Kill The VG Hobby With Fire

[Steamflogger Boss]

Burn it all down.

https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions-pr ... aseId=3583

[FinalBaton]

The fucking game which everybody has 3 copies lying around in their house

Sealed-game grading needs to die


Also who is buying these things? I gotta bridge I can sell them...

[Mischief Maker]

I hope that turns out to be a bootleg.

[garrz32]

100K FFS.

It will look lovely sitting on a shelf entombed in it's own plastic condom for eternity. Admired by the gaming community, who will travel afar to witness this once in a lifetime miracle. All hail the new era of video game collecting

[Marc]

God I saw this on USGamer this morning. Just.... the world has gone mad, it really has. The amount of money I'd have if I still had my original SNES collection.....

[spmbx]

Honestly i don’t see the difference with the average pcb that’s being sold in the marketplace here. Or a few hundred for some cardboard, add a hundred more if it contains bubblewrap of the right color. Nigga please.

[qmish]

this has nothing to do with "vg hobby"

[Zen]

I hope that turns out to be a bootleg.

Schrodinger's Mario?

Goddamnit, Mischief Maker! Now you've got me interested!

[Steamflogger Boss]

this has nothing to do with "vg hobby"

Sealed collecting is the best part of the hobby! Who plays games? Probably nerds.

[drauch]

Well yeah, that thing is gonna look sick when they post it on their YouTube collection video. Like & share.

[EmperorIng]

Stuff like this demands the reorganization of the anti-sealed games defense force/jihad.

[gameoverDude]

$100,150? OMG this has sunk to a new low. I am sad that someone is dumb/obsessed enough to pay that much for SMB.
Come on, it's not THAT good of a game. Sure SMB has historic merit, but whatever. Seriously, what if the cartridge inside is a dud? We may never know, because the buyer will probably keep it sealed.

[mycophobia]

as someone with a near-complete disinterest in game collecting, this may be worth a look for those puzzled by why this sold for so much:

https://twitter.com/kelslewin/status/10 ... 2561438721

[Xer Xian]

This is happening (on a much bigger scale) for art pieces, classic cars, VIPs memorabilia, etc.

I think you should direct your frustration at today's extreme concentration of wealth, not collecting..

[guigui]

As much as I love the shmup community, I am not sure why collecting rare VG stuff founds so few love here ?

This gaming item is rare regarding to many standards of our common hobby, and a group of people is actually ready to pay $100.000 to say they own it. Fine, capitalism society.

I mean dont do to other people what you would not like other people to do to you. "Shmups are bad, short, always the same" and "SMB does not cost $100.000" sound like the same sentence, don't you think ?

[Steamflogger Boss]

as someone with a near-complete disinterest in game collecting, this may be worth a look for those puzzled by why this sold for so much:

https://twitter.com/kelslewin/status/10 ... 2561438721

The article covers this pretty well.

This is happening (on a much bigger scale) for art pieces, classic cars, VIPs memorabilia, etc.

I think you should direct your frustration at today's extreme concentration of wealth, not collecting..

Yeah a point I have brought up here recently is that video games are still relative child's play. There isn't going to be any kind of crash, that's just a pipe dream. If anything it's only going to get worse.

[rapoon]

I read, or heard, or imagined (most likely) that investment firms are dipping their filthy hands in the 'hobby', gobbling up high-value gaming memorabilia.

[BryanM]

Yeah, at least it's better than bit coins or the banks hoovering up all the houses and sitting on them...

[TransatlanticFoe]

Oh it's a sticker variant, of course that makes it okay. Dafter than people paying hundreds for SMS Sonic the Hedgehog because some of the Euro stock were given a US barcode so OMG TEH RAREZ USA RELEASE!!1

Also ha that article. The "seller" of it in the first place is a group of chums, including the guy who runs the auction house. Doesn't whiff at all.....

Edit: I read it wrong, thought it meant they acquired it and then sold it but no. The buyer was the auction house owner and his chums. Pong! Stinky.

[FinalBaton]

Also ha that article. The "seller" of it in the first place is a group of chums, including the guy who runs the auction house. Doesn't whiff at all.....

Edit: I read it wrong, thought it meant they acquired it and then sold it but no. The buyer was the auction house owner and his chums. Pong! Stinky.

Yep. "How to create value".

[bigbadboaz]

It's the same as with any other type of vintage collector's item. Just like when certain baseball cards stood out as anomalously valuable around the time I suspect most of us were growing up.

The price paid may be absurd/unreasonable to most of us, but to isolate it within "the VG hobby" or act like it's all that unusual is misguided.

[garrz32]

Yeah a point I have brought up here recently is that video games are still relative child's play. There isn't going to be any kind of crash, that's just a pipe dream. If anything it's only going to get worse.

This ^ +1. There isn't a crash on the horizon.I'll be the first to admit i was hoping for one.

