What do you think about Seth's revelation regarding Wata's Mark Haspel and my experience with Rich Lecce? Read more about Seth's story here: www.pro-gamer.co.uk/wata-co-founder-accused-of-breaking-company-rules-on-selling-graded-stock/
I believe you should have a new category which is scumbag seller of the year. At the end of the year you and Ian take all the scumbags of the weeks and vote on which one is scumbag seller of the year. I would like to nominate this one as scumbag seller of the year. Wata games is lost all their credibility in my opinion. I hope the FTC gets involved soon.
This "graded" non sense was getting out of control with sports cards as far back as the early 2000's. It has only gotten worse all around the collectibles industry since then. Sept. 10th when NBA 2K22 hits, the My Team cards will now have a digital grading case where you can "upgrade" the cards. As if that gambling loot system was not already bad enough, this coming version is going to be much different with literal digital versions of "grading cards." How can the same card pulled from different 2K packs grade differently ? Guess we will find out next week......
It’s gross. Did Haspel sell CGC comics when he worked there? I never liked Rich, the Pawn Stars appearance was marketing, he doesn’t care about games, just getting more money.
This is a common practice for top level employees at any business. The Nike scandal with a vp's son using her cc and employee discount buying massive amounts of hyped sneakers and reselling them just made everyone more aware. If Nike knew of that, you can bet Wata knew about this too but looked the other way.
@@aceone2156 common practice? These kinds of activities are potentially illegal or considered fraud for a reason which involves keeping healthy capitalist markets functional. Capitalism does not mean taking a huge risk at getting caught creating fake unemployment accounts so you can "make money" defrauding state government.
@@aceone2156 Quit trying to be clever because you're not. You don't even know how to capitalize sentences. And land and property are essentially the same thing. Not to mention you're never the actual owner, the banks are. That's what annual taxes on your land are for. Try not paying them and see what happens. You're just bitter and jaded because you likely work at your local Wal-Mart and buy PS5's with your discount so you can try flipping them for double. Thinking you're some type of clever and savvy businessman for doing so. The shoe fit and now you're triggered.
I wonder what's the most worthless thing I can acquire from The Punk Collection so I can say I own a one of a kind piece of history. Wait I know! I request to acquire TP from the collection. Yeah that's gaming related.
@@aceone2156 talk about a game is not the same as saling a game 4 thosands of dollers and people are upfront about weather or not they where given a code or whatever. Thats the differance.
@@aceone2156 So collectors shouldn’t talk about games they love on UA-cam? That’s kind of unavoidable isn’t it? Collectors love video games, so they’re gonna talk about them. That’s not even the same ballpark as the WATA scandal. You really think they don’t love the games they talk about and that it’s just a grand conspiracy to drive prices up? Duh
This is like watching a Nightline story in real time. Following this entire thing from question to answer over the last few years has been fascinating. Thank you so much Pat and Ian for your continued honesty.
It's funny because ebay tries to hide shill bidding and allowed it to happen unhindered for many years . They claimed they had computers monitoring shilling algorithms yet you'd see multiple (0) feedback bidders with hundreds of bids and dozens of bid retractions with 100% activity to a single seller and ebay's technology couldn't see blatant textbook shilling LoL.
@@iyeetsecurity922 In the United States, bid rigging is a federal felony criminal offense under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. It’s fraud and anti-competitive. The act can be related to market manipulation as well.
Always remember, that SM 64 graded at 9.8 had a damaged corner (lower left). Those grading are a joke. Imagine a black lotus PSA 10 with a damaged corner. Would never happen.
I wonder if he's selling all the pre-NES stuff on eBay, and has another person selling his stuff on Heritage. He's only come into games the last 3 years, invested loads, so it seems like a rat jumping ship before it sinks, or because of the Wata ties and money in that he is having to sell off his stuff off to prove his legitimacy going forward.
Their brazenness reminds me of The Last Action Hero when Charles Dance goes to the real would and just ices a guy to test a theory. "Hello? I have shot somebody and I did it on purpose."
These guys seem to have no limit to how low and scummy they'll go. This is currently a situation where these disturbing things are coming out in the open but the big players in sealed collecting have a lot to lose so they'll keep making excuses or just simply ignore it. Not just the Wata people, but well-known collectors in this market MUST start coming forward and acknowledging how problematic all of this is. IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO. It's becoming very apparent that those who aren't established in sealed game collecting need to be very cautious because when the market finally takes the hit that's coming, they'll be the real losers. People spending big money on games that are only worth a fraction of what they paid 😟
@@bkirk0510 The value is absolutely, in PART, in the company that is "grading" it. I can slap a sticker on a sealed copy of the same Mario game and no one will care. The games themselves are not worth even remotely close to what they are "selling" for because the buyers aren't collectors, they're investers, investing into a company that is about to go to the crapper. Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying, but the WATA name is about to be worthless. They're overgrading most every game.
Only reason to buy anything Wata now, is if the price is equal to or less than a non-graded sealed copy of something. The Wata name will carry no weight, but the actual item will still be worth something.
