Auction Companies HYPING Up Graded Video Games: Castlevania WATA Games 9.2: A Simple Case Study!

In this video, we show a perfect example of an auction company hyping up a graded video game to erroneous amounts...
Email for Antique/Collectible Consulting Services: [e-mail]
Patreon: / reservedinvestments

[@ParallelUniversity]

The one dislike is from Comic Connect

[@ether4153]

The voice of reason strikes again! Always enjoy your insight and side of the story. Thank you for making these.

[@DoctorDoom69]

Funny how they are releasing this game for auction , two weeks before the last season of castlevania comes to Netflix 🤓

[@mauricedevereaux6573]

I had received that same e-mail and burst out laughing when I read the "inspired by Frank Frazetta", oh boy...If "being inspired" by something is now a plus and a selling point, then I have been way too hard on THE ASYLUM film company and all their rip offs of big blockbusters hit movies over the years. So my apologies to The Da Vinci Treasure, Invasion of the Pod People, The Day the Earth Stopped, Titanic II and Ghosthunters. As you were all clearly inspired!

[@heroicgoods]

In my local video game groups of semi-long time collectors, everyone is using this moment to cash out big on their extra items. The surge may go on for a bit, but for the people that have already been holding these items for 10+years, they're the ones that are winning, not someone jumping in today to be the next long term investor of these things.

[@ReservedInvestments]

💯

[@slimthumbtak]

Same here. Just sold some stuff for a nice profit last weekend.

[@unstoppableExodia]

All those great deals found at yard sales, store clearances paying off big now

[@dankrio5902]

Hello Shaw I have just recently started watching your videos and have found them very useful thank you for the knowledge you have been sharing I have a question regarding collecting graded video games I have understood it is not a great long term investment but I would like to know your personal opinion on whether or not to collect sought after games "(specificaly gamecube and N64 nothing after or before)" for a while and sell them if they are to become worth more I am not expecting to get an insane return or any return period since these are items I love anyways but I just wanted to know if you would even consider starting to collect these types of games at this time thank you.

[@joeytee6554]

I enjoy your videos and look forward to new ones. A question/idea for you: walk us through all the books behind you. I assume they are antique/collectible reference books. Which ones do you use most often?

[@ReservedInvestments]

I’ve done previous videos on this...

[@bathombre9739]

The Picasso next to the graded contra LMAO that is hilarious sh*t!!! It's like hundred of years from now they will be saying hip hop music is same as Mozart LOL

[@bathombre9739]

As soon as I got that comicconnect email, I was yep all hype!!

[@avoin4366]

I actually enjoy collecting these games but the money you can make buying them raw, if you know what you’re looking for, grading them, and flipping them is just insane. Can 3-4x your money on a single game. Long term I do expect a decent sized retrace so I’m just keeping the ones I’m okay potentially losing out on selling.

[@markanderson1566]

Hey Shawn , great video, why won’t wata release the population report for nes sealed? Do you think it’s likely in the future wata will release a population report on nes sealed games. I don’t even think I want to touch that market until a population report comes out .

[@InfectedChris]

I love how they claim to know the population reports of the exact games that they want to hype up.

[@glycineairman]

I was really surprised by Metro on this one. I like Jeff a lot but yeah that was quite the pump sending out "million dollar game" to everyone on the email list

[@carnivalhands2884]

I’m just here to see if we get, “Shower Fresh Shawn” today.

[@andrewvanness1473]

The hype is real right now for video games. Time to sell.

[@bayfactor9384]

You are good and I think a lot of people knows it. You bring something different on KZbin. I think you really should start a Patreon, because I think a lot of us that sees your value on KZbin will support you. It would be nice to have the choice 1$, 5$, 10$ and 20$ per month. Thanks.

[@ReservedInvestments]

I have a Patreon…

[@bayfactor9384]

@@ReservedInvestments ok cool thanks, I'm now one of them.

[@unstoppableExodia]

The hype in the video game market is real. Grading isn’t really a thing for video games in the land down under for a bunch of reasons but speculators are going wild, particularly for Pokémon games. Even sealed Pokémon games are in the cross hairs of speculators who think that because Pokémon cards are being sent across the globe to PSA and are being sold for huge profits and because WATA graded games are selling for huge amounts on heritage auctions in America that the same is guaranteed to happen to sealed Pokémon games if and when a local grading company manages gain market acceptance. I think they’re chasing a pipe dream but there is a lot of money to be made selling into this hype for collectors who managed to buy games cheap when they had the opportunity to do so

[@chrisrinderer1325]

You get a lot of emails from Heritage Auctions employees.

