Bronty

I blame Jonas LOL

I don't think this happens that often... it IS a bit unique IMO in that everybody loves them but so few realized that collecting them is even a thing. Most people... if there isn't a market for something, won't chase after it or try to create it. This is us literally being completely unknown to becoming slightly known. Agree that if interest last, this won't be the end. I've been saying for 20 years that the money in our hobby, even now, is a drop in the ocean compared to the more established hobbies. If you make this hobby a glass of water or a puddle instead of a drop, the increases on quality material will continue in a big way. But, that could go either way, there are no guarantees. That being said, the fundamentals for what the established hobby crowd likes are not only there but set to grow (think Mario motion picture no doubt going to be a block buster, no doubt spin offs from that, we will have a whole nintendo universe of movies a la marvel, I'd take that to the bank). The established hobbies love that kind of future outlook because its a very strong indicator of future relevance. People will still care about the IP in 20 years and therefore collectors follow.

Who? Easy to say in theory, hard to do in practice. Furthermore if the board doesn't meet anymore, what does it matter if board members send in games, or not? I understand some of the questions and I don't mind them. This discussion now is great. Its the finger pointing and accusations this started with that are off base. Tempest in a teapot stuff. Again, I think some of the expectations are naive and/or unrealistic. Grading co's are not free from appearances of conflict. Heck they probably aren't free from actual conflicts. They don't exist in a vacuum. But to suggest its all essentially a scam (as some have done) is just misinformed and fearful. Like really, what's the problem. Use the service, ignore the service, brew a cup of tea, who the fuck cares.

without reading hte link, you mean the whole pedigree angle? Similar to my thoughts on production flaws. I understand why they did it, and it would qualify under the rules for certain other hobbies, but I'm not a fan of it in this case. Not really a fan of pedigrees for notable people unless its someone crazy famous. That said, there's precedent for that kind of move in the greater world of grading co's so its not like its completely out of left field.

I read that later so yeah I might have reacted differently but he lost me at $500m planes. Anyways, I agree that some might perceive a conflict with a board member selling games but I think that's frankly an unrealistic expectation and more a problem with the reader's expectations than with the actual situation. How would you do it any other way? You're not going to find qualified people that aren't active in the hobby for neutrality purposes, because you have to be active to have any knowledge in the first place.

FWIW I agree with some of those criticisms, they seem to be following the comics and maybe coin models where production flaws are either not counted or heavily discounted in weight. I've never liked that approach, but its been out there at least twenty years from other grading co's. There is definitely an argument for ignoring production flaws (the way it got to the customer is the way it got to the customer) and as a grading co ignoring those means you can make your grading less subjective and therefore more standardized, more consistent, and easier to train new people on. But as a consumer, I've always just want mint I don't care if the flaws are production related or not.

wow yeah, that's exactly what this is like. I just ordered a couple F-35s the other day.

Yeah, that's fine, but that's why asking questions is magical right? You get answers. Uninformed accusations help no one. As for the whole advisory board thing, frankly its because its not an active board that I don't want my name up there really at this point. It was fine when we were initially providing advice. That said, the guys have been so overrun with work that I haven't wanted to bother them about it as I'm sure updating the website is not high on the totem pole of priorities ATM. In principle, I agree that its kinda time to take that part of the site down, but again, they are backed up.

The more people the better is probably true, but what’s wrong with that? Yes, some of the people buying games now hope the value will increase. That’s no different than it’s ever been. The part that I think freaks people out is the new breed of buyer is more aggressive in going after it. Fundamentally though, the behaviour isn’t that different . It’s more aggressively aimed at items that may increase in value, but that’s the landscape the new buyer is used to. One where you have to play aggressively to build a meaningful collection unless already wealthy. The current buyer is more used to letting growth happen passively. That’s fine in a fast growing hobby, as time will reward your patience, but in a mature hobby it doesn’t get the job done and those who get ahead do so by getting after it.

