It begins.... Video game grading

[Doonzmore]

Wow, I had completely forgotten about that cereal. Never ate it myself. Cool box though.

Reminds me of the unopened Batman (1989) cereal I saw at an antique store. It's still shrink wrapped with the free cup. Maybe I should buy it and have it graded too. *rolls eyes*

[Bojay1997]

Someone in the USA should start a competitor grading service for video games and sell their graded games for what they are actually worth and make the VGA look stupid.

Creating yet another grading service would be stupid IMHO. It would just support the idea that somehow this is something collectors need.

[badinsults]

Someone in the USA should start a competitor grading service for video games and sell their graded games for what they are actually worth and make the VGA look stupid.

But that is the thing, VGA already fills the niche, and a competitor is not needed. We have already seen that VGA does not offer a guarantee that the product is legitimate, nor do they clearly state their validation process. It is all smoke and mirrors. The people who are using the VGA service clearly don't care about this. They are only interested in having their item in a hard plastic case, with a number attached to it. The higher the number, the more the customer can brag about it, which I feel is the only reason to justify grading a game in the first place. If someone truly cares about preservation, they take the shrinkwrap off, as it can potentially damage the game as the plastic degrades.

I am still not convinced that grading a game actually significantly increases the price of games in general, after the grading fees are taken into account. Look at the sold listings of VGA on Ebay, there are maybe 20 listings that sold for over $500, and every single one of those titles would garner a high price anyways (mostly Mario and Zelda titles).

[Richter Belmount]

I guess I can send my sealed hydlide nes to vga and will be actually worth something for a change.

[Tanooki]

There is another VGA copycat that got heavy traffic exposure on ebay, but it was also one that got started up by the same guy selling the goods initially on ebay to help puff up the value of his sales. Others did start to use it a bit I noticed only because of all the anger and complaining over at NA that someone would copy VGA and then do it to promote their own crap which is a huge red flag.

Now this guy still sells stuff they've graded to sell so that hasn't changed.
http://www.vgquality.com/

ebay user name was rpgarcana, now it is video_game_quality.

They have a gold scale for sealed and silver scale for unsealed open games that are supposedly unused (equals vga's qualified grade.)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Final-Fantas...item33914a00cf

So there are at least 2 of these graders on the market. Both have the same shady tactics in general, though at least the VGD guy at least tries to be more visually honest to the public by displaying what is used to grade the game from 100 down to 0 and how much they take off for each infraction.
Gold -- http://www.vgquality.com/gold.asp
Silver -- http://www.vgquality.com/silver.asp

[Nesmaster]

I don't need a third party to tell me an arbitrary number on a 20+ year old game. Raw sealed collecting of the few I care to own is good enough for me.

I do see the value in their acrylic cases though, and I wish I could get their cases they use to grade N64 controllers for my M2000, but with a sliding panel and not sealed forever. The graded stuff adds a bit too much bulk.

I own a few VGA'd games, but it's a long and stupid story. I'd sell them if I could replace them with raw copies...

It's a great scheme if you sell the stuff though, a bit redundant and wasteful IMO if you're collecting. But how else can you get $900 for a sealed SMB3? Only with a little gold sticker that says "90".

I have respect for the collector who decides that this is for them, do what makes you happy. Your money, your game.

[Tanooki]

I don't either and I find the entire practice fairly asinine, especially with the blind allegiance to VGA. Even the shady outfit which I quoted in my last post at least puts their standards out there. To trust an entirely unaccountable source you pay good money to rate a game and stick it in a non-removable case (short of smashing it) that can't even keep their own grades consistent is good enough reason not to.

The thing is you nailed it, it's a great scheme to get other like minded types to pay notably more than the game is worth and they're doing it off an entirely false and unbacked promise. Either way though it's whatever someone wants to do with their dough and if they're happy throwing money at it to feel safe, that's cool and if not, that's cool too. I for one have a very high quality copy of Metroid (yellow re-release) for NES and I just shadowboxed it and hung it on the wall as I love the art. I was told to get it graded because of how they felt it would rate, but it just wasn't for me.

[Nesmaster]

The part where VGA lost any sort of credibility with me, is that if you don't agree with the grade you can send it in to have another look over. I've seen "resubmissions" get scored higher the second time. If they have to second guess what they do because I might not agree with the number I paid them to spit out the first time, why should I believe them the second time? Because it's really only going to matter to the reseller. Silver and gold is often the difference between 3 and 4 figures. I've had (have) 85, 85+, and 90 grades, and they all look fine to me. But as a reseller, the difference appears to often be hundreds. That would be your incentive to question them.

For me though, it's about having the game in an unused/new state. Not the number someone came up with based on god knows what sticker is on the case, and if I can now sell a $300 game for $900.

Buying raw allows me to do that much cheaper.

[Tanooki]

That has always been my primary issue with them, credibility, and your point I've used a lot at other sites that people there would resubmit games until they got the grade they felt they were owed on it like they knew better. The only point to keep throwing the same pile of cash at it is cash value to get out of it. I agree on your idea of buying raw, it's what I did with Metroid. I don't even care for sealed games but I didn't see the harm since I have my original gray one with the book still too.

[Nesmaster]

Buying some titles sealed is almost more nostalgic than playing the game to me. My first impression of a given game would be seeing the box hanging in the store, and buying a new copy takes me back to those memories.

Grading games just boils down to too many people/too much money in the hobby.