galax Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Actually it seems that Gamegavel is not programmed by a mom and pop shop at all, but through a "professional" auction hosting provider. This page showcases Gamegavel as a prime example of their handwork. Their own page looks like a mess. That's just hilarious; GameGavel's auction hosting provider itself is a mom & pop shop with a 15-year out of date website. Sadly, he was selling on Ebay during the peak of all his promoting of GameGavel several years ago at the very time he was trying to get people with high value and truly unique items to list on GG to drive traffic. I don't keep up with this thread much anymore, but I thought I'd leave this here: http://beta.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=163269 I have read stories that he won quite a few auctions of rare games put on the GameGavel site. Being in charge of the site, the theory was that he knew what everyone's high bid was and could use this as an unfair advantage in bidding for items. Perhaps he is personally fully behind his site, but only as a buyer. Putting two and two together, I wonder if there are any examples of Mike picking up 'bargains' on GameGavel (using his Admin access) and flipping them at a higher price on eBay? I wouldn't put it past him. Even if he isn't doing it, it's pretty shocking that the owner of an auction site both buys on that site and sells on eBay. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Now, don't let the Chameleon tarnish the good name of the successful GameGavel: Let Kennedy do that on his own. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lincoln Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Sadly, he was selling on Ebay during the peak of all his promoting of GameGavel several years ago at the very time he was trying to get people with high value and truly unique items to list on GG to drive traffic. I recall specifically calling him out about it on some other forums and I was roundly attacked by Mike Kennedy apologists and Mike himself when I pointed out the serious hypocrisy of asking people to take a chance on his startup business while selling his own high value items on his self described target and major rival, Ebay. Frankly, I'm also pretty disgusted with organizations like SC3 in Southern California that continue to welcome him with open arms to their meetings as a distinguished guest while seemingly ignoring the fraud he attempted to commit with the Chameleon twice on crowdfunding sites and again at the ToyFair. I don't feel like I'm in a position to call anyone out since I'm pretty new to the group, and I don't know the history of the "old timers" so I just kept my distance at the last one. I was surprised to see him there, carrying on like nothing happened (I guess, but not that much). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 (edited) Lets give some numbers for GameGavel. There are 1,331 total items for sale on GameGavel currently. Of those items, approximately 981 qualify as games. There are about 8 active sellers : 759 Japan Retro Direct (Japanese import games only) 318 rick63 (almost entirely Mattel HyperScan cards) 173 tobber101 51 avenger1 23 troglodyte 3 gdement 2 plasticrelic 2 unknown seller Of classic 20th century consoles, for sale there the following number of non-import games : 1 2600 1 7800 2 Intellivision 3 Game Boy 2 Game Boy Color 6 NES 7 SNES 1 32X 2 Game Gear 15 Genesis 22 PSX There is currently 1 item with 1 bid. The top ten list gives 11 bids on 10 items. It also shows 10 other sales occurred in the past month. The highest listed price for a verifiable sale was 31.99. The total sale price for the 10 ten sales was $168.39. Going by the rules of the site, it made $8.64 in fees from these sales. As you can see, the statistics are pretty grim. Unless you are into import games or the HyperScan cards or classic computer games, you are unlikely to find anything to buy on this site. It must be hemorrhaging money in terms of hosting fees. Mike Kennedy does not appear to be on the list of sellers. What a hypocrite. Edited June 10, 2016 by Great Hierophant 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leods Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Mike Kennedy does not appear to be on the list of sellers. What a hypocrite. You can't blame the guy, I mean, he actually want to sell that stuff right? It's all your fault for not using the site to begin with. Mike creates this great oportunity, and you guys just rather pay the exorbitant fees of e-bay, instead of using this much better site. It's that simple. And next time you get hald a game, or a server goes down from a game you love, just remember: Mike gave you a solution, and you just didn't want to support him. Now you'll have to live with your shoddy cellphone games, cause there are just no cartridge games out there anymore. It's that simple. See how easy it is to irritate people? It's that simple. Learning with Mike I'll take my trolling skills to the next level. He's such an amazing troll he even trolls himself in the process. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 There may be room for niche auction or classified sites, but I think they'd have to have a draw beyond just being niche. Swappa is a pretty popular place to buy and sell used smart phones. Granted, part of that popularity may be the extra steps they make the seller take in proving ownership (IIRC it's a picture of the phone with a generated number written on paper next to it). The innernet makes it sound easy to set up an auction site like ebay. Just do Wordpress, then add a plug-in and voila: You're on your way to building your empire. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Lets give some numbers for GameGavel. There are 1,331 total items for sale on GameGavel currently. Of those items, approximately 981 qualify as games. There are about 8 active sellers : 759 Japan Retro Direct (Japanese import games only) 318 rick63 (almost entirely Mattel HyperScan cards) There is currently 1 item with 1 bid. The top ten list gives 11 bids on 10 items. It also shows 10 other sales occurred in the past month. The highest listed price for a verifiable sale was 31.99. The total sale price for the 10 ten sales was $168.39. Going by the rules of the site, it made $8.64 in fees from these sales. Not so fast. When Mike first started the site he was giving away a lot of fee-free lifetime memberships. It's likely that those top sellers don't pay any fees and therefore generate no revenue for GameGavel. It's sad but I think it's completely realistic that GameGavel's revenue might actually be closer to $0. https://www.facebook.com/GameGavel/posts/320974441252776?notif_t=feed_comment_reply 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 This is sure to be more valuable as we grow, so don't miss out on this deal! I'm suddenly having flashbacks to the late 90s and being approached by Dot-Com 1.0 companies offering stock options. GameGavel seems like a venture that would have fit in with the likes of Pets.com and Webvan, so I guess that makes it authentically retro. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 I was going to bold the most interesting parts here, but then this whole paragraph would be bold. This is from back when Mike launched an IndieGoGo for GameGavel: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showpost.php?p=2087300&postcount=4 September, 2006 Since nearly all of our 6000 members have been gifted a lifetime of free selling on it, and the site is selling a few thousand dollars each month of which we see no income, it is the most successful dedicated gaming auction site so far for the users which makes me happy but we really need to start making some money for the business and the crowdfunding option is a way of trying to do that. That paragraph is like 110 proof Mike Kennedy. I can't take that much, I'm done. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 Go home Nico, you're drunk ...on Mike Kennedy juice. Ah for the good old "retro" days when you had to have a real business plan to explain to a bank or venture investor. Giving things away in the hopes that you build enough volume to get paying customers? Begging on crowdfunding sites because you're in over your head? A Jedi craves not these things. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 (edited) Whether Mike Kennedy made $8.64 or $0.00 last month from GameGavel, I cannot imagine that he could sustain that site except out of his own pocket. $8.64 may buy you a Starbucks coffee in Southern California these days. Edited June 11, 2016 by Great Hierophant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 dunno, my server costs are like 4.99 a month once you break it down, and its got more than enough capacity for a site like game grovel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RupanIII Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 LOL, my friend John just found this whole story for the first time tonight...I wonder if he'll try to read it all? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 LOL, my friend John just found this whole story for the first time tonight... I wonder if he'll try to read it all? He should -- I think the narrative arc of "give him a chance" to "look at this stupid mockup" to "what a complete fraud" lays itself out in a compelling way. AtariAge members have even summarized the key events in the first posts if someone doesn't want to read thousands of posts. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masteroftheclaw Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 (edited) Hey folks, have a question for you all. I've lessened on reading this thread as everything is finally cooling off, and may not remember everything in exacting detail anymore. Saw this pop up on my Twitter feed this morning: And here's a tweet showing the internals. I know earlier in this thread there were Chameleons trotted out to at least one gaming related convention. For those, at least, I was under the impression that they were made by people to poke fun at all this drama. However, after commenting about this, I received the following response: So this is different from those previous con images in this thread? And who would the person who built this latest reproduction be, in that case? Update: He says it "wasn't Shane." Edited June 12, 2016 by masteroftheclaw 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKMike Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 The one a SFGE is the one made by Pipercub 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 The way to tell the difference between the real prototype and Pipercub's working reproduction is that the real one is always under an acrylic cube, never to be touched by hands of the unworthy. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipercub Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 (edited) We shared a panel with Bobby Blackwolf and others at SFGE, super nice guy and we all had allot of fun. Yes, it was us showing off the replica and you should see the lights come on when people see it up close from any angle they want and get to hold it, any question it could be anything other than a SNES in a Jag goes right out the window. It was also fun just kind of standing around the booth and listening to people making up their own narratives, telling their friends about the tale from their point of view. We had a funny moment when we went to plug it up, see when I built it I grabbed a SNES mini from a box and was in too much of a rush to test it and never got around to it prior to being at SFGE because it was really intended as a proof of the geometry of fitting the SNES in the Jag. So the first time powered it up the damn thing didn't work! All of us present agreed that it was the only way that could have gone. Edited June 12, 2016 by Pipercub 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+GoldLeader Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 LOL, my friend John just found this whole story for the first time tonight... I wonder if he'll try to read it all? He better pack a lunch... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 He better pack a lunch... . . . for a month 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 What would be an appropriate lunch to prepare? Maybe some plastic food from a sushi restaurant window, promised but never delivered 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 (edited) *packs a one-two Lunch! (runs away) The only food suitable would have to be like that fake plastic fruit you find at craft stores and old lady houses. However, it has to be kept in a clear sealed Tupperware container under lock and key. Edited June 13, 2016 by toiletunes 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schizophretard Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 What would be an appropriate lunch to prepare? Maybe some plastic food from a sushi restaurant window, promised but never delivered Power goes into our microwave and out from our microwave we get lunch. The lunch output is fed to our friend John, here. For the purpose of this demonstration we feed him a simple TV dinner which allows us to provide lunch, using our microwave, and common plastic forks and paper plates. Our microwave runs nice and cool, without a fan. And that is the first step for bringing John's retro TV dinner to life. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Professor Gull Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 Food the the thread? Maybe he could get something made the by mysterious Mr. Lee. The only down side is it would look like food but probably not be real just 3-d printings sprinkled with flavor. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+5-11under Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 Too real, but available in collectible colors: 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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