ThePhleo

9 minutes ago, CIB_Wholesale said:

do you think 9.8 is better than 90

No, I prefer integers, so by default 90 is better than 9.8

However, my favorite number is 2520.

It's divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and additionally it's divisible by other good numbers like 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 24, 28, 30, 35, 36, 40, 42, 45, 56, 60, 63, 70, 72, 84, 90, 105, 120, 126, 140, 168, 180, 210, 252, 280, 315, 360, 420, 504, 630, 840, 1260, and of course itself - 2520.

All things that you want to measure should be based off of 2520 units...but sigh we don't live in such a world.

>_> wat.

9 hours ago, CIB_Wholesale said:

 

 

 

 

 

have you seen these points about the FTC act?

 

I still dont understand why they shouldnt have to disclose those relationships during the ad

What ad?

Pawn Stars is a reality tv show and Wata is not the producer, editor, or creator of the show.

43 minutes ago, Gloves said:

*ignores that it's also not American*

Too late, an Admin already stated that it's american.

USA USA USA

5 hours ago, G-type said:

As I've gotten older, I think I prefer Thanksgiving over Christmas. Gift buying is stressful for procrastinators like me.

Who says you have to part take in the buying? I genuinely LOVE the festiveness of everything.

4 hours ago, RH said:

You get a pass for being festive. You will assimilate whether you like it or not and I'm okay with your protest.

2 hours ago, Link said:

Foul!? THE ONLY FOUL IS YOUR TONE

2 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

It’s not Xmas season till 8 bit Xmas 2023

You raise a good point.

2 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

I had a neighbor turn on their Christmas lights as their turned off their porch lights for trick or treaters last night. I feel like we have officially reached the limit of how far the season can be extended.

As god Intended.

Also, again, we have Christmas In July. We can EASILY extend it at least to half the year if Halloween wasn't in the damn way.

1 hour ago, Code Monkey said:

I think it's disrespectful to completely disregard Remembrance Day, they deserve their dues.

I start Christmas after that.

We can split the holiday season on that day. But we must show no mercy.

26 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Thanksgiving was like a  month ago. 

...We don't celebrate commie holidays. This is an AMERICAN, CHRISTIAN website gloves. IF THAT EVEN IS YOUR REAL NAME.

I've been a bad boy Santa.

I forgot to sign up last year

I'm in this year though.

6 hours ago, RH said:

I'd take issue with calling Luck Factors 2 and 6 being labeled as "luck".  You only sell out with reason and Halperin is a snake.  Full stop. 

Either he was unlucky that Halperin sniffed him out at the wrong time or the fact that he got involved with a shady auction house that specifically pedals in high-end collectibles speaks a lot to his intentions.  I'm not sure which but I don't know how you could see it as being lucky in any way.

The luck factor is actually convincing a man in his position that "There's gold in them thar hills". Everyone has a million dollar idea, but few people ever get an audience that can back them up.

Also, prior to the Karl Jobst expose, I've never heard of Jim Halperin. I guess I would do some background research if I was entering a big deal with someone too, but no one is perfect and it's hard to say no to someone who can make your dreams come true, especially at Deniz's age at the time.

I'm not trying to defend Deniz either here, I have some harsh criticisms for him abandoning the community, but I GET IT. He sacrificed his hobby for business, and he had to "put his childish things away".

I've kept my opinions about this whole thing in a "quantum state" of supportive-critic for a while, and I want to let a little of the mystery go.

I know a lot of the people in the 0.1% of 0.1% of the hobby, even before the infamous $100k SMB1 sale, and I chat with many of them fairly frequently. They're almost all just nerds and dweebs like you and me, but they have a lot more expendable cash and can afford to have a particular taste that many of us don't generally care about.

There's a few people who aren't like us that walk amongst us, but they're a very slim minority. "The Dentist" is one of them, and NerdyGirl is one too (although, I applaud her for not passing herself off as "one of us" and being open about what her role is in our hobby cross sections. If you're reading this NerdyGirl, you rock despite us not seeing eye to eye on some things)

@ExplodedHamster you don't need to defend yourself, you're an OG sealed guy from NA, and I know as a fact that as many millions as you've made off 'Tendo Tapes, you've also spent back into. I understand the concept of "easy come easy go" when it comes to fueling your hobby. I think if I sold my entire collection tomorrow I'd be lucky to break even, and that's after 12 years of collecting.

--

As for my personal opinions on Wata?

Wata clearly benefited from some amazing luck in timing, and networking and I don't think Deniz could have possibly fathom how fast the business would grow, even in his wildest dreams.