This "graded" non sense was getting out of control with sports cards as far back as the early 2000's. It has only gotten worse all around the collectibles industry since then. Sept. 10th when NBA 2K22 hits, the My Team cards will now have a digital grading case where you can "upgrade" the cards. As if that gambling loot system was not already bad enough, this coming version is going to be much different with literal digital versions of "grading cards." How can the same card pulled from different 2K packs grade differently ? Guess we will find out next week......
Or a Charizard card that got graded by PSA to a 10 and was refused a 10 by Beckett but then Logan Paul submitted the card and Beckett gave it a 10 to get Logan Paul to advertise them
If you had Shop At Home, you knew about Ken Goldin and Don West. Don had heart attacks live on air when shilling everything from Pokemon cards, Beanie Babies, and sports cards. Goldin was known to shill everything regarding Michael Jordin including his college acceptance letter. Goldin' involvement with video games collecting is scary!
Ya all silly. Least with sports card like real human, real historical record, maybe like you were there in stands for big game etc, completely surprised everyone despite rookie predictions for player etc, Super Bowl winning team collections, like my point being there is REAL WORLD history behind sports cards at least and really, yes modern card prices are silly but like talking about a card from 1950’s in good condition? THATS RARE. Lol Freakin sealed skyrim? Or mario 64? Lol give you $5 and $5 respectively, even when was kid like forget Mario 64, give me nes/snes games any day.
Wata/Heritage are a market makers (founders sell, and buy auction items: create value resell through grading). Unsure if illegal... "Essentially, the law allows shill bidding if a notice is posted in the terms of service..." I did comment elsewhere that if Mark didn't sign the employee contract, he is not bound by it. As a founder of a few companies, and an advisor to others, as an advisor I never signed an employee contract. As a founder I did because I was part of daily operations. But a co-founder left the company, and the employee contract was voided when they resigned, and signed the exit paperwork/NDA, etc. This is all feels sleazy but unsure if illegal.
@@chaosdimension6433 I say tear the friggin case off, rip the plastic factory seal. off, and play the damn game! THEN get a pvc case to protect the box, manual, and GAME for when you're not using it.
It is blatant looking the other way and collusion, if Richard is a co-founder trying to sell the graded SM game on Pawn Stars and Dennis comes to give his expert advice. You think after walking into the store and seeing Richard; Dennis would be like "hey I know you, what are you doing here?"
I had some people multiple times that tried to do the same thing with my Cheetahmen games. He tried to offer me like $800 for my Cheetahmen 2 with the box. I told him that those games are worth way more than that, especially since it is mint. I also told him that my games are simply not for sale. I hate scammers so much.
@Robert Anthony usually people who play roms don't appreciate the game. The point is, Cheetahmen is rare and a fixed number is known. I think it is much better than recent games. Speaking of games crashing, literally anything by Ubisoft. Lol
If and when the Wata Grading fiasco really crashes prices down on new sealed games, I wonder how this might affect other graded collectibles? I would imagine those other markets would have a price dip as well. I always thought that Complete in Box collectors of video games makes more sense than sealed. But, when I see CIB games getting graded, I'm like really??
Funny you mention this @ 10:00 Im starting my own burger grading company guys. I have been hoarding vintage original wrapped McDonalds cheeseburgers in my closet for decades and Im slabbing them and sending them to heritage.
Ive always thought it was nonsense. No one knows how many games they grade. No one knows the guidelines for the grading. And money knows money there all in it together to pump up the market
Collectors Universe bought WATA last month for an undisclosed amount. The PR company doing damage control for WATA, Goldin Solutions actually works for the new owners. Goldin has done crisis management work for clients in the past but denied that the statement they gave to Kotaku (where they denied everything) came from the crisis management team but in doing so admitted that they still have such a team. Obviously that Kotaku statement DID come from the CMT but they want to pretend there is no crisis. The statement from Heritage Auctions is eerily similar. Pretty sure Goldin Solutions is acting for both parties. Neither party responded directly to the allegations of collusion. What a surprise.
The people that open packages and use the items as intended are the ones that get the true joy out of ownership and collecting. I never understood grading material items (very subjective) other than a way to hopefully make money on the back end and in that instance you are really losing the joy of the whole buy/ownership/collect experience. I would imagine people with tons of graded items have mountains of stress related to the buy in cost, storage and of course sending things in hoping to get a high grade back. In that aspect it seems much more wasteful than the person who wants to buy and actually enjoy the product. Maybe I am crazy here but that is just my opinion.
you guys are doing great work for the video game collecting community.. keep it up!! I wish we could all agree to just never buy anything these people will benefit from.. maybe take a month collectively off ebay bidding and let everything start getting down to normal.
Am I too late to get my snes copy of Shaq Fu graded? Cause that's easily an 8.9 with box and all. Only a handful of people want it, so it should be worth around 2.5 million by my estimates.
