Exposing fraud and deception in the retro video game market

[Keatah]

Because more money can be made?

[Tanooki]

Not just the shady affiliations, but basically committing some parallel levels of fraud on a footing of insider trading too.  Plugging things, popping their own shit up for sale, making fraud high end sales to fake the value on key games, etc.  They should be shut down, locked up, and financially through civil court destroyed.  It's astonishing all these clowns who bought into this crap are defending it, well, almost...with that kind of money they don't want to look like the next Enron level pack of suckers.

[+neogeo1982]

10 hours ago, Tanooki said:

almost...with that kind of money they don't want to look like the next Enron level

Or old Bernie. I'm sure Bernie would show these guys around the cell block.

[+jgkspsx]

Enron hurt more people than even exist in the entire retro game community, and hurt them much worse. I think Madoff is a closer comparison, but even in his case a lot of the people who lost money were not suckers who fell for guaranteed returns but people whose pension funds and money managers were his suckers. I can’t imagine any pension funds are investing in these speculative collectibles.

 

But that’s not to minimize the harm that these grading firms, the price inflation they are accelerating, and the platforms that enable them can cause to their suckers. The people most likely to consider these investments are the people who can afford to lose the money the least, as with Beanie Babies, comic books, and baseball cards before them.

 

I wouldn’t invest in video games, that’s for sure. I have bought some expensive ones, usually decently below the supposed market rate, but if I ever sell them I will be looking to get back what I spent if I can even get that.

[Keatah]

Shit.. when it comes to morality and money and trying to do the right thing - no one ever got rich by being a goody two-shoes. Sell for the highest price possible or forever regret it!

[+jgkspsx]

It’s no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money. (Assuming you’re starting out with enough money to make more money, that is.)

[Tanooki]

4 hours ago, neogeo1982 said:

Or old Bernie. I'm sure Bernie would show these guys around the cell block.

I had started to use him, then went for something uglier.   Bernie I considered more an ass who abused individuals more, so I went with Enron because it's a larger business sized endeavor of defrauding people in large which is what those assclowns at WATA+HA have colluded to do for considerable investment funds.

[+neogeo1982]

M.Stewart got caught for insider trading, I'm sure these guys will too. Give it time.

[+jgkspsx]

22 minutes ago, neogeo1982 said:

M.Stewart got caught for insider trading, I'm sure these guys will too. Give it time.

Memorabilia is not regulated by the SEC, unfortunately. (And she was a babe in the woods compared to the people in the investment sector who make their livings through more subtle insider trading… but that might be getting too political for the rules.)

[Rhomaios]

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

Shit.. when it comes to morality and money and trying to do the right thing - no one ever got rich by being a goody two-shoes. Sell for the highest price possible or forever regret it!

You know, we're living in a society! We're supposed to act in a civilized way!

[Rhomaios]

[Can't edit, but for reference...]

 

[+frankodragon]

Back in the 1980's there was a very similar thing going on with overgrading collector coins.  Long story short, that bubble burst.  I don't want to name one of the guys involved because he doesn't deserve recognition, but let's call him Mr. Sleazeball.  Mr. Sleazeball founded a coin grading business and was charged with a $1+ million fine for misleading customers.  Forward to today and guess who is involved with the video game scandal?  That's right, Mr. Sleazeball.  

[+GoldenWheels]

Damn talk about fraud....

https://kotaku.com/retro-fake-forgery-bbpcgc-pc-ultima-classic-sales-group-1848998869?fbclid=IwAR3nOchSYFQT29S3ozti65UMgB3nE1wVmF6Gl8dvEXOBHa_FX2VEvjkNuOY

 

"Wildly, it’s even believed that while most of Ricciardi’s fakes were sold directly to buyers, the group says “there is at least one black box Ultima 1 that we think may be fake that was graded by WATA.”

 

WATA grading fake games is just....perfectly on par.

[+jgkspsx]

*chef kiss*

[Lost Monkey]

 

WTF?!? This is on Kijiji locally....

[Austin]

I'm sure a lot of things are on Kijiji locally.

[Lost Monkey]

4 hours ago, Austin said:

I'm sure a lot of things are on Kijiji locally.

Lol, yes...   for those that are not aware, Kijiji is an eBay owned classifieds site similar to Craigslist.  It is available in Canada and parts of Europe and Asia.

