Karl's video is very informative. The fact that the people behind the 1980's coin bubble are also behind the 2020's graded game bubble is astonishing!

...not that shocked.

I watched Karl's video earlier this week and I thought he did a fantastic job. I was very pleased to see your appearance near the end giving your thoughts about how these shady operators were abusing our love of retro and trampling on the hobby to make a buck.

You have been taking about this for awhile Par.

Not surprised. I believe it. All of it.

And they’re all slimy scumbags and apparently when he got screwed from the “coin bubble” of the 80’s , we didn’t screw him hard enough.

@@pbailed8007 He probably didn't even get screwed. He's the guy who probably laughed all the way to the bank while everyone else was left holding the bag when it crashed.

@@aceone2156 the problem is much larger than that. I'm a victim of this even though I haven't spent a dime on sealed retro games. I mainly buy games for my casual collection through ebay, sometimes I might throw in double the money for a cib. The result of this market manipulation is that people flood ebay with ridiculous pricing on complete in boxes and even individual cartridges. It's way harder to find affordable retro games now than it was 2 years ago. Obviously I can find them, but it's tedious and more often than not I end up overpaying for a game I want in my collection because I actually want to spend time playing it. The manipulation has made the whole market just insane and it's totally manufactured and not organic. I want to pay market price, not some tycoon's inflated price.

especially when people that graded and auctioned this game are also the same that bought the game this has nothing to do with actual real value but rather pure artificially inflationing

look at some rare games, some go for STUPID amounts of money but so many people don't care cause it's a bad game

@@SlipKnoTfreak1456 Hence the reason I have no desire for a Stadium Events😂 It’s an objectively bad game! (Rarity be damned)

@@justsayin4632 DOOD RIGHT?! like fuck that, I'll buy a heap of GOOD GAMES

It's fucking ridiculous like any collectible item that sells overpriced. If I wanna listen to a music album i'm not gonna pay 6 figures, if I wanna play a game i'm not gonna pay 1.5 fucking million...thank god for internet and piracy. I'm always supporting the artist btw if I like the art I'm always paying the artist, they also need to earn a living.

You're so right Pat it's crazy how intertwined everything becomes, I feel like corruption is unavoidable no matter how nobel cause. Do you think we as consumers should still participate in these markets or is that just contributing to the problem?

Correct!

A lot of this coverage over the past year really spoke to me because I'm into coin collecting and familiar with the history and the current market structure, so the business practices in the video game grading immediately jumped out to me as a scam, largely due to lack of population reports and the obvious self-dealing between WATA and HA. PCGS and NGC are not perfect, but the market is more transparent and they do not control the pricing. There are annual/monthly pricing guidelines published based on the market both from the graders and externally, you can go on eBay and look at the history of sold prices, and you get a guess as to not only the graded population, but also the estimation of how many ungraded exist as well.

Its all about getting EVERY bullshit graded. That’s where the big money is.

Topic of the week for next Tuesday.. should WATA rated games now be discredited??!!

I know, theres probably thousands of sealed copies out there.

Agreed. I always agreed with them too that the prices never made sense.

Also just a great education on how speculation bubbles are formed and manipulated by a very small number of individuals. I loved Karl before but the enormous balls it took to expose these people is legendary. I hope he doesn't get sued.

He's an absolute legend, and always has been.

Dude look at afganistan! How was there not more reporting leading up to this disastrous exit? Even here in canada , no reports of the Taliban re emerging. Then its just like bam! Oh yea we got this going on here , but we didnt think it was good enough to report on ?!

@Hamburger Stalker project veritas is a trash outlet for brainwashed suckers. all you have to do is read about who their major donors are and how they operate. people don't go to them to learn anything, they go to have their hairbrained conspiracies verified by manipulative reporting.

@@AnonymousGentooman or maybe a peer review board of sorts with representation from various spots on the political spectrum. Eh... you're right, no perfect way about it. You just have to gather what you feel are three sources with the least bias, with at least two being generally considered slight left or slight right, try to cut through the bull and get a sense of the meat of the story. Maybe hard to do since no one likes to think their own news sources are too biased. Real news would be dry and sterile. As you said, that doesn't sell and sadly I wonder if people want to be sold more than they want an unbiased opinion. Actually, that's not it and is too cynical. Probably corporate news doesn't care what we want, they just want to sell us. I believe it'll change eventually. It'll have to.