Wata was just founded as a NintendoAge project with intentions to compete with VGA, and be a small niche.

• Luck Factor 1: Securing seed capital
• Luck Factor 2: Working with Jim Halperin
• Luck Factor 3: NA Being bought out
• Luck Factor 4: COVID lockdowns
• Luck Factor 5: Free TRILLIONS from J. Powell
• Luck Factor 6: Being bought out

Wata was never supposed to be big business. It was just meant for super-nerds and things got out of hand, and you'd be an idiot not to just keep rolling with it. I can't say I wouldn't take the same path Deniz did if I were in his position.

Deniz is good people who dreamed of making it to the big leagues, and sort of stumbled in by good fortune. Without Covid, Wata would have been just another VGA competitor.

17 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

Actually, I think that was me...

Go for it

I can go a year without T-Pac's generosity! (Though, my christmas will be less bright )

I remember last year I promised not to claim the one I requested, so whoever asked me not to claim last year- have at it!

If no one claims the one I requested though, then I'll take it

Just now, T-Pac said:

Just listened to the scariest Halloween Podcast yesterday - @DefaultGen and @ThePhleo discussing NES variants haha. What about the plug-n-plays!!!???

First time actually hearing Phleo and now I'll have to read all of your posts with that subtle New Jersey accent.

[T-Pac]

I TRIED SO HARD TO HIDE IT! That was me being my most "neutral" as possiible!

But also, yes, the plug-n-plays are a thing me and Tyler are scared to talk about because they're TECHNICALLY NES-on-a-chip games, but most will NOT work on an actual NES and use their own custom mappers. Ugh...

1 minute ago, Mega Tank said:

Be ye friend or foe-ho-ho

6 minutes ago, PII said:

I keep my tree up until February.  Does that help?

Very good comrade, but have you considered keeping it up until Easter, then disguising it as an “Easter” tree?

The Easterians are on our side, and will readily join us when our holidays finally meet.

Laziness is key to breaking through the January barrier!

15 minutes ago, PII said:

So... Ah..... (scratches head)  What exactly is your beef with Thanksgiving?

It is in the way of a glorious 365 days of Christmas my friend! This is a crusade after all!

I’ve mentioned in private to my fellow men in arms our battle plan, but here it is for you all.

New Years is still too powerful, but luckily their power is limited to December 26 - January 1.

We have a small enclave of Christmas in July, so the only thing stopping us from being holly-jolly all summer is Halloween, then Octoberfest, then Memorial Day!

The power of Christ-mas compels you to fight for glory!

The kids have had their fun, it’s time to make room for the REAL holidays now.

I hereby declare war on Thanksgiving and claim November 1 - December 25 in the name of CHRIST….mas 

On 10/27/2023 at 2:41 PM, LutherDestroysTheGond said:

Pretty neat.  For Gameboy titles, it's hard to sift out the non -USA versions of game though without manually scrubbing through pics of games in each active/sold listing.  For example, 3/4 active copies of Jimmy Connor's Tennis are from other regions.  Finding a -USA copy is very difficult and usually more expensive than the other regions.   Other region copies also get lumped in when determing the scarcity/price.  As a result, it appears more common and actually cheaper on the end result here than it usually is for a -USA copy of this game at least.  There may be other examples but that was one that stood out to me as I had been hunting it recently 

Can you take a look at the provided eBay link in the list and see if any european copieis are showing up? The way I filtered out foreign carts is by searching only in the USA and excluding all foreign ebay listings. I also used search filters like -pal -jp -japan etc.

I'm not sure what to look for when looking at Game Boy and I want the data to be as accurate as possible.

On 10/27/2023 at 11:10 PM, the_wizard_666 said:

Just a couple things I noticed on a cursory glance of the NES list:

Racermate 2 should probably be a 10 based on numbers alone.

It could probably be fair that Stadium Events is no higher than a 9.  It's more common than people think, especially when several pop up every year for sale.  The other R10s are far rarer than SE.

Not sure if the R9 Impossible Mission II is supposed to be the AVE or SEI release, but neither should be that high.  AVE would be an R6 tops.  Neither SEI variant should be more than an R7, maybe R8 on a good day.

Bubble Bath Babes is far more common than the other two Panesians, and should probably be downgraded to R8.

Caltron was once considered super rare, but a few found skids tanked it.  R7 at best.

Little Samson seems low at 7.  I'd put it at 8 for sure.  Given how scarce it was before the price skyrocketed, I'd say it's probably scarcer than F2, though that's debatable.