Outside of the scam that is going on, I don't understand graded games. There's no guarantee that the game inside actually works. Imagine paying 2 million for a game that might not even work, isn't that the entire point of gaming. To play them
Very true it is just moronic all the value in this graded games bullshit solely relies on the condition of a 5 cent ordinary standardised plastic seal that is not even part of the actual game and the 50 cent boxes, the game itself can be defect long lost its function and you basically pay a million dollar for a faulty game
@@bkirk0510 with those other products they at least grade the condition of the actual valuable item and you can see that the item is not faulty with those. You can see if a comic magazin has intact pages, you can see if the cards are intact and with coins you are able to see the condition the actual coin is in but with a video game all of this is not the case the only things that get graded is stuff that is not related to the condition of the actual game
@@bkirk0510 yes and this is completely idiotic (in my opinion) a 5 cent plastic seal has no value and yet it is one of the main factors that should carry all the value? And faulty productions do happen games can be defect right out of the factory thats one of the main reasons why you get a returning period at vendors, also even if its not defect at the beginning an old game can stop working at some point even if it was never used. Is is absolutely possible that someone pays a million dollar for a defect game with this graded bullshit market for games
@@bkirk0510 i do get that people that buy those graded games don't really care about the actual game because they are investors but i think that is stupid. And the comparison with cards is not really accurate people buy cards to look at them that is the main value and the main reason for those cards to exist to put them in your album and look at them but for games the main reason why people buy them and the main bulk of those games value is to play the game on your Tv, that is the whole reason why games even exist to play them, so the item that carries all the value for games is the condition of the cartridge or disc
With all the crazy game prices right now nothing makes sense. But I can tell you this the truly rare and desirable games are undervalued at least in the market wata is "creating". If a sealed mass produced mario game is over a million, then a gold NWC should be too. If I had a gold NWC or grey NWC I wouldn't sell right now unless I needed the money. Those are the true "Mona Lisa's" of the gaming world.
@@bkirk0510 Ya I think what's going on now is you have the collusion of these "market makers" who really aren't collectors and know very little of the hobby. They are capitalizing on familiar titles which in sealed form are harder to find and could be considered rare. The name recognition of a zelda and mario game trumps something like Sealed Panzar Dragoon Saga or a Misadventures of Tron Bonne. Collectors know these titles but not the new $$$ coming in. I think what will happen is you will see more copies of the sealed games come to market and there will be a crash on those titles especially if a lot hits the market at once. Eventually the games that are truly rare and collectible may rise up in price as the hobby matures and people realize that.
@@bkirk0510 Yep and if anything should be selling for these high dollar amounts it should be an item like that not a 3rd or 4th print run sealed zelda etc
I'm all for getting on Wata's case... but like... isn't this how collectable card prices work? All the big card shops determine the secondary market value for cards... they're pre-ordering magic cards, for example, from them, and that's just how it's been for decades. Like a Channel Fireball buyer will buy out all the Bonfire of the Damns from Star City Games, making $3 card become $40 around launch...(this happened to me as I passed a Bonfire of the Damned and was later talking about it being a $3 card...during a Avacyn Restored Release Day draft... and the sac store owner was all, "that became $40 overnight"
very interesting.. does that mean the bubble will burst on all collecting avenues ? sports cards, comics, video games ?? will be very interesting to see what happen, if anything happens over the next few months or year...
Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't this situation be considered price fixing which is illegal. Here's the definition: Fixing is the practice of setting the price of a product rather than allowing it to be determined by free-market forces. Fixing is illegal when it involves collusion among two or more producers of a product or service to maintain artificially high prices or keep the prices they pay their suppliers artificially low.
Even though this has the most impact on graded games(and logically so)I think this will eventually cause a ripple effect throughout the hobby in general, where you will start to see, CIB, complete, & loose game prices level out. Why? In my opinion at this point almost the entire value structure needs to have a new baseline. So many people come to average CIB prices not just from sold eBay listings, but values are generally determined based on multiple high price sales, and then estimated based off of that number as the grade condition goes down; i.e. sealed/cib/complete/loose. I think you're going to see a lot of "rare" loose carts & even popular common complete & cib games drop drastically in price, now that the curtain has been lifted. It's such a shame to see people take advantage of collectors like this.
I heard some other youtuber chalk this all up to what he learned about Bank Robberies in college; the success rate for a bank robbery is 90%... it's crazy.
If it was this easy everyone of us could have bought a whole bin of sealed games on clearance in the 80’s. They were out there. They still ARE out there.
The best way to hose these guys is exactly what you're doing. Spread the word and hope it gets enough mass attention, that way no one will buy these games from these crooks and their plan will fail.
something aint right with sealed vintage pokemon too in late 2019 you could buy a base set booster box for 1k. within one year it soared to 20k and the reasoning was demand is up for vintage stuff. well the thing is yes demand went way up but in my opinion there was still plenty of supply of this older stuff. whats really messing things up is people paying 300-1000 dollars for a booster pack from a box break. if people stop doing that these boxes wont have much of a resale value above paying 20k a box and naturally price will go down since no one is gonna buy a 20k box that you can not make a return on it.
And the art of a game isn't the subjective experience someone is projecting onto the game but has nothing to with the game itself. Using your burger metaphor, the art isn't the drive to the restaurant, or about you sitting in the dining room.
When I saw graded games being sold for insane prices that seemed to have connection to their realistic sales price. I aways assumed it way illicit and they were money laundering.