The auction/graded collusion f-ed up and exposed that the retro game market as a whole is manipulated and prices have been driven up in a similar manner

Agree, I noticed that those auctions were from popular franchises and it's very suspicious that games from very rare consoles like Atari Jaguar or Turbo Grafx CD doesn't reach those prices or make any headline news when a game is sold as only hardcore old time collectors have interest in those console or know it's existence

They're making it harder for people to afford the games

People who are smart will. People who aren't won't. The latter is the problem, as they just fuel these prices.

@@kylemears9356 Thats what Im doing, I'm playing the long game, I'll wait for the crash, which will happen. Then I'll start collecting the games I enjoyed.

This is why I still listen to them when so many people give these two crap. They call stuff a lot.

Definitely. All this is well known by those who know. But the video is a great resource for having it all presented in one place, clearly and effectively. Great tool for those not in the know as well as those in the know.

The overall high prices of the retro game market in general is shady and questionable. We shouldn't be surprised that this crap has been going on for years with rare games.

Well said mate.

@@mccarthy5825 I mean when the inevitable slander suits come in. I'm still waiting on Billy "the bully" Mitchell's comeuppance. RIP Benjamin Smith!

Good thing is Karl has the support of some game devs if he does get sued to help with money for defense

@@colonless7512 id definitely be putting a few bob into the defence fund for this. I can't stand the fact these rich scumbags are pillaging a beloved hobby to just get richer. It's repulsive.

@@colonless7512 Yep and he has a legal defence Kickstarter from back when Billy was threatening himself and others with frivolous bullshit.

I’d bet good money there are at least 100-200 sealed SMB carts out there. Probably more. There’s absolutely no logic behind paying that amount of money for such a common game that they sold so many copies of…except the instant recognizability of “super mario brothers”, the one NES game that every person on the planet knows of. They did it because it was good for news articles to have such a well known game. If it was something obscure (to the average person) like NWC or stadium events, the articles wouldn’t have gained traction.

@@buttguy you’re so right. nailed it.

@@GenerationDown it's the whole "mom digging through boxes in her attic now because her son definitely had that damn mario game" syndrome. That's what makes these articles spread. Hence the insanely pricey mario 3 and mario 64. All Mario games for name recognition.

BIG BIG BIG news was read in Ian's voice btw! lol

Same here! Goldeneye speedrunner in my spare time as well, I too have followed karl and his up and coming youtube channel for a long time. He really has been killing it lately.

@@realpoopypants may I add that, that video also was made into a raffle were you comment the nostalgia or whatever to win a ps5 kinda made on purpose to hide all the comments questioning any involvement or anything in relation. I’m sure there are but they are buried in all the participant comments.

I'm excited for our neo-liberal regulators to at best fine these crooks a small fraction of the profits they've made & for everything to just go back to trundling along as business as usual!

The manipulation started when they posted that Yahoo article about Stadium Events years ago.

I just got a limited run game in the mail today. A lot of people buy them to keep sealed. I opened that box and tore off that seal right away lol. I will say I wanted to get my final fantasy nes graded though, but not with the intention of selling. Other games I don't care. I open and play.

@@TheVoidofNothing11 I’ve got a lot of CIB stuff I’ve owned for 20 years, but i traded off all my sealed stuff a while back simply because i don’t need a game i can’t open and play. If they make s big profit off them, good for them.

@@hellboundTX333 I just don't understand not investing in something with actual equity. Yeah I get the not being able to open and played. I still have a lot of sealed games, but it's all stuff I plan on opening and playing. I had traded all my older console games years ago now I want it all back lol. Especially my SNES and Gensis games.

Wai wha

The sill bidding has gotten out of way out of control in the card market and unfortunately for TCG's it looks like there's a lot of counterfeiting that is still passing by unnoticed.

I love his videos about speed runs

Go ahead and go after him The truth is an absolute defense in any court case brought…… and better than that would be the discovery

Let it crash and burn the disgusting greed is out of control.

