What do you think about the revelation of the type of person who is investing in this market of graded and sealed games? Are you shocked or is it more common sense based upon how the game collecting scene is? JOIN this channel to get access to perks: shorturl.at/fswBU

"I collect Canadian Quarters... I got about 6 of them"... Deuce Bigelow

Geez - I said "last year" instead of "last week" twice. I truly was groggy from the Dunkin' Donuts breakfast sandwich meat sweats.

I'm guessing WATA has a crap ton of these games in stock somewhere... and WATA is probably who's buying the games (massively inflated) each time to raise the price... to then sell off their "stock" for massive profits...

I have a slightly different theory. They DO know what they're doing. They're trying to artificially raise the prices of sealed games in general in order to get collectors from other markets who don't know anything about games interested. Then they can eventually sell the "valuable" sealed games to those people.

Lucille Bluth: "It's one Legend of Zelda, how much could it cost, $50,000?"

Love how people can spend enough money to feed a village on an “experiment”

There is art selling for $10 million. Coins selling for $2 million. Sports cards selling for $1 million. Why is this not a good investment? The games market is just starting.

The rule "If someone brags about their sealed, graded games, they're not a knowledgeable gamer" has served me well. Some retro gaming podcast had the head of Coleco Holdings on to hype up the (then) upcoming Coleco Chameleon, and when they asked him "so what are your favorite Colecovision games?", the guy couldn't answer. Instead he bragged about about how he had every game sealed and graded sitting on his shelf. He apparently thought that gave him "cred". Instead, it told everybody that this was likely going to be a cash grab, a fiasco, and possibly a scam. All turned out to be correct.

Hey it’s me from the future, just wanted to let you know it get a lot crazier than that $30,000 Zelda. Also that rich dude you talked about and his buddies have been manipulating the graded video game market for future gains.

good way to wash money. left hand sells to the right hand.

This is the same thing that happened to baseball cards and comic books

Makes me think looking at these shelves of games but I feel there is no way the market will stay this high

These people are ruining the video game market! Glad you guys are bringing this light

8:03 Investing in Video Games: *DON'T DO IT* _The More You Know_ 🌈⭐

Laughing with you guys all the way on this one.

James Rolfe is the secret buyer! Edited: After watching more, it can't be James.

More like... Who is ruining Retro Collecting for everyone else ?!

10:04 I can hardly wait till _Rock "The Dwayne" Johnson_ approves of Pat purchasing a team for the XFL and naming the franchise *_The Chula Vista VAALUUE_*

Someone is trying to kickstart a market that really isn't there.

I used to have Spider Fighter for my Atari 2600 back in the day and it was one of my faves!

I was going to, but the $100 I was going to use got graded, so it’s actually worth $300 now, but you won’t be able to put it in your wallet, deposit it an atm, or really be able to spend it. But it’s a perfect 10 and totally worth more now.

Aww... Spider Fighter was the SHIT! I used to have to play it on a black and white TV so I never knew what level I was on until I got to the bananas. Lol

I'm a pretty invested collector, I have games worth thousands of dollars, but I don't do graded anything. I refuse to support that business and I flat out refuse to purchase anything that is graded.

Yep these will be a solid investment in the years to come. Just like baseball cards....

Good to see you reserved about your investment source.

7:32 “maybe this will be like the coin market “seems to be pretty spot on 11 months later

The digital market will never let the prices of physical games go as high as other physical collectible items. It's like holding to an old book. You might have some items with historical value, but in general, that particular media is not the only option available to experience the product, and the availability to the general public is wide.

If I had that amount of money, I would have invested in that Nintendo Playstation prototype. Or just buy my own NWC cart and get it graded myself.

What's a first printing of "Meet the Beatles" worth vs. a download? Bands are re-releasing their albums "remastered" too.

