What do you think about prices coming down on sealed games so much? Is it surprising? Do you think they will come down more or will rebound in the future? Let me know!

Here is a lesson I learned waaaaay back in the mid 90's from my college level economics 101 professor. A course I think should be mandatory in public schools the nation over. You can have the rarest collectable in the world and have the biggest expert say it is worth x amount of $$. But it isn't worth that much. It is worth....what someone else will pay for it. No more than that. These speculators that are whining about their games "underperforming" at auction are really whining at the potential buyers of their games because they won't pay their hyperinflated prices that they say they are worth. Too bad. Just because WATA games says one of the most common games ever made is worth 2 million dollars doesn't mean there is someone willing to pay that. Or anything close to that.

The problem with a lot of these trendy new collecting hobbies - and I'd include NFTs in this - is that very few people actually want to be the end user of the items.

Guys, GUYS! Just wait. Mad Dog Collections will explain ALL this in an airtight rebuttal video.

Any seasoned collector saw this coming a mile away. Now we just watch.

Monkey Island had it right 32 years ago. “Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game”

Just so you all know, Mad Dog is the one who bought the graded Mega Man for over $49k and graded Metroid for between $4k and $20k from this auction. I guess he's doubling down hoping a greater fool is going to pay more!

This is what happens when speculators get involved. Collectors aren't panicking, they're licking their lips waiting to increase their collections.

Back in the late middle ages, when I was in college, I learned about a concept called "constructivism". In short, it suggests that something has a value if people collectively believe that the value exists. It's hard to find a better illustration of that theory, in action, than this boom-bust cycle for sealed games.

I’m still sitting on all my pogs. Once they make a comeback, retirement here I come! I got a limited edition OJ in the slammer

I hope these people lose so much money that the view of a sealed game will make them sick.

I used to have a 1500+ vinyl collection. The whole time I was collecting, I said it was for my own enjoyment. I moved cross country and sold my entire collection to a local record store I liked. People lost their minds at me about how I was losing "my investment". The records were never an investment to me. I collected them because I loved listening to them, no matter how rare some of them were.

Can stick all the fancy stickers on it they want, it's still a mass produced item from a timeframe we can still all vividly remember. These are a curiosity. It's so hard to wrap my head around a $14k box for Goldeneye.

People are trying to make definitive statements about supply and demand, but we haven’t even seen the actual supply for most of these games. There’s so much more out there that people just aren’t having graded or that Wata hasn’t gotten to yet.

I think the important bit of evidence in all of this is the people complaining all have NFT monkey avatars. That should have really been the tell tale sign of what these people were into this for.

Retro game collecting on the whole seems very “in” right now. I’m betting half the people who only started collecting in the last 2-3 years are going to start to liquidate sooner than later. when they realize that this stuff takes up a lot of space and they don’t really have any true passion for it. Which will be fantastic for the rest of us who are still around to buy it up for reasonably sane prices (hopefully). The sealed/graded stuff never made sense for video games to begin with. I imagine that end of the hobby will go back to just a handful of incredibly niche collectors even sooner, especially with prices tanking. Which is great news for any true collectors.

It's funnier that everyone who is a true collector/gamer knew this was going to happen... when these investors originally said these games will only go up in value I scoffed.. they apparently have never spent a long period of time collecting anything. I hope this retro bubble pops and prices get back to just insane and not outrageously insane.

These speculators trying to land on the carrier in NES Top Gun now!

Somewhere that snively whiplash Mad Dog is shedding tears watching these prices plummet. For some reason this brings joy to myself :)