For the most part, the list looks good, but those were just a few that felt a bit off.  Not terribly so in most cases, but definitely off.  Still, I commend you on the sheer magnitude of the project and how it turned out.  There's always gonna be nitpicking done with rarity lists, but you did a pretty good job overall!

10 on my list is "made up"

Anything past 7 is subject to major shifts just based on regular droughts and gluts of copies appearing in a 90 day period.

Impossible Mission is really a mission impossible to filter out the SEI/AVE variant. The SEI variant is significantly more common though, so what I did in that item was add a "-ave" to the search, which gives me the rough number for the SEI copies, and then searched for listings that specify the AVE variant to get the AVE "pop"....it's not perfect, but it's just one title, and I had to get SOME metric for it.

In regards to Caltron, doesn't matter if there's skids worth if they're not listed. They aren't available to you and therefor not on the market. This is a market scarcity list, not a true "rarity" list (a feat that's literally impossible)

But yeah, I agree that there's only so much you can do with a rarity guide. I tried to put my feelings aside but I still had to make up the "R10" ranking to satisfy my need to justify stuff like Stadium Events and Myriad and NWC existing.

16 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

I see Hot Slots way more than the other two, in fact it's the only one of the three I own and it's complete. It's the only one I've ever seen for sale locally but it's possible that was a fluke.

I would disagree with Ultimate League Soccer but maybe that's also a fluke for me. I accidentally bought a second complete one because I didn't realise I already owned it, now I have two.

I disagree with a lot of the items in the list too, but the numbers don't lie. If something is regularly available then, is it really that rare? Plus, all the things we all disagree with are at the really FAR end of the hobby. Who really cares what an R8 or R9 is if only a couple dozen of us even care that it exists to begin with, no?

16 hours ago, DarkTone said:

Interesting. So, why are unlicensed games on the list? 

You can click the "Licensed Only" tab to filter them out. I personally don't collect Unlicensed much, but I know other people do so I included them.

12 hours ago, Ankos said:

A more interesting question to me would be: "What makes an unlicensed game count?" It's sort of an abstract anything goes category. I don't think it is a question that needs answering though, since most systems have a generally accepted "canon" for unlicensed stuff, and relatively few people search for stuff outside of that

(If you're someone who hunt for really niche stuff you kinda have to come up with your own personal list)

The things that make the "Unlicensed" list is literally Mike Etler.

Some dude in the '90s in the Jersey Shore area owned a game store, and whatever games popped up in his store were added to his public NES rarity guide. Simple as that.

Since he never got in Sachen games, they never made his list and therefor all 67 of their releases "don't count" but somehow Cheetahmen II and Dizzy the Adventurer do, despite never being officially released.

Also, uh...Not sure I managed to de-rail this topic and turned it into a reddit conversation. Lol. my bad.

On 10/27/2023 at 6:07 PM, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Ive never heard or seen that. How would you even find something like that? I would have to guess your browsing a lot of political stuff or something to have the algorithm  pop that up for you or you were searching for something related

 

I'm banned from reddit, so I only have access to the front page. I also delete my cookies every browsing session automatically and disable trackers.

It's probably not a "default" sub, but it is very frequently on the front page.

7 hours ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

WTF? where do you guys go on reddit? I stick to gaming subs and don’t see any of this. At worst it’s people arguing back and forth on graded games in the r/gamecollecting sub

Reddit is one of the most racist places on the web, it’s just “positive” racism so it’s “good”

Like for example, to join one of the main forums “blackpeopletwitter” you have to send the mods a picture of your forearm so they can confirm your skin color and assign you a role of either “black” … but if you’re lucky you can apply to become a “white ally”…it’s a weird site and I’m happy I’m banned from the place and broke my addiction to their gaming forums

On 10/24/2023 at 4:14 PM, DarkTone said:

Thats cool. It was 100% a joke. 

Im sorry sir; this is serious business.

Now excuse me while I look up sales data on Color A Dinosaur, and Singer Izek Sewing Machines.

6 hours ago, CT said:

Thank you for your comments! I really respect your lists and dedication to the hobby. Thank you for clarifying and I'm looking forward to seeing more. Great work!

Thanks! I love this kinda stuff so it’s kinda fun for me really.
 

6 hours ago, DarkTone said:

Cool. When will you add the PAL games? 

Why is everyone laughing? 

If you check the notes tab on the NES list, they’re coming eventually, along with the test carts and other stuff.