[@coolguyxoxo]

I remember when slabbing a card was special.

[@brasscupholder6233]

Still special, as long as the card is special. Also, waiting for sub-grades from PSA, & AI-generated centering graded, & newer security seals/holograms in the far-distant future maybe.

[@nxtime5967]

Its nice they are referring to video games as art but a million for Castlevania is quite the stretch.

[@KeyKiller74]

I'm sure some Timmy will pull the trigger on that sale lol, BTW did you see the Castlevania Resurrection proto copy that someone had for the Dreamcast game? He tried to sell it on ebay but Konomi contacted him to return the game back. I believe it was going for 25K at the time when he was forced to stop the auction. I hope the owner of this rare game made a few burnt copies if he had to return it back.

[@lennywright5655]

Shawn you don’t understand, video games are going to the moon!!! Future generations that have no idea what this stuff is will spend whatever it takes to acquire it! 😂🤣😅

[@GetTheGreg]

imagine a comic book guy voice: "Uhm, Shawn, they did say most sought after Konami 3rd party HT game, so Contra can't fit into that description as it doesn't have a HT release. I rest my case." Seriously though, I was discussing this with a few other sensible people and I haven't seen a hype attempt like this since the Mario Bros sticker seal went onto Pawn Stars for a 1 million ask. It's a wild, wild, world in the video game market...

[@eunhwastevens]

I have the grails...1 of 1 sealed texas chainsaw massacre and 1 of 1 signed one out of the deceased, Landon Lee collection. BOTH are 1 of 1....beat that. Oh and Leatherface is in MK, GTA, CoD, Day by Daylight...besides the greatest horror movie of all time

[@brasscupholder6233]

Yes.

[@brasscupholder6233]

Also sold all my stocks & liquidated all cryptocurrency to access more cash, going to be fully settled in cash ready for next week.

[@NotoriousCIB]

Everything you said was right, but don’t auction companies do this all the time with any of the things they auction?

[@ebombfilms]

Sure, but this was an incredibly disgusting and manipulative example, Comic Connect should be ashamed.

[@NotoriousCIB]

@@ebombfilms I see

[@stevensliwa11]

Did you see that resident evil 1 on ps1 (wata 9.8 a++) just sold for 18,877$ on ebay. I dont knowww lol

[@thecomickeeper5127]

Ha, I got this email from Metropolis as well! So much of this is bogus hype. I've heard WATA intentionally makes people wait forever to grade their games to keep the supply artificially scarce. In a way, I can't wait for the bottom to fall out on a lot of this stuff. It's a bunch of bull.

[@GaggleofDoozies]

Timmy loves the hype.

[@RJ.MacReady]

Let me know when you need to dump some of your games before the price drops to nothing. Im looking for some Sega Games CIB. #WATAgate

[@ReservedInvestments]

Prices won’t crash…

[@jbouchard1780]

2nd one here!!!! :)

[@fuzzywuzzy3841]

I think you are more right than wrong... Everything is a bubble, will the bubble pop or we get the next leg up is the question.

[@ricardoblikman2676]

hahah you are right! a friend of a friend I meet him yearly on his birthday. He is a hotel room cleaner for almost 40 years (thats his net worth) but he thinks he is a millionaire because he happen to snatch a Heiniken bottle with brown residue from Freddy Mercury's room so he has his DNA and he is not letting it go for under 1 million Euro. I seen this guy for like 12-15 birthday parties he never got any offers lol.

[@brasscupholder6233]

Honestly, he could probably sell it on Ebay within the next 3-4 weeks & fetch a respectable sum in this current market.

[@kenerdbotta9739]

Its like willy wonkas game factory

[@hw5091]

It actually still is the highest graded hangtab copy, unless vga has one graded. Pretty nice copy, wish I could afford it without being foolish n spending an egregious amount of money on a video game in an unestablished market, where nobody may give a shit in 5 or 10 years, albeit a substantial one, and a personal favorite.

[@joshua.snyder]

That email was probably from that silly Danielle gal in FL who shills for WATA. 😂

[@ebombfilms]

Wait!!! There's actually a company out there that is grading VHS, DVD's and Blu-Ray's?? And worst yet, there's people who would actually bid on those? Stupidity knows no bounds...