I wonder who is the breadwinner of the WATA and Heritage relationship. You have all those fees with selling and buying from heritage but you also got all these people getting grading at the premium inflated prices now.
I get the distinct sense no one involved quite understood how much people like and care about video games as a whole. They never bothered to hide anything because their core audience wasn't gamers, it was rich people looking for the next alternative investment opportunity. Why hide when gamers are just a bunch of dumb kids and the rich don't care about ethics as long as there is money to be made. As they are seeing now, they chose their bobble poorly. If gamers are anything they are a massive horde of obsessive weirdo's who will hound you to the ends of the earth if they think you've done them wrong. Normally this energy is put towards evil but if it can be harnessed to destroy some con artists? I'm all for it.
For this story to truly get the attention it deserves, some big publication is going to have to report on it. Then and only then may we see some sort of legal action actually take place. And I truly hope it happens, cus these effing scumbags need to be prosecuted!
13:19 number four: I know you heard this before, *never buy your own supply* number five: never sell no WATA where you rest at, I don't care if they want an ounce, tell 'em "bounce!"
If you have money on these graded games, sell. Get back what you can. Don't try to tell the emperor that his clothes are beautiful because you can't accepted how rigged this entire ecosystem is.
If there's one area I wanted these sleazy bastards to stay away from, it was the last great part of my childhood, video games. With the mobs destroying everything else I once loved growing up and tainting them, I knew I could always turn to classic games I grew up with. Now, like everything else, that is threatened.
WATA should use the money they're making and start a burger chain called Wata Burger... where you can eat burgers, and buy video games, at the same time.
What do you think about Seth's revelation regarding Wata's Mark Haspel and my experience with Rich Lecce? Read more about Seth's story here: www.pro-gamer.co.uk/wata-co-founder-accused-of-breaking-company-rules-on-selling-graded-stock/
Love your show guys watch u all the time I ran into something similar happening with the Disney black diamond Vhs tapes
I believe you should have a new category which is scumbag seller of the year. At the end of the year you and Ian take all the scumbags of the weeks and vote on which one is scumbag seller of the year. I would like to nominate this one as scumbag seller of the year. Wata games is lost all their credibility in my opinion. I hope the FTC gets involved soon.
This "graded" non sense was getting out of control with sports cards as far back as the early 2000's. It has only gotten worse all around the collectibles industry since then. Sept. 10th when NBA 2K22 hits, the My Team cards will now have a digital grading case where you can "upgrade" the cards. As if that gambling loot system was not already bad enough, this coming version is going to be much different with literal digital versions of "grading cards." How can the same card pulled from different 2K packs grade differently ? Guess we will find out next week......
It’s gross. Did Haspel sell CGC comics when he worked there? I never liked Rich, the Pawn Stars appearance was marketing, he doesn’t care about games, just getting more money.
Crooked as a roach leg, tsk tsk tsk. I trust Seth, he's 100% on the level.
This is a common practice for top level employees at any business. The Nike scandal with a vp's son using her cc and employee discount buying massive amounts of hyped sneakers and reselling them just made everyone more aware. If Nike knew of that, you can bet Wata knew about this too but looked the other way.
Great point. It's rampant through so many companies, such a shame.
@@aceone2156 common practice? These kinds of activities are potentially illegal or considered fraud for a reason which involves keeping healthy capitalist markets functional. Capitalism does not mean taking a huge risk at getting caught creating fake unemployment accounts so you can "make money" defrauding state government.
@@aceone2156 Quit trying to be clever because you're not. You don't even know how to capitalize sentences. And land and property are essentially the same thing. Not to mention you're never the actual owner, the banks are. That's what annual taxes on your land are for. Try not paying them and see what happens. You're just bitter and jaded because you likely work at your local Wal-Mart and buy PS5's with your discount so you can try flipping them for double. Thinking you're some type of clever and savvy businessman for doing so. The shoe fit and now you're triggered.
I'm pretty sure Denis knows employees are buying and selling wata graded games, he just didn't think anyone would find out
Bingo!
He was trying to acquire "The Punk Collection"
I was going to say Contri Collection but Punk Collection sounds good too 😆
I wonder what's the most worthless thing I can acquire from The Punk Collection so I can say I own a one of a kind piece of history. Wait I know! I request to acquire TP from the collection. Yeah that's gaming related.
@@GodfathersGodfathernet Contri collection sounds better ;)
Total frauds. I'm looking forward to Karl's followup video that he teased.
Yup I'm so impressed with his work it's really deserves an award or something
@@radcow In case any writers from Kotaku were wondering, THAT is game journalism
It's pretty smart.
@@aceone2156 talk about a game is not the same as saling a game 4 thosands of dollers and people are upfront about weather or not they where given a code or whatever. Thats the differance.
@@aceone2156 So collectors shouldn’t talk about games they love on UA-cam? That’s kind of unavoidable isn’t it? Collectors love video games, so they’re gonna talk about them. That’s not even the same ballpark as the WATA scandal. You really think they don’t love the games they talk about and that it’s just a grand conspiracy to drive prices up? Duh
This is like watching a Nightline story in real time. Following this entire thing from question to answer over the last few years has been fascinating.