The key distinction as I see it is that “Aligned interests” are very different than “conflicts of interest.” As you imply almost every business has aligned interests that they take advantage of and there’s nothing wrong with that. Wata and heritage and whomever else may have aligned interests that make partnering up make sense. For there to be a “conflict of interest” I would think you generally have to owe someone a fiduciary duty before you can have a conflict of interest. In other words, you’re being paid to advise a husband and a wife that are divorcing but you can’t advise both well because they are locked in a zero sum battle and whatever you win for your first client comes at the expense of your second client. THAT’s a conflict. Not a press release, not shared promotions, not a 20k investment in a video game. I understand the confusion between aligned interests and conflicts of interest but at the end of the day none of this is really even an issue. This kind of stuff happens everywhere all day long and it’s only because it’s a young hobby that we haven’t seen promotion of the hobby to this scale before.

I thought I was decent at gradius 3 and then Maximus clean picked it up , first flipping try, and destroys me. we also then played baseball stars which I’d played a million times and he’d never picked up, only for me to win by the narrowest of margins. Hes good, I’m not

So Jone, how would you go about it? How would you set up a completely conflict free environment in a grading service within a small hobby and how would you promote that small hobby to others without creating any conflicts? If you yourself set up a grading co in this hobby tomorrow, it would be rife with conflicts. VGA is rife with conflicts too (Bucky sends in more games than everyone else put together. You think they don’t know which games are his? I’m not suggest anything improper has ever happened on that account but the point is this isn’t the stock market and this isn’t the SEC and you can’t create a conflict of interest free environment in a fish bowl. i understand people not wanting to feel like there are ‘insiders’ but there will always be insiders in a small hobby built on relationships. There’s nothing ‘secret’ or ‘improper’ about that. Seems like the main conflicts are conflicted feelings if you ask me.

Mark that down for Secret Santa. No NBA hats for Rorsch.

WErewolf. Me dead.

thanks! Looks like the WAK is just at the very bottom edge of the box towards the right side.

sorry man! hahah just bitter! dying sucks!

absolutely nothing. No repro maker can be special because at the end of the day, you're just buying a rom in a shell. Whoop de doo.

no they didn't make those lunchboxes, wolf. That was iam8bit

if all you want is empty shells, vga sells empty acrylic shells. They aren't quite the same as the ones used for graded games, but that's for a reason - you don't want to put spare parts out there to encourage counterfeits slabs.

I mean, given what you're telling me I wouldn't worry about it. Just follow your interests.

I'm sure my copy is just as nice

you're right. Its really very similar.

That’s fair yeah. I recall the price impact being relatively minor (10%? 20%? on vintage [depends how you define that of course]) but certainly, vintage was impacted from a liquidity POV, a lot. It was just harder to sell stuff; fewer buyers. BUt those that owned good older material weren't going to give it away so it was a chill on sales of old stuff (less turn) but not so much on price.

that's good but it has to be emphasized that the crash was re NEW product not vintage product. I.e. what happened at that time, if I were to paint that scenario today in games, is that people saw PS4 releases going for triple a month after they came out, so they started buying them by the case. Major releases regularly started selling 100 million copies for unplayable games by studios the public liked. Eventually, retailers like EB Games were buying so much gimmicky new product that they couldn't sell through it all. Publishers kept pushing more and more gimmicks to keep retailers ordering. Retailers ordered more and more to stuff to sell based on those gimmicks, but eventually the empty gimmicks turned people off, sell through rates dropped, and retailers were left holding mountains of unsold and now completely worthless inventory. Simply put, way more product was printed than there was demand for. None of that has anything to do with the vintage market. This was a crash in the equivalent of PS4 games, not NES games.

Reading it again I think you want the information served up - I mean, at some point. No one has shared more information on the topic than I have as most all of the names out there in public and or on other websites came from me originally as me and other collectors researched this stuff. But I still actively collect so there at times I won’t want to share and what’s out there will have to do for now.