My 2 cents on the rising videogame collectorsmarket: As I currently work in the art market, I can see alot of relations to whats already prominent in the art field to what is starting to happen in the videogame market. Speculators are creating and selling simulacra which is the made up value (both physical but more importantly the simulated value of the items) People buy these items (id say roughlt 7/10 ppl dont know or care about the actual product, only what it represents, in the art market its painly obviouse ppl usually dont know much about art, art history or artists) They buy them to affectly distinguish themselvs from whoever or whatever group they think they dont want to be related to or to a group they want to be related to, this gives them comfort that they have "succeded" or just that they can be acceptetd into the social sphere they want to be a part of. The art is used as an insurance a comfort basicly. Now we have a new generation, grown up with videogames which means they hold comfort and significane to a large population. Most of these as you call them investors (they are prob both specualtors and collectors) are creating the same situation as the art market becaouse there is profit to be had, this is created and maintained and survive for a long time. It will be used in the same way to create socialeconomic distinction. The value isnt whats rare objectily (its a factor sure) but because the value is created artificially (ppl will find smal random things to make stuff more exclusive). Yea maybe obviouse things but thats rly how the art market mainly works and I belive it will happen and be maintained to the videogame market. And I think alot of "old" collectors are upsett of the development becaouse they didnt identify the hobby or themselvs with these ppl or that these factors where relevant for them.

I saw the comment on the last video from the guy who knew the guy who bought these. I was hoping that you would reach out to them.

a rare silver dollar expected to hit $10,000,000.00 after a Pokemon box sold for almost $200,000.00 after Trout cardboard sold for $3,930,000.00 after a Pokemon card sold for $250,000.00 after a LeBron card sold for $1,800,000.00 after a MTG card sold for $250,000.00 after a Mario game went for $83K so games might look relatively dirt cheap to alternative asset collector investors

Ian tries to use a meme. Pat let's it fly over his head. XD

No doubt just looked yesterday actually and seen Mike Tysons punch out sell for shy of 70k, well its their money who am I to say how they spend it. Just sitting on the side lines here and SMH.

I think there's new news with Heritage. Unless I'm searching wrong, they have never had a factory box of mint games for sale. As of right now (11/16/20), they have 57!! All of these WATA prices are drastically over inflated as it is, but now those titles are going to plummet, and now I wonder how many more factory boxes are going to find there way to Heritage Auctions to pop more bubbles.

Good question

You should talk about CIB's because the prices are astronomically high there too. An ungraded MTPO just went for over 600 dollars.

I sold my collection to pay for university. I thought I was doing good by selling my collection in 2016. Sometimes I wonder if I had made a mistake...

What I want to know is how old Deniz Kahn is, as he is the founder of Wata games, and Super Mario Bros. is by Wata and it came out in 1985. So was he 18 back then and he's in his 50s now?

Does that mean you'll start seeing Ebay descriptions titled Sealed Chrono Trigger WATA 9.5? 10?

Ya'll clearly not aware of what is going on in the collectibles market. You sound like every "industry expert" that was hit by the title wave of interest from people moving to "their market". This is art for many. This is only the beginning. Stop acting surprised and just accept it. No matter how many times you question it, it is not going to stop the market. For every surprised "old school" enthousiast, there are 100 "new school" buyers with nostalgia and money. Market is the market, no matter how surprised you are.

Honestly speaking this is why I’m not too worried about the collector market. It’s just money passing hands between high end collectors who only deal in expensive stuff. I AM however worried that these people will also turn to collecting prototypes that should be instead dumped and preserved.

Earlier tonight I was watching a marathon of PAWNSTARS. It was reruns but newer episodes. Anyways the last one I watched a guy had the Wata graded earliest version of Super Mario Bros Sticker sealed(not shrink wrap sealed). So it was the one from the 1st or 2nd test before it's actual release. The guy wanted 1million dollars! No joke. They even brought in a Wata "expert" who couldn't give an exact value but stated offers of $300,000 had been turned down.

There is a difference between I want this game and I want this game for encase of more cash I spent on it years down the line. I do have my own small collection, but it is games I want, not worried about the price don the road.

You need to have Ian's rant on the proto SNES-Station selling for only 300k on the soundboard for when somebody sells something for a stupid amount - low or high.

How much was nintendo world championship??

The coin market has shot up because gold and silver have gone way up in the last decade or so. Even coins in bad condition are still worth the metal value.

Spider Fighter is one of my favorite Atari games.

some guy in sweden has tons NES Games (for zelda, mario, donkey kong etc) that are still like card paper, not unfolded yet into a box. he found them from a swedish nintendo games distributor that had done that with many diffrent boxes for many diffrent things that had been in the warehouse. you cant get better quality on those...