Imagine buying video games for clout and status loooooooooooooooooooooooool, showing off sealed games for so much pussy bro. Shits a fucking joke now

I say let it burn, I’m sick of the ridiculous prices.

Let it burst, absolutely tank the market and drive out everyone who isn't passionate about the games themselves. Then those of us who do can have fun again without having to break the bank

Lol you better bought them for that price. They are maybe not rare in general but super rare for that price - if real.

Problem is that there is a better than solid chance this is all technically above board because it the US and it's never not shocking what is and isn't legal when it comes to white collar crime.

Yes, but now this ruined any "natural" market price progression that existed.

It's new and a lot of boomers don't look twice at em.

FTC and FBI will take a quick look on this.

You tell them about Actiblizz & Ubisoft's history of actively protecting & promoting sexual harassers and abusers and predators yet?

Don't pay overpriced games and wait it out. Emulate them if you have to.

One would have to have brain damage to NOT think something shady is going on with all this. It is fairly obvious.

These auctions made it uber obvious some kind of manipulation was going on and I have a feeling the retro game market in general has been affected by these shady practices.

@@mjcook3922 most deff has affected the general retro game market, for games that are so common selling for crazy amounts of money, I’m only buying from actual collectors and video game conventions, I see Pat all the time in Pa at Too Many Games!

Im a huge fan of his from his Billy Mitchell/Todd Rogers vids they are so well done

Just give it some time, the bubbles gonna burst one of these days.

What is illegal? Nothing is. Yes, there are some unethical practices going on, but by and large what pat is hinting at is all speculation.

@@poopy_fingers3324 Market manipulation and shill bidding is illegal.

@@poopy_fingers3324 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qNx8eaiZnLyVaHU.html The companies involved have already been in legal trouble over the coin collecting market.

@@Ammothief41 and how does that relate to this? Again, all speculation.

The comic book speculator boom of the early 90's is another one similar to the 80's coin collecting phase. While SOME (not all, just some) comics from the 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 80's and even a FEW modern age comics are worth money, the vast majority of comics from the 90's are worthless (with only LESS than a dozen exceptions). During the early 90's, thanks to speculators, comics were artificially ballooning up in prices. Speculators / investors, most of whom didn't even read comics, were artificially increasing the prices of many early 90's comics. Comics that were going for inflated prices during the early 90's ended up plummeting hard in value a few short years later to the point where comics that were being sold for over $100 could then be found in $1 discount boxes. When all of those comics plummeted in price (with a FEW exceptions), I went crazy buying most of them for $1, NOT because I wanted them for investment purposes (I knew they plummeted in prices and were going to remain worthless) but because I wanted to READ them. It was a HORRIBLE time for speculators / investors who had $100 comics which plummeted down below $1, but it was awesome for kids like me at the time who wanted to READ them. Something similar will most likely happen with video game collecting.

Correct, Juan Nunez.

@@johnpenguinthe3rd13 This is how I collected Valiant and Marvel around this time.

I got into coin-collecting in 1993, when I was 8 and didn't realize there had been a bubble; I didn't go further than collecting random old US and foreign coins that people gave to me, and I just remembered that the guide to coin-collecting that I had was from 1989, just before the peak. I partly got that interest from Dad, who liked to collect the old Eisenhower dollar coins and bicentennial quarters (he turned 18 in 1976, and that may have been the year he started going steady with Mom, while I know they first met in 1975). I always saw the slabbed coins as something aspirational, and the same thing happened with the 50 state quarters; nearly every coin I have that isn't current ordinary US coinage was given to me in 1993, with the main exceptions being the Euro coins I kept from a high-school trip to Spain in 2002, a British decimal penny I found a few years ago, and a few Canadian coins over the years.

Konami and Capcom especially. SHEEEEEEESH

I’d love to think my collection is worth several billion dollars but people need to know the truth!!!

Also, Pat and Ian are definitely not crazy.

Next Wolf of Wall Street? lol

I want every generation to be able to experience these classics.

They been doing this for like a decade now. Just look at Wario in Pat's flea market videos. lol