Thank you so much Pat and Ian for your continued honesty.
It's a common practice, and a felony to bid on your own auctions. EBay shutdown one of the biggest sports card sellers for doing this just last week.
It's funny because ebay tries to hide shill bidding and allowed it to happen unhindered for many years . They claimed they had computers monitoring shilling algorithms yet you'd see multiple (0) feedback bidders with hundreds of bids and dozens of bid retractions with 100% activity to a single seller and ebay's technology couldn't see blatant textbook shilling LoL.
A felony? What's the charge?
@@iyeetsecurity922 In the United States, bid rigging is a federal felony criminal offense under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. It’s fraud and anti-competitive. The act can be related to market manipulation as well.
@@Cursalock And if done through the internet like for example on Ebay it's considered wire fraud .
Wow, 99% of Mr. Haspels graded games on that site are WATA graded 9.4 or higher. What "privilege."
Easy to make almost any grading 9.8 or 9.6 ... it's a total frauding system
Always remember, that SM 64 graded at 9.8 had a damaged corner (lower left). Those grading are a joke.
Imagine a black lotus PSA 10 with a damaged corner. Would never happen.
@@madjoe8622 really? there was a PSA 9 sent to alpha investments that turned out to be a fake. guy lost 20k
For a person who collects graded comics and cards and loves video games. I’m so glad I found your pod years ago so I never got scammed. Y’all the best
I honestly don’t even play video games. But I always watch this podcast…am I the only one?
Sometimes in my life ive deff watched this more than played games at the time.
I’m smiling bcuz all those suckers who have sealed / graded games are pretty much worthless now
"the art is the game". Love that point.
Damn, dude offered you $100K for the NWC gold cart. If Pat would have sold that cartridge it would have been one of the record breaking sales of 2021.
I wonder if he's selling all the pre-NES stuff on eBay, and has another person selling his stuff on Heritage. He's only come into games the last 3 years, invested loads, so it seems like a rat jumping ship before it sinks, or because of the Wata ties and money in that he is having to sell off his stuff off to prove his legitimacy going forward.
WATA should be “decommissioned”.
Their brazenness reminds me of The Last Action Hero when Charles Dance goes to the real would and just ices a guy to test a theory. "Hello? I have shot somebody and I did it on purpose."
Absolutely fantastic comment
I know it's kinda screwed up, but that scene got me laughing. You're right though, it definitely applies to this situation.
great reference!
These guys seem to have no limit to how low and scummy they'll go. This is currently a situation where these disturbing things are coming out in the open but the big players in sealed collecting have a lot to lose so they'll keep making excuses or just simply ignore it. Not just the Wata people, but well-known collectors in this market MUST start coming forward and acknowledging how problematic all of this is. IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
It's becoming very apparent that those who aren't established in sealed game collecting need to be very cautious because when the market finally takes the hit that's coming, they'll be the real losers. People spending big money on games that are only worth a fraction of what they paid 😟
You'd have to be completely insane to bid/buy anything that has the WATA name on it.
@@bkirk0510 The value is absolutely, in PART, in the company that is "grading" it. I can slap a sticker on a sealed copy of the same Mario game and no one will care. The games themselves are not worth even remotely close to what they are "selling" for because the buyers aren't collectors, they're investers, investing into a company that is about to go to the crapper. Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying, but the WATA name is about to be worthless. They're overgrading most every game.
@@bkirk0510 it is insane because those people are frauds everything with the name WATA on it has a stain of fraud on it
@@bkirk0510 No game will ever be worth $ 2 million and thats a fact.
Only reason to buy anything Wata now, is if the price is equal to or less than a non-graded sealed copy of something. The Wata name will carry no weight, but the actual item will still be worth something.
@@CharlesBrusch My thoughts exactly.
This "graded" non sense was getting out of control with sports cards as far back as the early 2000's. It has only gotten worse all around the collectibles industry since then. Sept. 10th when NBA 2K22 hits, the My Team cards will now have a digital grading case where you can "upgrade" the cards. As if that gambling loot system was not already bad enough, this coming version is going to be much different with literal digital versions of "grading cards." How can the same card pulled from different 2K packs grade differently ? Guess we will find out next week......
Graded magic cards kinda suck too. The old formats are hard enough to play without all the rare shit being stuck in slabs.
Same with Pokémon and PSA
Or a Charizard card that got graded by PSA to a 10 and was refused a 10 by Beckett but then Logan Paul submitted the card and Beckett gave it a 10 to get Logan Paul to advertise them
If you had Shop At Home, you knew about Ken Goldin and Don West. Don had heart attacks live on air when shilling everything from Pokemon cards, Beanie Babies, and sports cards. Goldin was known to shill everything regarding Michael Jordin including his college acceptance letter. Goldin' involvement with video games collecting is scary!
Ya all silly. Least with sports card like real human, real historical record, maybe like you were there in stands for big game etc, completely surprised everyone despite rookie predictions for player etc, Super Bowl winning team collections, like my point being there is REAL WORLD history behind sports cards at least and really, yes modern card prices are silly but like talking about a card from 1950’s in good condition? THATS RARE. Lol
Freakin sealed skyrim? Or mario 64? Lol give you $5 and $5 respectively, even when was kid like forget Mario 64, give me nes/snes games any day.
