Karl Jobst exposes evidence of potential fraud and deception in Retro VG Market with recent insane retro games auctions (eg. 2M$ SMB copy)

[Lebon30]

The video - 52 minutes:


You all remember in the past months that some highly iconic games sold at some auctions for insane amount of money. Super Mario 64 (1.56M$), Super Mario Bros (2M$)... among others. It turns out that it may have linked to some fraud and deception. I highly suggest you watch the entirety of the 52 minutes video above before posting.

I don't want to write too much details because I don't want to badly explain the situation and evidence as well as to avoid spoilers.

I'll say this though: it directly affects the price of used retro games, even loose cartridges.

I want to spread the word as much as possible about this, so that this bubble bursts and get people charged.

Scam me if old.

 

[RoboitoAM]

what an absolute legend

 

[Lebon30]

what an absolute legend

Click to shrink...

Yes, he's becoming one of the best, if not the best, investigative journalist with video games. Like, seriously.

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

finished watching the video like 30 minutes ago, what a shitshow

 

[Deleted member 3010]

EDIT: I'll watch first.

Ok, wow, it's not really surprising but when you lay it all down like that. I have a hard time believing this can even go on as is because this is fucking scummy practices, like downright illegal shit.

Hopefully this bubble bursts because it's not helping the true retro collecting passionates out there at all. Fascinating, well documented video all around.

 

[ZedLilIndPum]

Oooh I usually don't dive into lengthy YouTube exposes but I am curious

 

[tiebreaker]

Thanks, gonna watch it tomorrow.
The video gane market is crazy right now. People are selling a graded copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for ten times the original price...a game which is still available everywhere.

 

[Cantaim]

Will definitely watch this thanks OP

 

[Lebon30]

Thanks, gonna watch it tomorrow.
The video gane market is crazy right now. People are selling a graded copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for ten times the original price...a game which is still available everywhere.

Click to shrink...

This is exactly what Karl Jobst is exposing with this video. Your eyes will open once you are done watching.

 

[Tbm24]

Having watched the video, I'm just left with the opinion that this was always going to be the end game when it came to retro game collecting. I don't find any of this surprising in the slightest.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

The whole concept of grading companies has always totally rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[dmr87]

This is from Pat a year ago, haven't listened to it but it's related. Pat is also in Karl's video.

 

[Charismagik]

Talk about exposed haha

 

[Iron Eddie]

I always suspected shady practices with these ridiculous prices. I'm sure a lot of it is just rich people liquidating their cash into an investment and skirting around taxes and personal income. Or money laundering.

 

[ItIsOkBro]

im only 12 minutes in and what a scam

the first sale that kicked off this craze was from the owner of an auction house good lord.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

Talk about exposed haha

Click to shrink...

It won't mean shit unless the game sites report on this with the same fervor that they reported in the record prices.
(spoiler alert, they won't)

 

[kamen_tater]

I hope all the outlets that wrote about the massive "sales" write about this and edit their old articles to include this at the top of the articles.

 

[Lebon30]

I hope all the outlets that wrote about the massive "sales" write about this and edit their old articles to include this at the top of the articles.

Click to shrink...

I personally sent a tip to NintendoLife about it. I hope they make a story out of it.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

It was blatantly obvious that there was something seriously dodgy about a game as common as Mario 64 selling for 1.5 mil. It's actually quite funny how unsubtle they are.

 

[demondance]

The only path to wealth for many is scam financialization. It's always been there but… lately it feels more like that's really all there is. From stuff like this to Elon Musk's entire business model.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Curious to watch this. Jeff at GB has definitely questioned exactly this when these came up.

 

[Nanashrew]

Y'all are supposed to be acting surprised, not showing actual surprise. Graded has always been and always will be a scam for things outlined in the video and past investigations where this kind of stuff keeps coming up.

 

[Charismagik]

It won't mean shit unless the game sites report on this with the same fervor that they reported in the record prices.
(spoiler alert, they won't)

Click to shrink...