I need to know this guy I have some stuff he needs to see.

Is Pat saying Rick from Pawn stars is buying these games?

Dude, this video aged really well!

I'm so old back in my day the VGA were the people grading sealed games

I bought a sealed Zelda for 500$ and sold it for 1600$. Who cares who's buying!? At this point video games are art!

Spider fighter sold for ?

Lmao wow thanks for letting us know 💯💯💯

It could of people trying to change the market but it’s not the case - like a Zelda nes at the most 100$ average maybe 200$ if it’s perfect. Sealed maybe 300 to 1000$ but even then people getting weird on us.

I collect games because i like and play them. I like to have proper looking games, and prefer to have them complete in my collection. Never cared nor will care for sealed games. As long the boxes look in good condition im in

I should have known it was someone like this who else would pay these outrageous prices?

I want to get my s 1980s Zelda seal game graded

So I wonder if that person that bought all the games from coin collecting was the same guy Karl just outed

Pat, you are trolling a market you should have been wayyy ahead of. Explain to me how a guy like me gets at HA catalog for video games last May and then I swoop in on ebay gobble up games that are rare like karate champ, Japanese import seal, etc and make a killing. I like games. I dont collect games or go gaga for games but I sell them now and some of it is valuable. Atari 2600 are not due too high pop count as well as tyson punchout which will slowly fall. When u see a guy show off 11 graded tyson is a dead giveaway that they are very liquid and priced too high. Some games like some of the Japanese n64 games and sealed longbox resident evil longbox ps1 will command big money. So I come back to my question, how in the hell do u just sit there and not take advantage of a market that you extremely knowledgeable about? You know what is rare yet u just sit on the sidelines and kick rocks. I see u guest spot on all these docs so u have zero excuse and if u come at me with integrity, I will call your bluff as u sit on your channel trying to monetize as many views as u can. It is not hard to figure out what is rare. Hell I bought mario no photopi for n64 which is like the rarest Mario game ever released yet u let a guy like me swoop and grab when u should have grabbed a long time ago. This graded game business was going on for at least 18 months before I came in. And don't delete my comment as what I state about your actions is true.

I wanna get my Atari ET copies graded.

I dont think these old games will mean as much as they did to those growing up playing them. After we are gone, i doubt many of the later generations would be willing to pay anywhere near these idiotic prices without the nostalgia factor to go with it. So its possible, these big spenders are getting f*cked and well deserved too. Thanks to them for contributing to the fall of retro video game collecting as its hardly a reasonable hobby to keep as time goes on.

Last

A testting market for sure, before you know it everyone is doing it. IMO, i think this market will be niche and only thrive on the rarity of what game is graded. Everyone will be bored of big names, super mario etc, so maybe someone could hit it big only if they got something that rare that isn't redundant..*import games*

I collect star wars toys. I always thought you could by up all the luke skywalker's sealed and control the price. It would take about five year to snatch up each copy on ebay. This is probably what happened with these games. They probably have several of these marios stored somewhere. Just like what I thought could be done with star wars but think about this if someone is able to buy up all the super mario's or star wars. Isn't that the actual price. Think about it.

The guys at JR Garage deal with coin collecting and flipping

Imo... Im guessing these types of things are considered "containers" of wealth or like a "physical" stock of some kind that are being traded within the same environment...think of WATA or others as the actual "market" that assigns fluctuating values..this may be a future type of "stock market"...again just My opinion.

I'm not too surprised, most collectibles have times where some people with deep pockets make investments to see hey maybe I'll double my money in a few years. If you were alive then, coins in US had a big switch in the mid-60's 1964 was the last year for 90% silver half dollars, dimes, and quarters. This drove a lot of people to collecting anything pre-1964 then getting into the nuisances of other arenas of coin collecting. Interesting with coins more than like comics or games, the errors are what's worth a TON of money, low mintages and error coins eclipse everything else in that market pretty quick. There's not the "popular" element as much like "Oh this is a Detective comics 27 and the first Batman appearance."