[@darknightofthescarecrow3551]

big box 80's horror videos would look pretty cool graded.

[@mikepike7139]

What a sales pitch lmao. For whatever reason i have a total NES gap. I remember my fathers C64 and then came the SNES. To this day i have zero interest in NES collecting despite the cultural relevance. This seems to correspond with a certain someones theory ;p Totally unrelated to anything, what are those four white boxes on the shelf? :o

[@splugereport]

holy shit can't wait to grade my vhs lol

[@stevenewsome5306]

Haha that’s funny. Is it mrs doubt fire, kindergarten cop or the boy who could fly? 😂

[@brasscupholder6233]

@@stevenewsome5306 Bambi 2 on VHS. A bookend of the Disney VHS series.

[@brasscupholder6233]

100% serious, btw.

[@stevenewsome5306]

That’s crazy imo unless you have an attachment to Bambi 2 and doing it for sentimental value. I collect vhs tapes and have around 2-300. I never expect them to have any real money value and never pay more than $1 each. They come in handy when the wifi goes out though. Good luck with the grading and i hope it takes off, but I just don’t see it happening.

[@darknightofthescarecrow3551]

@@stevenewsome5306 you be looking at big box horrors/sdi fi from the 80s ect i should imagine. ex rental copies n that. for instance a film called street trash or maybe basket case??.. them types.

[@monk-ld3jt]

Every single thing in the collectible market is pretty much manipulated!

[@SoZ1646]

Feel free to reply to Comic Connect and let them know I own a copy of NES "Chiller". If Castlevania can reach $1M, then Chiller should easily reach $1 Trillion-Quatrillion-Billion!!!

[@Odinoian]

Is ComicConnect the same guys as GoCollect who tried to turn NintendoAge into a inv3st0r HUB? XD The big pushers are delirious lol

[@ReservedInvestments]

No, different...

[@robertjohansson9853]

Christopher Reeves?

[@ReservedInvestments]

Lol!

[@comiccowboy]

Vince doesn’t know games yet, but they are very reputable w comics. The marketing dept is probably just in overdrive

[@boxwi]

Characters and their series' titles matter though. It's important to that niche of pop culture. These characters are becoming multi-generational Shawn, surely you see that. Simon Belmont is no exception. It's hyped to the moon, sure, but based on legitimate selling points.

[@moveit987]

Lol .. what kind of nutty people are there, bidding more than a couple of thousands on old video games ?!?? Really would like to learn more about their backgrounds ...

[@jedirun]

I'd rather bid a million on that 1933 Saint Gaudens double gold eagle that is coming up for auction in June lol

[@Notesandcars]

That coin will sell for over $10mil

[@powerlifting1012]

@@Notesandcars so I don't know s*** about coins but I did read there's only two of them in existence because the rest were melted down is there anything else that makes this coin worth 10 million dollars

[@WondyCoin]

@@powerlifting1012 No, other than the story of why the rest were melted off, it has historical significance.

[@bathombre9739]

I knew they would come up with a grading company for VHS tapes!!! Anything racist, cult horror will be good money

[@Herr_Legendaer]

hahaha

[@Igorsov]

Wow, this guy who wrote this email is so naive...

[@Cookiedon15]

You know, ift were a millionaire I wouldn't buy that game at that price. I'd rather buy it used so I can play it.

[@jahoobidoobie]

Comic connect eh

[@littlebee7147]

Sometimes I wonder if the avg watch time gets finagled by pauses because I pause the vids a lot.

[@jakesbreaks8487]

This video game thing is absolute crap. Make your money and get out. It won’t last. It’s not worth it’s weight in rubber dog shet.

[@inasuma8180]

These auction companies are pushing graded games and have no idea what they’re doing or saying. HA has up a copy of Pokémon yellow, wata graded, making ludicrous and provably false claims about its rarity in the lot description. The whole thing is a joke.

[@mocoblue1]

almost every person that does these videos fail to say this... no matter what game u collect the two main things going for the the game is the history (age) or the rarity (numbers) of the game, some times it's both.... which sparks the interest in that particular game... no matter what u collect that is the case, even ball cards, furniture, stamps ect...

[@raredealgaming]

1. Demand 2. Rarity 3. Condition