Wata/Heritage are a market makers (founders sell, and buy auction items: create value resell through grading). Unsure if illegal... "Essentially, the law allows shill bidding if a notice is posted in the terms of service..." I did comment elsewhere that if Mark didn't sign the employee contract, he is not bound by it. As a founder of a few companies, and an advisor to others, as an advisor I never signed an employee contract. As a founder I did because I was part of daily operations. But a co-founder left the company, and the employee contract was voided when they resigned, and signed the exit paperwork/NDA, etc. This is all feels sleazy but unsure if illegal.
Pretty soon, when someone sees an acrylic case with WATA on it, it will devalue the game. Get RID of them!
I say remove that stupid label with a score and keep the protective plastic shell
@@chaosdimension6433 I say tear the friggin case off, rip the plastic factory seal. off, and play the damn game! THEN get a pvc case to protect the box, manual, and GAME for when you're not using it.
@@ghkillah1995 I agree buy games to play them not just because you think it will be worth money someday
@@aceone2156 Nobody is paying a million dollars for a mint original game anyways, those arescammers doing that with each other.
Jim scalpering
Deniz con
Mark Haspaypal
What’s going to happen at future expos with WATA booths?
It is blatant looking the other way and collusion, if Richard is a co-founder trying to sell the graded SM game on Pawn Stars and Dennis comes to give his expert advice. You think after walking into the store and seeing Richard; Dennis would be like "hey I know you, what are you doing here?"
Appreciate the coverage, Pat. This company seems to be filled with POS.
Wow! Being a grader and a seller at the same time!
He really deleted the eBay account after this. Truly wild.
It's weird that I don't follow this channel or karl that closely but I got all of these videos suggested and I am glad I did.
I had some people multiple times that tried to do the same thing with my Cheetahmen games. He tried to offer me like $800 for my Cheetahmen 2 with the box. I told him that those games are worth way more than that, especially since it is mint. I also told him that my games are simply not for sale. I hate scammers so much.
@Robert Anthony right, you would pay close to $5,000 for that game. :P
@Robert Anthony usually people who play roms don't appreciate the game. The point is, Cheetahmen is rare and a fixed number is known. I think it is much better than recent games. Speaking of games crashing, literally anything by Ubisoft. Lol
Super ironic that Video game collectors investing into WATA are the ones getting played.
It’s sleazy I agree. Why not capitalize off it and price your stuff ridiculously high and make them pay. Eventually the buyers dry up
Precious Roy! Buy my graded games.... SUCKERS!
Going on Pawn Stars.. with an item like that.. They had no intention on selling it to the store. They are just falsely inflating the prices.
If and when the Wata Grading fiasco really crashes prices down on new sealed games, I wonder how this might affect other graded collectibles? I would imagine those other markets would have a price dip as well. I always thought that Complete in Box collectors of video games makes more sense than sealed. But, when I see CIB games getting graded, I'm like really??
Funny you mention this @ 10:00 Im starting my own burger grading company guys. I have been hoarding vintage original wrapped McDonalds cheeseburgers in my closet for decades and Im slabbing them and sending them to heritage.
Ive always thought it was nonsense. No one knows how many games they grade. No one knows the guidelines for the grading. And money knows money there all in it together to pump up the market
Collectors Universe bought WATA last month for an undisclosed amount. The PR company doing damage control for WATA, Goldin Solutions actually works for the new owners. Goldin has done crisis management work for clients in the past but denied that the statement they gave to Kotaku (where they denied everything) came from the crisis management team but in doing so admitted that they still have such a team. Obviously that Kotaku statement DID come from the CMT but they want to pretend there is no crisis. The statement from Heritage Auctions is eerily similar. Pretty sure Goldin Solutions is acting for both parties. Neither party responded directly to the allegations of collusion. What a surprise.
Can Kotaku just goes bankrupt, they are annoying.
Precious Roy is the perfect analogy for this group people, making lots of suckers out of a lot of people.
Omg. Are you serious?! This is insane. But no word form WATA.
Pat ur so right, as a little one I throw all the fuxkin gameboxes away!!! Who cares anyway?? The Game is the art!!! One Love
The people that open packages and use the items as intended are the ones that get the true joy out of ownership and collecting. I never understood grading material items (very subjective) other than a way to hopefully make money on the back end and in that instance you are really losing the joy of the whole buy/ownership/collect experience. I would imagine people with tons of graded items have mountains of stress related to the buy in cost, storage and of course sending things in hoping to get a high grade back. In that aspect it seems much more wasteful than the person who wants to buy and actually enjoy the product. Maybe I am crazy here but that is just my opinion.
Wata graded games should be below loose price.
Glad to see the scumbag seller segment again, it's like saying hello to an old entertaining friend.
Can’t wait for Heritage to start selling SMB/Duck Hunt for 10,000
Take em down with sledgehammers!
No.
Fire!