I personally sold 2 years ago most of my video game collection to go into the comic world. I was very successful doing so. I'm now back into sealed video games. But WATA is out of my league. I think it went to high a little bit too fast. I still buy opened video games sometimes to play them, but not to collect. My personal opinion is video games will become unplayable over time. Disk roting, memory failure, foggy plastics, etc. People will play those games via emulators. But sealed games will always be part of history. It will be a proof of the past in perfect condition. Push it far... In 200 years... How much you think a sealed copy of Zelda NES first print will be like? Answering that question will show you the path of it's daily value.

it's mostly resellers. All the gamers i know don't make to much. Maybe someone can save up to get one from the guy who bought a bunch to resell.

I have a few sealed virtual boy games. Am I a millionaire now?

Welcome to the stock market.

Like... so... people who work as stock brokers; for their personal portfolios, they buy stocks in "blocks" and if they buy say, amazon at $3500 a share one month, and it drops to $2,850... they just pick up another share or block of 5 at $2,850; this happens with IPOs all the time, over time your cost basis either goes up or down and the "Long" traders don't care about short term "noise" they just are creating price memories so that in 10-20 or more years, the early price fluctuations just don't matter. If you don't have disposable income for graded video games, it's really not something to care about though.

Buy tulip bulbs! Trust me...😉

Why would someone refer to themselves in the third person?

Maybe you should offer up your advice to these clueless people for a fee.

I think you’re greatly underestimating the expanding market of graded video games. There might not be a lot of whales but I see the people getting stuff graded in the PS1/PS2 market that I’m sure is in other groups. It’s a lot of people even if I think they’re a bit misguided myself.

But there is more than one to auction

9:27 "The Value" button

Seems to me they're manipulating the market, creating more value in the games than they're used to be. Even CIB games are rising due to the new perception caused by these high winning bids. If they continue to auction games for high prices, I'd imagine it will only get worse. However it will create this new overpriced market, and these bidders must have calculated this all out and took the gamble.

Wonder if its a certain coin collector out of Florida that wanted to buy some graded stuff from me. Hmm

Selling my Atari 2600 Moon Patrol in box complete ... Starting bid 1 mmmmmmiiiiillllllllion dollars.

The whole concept of grading video games seems idiotic to me, like I get wanting to verify the authenticity of a game or protecting it in case but games aren't trading cards. You don't enjoy a game looking at the cart or box, you enjoy it by playing it.

collect retro games because you want to play them and/or you have an nostalgic attachment to the medium. Don't do it for some weird speculator's market trying to get rich. That's won't work out the way you think.

This shit just keeps genuine collectors priced out. I want to have a loose copy of Bucky O'Hare but not for 130 dollars! And it. Was steadily declining over the last 4 years, but this grading shit just made it fucking jump up back to 150 again!

Not surprised it's only a few people bidding up on them, It creates a false sense of value that you hope others buy into. With what happened with Spider-Man on the 2600, I'm not sure if it's even worth the risk. Will anyone care about these games in ten years, Will there be anyway to even play them, and what about the future of emulation? Video games aren't like comics, coins or antiques. Remasters and re-releases are happening more frequently now.

I said it on a previous video about WATA but I think its a circle of people who just sell stuff to each other to bump up the price of these games, and wash money. I think you just cant be any geek off the street and sell in these circles. You haver to be in their club. It sounds shady and incestuous and these guys just sell this crap back and forth to each other

These people are probably wiping their asses with $100 bills and don't give a shit. They will probably still make money out of it.

What about Combat? You know, combat.

I don't know man millionaires can just get all the games and put them in a safe and it won't affect them too much and sell the games when there worth more and make double

6:11 Pat: Spend $150K on Video Games, Ian Reaction: Boring! I don't care.

When you have too MUCH Money so you just start buying shit because it's EXPENSIVE that seems to be how those people work to them if it's expensive it must be good.

How about a 660,000 Mario 🤣

there not buying them at these prices to make money

If only we knew the full scope of this scam back when this video came out…

Why? Lol

If it's people who have been collecting items with a long-established market for them, then is it their experience that says video games are a good investment? If it is an investment then why are these people comfortable with paying such a high price? Doesn't paying as little as you can mean a higher profit margin later? Just because they can afford to spend five or six figures doesn't mean it's a amart thing to do.