[PikoInteractive]

On 12/6/2021 at 11:30 AM, jgkspsx said:

Enron hurt more people than even exist in the entire retro game community, and hurt them much worse. I think Madoff is a closer comparison, but even in his case a lot of the people who lost money were not suckers who fell for guaranteed returns but people whose pension funds and money managers were his suckers. I can’t imagine any pension funds are investing in these speculative collectibles.

 

But that’s not to minimize the harm that these grading firms, the price inflation they are accelerating, and the platforms that enable them can cause to their suckers. The people most likely to consider these investments are the people who can afford to lose the money the least, as with Beanie Babies, comic books, and baseball cards before them.

 

I wouldn’t invest in video games, that’s for sure. I have bought some expensive ones, usually decently below the supposed market rate, but if I ever sell them I will be looking to get back what I spent if I can even get that.

We are in the Middle of an Enron 2.0 with Ken Griffin and some other hedgies. Which one of them bought into Collector's universe (Steve Cohen).

[+GoldenWheels]

Karl killin it as usual:

 

[Tanooki]

I remember that reddit post when it happened.  I'm pleased to see his work and the other writers both combined got this owner of a legal firms interest, and enough so that the amount of digging they did was so well done, so nicely cited, researched, and backed it impressed the team there into going from meh to seeing a solid case worth pursuing.  That really says a lot their work got an entire firm behind taking these clowns to task on a slew of heinous charges given their actions.  Hopefully it looks like they'll in the end lose, and maybe that'll then with a win on it poke the interest of the FTC to bringing more criminal level action against the entire mess.  Also that video nearly 9min in also brings into their new scam of VHS abuse into the spotlight too.

[dudeguy]

18 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I remember that reddit post when it happened.  I'm pleased to see his work and the other writers both combined got this owner of a legal firms interest, and enough so that the amount of digging they did was so well done, so nicely cited, researched, and backed it impressed the team there into going from meh to seeing a solid case worth pursuing.  That really says a lot their work got an entire firm behind taking these clowns to task on a slew of heinous charges given their actions.  Hopefully it looks like they'll in the end lose, and maybe that'll then with a win on it poke the interest of the FTC to bringing more criminal level action against the entire mess.  Also that video nearly 9min in also brings into their new scam of VHS abuse into the spotlight too.

VHS's selling for hundreds/thousands just boggles the mind. a shrunken down, blurred and cropped version of a classic with mono (maybe stereo audio)? no VHS is worth more than $1 in my mind. Unless its a film that never came out on DVD (there are some, believe me.) In that case, I could see paying $20-30 for those at the most.

[Tanooki]

10 hours ago, dudeguy said:

VHS's selling for hundreds/thousands just boggles the mind. a shrunken down, blurred and cropped version of a classic with mono (maybe stereo audio)? no VHS is worth more than $1 in my mind. Unless its a film that never came out on DVD (there are some, believe me.) In that case, I could see paying $20-30 for those at the most.

Well because of those scamming losers you can now comfortably buy graded sealed VHS tapes into the tens of thousands, seriously, back to the future is highlighted in Jobst's latest video linked above my post around the 8min mark or so.

[youxia]

11 hours ago, dudeguy said:

 a shrunken down, blurred and cropped version of a classic with mono (maybe stereo audio)? no VHS is worth more than $1 in my mind. Unless its a film that never came out on DVD (there are some, believe me.)

This is not really a good argument, because I wouldn't pay even 1$ for a baseball card or a Pokemon figurine, and yet there are people going gaga for these things, and I can understand that. Similarly, VHS was the first time video media became available to general public on a mass scale, and so these releases can also be important cultural artifacts, or collector's items for various reasons - the recording quality has nothing to do with it.

 

The real problem is not with collecting itself (of anything), but with speculectors moving in and trying to artificially distort the market and profit from such shady moves.

[+jeremiahjt]

3 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Well because of those scamming losers you can now comfortably buy graded sealed VHS tapes into the tens of thousands, seriously, back to the future is highlighted in Jobst's latest video linked above my post around the 8min mark or so.

I mean that makes sense. If there are going to be VHS tapes that are worth money, which is more likely? The VHS tapes that are worth money are the rare, hard to find, holy grail collector's pieces like every other collectible before WATA started grading video games? Or the VHS tapes from the most popular movies that sold the most copies, have the most copies still sealed and unopened all these years later, and are easiest to find and therefore have money spent to grade them like video games after WATA showed up? I mean obviously the latter situation is much more likely the result of an organic and natural progression of the market. Definitely not something manipulated by some speculators.

[+jeremiahjt]

3 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

Double post.