http://www.gamesniped.com/forum/showthread.php?t=180
I found this interesting... Seems like they are only putting grade markers on the front of the cases for the NES/2600 stuff. I'm not sure where the other games 'id lables' are.
http://www.gamesniped.com/forum/showthread.php?t=180
I found this interesting... Seems like they are only putting grade markers on the front of the cases for the NES/2600 stuff. I'm not sure where the other games 'id lables' are.
Because it makes no attempt to be great, it is therefore extremely great.
Some of My Game Collection Mah Mac n' Cheese Blog
Grading games wtf?
I thought about this a few years ago and thought to myself "what a good idea". Its actually fucking retarded. I look online the other day and see some douchebags that grade action figures grading video games. Who the fuck do these guys think they are. Like they are the authority in grading games. They are the end all be all. These guys are the assholes that are going to drive the fucking prices down. Boycott these fucks. Dont support their business.
Rare or not, I am all for prices going down on everything. Maybe it is only me, but for me, it is not about the money.Originally Posted by dcx516
If it is all about making money for you, than that is you. I say let them drop the prices down
I hear ya, but if you paid a lot for a game, you want that price to either stay the same or go up. I would rather the value of a game go up because it's demand is higher, not because some asshole graded it.
Anyway, are their services really a success? They're at it since at least a year I think and we practically don't see any of their auctions up...
I don't know what kind of retarded move it was to call themselves "VGA" for Video game collector authority or whatever when a good part of your "reputation" or publicity is to be made on a well known "auction site" like your AFA counterpart...
VGA is kind of a popular word on eBay... even in the videogame section!... so it's impossible to search for their graded items.. thus.. nobody is really interested in using their services...
No really... what a nice marketing move to call themselves VGA... I think we should considers ourself lucky that they are this stupid... and a year later, it seems they still didn't get it...
Grading of video games is as much of a scam as grading of anything else.
Imagine you have a commodity. Now someone springs up an organization that provides a "service" to grade that commodity (and thus help determine its value). Before long, anyone who owns one of these commodities has no choice but to get his graded (paying the associated fees to the organization, of course) because enough people are convinced that grading is important and thus without a grade the value on the market is lower.
Now, in some cases I have less of a problem with the concept. Comic books, for instance. Because you can't see the entirety of the comic (there are a lot of pages in there) having a numerical guide can help you trust that the seller isn't trying to pawn off a fabulous looking cover with a bunch of torn, coffee stained pages inside.
But the idea as a whole still rubs me the wrong way because of how arbitrary is all is. A perfectly mint commodity that isn't graded is valued less than an inferior copy that is. That screams "idiocy" to me.
And Ebay makes it a bit worse because I'm certain these VGA guys are using shill buyers and sellers in an attempt to convince the public that their 85% Super Mario Bros. 3 is really worth $400. Then, of course, they got the market by the balls because anyone with a minty copy of Mario 3 will have no choice but to pay the grading fee in order to sell it for that much.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-09-2008 at 05:26 PM.
Couldn't agree more Tony. There also seems to be some discrepancy with the grades they are giving out. I've seen 85's that 'should' be 70's. Silliest thing ever.
I remember someone telling me about how high rolling coin collectors buy graded coins, break open the casing, and resubmit them in an attempt at scoring a higher grade to make an instant profit. I know jack about coins but I do know that they don't improve in quality over time so if this does happen then that just adds more evidence to how arbitrary it all is.
Give me a nice looking copy of anything and I'll slap an 80 on it. Now give me something a little worse looking and I'll slap a 75 on it. Now give me a fantastic looking copy and I'll put a nice 95 on there. Hey, look, I can do this too! Anyone want to pay me $20 to tell you how nice your nice copy of something is?
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-09-2008 at 05:31 PM.
thats how it started with comic books. some idiots decided they were going to be the authority in grading comics now look at it, people are buying comics and grading them and selling them on ebay for ridiculous amounts of money. my father in law is a very big collector of comics, any comic he buys according to him has to be graded or else it isnt worth anything. regardless of whether or not it is graded it should still be worth something.