Gonna be way harder though since I’ll have to go on UK eBay, Italy eBay, Germany, etc etc.

36 minutes ago, nrslam said:

And here I thought I had all the N64 games. Silly Brazilian release!

 

Sorry, yeah I count that one! Explanation below.

6 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

That needs to be explained to me. Ive seen people lump that i with the US set for some reason.  Even this spreadsheet says USA on the top and has this game listed 

You’re right it doesn’t belong in the USA list, but it’s special enough to warrant adding as it’s own unique category.

Its technically a licensed NTSC release and I accidently lumped it in with the 296 USA releases.

Ill fix it when I get to a PC

29 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

I'm enjoying the first article for the first issue of the VGS E-Zine. When is the full issue going to be out.

What’s an E-Zine? That some sort of prescription drug or something?

16 minutes ago, CT said:

I'm sure you have thought of this, but do you believe creating a rarity list like this focuses on the interests of Ebay sellers?

Meaning, sellers are more motivated to sell Little Samson (especially individually and not in a lot) versus a low demand, "bad game" like Hatris. 

On your list, Hatris is listed as more rare than Little Samson, but perhaps Ebay sellers just don't sell Hatris as much or would rather put Hatris into a lot or system bundle to get rid of it. There is less of demand to buy Hatris.

So it seems you would be tracking how popular a game is selling on Ebay, with the number of copies available not necessarily correlating to actual rarity.

I didn't want to stir up controversy, I've always respected your lists and this question popped up in my head.

 

You’re absolutely right that it’s a popular item to sell.

The word “rarity” isn’t the right word to begin with, but it’s the one we all (incorrectly) use.

Rarity is an absolute number determined on the date of the final production of an item. A better word would be Scarcity.

Scarcity is a moving target. What’s an “R5” today might be a R3 tomorrow, but ultimately in 100 years time everything might be a R10.

My lists above are just a snapshot in time, if you are in the market for Little Samson in October 2023, then it’s slightly more common/easier to find than Hatris…yeah that’s irrefutable…but it might switch spots next month.

So, in a couple months when I update the charts, we’ll have some more data to add, and instead of a “90 day” moving market, we’ll have a “180 day” moving market. The goal is to try to get a years worth of data.

Now for your casual enjoyment, I present ThePhleo's 2023 Complete Rarity Guide Collection.

Nintendo Consoles
	[Wii Coming 2024]	[Wii U Coming 2024]
Nintendo Handhelds
		[GBA Coming Late November]
[DS Coming 2024]	[3DS Coming 2024]	[Switch Coming 2026]
Nintendo Misc.
[Game & Watch Coming Late November]

Each list includes its own unique rarity scale based off of the median available item of each library, an R5 for N64 isn't the same as an R5 for Game Boy, and so on.

I do plan on adding a universal rarity scale once I have more libraries added. Planned libraries are going to be added in the following order.

October 2023

1. NES
2. Super NES
3. Nintendo 64
4. Game Boy
5. Game Boy Color

Update 1 - Nintendo (November 2023)

1. Game Boy Advance
2. Gamecube
3. Game & Watch
4. Virtual Boy
5. Pokemon Mini

Update 2 - Sega (December 2023)

1. Sega Master System
2. Genesis (with CD & 32x)
3. Saturn
4. Dreamcast
5. Game Gear

Update 3 - PlayStation 1 (January 2024)

1. PlayStation

Update 4 - Atari (February 2024)

1. Atari 2600 (With most Third Party publishers)
2. Atari 5200
3. Atari 7800
4. Atari Jaguar (with CD)

Update 5 - Other '70s and Early '80s (March 2024)

1. ColecoVision
2. Intellivision
3. Odyssey
4. Odyssey 2
5. Fairchild Channel F
6. Bally Astrocade
7. Vectrex
8. MicroVision

I do plan on normalizing the titles of the games soon, for now their Wikipedia titles are what I'm using. Data will eventually be used for another project I'm working on.

I'd also like to include PS2, PSP, and Xbox into the mix, but their libraries seem too large for too small a payout.

Let me know how I can improve the list, and if you see any glaring errors.

Thanks!

- ThePhleo

6 hours ago, T-Pac said:

20 - Jumpman from Jumpman [PC - 1983]

@PII - I felt this one deserved a wackier-than-usual interpretation. Love the suggestion!

[T-Pac]

Was thinking homestar runner for this one when I seen the sprite.

 The alternating foot/hand being blobs then detailed is fun…. Though it leaves room to wonder about the…. Fifth appendage