What do you think? Did Wata break any laws in their unethical promotion/marketing of their services? Do you think anyone will be held accountable? Watch Karl's video @kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o7GSqLGouJPLkX0.html

As a coin collector, the importance of population reports has always been integral to the perceived value of a coin: I smelled this shit pile when y'all first started talking about it. Virtually every NES came with SMB. It is not Action Comics #1. Sealed okay, but still. Numasmatic collectors are so pedantic that there are independant entities that have their own pop reports for certain series of coins that are slabbed, like Barber Dimes and Morgan Dollar collectors, I hope this Jobst expose brings some sensibility to game collecting. Appreciate ya guys. ^_^

I miss the days when these games were sold NEW for dirt cheap prices. Now it's like, if someone has a new retro game, they think it's worth gold. I'll never understand how these games get these ridiculous values. Sure, in a few cases, I can see why (NWC cart, either version; Cheetahmen II). But in general? I mean, it's not like these games are the same as coins where you can say a coin is worth X dollars due to the amount of gold in it. They're video games! What kills me is that this situation really hurts the game market. Because if only the super rich can afford these games, there won't be as many games making their way through the market. It used to be cool to go to a yard sale and find some old games for a dollar or two. Now every yard sale, even crap shovelware for the Wii, they slap $10, $15 price tags on them. And it's because, like you said, all the big outlets print is stuff like "Super Mario Bros. Cart Sells for Over $1 million" and that's all people see: old games are worth big bucks. And it makes it harder for those of us trying to collect because we LOVE the hobby because it's driving up all the prices. And who benefits? People like Halperin and Kahn. One day, hopefully soon, the bubble will burst, these people will realize how stupid they're being, and prices will come down to more reasonable levels again. I'd love to be able to pick up a copy of Turtles in Time for $20, or even an Earthbound cart for $60. I think that burst is going to happen soon with the trickling out of these population reports. Because once people see that their "rare, one-of-a-kind" game isn't all that rare or one-of-a-kind, they're gonna realize they were suckers and will try to sell fast to stop them from losing ALL their money they bought it with.

Action Comics #1 isn't even a good comparison. Action Comics #1 was the first appearance of Superman, first appearance of Mario was Donkey Kong arcade in 1981. I don't see DK cabs selling for 1.5 mil.

Karl Jobst is awesome!

I am glad that Patrizio and Ian made it abundantly clear at the start of the video that they were talking glowingly about manscaped not because they necessarily love the product but because it was an ad they were paid for. Now if WATA and heritage auctions could have been that transparent about their connections the games market of today would be very different

Video Game Journalism concerns itself primarily with advertising new releases and puff pieces that grab attention without causing any sort of action. Even the "journalists" themselves often state it is not "real journalism" like you would find in the NYT or even your local news. Investigative pieces tend to paint your publication as a risk to video game companies and can get you shut out of the information pipeline primarily used to hype new releases or basically just advertise some company. This is why you never read about some of the toxic habits of game company culture or anything meaningful from gaming 'journalists', but instead will read about it first in Ars Technica or the Washington Post, even though some gaming 'journalists' have been aware of it for years. They are not journalists, rather they are more just shills selling hype to readers in exchange for special access they can use to sell more hype to readers.

Thank you for calling out the Journalists Pat.

As an apology for that time I accidentally annoyed Pat by making fun of Pat math, I actually used his sponsor link. I hope that's penance enough Patrick.

Who will get civil penalties first: WATA or the Amico? Will WATA grade any Amico products and sell them on Heritage Auctions? Find out on the CUPodcast!

It's sad that a speedrunner has to do the journalism because the "real" "journalists" can't do their job properly.

It becomes something so different when money gets earned. Like emulation. If you have a product and just add the media on to it to play personally, youre fine. You start to monetize that relationship, sell the product with the games on it, youre going to face a suit.

There I was completely wasting, out of work and down. All inside, it's so frustrating as I drift from town to town. Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die. So I might as well begin to put some action in my life. Breaking the law, breaking the law. Breaking the law, breaking the law. Breaking the law, breaking the law. Breaking the law, breaking the law.

What happened to all of Ian's laptop stickers?

I feel so badly for Dain, I believe that he wouldn't have sold it had he known. That was years of work, very sad that no one had a back-up of the data. No one will be held accountable until someone files complaint with FTC or files suit against Heritage.