Video games are NOT a good investment, and never have been. If you're worried about losing some imaginary money because of fluctuations in the market, then I suggest you find a better use for your money.
--Zero
The sad truth is that nobody trusts their own judgment. I doubt these "professionals" have any real skill or machinery that any layperson can't obtain. They put a grade on something and say "You gonna believe us or your lying eyes?" It doesn't take a genius to look at a game box and see if it's scuffed, torn, creased, crushed, etc. If it's not something you'd want to display then don't buy it. If it is something you'd want to display then go for it. You don't need some third party to tell you how much you want that copy. If you do this with anything else it just shows how silly it all is. I'll open a crappy restaurant and stick a Zagat flyer in my window. If you don't think my food is good, well, there's something wrong with you. Likewise, if you see a roach in your food I'll just point at my "Satisfactory" notice from the health inspector. You must not have seen what you think you did.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-09-2008 at 06:24 PM.
Unfortunately, it's same ideal to who gives what right or authority to place VALUES on video games.
People do as basis for comparison, but truth be told, no one has any say on what value a game has...that is solely determined by each individual person.
Proud owner of a Neo 25 Neo Geo Candy Cab!
there is no good way to invest money, especially during the times we live in. but i would never consider video games as monetary investment. im just pissed that people are profiting off of something they now nothing about.
Assigning values can have some basis in market research though. It's entirely possible to come up with a reasonable estimate of what a game should sell for by watching ebay, chuckwagon, forum sales, etc. That's not to say that everybody will pay or charge what any guide says, but it can be a good starting place. If nothing else, it can show what the market will bear and set a reasonable expectation for a buyer as to what it may cost.
Grading on the other hand, that is purely subjective as has been proven time and time again in comics and coins. Catch a grader on a bad day and your 90 grade becomes a 70 and you'll never know why.
Check out www.videogameconsolelibrary.com for all of your console review needs!
True, one can make estimates based on how much games have gone in the past, with the exception of the "desperate buyer".
But before Ebay, CtC, and stores that dealt with video games in detail...how can anyone come up with a price for a game? For example, I see a game and because it's not easy to find, I say "I say this game costs $100". There is no actual basis for it back then, though now I would understand.
I agree that grading is stupid. Still, if it makes them happy, let them be.
Though the grading thing reminds me of the "Most Popular" highschool list.
Proud owner of a Neo 25 Neo Geo Candy Cab!
And that's an even bigger problem. There's no accountability because there's no quality control. The standards are too abstract for there to be any quality control.
Well you could always judge based on your own experience if you didn't have Ebay. If you notice your $100 copy of Mario 3 is collecting dust on the shelf you'll probably conclude that's higher than the market will sustain. If two people negotiate a price both can live with then that's great. The problem with grading is that it's a third party that tries to control those negotiations from afar with the sole purpose of making a mint on all the grading fees they take in for doing something that these buyers and sellers could do just fine themselves. They feign authority with the hope that one of the parties will say "Wait, before I buy/sell this I want to know from experts how much it's worth." The punchline is that the experts are only that because they put on a nice face and tell you they are. I feel like the only reason they're respected at all is because they were the first to get there.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-09-2008 at 07:24 PM.
as mentioned before, if you're buying video games based on some possible future value, then you're doing it wrong.*
play the game and enjoy it. if the price goes down, more people can afford to enjoy it.
*unless you have a store. in that case, caveat emptor.
I suppose I was a little concerned about this when VGA started up a year or so ago, but generally I think most collectors have avoided using their service simply because it's expensive and arbitrary. In addition, as I pointed out at the time, all they are grading is the outside box and seal. They have no idea what's inside or if the game is working or not. Essentially, they are a box grading service which is much less than what gets graded when someone submits a comic, coin, action figure or sports card to a service where they can technically grade the whole item. My bigger fear is the inflation that's happening with sealed stuff on Ebay in general which is out of all proportion to rarity or even demand in most cases. There are also a lot of people now buying stuff on Ebay and immediately relisting it for double the price. Sure, nobody buys it, but it takes it out of the natural market circulation that keeps prices stable. Of course, at this point I have most of what I want collection-wise and the stuff I don't have I typically resort to non-Ebay sources, so I'm not losing any sleep over it.