So, from a former Investment Banker's perspective: So, first and foremost, people shouldn't expect the auction house to do anything, that isn't their role. Obviously since it's not their job to get a specific price for their customers, but let's talk about Heritage specifically. It's basically been proven that Heritage and WATA were shilling their own items back and forth, and they didn't care enough to not engage in market manipulation. You were trying to think of an example of an asset deflating rapidly and couldn't think of one, but you don't have to look beyond Heritage for the perfect example: coins in the 80's. Heritage was found guilty of and paid damages for market manipulation of graded coins, and acting in the exact same manner they did with WATA. One point that nobody seems to be touching on is that both Heritage and WATA have been caught colluding and shilling their prices, so what's the logic in trusting Heritage at all, and who's to say that numerous games that WATA's graded aren't legitimate 9.8's or 9.6's? Once the world comes to terms with the fact that their company is just a shill mill, the credibility of their grades is going to be worthless. These idiots talking about population reports might as well be saying "well, there's one 17 shares of THIS Enron stock available! It's undervalued!" Actually, Timmy, it's fucking worthless, but thanks for stopping by. Heritage and WATA aren't your friends, they don't give a FUCK about YOU. They both actively prey upon and profit from the community they claim to support, and THEY will be fine. They get paid whether you're in a mansion or bankruptcy court, so don't get the idea that they owe you anything. Invest in what you love. If it all goes to zero, you've still got something you're passionate about.

Can we fit just one more sticker on that laptop???

They literally saw a market like this a few years ago. Remember when people were grading comic cards from the 90's? lol how did that work out.

Being 40 I have seen this so many times now. BTW they are moving onto cards at the moment. All of a sudden as this market is crashing the graded card market is going crazy. Look at the prices of graded pokemon, yu-gi-oh or magic cards at the moment. You can see it coming and a new generation of people (ie the pokemon card collectors instead of sports cards which they crashed in the early 90s)are going to get scammed.

"At some point the auction house has to say no"...My dude, this is under performing because it's a $120 complete in box game that some decided to throw in a plastic container and give a magic number to. It was never worth anything near six figures.

It was just a large amount of investors driving up these prices. Majority of game collectors don't give to licks if a game is sealed or open. It doesn't help most people who want games just want it opened to play. Sealed collecting is in most cases about a value vs actually caring about the games.

It's a long time coming and I love to watch them squirm haha! I also love how the dentist says all the speculators have left, as if he's not one of them!

This brings me so much joy, because people were soooooo sure this was the next best thing😂😂😂😂

I like how they still try to manipulate the market by holding onto product. Wow it’s the highest graded one ever! I mean it’s the highest graded one we’ve auctioned. I mean it’s like he highest one we’ve graded…and decided to auction. These things aren’t THAT rare.

The bubble bursted, the smart money probably moved on and the leftover hypemen and bagholders try to convince someone, anyone these overblown moon prices were ever justified. I think their big mistake was the million dollar mario. That was just too obviously stupid and greedy, else they coulda had this grift run a little longer maybe.

Anyone know where I can buy a graded 9.0 or above tiny violin so I can play it for these dipshits who tried to artificially overvalue games for their own profit?

there's always gonna be rare and expensive games but video games that cost as much as a mortgage or decent used car, that crap needs to stop

When gas, meat and potatoes are getting super expensive, suddenly sealed games don't seem to be so appealing anymore.

I'm happy to see prices going down and I really hope they will continue to go more and more down in the future :) And I don't care if my own collection loses value, I'm interested in games and their history, not the money I could get if I sold them (which will never happen).

This reminds me of the speculator boom and ultimately the crash of comic book industry in the 90's

Pretty much the saying is: just because it's rare, doesn't mean it's valuable.

The drop is even worse , you need to add about 15% inflation for the last year….

The biggest problem i have with these sealed games is that the grading is based on the box. This always sound foolish to me, since this isn't like a trading or sports card (or even comic books!), where the corners, fading, centering, etc are on the actual product. All the grades... are on the box. You could be spending thousands of dollars on a N64 cart... only to find out that the cart itself is actually a worthless piece of rusted garbage. "But they're never gonna play it!" That's not the point and you all know it. These guys aren't gamers. I collect video games, but I have them so that I can play them. I collect comic books, but I have it so I can read them! I collect trading cards, but I have it so I can use them! These guys would just be better off buying the box without the game!

About five years ago, I bought sealed copies of Dragon Quest 4, 5, 6, and 9 for about $20-$90 a piece. What did I do with them? I ripped off the plastic shrink wrap from all four of them and played the damn games.

I'm an avtual collector. I collect to have these things. Couldn't care less about the values going up or down. I like stuff being cheaper lol

The Graded games market is crashing and soon the Graded card and comic book markets will crash too. I say let them all crash. I get a good laugh out of it all.