Sure some game have leveled out on price but overall it's a shit show and it's getting worse.This only highlights what gaming has now become and it's a sad state of affairs. Anyone who thinks thinks this is one off cos it's rare is tripping!.

[Steamflogger Boss]

It's the same as with any other type of vintage collector's item. Just like when certain baseball cards stood out as anomalously valuable around the time I suspect most of us were growing up.

We also just saw a sealed uncommon Halo variant go for over $2,500 from the same auction house. There are some suspicious elements of this sale though as previously stated. It wouldn't be the first time there was collusion within a collectible market and it won't be the last. Seems like this is trying to be established as a super important piece like various old comics. They cite Action #1 but that's fundamentally different. Then there is the question of who were these people bidding against? I've seen some other theories posted as well.

There is a lot of cool stuff out there in this market. Test/dev consoles, contest carts, unreleased console hardware, prototypes, games with under 1000 copies printed etc... I do understand the reasoning they picked SMB though. People like this are collecting in a different league than I am and believe me when I say I'd rather see this crazy money be in random sealed variants of iconic mass produced games. I think it's fascinating to see where this money will go and I will try and bump up this thread when more similar sales happen.

[soprano1]

And I thought Pokemon legit event collectors were crazy...

[jugemscloud]

one of the buyers is the owner of the auction house, its a thing done in the industry whereby the auction house takes an item offering a minimum sale price but it ends up getting nowhere near that so its spun into a pr thing by saying WOW mega record sale with the false appearance of a legitimate price being set in an open market. resulting in potentially positive pr for the auction house and damage limitation on a bad investment. i think theres a publicity thing for wata lumped in with the above as well, as they're trying to push the other sealed game company out of the market and its a very new company and featured a bit to prominently in the news about this.

theres some public examples of it with big name auction houses and contemporary art - see damien hirsts diamond skull for one; him, the auction house and his galley all own a part of that thing iirc

the rationale and arguments made over the price are certainly true and if there was anything comparable in the video game market to a mint action comics one this would be it - perfect condition 1st release of mario 1 only available in 2 cities in for 1 year max. but when looking at only the video game market price comparably (imo) would be with one of the best condition nwc gold carts which are around $30-40k in recent sales and probably at least $50k to get someone to part with one.

[Steamflogger Boss]

one of the buyers is the owner of the auction house, its a thing done in the industry whereby the auction house takes an item offering a minimum sale price but it ends up getting nowhere near that so its spun into a pr thing by saying WOW mega record sale with the false appearance of a legitimate price being set in an open market. resulting in potentially positive pr for the auction house and damage limitation on a bad investment. i think theres a publicity thing for wata lumped in with the above as well, as they're trying to push the other sealed game company out of the market and its a very new company and featured a bit to prominently in the news about this.

theres some public examples of it with big name auction houses and contemporary art - see damien hirsts diamond skull for one; him, the auction house and his galley all own a part of that thing iirc

the rationale and arguments made over the price are certainly true and if there was anything comparable in the video game market to a mint action comics one this would be it - perfect condition 1st release of mario 1 only available in 2 cities in for 1 year max. but when looking at only the video game market price comparably (imo) would be with one of the best condition nwc gold carts which are around $30-40k in recent sales and probably at least $50k to get someone to part with one.

WATA has definitely been making sure they get in the news lately.

[Steamflogger Boss]

More HA fun.

[Steamflogger Boss]

The Halo that sold for $4,000 previously just went for over $7,000.

Must be that bitcoin money that Bryan loves so much.

[FinalBaton]

I just heard an interesting piste de réflexion (or "food for tought" in english I guess) :

"Graded&sealed videogame collecting is not videogame collecting"


Muse over that for a moment...

You might first think "how can it not be videogame collecting : there's a videogame trapped within!"
But it actually makes sense when you really think about it.

It is done by people who collect other stuff also (coins, baseball cards, etc) so it's irrelevant to these people that it is a videogame in the first place. It is not purchased to show their love for videogames (something that full sets do at least show)

They are obtaining something, yes. But it's an activity unrelated to the VG hobby itself. It's another game
And that's why most of us are irked by it I think.

[BryanM]

On another dimension it is a display of snooty affluence as well. The money could have gone to buying a hungry kid a sandwich, if not stimulating the hooker and cocaine markets. But it goes to hidden pirate treasure that does nothing for nobody. Analogous to burying a mummy in a sarcophagus in your back yard. Except not as cool. It's just another sink for a massive surplus of currency.

As a bit of an aside, there are a lot of food eateries that serve a similar function. A place where you can spend $10 on a cold sandwich that hasn't even been passed through a toaster, the California Pizza Place where you can spend $12 on a tiny pie that normally would cost $3.50, that isn't any better than Little Freakin' Caesar's... The appeal of these places isn't the quality or cost efficiency of the food, it's that they don't have any poor people that eat there.

Back to videogames, the history of the Bioforce Ape Prototype is a legendary tale of another internet battle between the buttermen and communists.