This is going to be a long post because there is nothing on TV and I'm eating dinner.
It's obvious why the demand exists in any sort of collectible market. When people are paying thousands of dollars for an item that can be easily counterfeited, or the quality of the item can be easily lied about, a authoritative, impartial third party seems like a fantastic idea.
But in practice it can only make things worse, especially with video games. The internet is covered with thousands of reasons why collectible grading systems are flawed, so there is no reason to get into the specifics here.
Grading just seems like an easy shortcut when collecting, but really it's all up to the buyer. If you're a true collector of anything, you owe it to yourself to do the research, ask the seller the questions, and make as informed of a purchasing decision as you can, and you don't need anyone to grade your purchases.
I'll just spell it out as follows. There really aren't that many people buying older video games. Between emulation, ports, re-releases, and services like the virtual console, there really aren't a whole lot of people who buy older games.
Hardcore collector: You owe it to yourself to do the legwork on a purchase. Otherwise you're just a moron who buys things because they are "valuable" and "rare".
Dabbling collector: You owe it to yourself to do the research you aren't getting ripped off on the more expensive purchases.
Occasional purpose for quick nostalgia: You're going to overpay on the item because you want it now, and you want the original, but to you, you aren't buying the game, you're paying what you want to on nostalgia itself. Some dude just happens to make more money than he should off of it. Due to the fact that emulation is, for most people, better than the original, the people who end up making purchases of old games off of quick nostalgia will always a much smaller number than those who pick up Activision Anthology and call it a day.
Moron who buys things because they are "valuable" and "rare". Just because you spent $500 on it, and tell your friends it's a "hard to find, rare vintage game", it's still Combat, and you'll have a tough time reselling at that price, unless you find another moron.
Investor: Video games are, for the most part, a terrible investment. There are much better, more secure ways to make money faster. If you're the guy who gets really upset when that game you spent so much on gets re-released on the newest system at half the price, killing the value of the original, go pick a new investment strategy where this kind of stuff is less likely to happen. You can still buy games, but not as an investment.
Collector, looking to just collect something as a hobby: These are the guys who help drive up the demand for services like this in other hobbies, and don't seem to understand that a huge part of why people collect games is because they can play them (not that I... err those people ever actually get around to it). These people are different than the investors because they don't track the value of their collection as fanatically, and often end up making oddly priced Craigslist posts when they eventually need to sell some things off.
Guy looking to make some money, or just a quick buck: These are the kind of guys who buy large lots off of Craigslist, and then resell them piecemeal. A lot of people complain about these guys, but they really are the oil that keeps the collecting machinery going. If you're going to run your own business, why not sell something fun?
Guy looking to outright scam others: Usually won't fool a hardcore collector, but might make ten thousand dollars off of a moron, selling him a converted Kizuna Encounter.
Very few people end up benefiting from a grading system for collecting video games in any condition, and if you are talking sealed games specifically, the market is just so small, and the system is too flawed.
Anyways, don't assume due to the length of this post I'm some super gung-ho collector who lives and dies by games not getting graded or anything. I don't like grading systems obviously, but the post length is due to there being nothing on TV, and I can talk for hours on the most marginal subjects.
Well most people buy it for that reason but that doesnt mean there looking to resell it. I just bought a copy of Dracula X and i plan on keeping it even though i dont own a pc engine or a turbo duo.Occasional purpose for quick nostalgia: You're going to overpay on the item because you want it now, and you want the original, but to you, you aren't buying the game, you're paying what you want to on nostalgia itself. Some dude just happens to make more money than he should off of it. Due to the fact that emulation is, for most people, better than the original, the people who end up making purchases of old games off of quick nostalgia will always a much smaller number than those who pick up Activision Anthology and call it a day.
Moron who buys things because they are "valuable" and "rare". Just because you spent $500 on it, and tell your friends it's a "hard to find, rare vintage game", it's still Combat, and you'll have a tough time reselling at that price, unless you find another moron..
Last edited by super nes; 12-09-2008 at 08:50 PM.
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