_No._
*Sledgehammers on fire!!!*
Tried looking up his seller account on eBay looks like might have deleted it?
you guys are doing great work for the video game collecting community.. keep it up!!
I wish we could all agree to just never buy anything these people will benefit from.. maybe take a month collectively off ebay bidding and let everything start getting down to normal.
Am I too late to get my snes copy of Shaq Fu graded? Cause that's easily an 8.9 with box and all. Only a handful of people want it, so it should be worth around 2.5 million by my estimates.
XD Like actually wiping tears out of my eyes.
@@PutYourQuarterUpGaming Super kind of you, thanks :)
Good job guys!!!!
Lol I always hated keeping stuff in boxes instead of using it.
I finally get that scene in the Wolf Of Wall Street now where he asks a group of guys to sell him a pen.
Outside of the scam that is going on, I don't understand graded games. There's no guarantee that the game inside actually works.
Imagine paying 2 million for a game that might not even work, isn't that the entire point of gaming. To play them
@@bkirk0510 It would be fine if the world didn't degrade and humans weren't so damn destructive, huh? I feel that comment for sure.
Very true it is just moronic all the value in this graded games bullshit solely relies on the condition of a 5 cent ordinary standardised plastic seal that is not even part of the actual game and the 50 cent boxes, the game itself can be defect long lost its function and you basically pay a million dollar for a faulty game
@@bkirk0510 with those other products they at least grade the condition of the actual valuable item and you can see that the item is not faulty with those. You can see if a comic magazin has intact pages, you can see if the cards are intact and with coins you are able to see the condition the actual coin is in but with a video game all of this is not the case the only things that get graded is stuff that is not related to the condition of the actual game
@@bkirk0510 yes and this is completely idiotic (in my opinion) a 5 cent plastic seal has no value and yet it is one of the main factors that should carry all the value? And faulty productions do happen games can be defect right out of the factory thats one of the main reasons why you get a returning period at vendors, also even if its not defect at the beginning an old game can stop working at some point even if it was never used. Is is absolutely possible that someone pays a million dollar for a defect game with this graded bullshit market for games
@@bkirk0510 i do get that people that buy those graded games don't really care about the actual game because they are investors but i think that is stupid. And the comparison with cards is not really accurate people buy cards to look at them that is the main value and the main reason for those cards to exist to put them in your album and look at them but for games the main reason why people buy them and the main bulk of those games value is to play the game on your Tv, that is the whole reason why games even exist to play them, so the item that carries all the value for games is the condition of the cartridge or disc
I just went into a used video game store and a copy of Zelda :twilight princess had a sticker price of $169.99. Is this over priced?
With all the crazy game prices right now nothing makes sense. But I can tell you this the truly rare and desirable games are undervalued at least in the market wata is "creating". If a sealed mass produced mario game is over a million, then a gold NWC should be too. If I had a gold NWC or grey NWC I wouldn't sell right now unless I needed the money. Those are the true "Mona Lisa's" of the gaming world.
@@bkirk0510 Ya I think what's going on now is you have the collusion of these "market makers" who really aren't collectors and know very little of the hobby. They are capitalizing on familiar titles which in sealed form are harder to find and could be considered rare. The name recognition of a zelda and mario game trumps something like Sealed Panzar Dragoon Saga or a Misadventures of Tron Bonne. Collectors know these titles but not the new $$$ coming in. I think what will happen is you will see more copies of the sealed games come to market and there will be a crash on those titles especially if a lot hits the market at once. Eventually the games that are truly rare and collectible may rise up in price as the hobby matures and people realize that.
@@bkirk0510 Yep and if anything should be selling for these high dollar amounts it should be an item like that not a 3rd or 4th print run sealed zelda etc
So eBay shows the average price and what they're doing is is trying to raise the average price on eBay.
Did Ian just make a Precious Roy joke?!
Next theyll just use family members or spouses names until someone digs in and ties relations lol
Speaking of selling, what became of the Pat the NES Punk Sale?
Coming in 2022!
I'm all for getting on Wata's case... but like... isn't this how collectable card prices work? All the big card shops determine the secondary market value for cards... they're pre-ordering magic cards, for example, from them, and that's just how it's been for decades. Like a Channel Fireball buyer will buy out all the Bonfire of the Damns from Star City Games, making $3 card become $40 around launch...(this happened to me as I passed a Bonfire of the Damned and was later talking about it being a $3 card...during a Avacyn Restored Release Day draft... and the sac store owner was all, "that became $40 overnight"
very interesting.. does that mean the bubble will burst on all collecting avenues ? sports cards, comics, video games ?? will be very interesting to see what happen, if anything happens over the next few months or year...
Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't this situation be considered price fixing which is illegal. Here's the definition: Fixing is the practice of setting the price of a product rather than allowing it to be determined by free-market forces. Fixing is illegal when it involves collusion among two or more producers of a product or service to maintain artificially high prices or keep the prices they pay their suppliers artificially low.
