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[Evil Calvin]

Some of the current auctions

The prices here are insane? A long box Resident Evil for $21,000 bid? There is no way it's worth more than a few hundred. Who would pay that? Then Mario Kart 64 for $8,200? Really? The game sold 10 million copies. There are a lot of sealed copies out there. There has been some questions about how these companies operate. Apparently the grading companies charge, not a flat fee, but a percentage of what the game is worth. So it behooves them to work with auction sites to drive up the prices so they get more money AND the auction site gets a cut from both the grading company and the sale of the game. At least that is how I heard it worked for comics. There was some shady stuff going on a few years ago with Mario 64 selling for millions. Some money laundering or some other BS going on.

But these types of things are ruining collecting for people. Sure, some RARE games that were niche or just had low print runs (Rule of Rose, Panzer Dragoon Saga) should be worth a lot......but in no world is there a reason that a million seller game (even if it's supposedly factory sealed) should be selling for anything close as what these bids show. Someone probably had a box of sealed games and is trying to drive the prices up.

 

[acm2000]

if you bothered to actually read the auction for the RE ps1, its sealed and "On Wata's June 2023 population report, there are zero copies of this variant graded higher numerically out of just five total. "

on the same page is a normal copy currently at $360

collectors are mental, nothing is new here.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

The collectionist world skyrocketed prices thanks to con artists and social media. Cards and videogames have seen an astronomical increase in interest and price

 

[nowhat]

 

[Evil Calvin]

if you bothered to actually read the auction for the RE ps1, its sealed and "On Wata's June 2023 population report, there are zero copies of this variant graded higher numerically out of just five total. "

on the same page is a normal copy currently at $360

collectors are mental, nothing is new here.

Still not remotely worth anything more than $1,000. Variant or not.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Still not remotely worth anything more than $1,000. Variant or not.

It’s worth what people will pay, not something you get to decide for everyone else

 

[Evil Calvin]

It’s worth what people will pay, not something you get to decide for everyone else

My point is that those are not real bids. They are driving the price up. No one is paying 21K for Resident Evil. It's not even that rare.

 

[GamesDontSuck]

There was some scam years ago. I forget the ins and outs but basically some place was artificially inflating the price of items when grading.

Don't believe anything for one second when it comes to these quotes. Of course, at the same time, if something sells for X and some sucker buys it then it's worth X.

 

[diffusionx]

It's a lot of scam artists "buying" shit from each other back and forth to inflate the prices and get headlines, and hopefully find a few marks.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

I forgot where I posted a comment a few years ago about the NES game “Gotcha” selling for thousands. It’s all a scam. Games are listed, the sellers place ridiculously high proxy bids on their own items, the game “sells”, and that is the new price anchor.

 

[BennyBlanco]

They’re a scam

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

it's a scam from grifters

 

[bigdad2007]

Go watch some of the deep dives on this on YouTube. The grading companies own/are in close business ties with the auction companies and the people posting these insane auction bids.

It is all a scam and the people involved have been caught and convicted of the same fraud before. No normal person is out there spending $1M on Mario Bros.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Some of the current auctions

The prices here are insane? A long box Resident Evil for $21,000 bid? There is no way it's worth more than a few hundred. Who would pay that? Then Mario Kart 64 for $8,200? Really? The game sold 10 million copies. There are a lot of sealed copies out there. There has been some questions about how these companies operate. Apparently the grading companies charge, not a flat fee, but a percentage of what the game is worth. So it behooves them to work with auction sites to drive up the prices so they get more money AND the auction site gets a cut from both the grading company and the sale of the game. At least that is how I heard it worked for comics. There was some shady stuff going on a few years ago with Mario 64 selling for millions. Some money laundering or some other BS going on.

But these types of things are ruining collecting for people. Sure, some RARE games that were niche or just had low print runs (Rule of Rose, Panzer Dragoon Saga) should be worth a lot......but in no world is there a reason that a million seller game (even if it's supposedly factory sealed) should be selling for anything close as what these bids show. Someone probably had a box of sealed games and is trying to drive the prices up.

Heritage is a well known scam. It's all inside dealing, including buying their own games at outrageous prices to drive up the perception of value and legitimize them as an I"investment". And they focus on games that aren't actually rare or valuable and instead are "perfectly graded" because they buy up warehouses of inventory of this shit and they're owned by the same people who do the grading.

 

[blacktout]

Came here to post this.

One of the greatest pieces of investigative games journalism in the last several years, and, what do you know, it was done by a youtuber and former speedrunner and not a clickbait-mongering "games journalist."