...and so, now I can quote the Ironsword commercial: "Finally! YEAH!". 😁

I'm not an economic genious BUT I was raiseed enough well with economics to understand how the most basic levels work - And in second-hand level I have learned A LOT. However, things have seriously gotten out of hand with people and money in general and younger generations have seemingly lost touch of reality. You can have the rarest collectable in the world (Game, cards, toys, art, music etc.) and have the biggest/greatest expert(s) say it is worth x amount of $$. But it is not worth that much. It is worth....what someone else will pay for it. No more than that. It is solely based on how badly someone or some people wants that item(s) and that possibly triggers others to want the same amount or more money, despite we still play bu the very exact reason of term = What someone else will pay for it. The problem is that often people link this with the economic term "Supply & Demand" that spins up or down the prices while the item(s) are hot...but should likewise cool down the asking prices if the demand is weak and so on. Now, in my own opinion, this is a major problem and things have seriously gotten out of hand with people and money in general and younger generations have seemingly lost touch of reality. They pay anything to get what they want and never seem to stop and think about there action(s) and evaluate what it all means. When they accept these prices, then things will never go sane and the prices keep being on redicules levels and it ruins classic gaming IMO. You can't get in to collecting when the prices demand a big chunk or all of your hard-earned money.

Sealed video game market crash in 3, 2, 1...

"SEEEEAALLED!!"

This was as obvious as the collapse of NFTs

I am so happy to hear this.

Line goes up bubble goes pop

Seeeeeaaled!!

I hope retro game prices get back to more sustainable prices. I’d rather not see a crash since I have friends who work at retro game shops, but these outrageously high prices lately have been insane. Glad to see these speculators are getting hosed on some of these.

During the 1849 gold rush, the people who made the most money weren't the miners. It was the people who sold the miners their tools.

Prices are just starting to drop, it's going to be a bloodbath across the entire collecting spectrum once hyperinflation in food, energy and housing kicks off.

Buy low sell high. Imagine if they digitized the trading of these games. It would crash the market so fast. It’s ridiculous these people aren’t buying the games at these low prices. You buy when their is blood in the streets!

Good. It’s all a sham and I’m glad it’s taking a big fat dump down the toilet 🎉

As much as I love retro gaming, I wouldn't spend more than $100 on it.

Game collecting speculator tears are delicious, more crying please. I hope this crashes the broader game collecting market honestly. I'm recently noticing some weakness in eBay auctions for un-sealed games as well. Literally hoping my ~$50k+ collection is worth half that soon, because I care about collecting, not investing.

Wait? Supply outweighing Demand doesn't create rarity

Love it!!! 😆 the people buying these aren't game collectors... just people buying them up for profit. 📈

You're right that the auction house doesn't care what the price is. The reason is that they profit every time it goes up for auction. So if it's down now, they make their commission. If the price goes up in 2 years when the new owner sells it at auction, they get another commission. They're happiest if the owners turn the items over rapidly, and if the market continues to hold interest in the item. But if the market loses interest in the item, the auction house just moves on to facilitating auctions for items that the new market is interested in now. It doesn't matter if it's video games, comic books, movie memorabilia, sports memorabilia, guns, antiques, art, or jewelry, if there's a perception of value, and the items are unique, not commodities, people will flock to auctions to buy what they are interested in, and the auction house makes money. They don't care about what people are buying and selling, they help people buy and sell what they are interested in.

Love it, can't wait for all the low end games I'm watching on ebay to be on clearance too lol Prices were ridiculous

I believe some of those superinflated games may have been bought by heritage people making stock in order to flip them later. Remember how they were talking about "upward trajectory", they were probably expecting these games to be going for millions by now lol. I hope this is the case, I revel in that😅

I’m so glad this fake price hike was exposed. These collectables aren’t that rare.

I think prior to the pandemic there was a couple of other things that got NBA fans interested in basketball cards again. There was the excitement of the 2018 and 2019 classes which would contain "face of the league" type players. Also when people got comfortable with instagram live (which basically launched in 2017) and started doing breaks on it, it changed what the ROI could be for people. So at least there was some organic growth to begin with.

Let’s just ignore how lots of other collectibles have gone down in value after Covid.

