

No, long gone. But if your point is I have graded items and have profited, I’m not hiding it. I have even said I am in some ways the wrong person to speak on certain parts of this. I am just trying to spare Dain a bit if information was wrongly reported about him. I think that’s only fair.

1 minute ago, BriGuy82 said:

Yeah and in the quote where I told him to "shut his mouth" he vaguely said this is just a case of misunderstood timelines. So maybe if he's feeling chirpy he could clear that up for everybody. 

He said he didn’t join WATA at the end of his message, though he could have been a bit more clear overall. I read that as he initially decided he would participate, paperwork was filed, he changed his mind and never worked for or with WATA, and then the paperwork was amended to reflect that.

11 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

The video said that the SEC filing had him as an executive director of wata. Were his games graded at that time? If not, who gave them their initial supply of games to grade? 

Yes, and the video appears to have left out that Dain never actually took that role with WATA and the SEC filing Karl cited was later amended to reflect that. It’s right in the post you quoted above where you suggested he should have kept his mouth shut. I believe the amended filings were found and discussed on NA in threads right after the sale in 2019, but somehow Karl missed that and broadcasted out bad information.

As for the games, they were graded after Jeff bought them, at least by WATA. I think most were VGA beforehand?

AtariAge still exists, while SegaAge swims with the fishes 

35 minutes ago, Alder said:

Good on Jeff for that but, I still don't understand why he bought NA just to run it into the ground? I'm admittedly out of the loop on this, but what kind of data was he after that wasn't public?

My take is there was no malice, but he’s loaded, indifferent, and got distracted by something else. 
 

Or he took a look at what it would take to moderate and was like “lol jk!” .

38 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

Jeff Meyer's statement below is really huge for me and if it really goes down (and others from WATA or Heritage House start to address the situation more openly and with more transparency, then we can start to get to the bottom of some of these serious allegations in the Karl Jobst video and possibly put away some of our pitchforks.

Jeff Meyer issued VGC the following statement:

“No one at GoCollect, myself included, was consulted on any of this content. The allegations against me and GoCollect are untrue. I was never employed by Wata. I held a board position because I was a late stage investor in the company. I resigned from my board position in January 2020. I would welcome a live stream interview with @karljobstgaming”

Jeff is one thing, but it appears Dain has been legitimately/legally slandered. It could not have taken too much effort to get that SEC info straight before broadcasting it to the world (he could have, I dunno, asked Dain?), but now Pandora’s Box is open. 

Dain certainly did not give a shit anymore towards the end, but I do not blame him for that part. Regarding the sale, I doubt he thought Jeff was going to basically nuke the site and data, but it’s also quite possible he didn’t know/care and wanted to move on with his life. Tbh, VGS was probably the best outcome for current and future, though that data never should have been lost. That was the real gut punch.

9 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

Okay, I was unaware of this. My bad. I won't hesitate to say it, when I am clearly wrong or uninformed on something. I should have done more research on this.

Hey man, you’re not the one with a blue journalist check mark. Nobody has time to research everything in life, and there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s rough watching simple stuff like that get twisted by so-called “experts,” but I mean welcome to the age of social media .

Good, though in the long run there will be the problem of the same games being counted multiple times due to crossovers. Still, they should paint a fairly accurate picture and it’s far better the numbers are out there at, say, 90% accuracy than having nothing at all.

53 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

 

WATA just changed cases recently to color code mold. It’s a change a number of people had requested. I suspect more similar changes will come over time with labels (Sealed vs CIB, prototypes, autographs, etc). The EB case is an old one, the Alpha Mission is a new one. It’s as simple as that. 

It’s gotten so much worse than in, say, 2019. That doesn’t surprise me, so much as general acceptance of the practice within certain communities. It’s a pretty big turnoff to the practice of chasing shit down, though.

1 minute ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Yeah, he basically got banned for owning (and iirc providing evidence thereof) shit that some asshats running the show didn't want to admit existed.  Sad that a stand up dude like Tim got shut out like that.

I don't think he got banned? But he definitely got ostracized and a crazy amount of weird hate.

9 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Wasn't the issue with Tim the fact that he had a sealed Stadium Events CASE and people refused to admit it, even though the guy was collecting far longer than many of them had been alive?  I was on hiatus at that time

I forget lol, I just remember being like "oh, this is pretty interesting," then seeing the insane amount of emotion and crazy it brought about and was like "ok bye" lol.

49 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

I don't personally care what you wanna collect   More power to ya, but I hate that every tom dick and harry wants $90 for a shitty copy of chip n dale cib.  When it was a $40 game.......not sealed either, just trying to get money for something that they are "speculating" will sell for much higher because it will get graded by wata and they can now charge a premium.  That is my only real complaint.  More power to you, and not gonna lie, jealous you got paid .  I only kid by the way, happy you did, but still, you can't tell me that it isn't trickling into other parts of the hobby and that people who want to collect for it as a hobby can't get what they want for a fair price because of the fact that this has pumped up the market and inflated prices!

I hear ya, but good news is it can't last because grading CIB is like $175+ now and low to mid grade CIBs don't sell well anyway. The large majority of stuff out there should be affected very little to nothing, though there will be some exceptions. I don't believe there has been too much movement in the CIB market, outside of the black box stuff and the NES Marios. I could be wrong, but I think a lot of titles like Rescue Rangers/Duck Tales, etc., had been on the rise for a decade or so.

46 minutes ago, Rhapsody98 said:

Oh.  Okay.  These people have been caught in the act of being shady and unethical at best, misleading people out of money, and stealing and lieing at worst...

 

But we're being unnecessarily negative.

 

Dude, NA was overrun with garbage "sealed versus true collector" threads well before WATA existed. People arguing about Tim Atwood or Bucky or whomever else. My comment wasn't about this surge, but the idea of people being able to collect whatever they want and people going out of their way to shit on others who chose to do it another way.

I have a lot more sympathy for someone like WalterWhiteJr, who is actually affected. But it's usually that 99+% of people who claimed they were affected really were not and it was just a giant waste of time and negativity.

2 minutes ago, WalterWhiteJr. said:

I am just trying to understand the logic here. What benefit does inflated prices of sealed and mint CIB games bring to the hobby of game collecting and engaging with the community? I get that you made god knows how much money off slinging them Wata slabs, which is GREAT for you, but help me to understand. 

I am trying to understand why it would matter to people who never bought or cared about sealed games to begin with (I am talking well before WATA and this surge). I have seen people rail on this for a decade, well before I ever bought a sealed game, and I have never understood it. Why do people who love games so much spend so much time crapping on people who do something different with their time instead of playing the games they love? We are mortal, time is finite. There’s just always been a lot of what I would consider unnecessary negativity.