Even though this has the most impact on graded games(and logically so)I think this will eventually cause a ripple effect throughout the hobby in general, where you will start to see, CIB, complete, & loose game prices level out. Why? In my opinion at this point almost the entire value structure needs to have a new baseline. So many people come to average CIB prices not just from sold eBay listings, but values are generally determined based on multiple high price sales, and then estimated based off of that number as the grade condition goes down; i.e. sealed/cib/complete/loose. I think you're going to see a lot of "rare" loose carts & even popular common complete & cib games drop drastically in price, now that the curtain has been lifted. It's such a shame to see people take advantage of collectors like this.
I’ve read seth’s article, are you sure he’s a “professor?” It was quite difficult reading through his article.
There is definitely a "professtorial" style to his writing. :p
I heard some other youtuber chalk this all up to what he learned about Bank Robberies in college; the success rate for a bank robbery is 90%... it's crazy.
What's the story on the coins stuff?
If it was this easy everyone of us could have bought a whole bin of sealed games on clearance in the 80’s. They were out there. They still ARE out there.
Wata 📉 Vga 📈
So is he grading his own games ?
Well dang Ian. I was thinking of that same song when I was a minute in. His quest for money has him craving.
They were showing up on my feed on Facebook until I started calling them out
The best way to hose these guys is exactly what you're doing. Spread the word and hope it gets enough mass attention, that way no one will buy these games from these crooks and their plan will fail.
Golf clap on Ian slipping in a clandestine Sifl & Olly reference.
something aint right with sealed vintage pokemon too in late 2019 you could buy a base set booster box for 1k. within one year it soared to 20k and the reasoning was demand is up for vintage stuff. well the thing is yes demand went way up but in my opinion there was still plenty of supply of this older stuff. whats really messing things up is people paying 300-1000 dollars for a booster pack from a box break. if people stop doing that these boxes wont have much of a resale value above paying 20k a box and naturally price will go down since no one is gonna buy a 20k box that you can not make a return on it.
I would never say anyone reading this should boycott all graded products in any market, but boy do I love cotts.
Just heard Walmart is going to get the their unopened games graded and auction off...lol...Great video can't wait to see the next one...
And the art of a game isn't the subjective experience someone is projecting onto the game but has nothing to with the game itself. Using your burger metaphor, the art isn't the drive to the restaurant, or about you sitting in the dining room.
When I saw graded games being sold for insane prices that seemed to have connection to their realistic sales price. I aways assumed it way illicit and they were money laundering.
I dunno Pat - based on the sale of that $2m Mario Bros, you should offer to sell WATA your Gold NWC cart for $10m. That's a steal in comparison.
I hate to see this a d how it’s effected the entire secondary market on used games. Even yard sales I’ve gone to have common games marked up.
I wonder who is the breadwinner of the WATA and Heritage relationship. You have all those fees with selling and buying from heritage but you also got all these people getting grading at the premium inflated prices now.
Don't get high on your own supply -Ian 2021
+1 for the Ice Cube/N.W.A reference.
+500 points to Ian for the Sifl and Oly reference
BUY MY STUFF 10:34
Continue to expose them. The more awareness, the more chance authorities will look at this.
Ian should wear a backwards red baseball cap. That would look cool.
I get the distinct sense no one involved quite understood how much people like and care about video games as a whole. They never bothered to hide anything because their core audience wasn't gamers, it was rich people looking for the next alternative investment opportunity. Why hide when gamers are just a bunch of dumb kids and the rich don't care about ethics as long as there is money to be made.
As they are seeing now, they chose their bobble poorly. If gamers are anything they are a massive horde of obsessive weirdo's who will hound you to the ends of the earth if they think you've done them wrong. Normally this energy is put towards evil but if it can be harnessed to destroy some con artists? I'm all for it.
For this story to truly get the attention it deserves, some big publication is going to have to report on it. Then and only then may we see some sort of legal action actually take place. And I truly hope it happens, cus these effing scumbags need to be prosecuted!
Super sketchy
13:19 number four: I know you heard this before, *never buy your own supply*
number five: never sell no WATA where you rest at, I don't care if they want an ounce, tell 'em "bounce!"
If you have money on these graded games, sell. Get back what you can. Don't try to tell the emperor that his clothes are beautiful because you can't accepted how rigged this entire ecosystem is.
Never buy anything "graded" because it could either be a fraud or absurdly inflated in "value".
If there's one area I wanted these sleazy bastards to stay away from, it was the last great part of my childhood, video games. With the mobs destroying everything else I once loved growing up and tainting them, I knew I could always turn to classic games I grew up with. Now, like everything else, that is threatened.
Last summer? I can't remember last night
They're all in on this
Nothing surprises me anymore. Possibly trying to cash in before the handcuffs are put on.
Near as I can remember, 2600 games never were sealed. This whole situation continues to reveal itself as a scam.
WATA should use the money they're making and start a burger chain called Wata Burger... where you can eat burgers, and buy video games, at the same time.
Of the Week or weak ?
Probably both
My major problem I have with Wata is who THE FUCK gave these guys any credit what so ever?!
Of course Denis knows!!!
You guys need to watch John Riggs video “reasons not to buy the amico” it’s tragically bad.
Could Wata customers sue for fraud? They were buying the service based on a false premise
@@bkirk0510 That Wata was an independent, unbiased and fair judge of Videogame condition quality