I am posing this here for a few reasons: I hope that it will be informative to people who are considering doing a submission to WATA; and wondering if anyone might have any advice. My brother and I did two Speed Run orders (originally quoted 30 days) with WATA totaling 8 sealed games. They then silently changed the Speed Run service time on their site to 45 days (without notice). It has now been 7 months. (Unfortunately this is our first experience grading games.) We have sent over a dozen emails and they only reply back with script messages. What kills us is that their site still lists that tier of service at 45 days which is just asinine to new customers who will be screwed from the start. We understand it has been busy, there is still some shortages due to a pandemic and the company has relocated, but there are many shady business practices that have happened in these experiences that gave left a very sour taste in our mouths. At this point we are for sure not going to be using them again any time soon (sadly), but after we get them back we plan to submit an extensive claim to the Better Business Bureau. We dare not file the complaint now because we have heard that others who have done so were sent their games back ungraded and given a refund. WATA needs to change their business model on customer service. With their current strategy, in my opinion, they are going to continue loosing a lot if credibility and integrity within the community because if these poor choices. What also kills us is that in January of 2021 we also sent a 400-card Pokemon card submission to PSA and still have not received that back either (our first card grading experience). I bring this up only because PSA has apparently bought WATA. With the two submissions we are at over a thousand dollars in services (and more money in purchasing items) that is just being held up for an absurdly long time from what should be 30/45 days. We have asked about partial refunds and they have sidestepped those questions. Again, any advice would be helpful. I would also welcome ways that I could spread the word of this experience so others have a better idea of what they are getting themselves into so they don’t have the same experience as us. I look forward to new companies to do business with in the years ahead. Happy Gaming~

Who were those journalists that told you that this was all okay? We probably need to start naming and shaming here

I wish prices would go down on collectibles. My GI Joe collection is worth a lot more than I paid in the 90s. Do I want to sell it? No. These are like my childhood friends. When I go in the man cave they all yell my name. It’s like Cheers.

I'm from Lancaster and use to shop at just press play. I love their store. But I was sooooo mad when I heard Zac was behind this. Few of us local lancaster gamers asked about it on their page with no response what so ever. But with my built snes mini with almost everything from 2600 to ps1. So no reason to get retro games there anymore

What is the link for the Legal Bites video?

Came here for video game news, stayed for the stanky ball ads

Inb4 American Greed: Wata Games and Heritage Auctions episode

Some games journalists (and other journalists as well) don't like covering ethics topics that can blow back onto themselves, and the need to properly disclose their own relevant connections and friendships in articles is such a topic. Some games journalists can become quite vehement against such topics. I'm sure some journalists loved "Gamergate" for the opportunity it presented to shut down undesired questions. For years in some circles I saw any public conversation that even approached questioning journalistic ethics get shut down with someone shouting "Gamergate". The label was used as a catch-all solution to immediately discredit a question, discredit anyone who might try to continue to pursue the question, derail the conversation flow away from the question, and justified shutting down the conversation.

That ad was the most enthusiasm I've ever seen out of Ian 😆

Pat, I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I have no idea what you and Ian are talking about. But I do love your passion!

Hopefully more people are smart enough not to buy in on the ridiculousness that is going on with slabbed Games, VHS, Cards, Comics, Toys etc. The bubble on all these industries needs to burst wide open because it is all artificial and mostly subjective no matter how long a grading companies checklist is. No doubt there is probably manipulation and other corruption going on behind the scenes with these grading companies too. Where there is smoke there is most definitely fire.

Sealed Market Madness

My gf used to work at Just Press Play. I met the owner once who bought this thing. Freaking ridiculous. I heard about it a little before anyone really talked about it. Crazy amount of money.

After I sent my games to get graded. Zack from press play had a friend of his offer me money for my collection while wata had my games and Before I got the grades back.I didn’t know they all were connected. Then I saw my stuff being sold in their EBay store.

Screwing over rich people rarely ends well. I think they will get sued to oblivion. It's safer to do like TT and screw smalltime investors over. Same shenanigans, different ballpark.

Pat I'm not sure how you play the voicemails but can you please get a direct input to the recorder and at least try to level out the volume? 50%+ of the time I can not even hear the people that are leaving you messages.