Heh, I bought Rai 3 and 4 for $2.00 many years ago. The bad one was that damn Turok 1 gold cover. 1,000,000 copies were made of the regular cover, but that gold thing for awhile was impossible to find. (Big 90s Valiant universe fan.)

This is what you get for not playing with your toys and being greedy bastards.

This entire subject with Heritage auction house and grading video games has been a scam for money laundering. I've been collecting for 30 years, all of this is nonsense. NONE of these games are worth ANY of these ridiculous prices in the real world. Grading a game does not increase it's value to these levels, it's just not legitimate. A graded sealed copy of ANY retail game will NEVER be worth more than something like a Nintendo World Championship cart, which is in the $20k range.

Sucks what has happened. The two NES Zeldas and Link to the Past would be part of the select few games for nostalgia reasons I would ever consider getting sealed copies of but never would happened at those prices unless I won the lottery. Thank you and Ian for you coverage on this topic for years now.

What made retro collecting worth any money was the fact they were discontinued history. Now that the retro scene is SO ALIVE that even dollar general sells mini ninendos that come with a hundred games that is what is devaluing the collector part of things. I have never collected anything I am just glad retro didn't die.

We’re living in the weirdest fuckin timeline, I swear. Pixel art is now home decor, the Mona Lisa is a punchline, and “serious” art is money laundering. Crazy.

No video game is worth over $10k...

This isn't a correction, this is a "oh god my beanie babies are worthless" moment.

Going down the YT rabbit hole a few months ago I stumbled upon a video about this topic and the company that was grading these games. I believe it was WATA, and yeah they've done this before. They will be the ones that are buying these games at first; just to build that fomo and that artificial excitement, they'll cash out and the market for these collectibles will crash, and they'll move on to the next collectible.

nice, if this continue i maybe get my hands of some of my old game library that was stolen from me again

Just stumbled back onto watching Pat's videos. It's interesting to see similar patterns in what people have speculated on in various hobbies from video games, comics, collectable card games when they had easy money, but now that interest rates are going up and loans need to be paid back, those who have FOMO'd in to make money are now on the goat trail out and loosing money. But they won't admit that they made mistakes. Anyways, thanks for the great video and interesting talking points you raised. Peace out

It would be cool to have a website that will put your branding on anything! For example I need a new 5 inch 14mm downstem for my jerome baker, I would be cool to see branding through the fume glass

Another angle that I see is that not only are these things considered Commodities now which is a shame, some people by them so they can have something nice on their Shelf. But especially with Retro Gaming with all the shadow boxes and reproduction stuff you can get if you want a nice picture of a contra you can put it up on your shelf or wall. Shelf collectors have other alternative methods than to spend

It's just a sign of the times. Demand for games is low, demand for property is lowering, companies are starting to layoff workers again, we're starting to feel the belt tightening. Recession is definitely around the corner.

Glad the speculators that put huge amounts of money into the games buying and selling are losing money on it. It was clear it was artificial growth. VGA was around much longer and we didn't see those prices. I'll keep buying sealed games when I see them cheap. They can go up or down and it won't really matter to me. I'll either keep them in my collection or sell some off for what whatever the value seems to be at the time. Speculators shouldn't spend money they are not willing to lose on the items. $10-20k for sealed retro games for the ones that are icon and loved does seem more in line with what I'd expect. Wouldn't be surpised if they continue to fall and people just avoid them because of all manipulation and drastic price drops and recession. Might create a opportunity for game collectors to actually get some of them

"Premieres in".. but theres a video playing? What is this witchcraft?

Oh hey a popped bubble... who would have seen that coming? Totally out the blue! Never seen that coming, no warning signs at all... shocker!!

Talk about a goddamn paperweight

SoTN is one of my favorite games, so many moments that I'll remember forever fondly. Death stealing all my cool sh!t ain't one of them...

Ah, finally the schadenfreude...

Kinda wish I had a time machine. All these games I bought as a kid and could have just not opened them, sold them earlier this year and I’d have my house paid off.

Has more to do with people needing cash than it does rarity or collection value.