I miss buying games at reasonable prices. Now everything is ruined. WATA is not only responsible for this "bubble" but also they planted the GREED SEED in people, non-gamer resellers buying up games just to make quick easy money, ridiculous price increased in stores and online, etc. The people who are really passionate of video games got screwed big time here. It's the worst time to buy. But to those who need the money, well now's the time.

Wata games has other trouble right now. They have peoples games that have not been graded for months now. People paid for 15 day speed grading, and there still waiting 6 months counting.

Manscaped + BlueChew = HoHoHo

Is it wrong for WaTa to send someone to buy your games after you send them in to get graded and they have them? This happened to me and I didn’t know they were this bad

When my brother and I were looking for some NES games we didn't have, he bought Zelda, Metroid, and Mario 2 for 2 dollars each loose from a classmate. If the prices were still that low, I'd be more into the hobby, not less. Cheap is good if you want to play the games.

Ian, where'd all your stickers go?

Journalists simply don't want to poop where they eat.

Watagate?

"SEEEEAALLED!"

Wata capitalized on people's rumoring beliefs about common games being rare, smart business honestly, business is about exploitation. Case in point that they made the most money on common games and not rare titles

I have quite a few sealed games I've been collecting since the NES bargain bin days at Kay Bee Toys - if I sell them, it'll be privately and ungraded. F these people, refuse to support them.

"Manscaped is having a BIG BIG BIG promotion!"

Where can I purchase this bread?

Ian for sure uses the product. Lol seems like good stuff no lie

I hope they go after the Card Colllectionist people

Its hilarious that Karl's video is also sponsored by Manscaped. Haha

The collectables hobby is unregulated so what will all this prove? The buyer of that $1.5 million Super Mario Bros would have to make the lawsuit. I agree that the Jobst videos prove that the whole thing stinks but video game collectors will have to deal with this. I and many high grade comic book collectors saw this happen with the introduction of CGC and it's insiders. Video games are now cemented in Pop Culture and those games that are hard to find will increase in value. WATA did introduce their population report so you have to give credit there. Hard core gamers can always buy cartridges and play those. Sealed games are in "finite" supply and the more collectors that want them will drive up prices which is why you need a good grading company. There will be three soon (VGA and CGC) so let's see what happens. Competition is always healthy.

These guys would WATA grade their own grandma

Tsk tsk.

Holy Shit, I retro CUPodcasted... This is funny. What are u guys looking at in this video? LOL kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hJd_acd_zdmcYo0.html

FWIW finally heard Karl say his own name. Jobst sounds like job not the book of the bible.

Modern game journalism is a total joke.

Graded games are goofy

2:01 - Skip the balls.

KZfaq: How to destroy your career in less than 4 minutes

Please drop the Manscaped sponsor guys, I dunno if they're telling you to do spots that long but it's just so awkward

Throw them in the slammer. Make a example out of them. Lot of wrong doing going on.

Getting so fed up with that Manscaped crap everywhere! Bollocks to Manscaped... 🤔 Or should that be, Bollocks _for_ Manscaped...? 😝 (I just let my girl get busy with the shears on me whenever she wants to! 😊 Which is virtually never, thank fuck! And she IS gentle when she does...) 🤔 😉👉🏼👌🏼 ✊🏼🙂👍🏼

Why did it take a youtuber to shine a light on this? Because game-journalism is a joke!

#watagate

Let’s goooooooo

Fiiiiiiiiiirrrrrssst and I'm seeeeeeaaaaaalllllleeeed

glad they got exposed

I'll take some of that bread, not that I need it or anything :shiftyeyes:

wata should be cancelled just like the leaderboards at twingalaxies

Ian is thinking, ' I don't need no magic bread to make this baby grow any longer, keep it for yourself Pat"

Does that mean religion is puffery?

Let's go graded games!! :)

I groan at the Manscape 'balls' marketing. I only laugh ironically because it's so stupid and old.

KZfaq was so much better before KZfaqrs started selling fucking electric shavers.

Holy BLM balls. 3min ad at beginning.

Where can I get this boner bread?

I really could do without Ian talking me into taking care of my balls and whatnot. Just sayin'

biggest gripe i have with yall is the annoying shilling. i get it you need the money.. but why do they have to be so long and annoying/cringe.