Modern day Tulip Mania

One of the best examples that I'm thinking of similar was the huge action/sports figures sold and kept in their cases and thicker protective cases in the 90s. Star Wars and all those baseball and sports figures. Was going to be so much bigger than sport card collecting I remember some thinking. It. Does. Not. Sell. like it was speculated. Action/sports figures unopened and kept in protective cases were speculated to buy cars, homes, be a retirement fund. This always happens! With everything!

Wouldn't sealed games collectors suffocate?

... I always felt that sealed market while not for me seemed to be bragging rights and or people "investing" into something stupid. And no the auction house doesn't care about your seeeeeaaaaallllled game selling low cause they make money regardless of how crappy the auction goes.

Hopefully the trajectory keeps going this way

They will NEVER hit 2021-2022 prices ever again. It was a highly speculative unproven market. Fueled by pump and dumpers, unknowledgeable investors like dentists, lawyers, wall Streeters etc. The bubble grew too fast to sustain any structure. I'm good friends with a high end investor who recently DUMPED all his sealed games, graded MTG and Pokemon as well as all his NFTs. (He owned TWO Bored Ape NFTs, 9.4 Sealed Little Samson, Alpha set and a PSA 9 1st edition shadowless Pokemon set) He said the sealed game market will NEVER recover to highs. I know because I sold a few myself through heritage. 1st 3 did well, last one very very BAD. 2 previous sales of the last game I consigned were $8,500+-$11,000. Mine sold for an abysmal $1,440. 9.8 A+ PS2 ultra rare title. This market for investors is done. I'm just glad I'm still a collector and not one of these hype beast "collectors"

The other issue is the ridiculous prices that the market has commanded up front and even now. These items are not even 50 years old and commanded prices commensurate to new homes at the highest level...that is just plain insane even without market manipulation. It was irrational exuberance that drove the market high just as was the case with the "Beany Baby" market in which every single object was effectively the same internal component...beans...and varied solely based on the surrounding cloth. And that was another market that was doomed due to artificial inflation such as "retirement" of objects which had the knee-jerk reaction of causing prices to jump.

It has begun!!!! YES

I have been collecting games for 15 years, and I only collect games that I personally love. I don't collect stuff for the sake of collecting and reselling. I don't keep my games sealed because I play them, but I do take really good care of them so I could technically pack them in a plastic and pretend they are new, no one would know better. I sold many games over the price by doing that. My games are kept in pristine condition. However, I don't know why you would pay 20 000 to have pokemon blue. Its ridiculous... - you can't play it - in 30 years, the new gen Z gen X or whatever aren't going to care about pokemon blue. I'm 35 years old and I know of Pokemon blue because I Was 15 years old when the game came out. So for me it has value, i don't believe modern kids iwll see it that way and pay this kind of money.

I remember my friend proudly presenting to me a collectible he had obtained with a big price. It was a Slipknot cassette in wraps. I guess it was when the comeback with vinyls and tapes wasn’t here yet. Anyway, we were drinking that night and he accidentally dropped the tape while showing it off. The case cracked and the plastic wrap was torn. He was so pissed. I asked him ”can we listen to it now?”

I knew they were becoming ridiculously overvalued from the start, the prices just didn't reflect real collector interest and were massively overvalued and I'm sure caused a lot of panic selling and price crashing

Everything is down. The stock market is down. Video games, not just graded, are down. Sealed, CIB, loose. Cards. Comics. Feds increasing interest rates. Gas prices high. Houses stopped selling. People are leaving their homes. Pandemic pretty much gone from everyone's minds. It's a buyers market if you're into that kind of stuff. This kind of stuff, not just games, happens in swings. Check back in 5 years. Prices go up. Prices go down. Then back up. Then down. Then up. Then down. New lows, new highs. If you're into collecting, it's a good time to buy. Graded, sealed, CIB, loose...whatever you're collection is focused on. Prices are down and will eventually go back up over time. Good luck everyone! Who ever you are, where'er you're reading this from...may the force be with you! Blessings to you and yours!

it's almost like only speculators are gonna pay that much money for a sealed game. this is basically rich bastards scamming each other

Is this the same Dentist that Comic Tom talks about as being a huge speculator in comics as well???

Hopefully game collecting can get affordable again, I want to collect for the PS1 and PS2 & N64 with my daughter