True, but at least someone made a start by putting all the pieces together

 

[BassForever]

Y'all are supposed to be acting surprised, not showing actual surprise. Graded has always been and always will be a scam for things outlined in the video and past investigations where this kind of stuff keeps coming up.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I remember EZA mentioning like a month ago how questionable these prices were. It's still nice to have a video that outlines the history for people who aren't aware.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Holy shit the market manipulation going on here is BLATANT and they are only doing the bare minimum to obfuscate these facts

 

[Lebon30]

True, but at least someone made a start by putting all the pieces together

Click to shrink...

Indeed. From there, we need to act.

 

[Curler]

Grading is one of those things I don't care in the least bit about. Like, I would understand it for truly rare things like the the NWC carts where there is a finite amount and it's one of those museum-worthy things (comparing on the Pokemon end to the Pikachu Illustrator csrd, where only a handful exists). Everything else? Investor stock.

Haven't watched this yet, but the whole thing like "are your old video games/Pokemon cards/etc worth MiLliOnS?" Unless you are sitting on sealed/mint stock of rare rare stuff, "no". Stop getting more people into it, it's ruining our hobby for those of us that can't just sneeze cash away :/

 

[MegaManTrigger]

I'll say this though: it directly affects the price of used retro games, even loose cartridges.

Click to shrink...

No it doesn't. Graded boxes have absolutely no impact in how CIB/Loose games are sold. You can still find the NES Mario for $10 USD loose (as per pricecharting) or 230 USD CIB (since NES CIBs are pretty rare given the cardboard + inserts are difficult to preserve) irrespective of how much the graded boxes cost.

TCGs work in the same exact way. If you want to spend thousands of dollars for a card that's graded as PSA/Beckett 10 then sure, but the value of a loose card isn't directly influenced by the grades.

 

[Dyle]

All developing collectors' markets will inevitably go through this, it should be zero surprise that games were targeted.

Also zero surprise that one of the guys implicated in this was talking on an nft podcast, they're all different flavors of the same shit

 

[Jawmuncher]

Really good video. We all figured there was something weird going on and it's great to see that was the fact.

 

[The Real Abed]

I watched this earlier and it really really bugs me.

 

[nachum00]

This is from Pat a year ago, haven't listened to it but it's related. Pat is also in Karl's video.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I've known about this for awhile thanks to Pat and Ian talking about it over the years.

 

[Achtung]

Same nonsense that the card market deals with.. hell, any market that can be manipulated. These people are just greedy evil pricks.

 

[Lebon30]

No it doesn't. Graded boxes have absolutely no impact in how CIB/Loose games are sold. You can still find the NES Mario for $10 USD loose (as per pricecharting) or 230 USD CIB (since NES CIBs are pretty rare given the cardboard + inserts are difficult to preserve) irrespective of how much the graded boxes cost.

TCGs work in the same exact way. If you want to spend thousands of dollars for a card that's graded as PSA/Beckett 10 then sure, but the value of a loose card isn't directly influenced by the grades.

Click to shrink...

Disagreed. Heck, Karl even talks about it in the video proof at the ready.
People sell loose copies of Mario 64 and other games at rediculous prices on ebay over the worth of the full copy sold at the auction (1.8M$)

Example, this copy of Smash Bros 64: https://www.ebay.com/itm/203534638879 . It is NOT worth 3500$. No fucking way.
Or this copy of SM64: https://www.ebay.com/itm/224583263548 Is that really worth 1900$ ?!

This is not always the case, sure, but clearly, it HAS influence.

EDIT: https://www.ebay.com/itm/273826208423

Super Mario 64 - Nintendo N64 Game Authentic Geniune Original | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Super Mario 64 - Nintendo N64 Game Authentic Geniune Original at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Do these really are worth that? No.

 

[fontguy]

It's such an elegant scam. And they're doing it out in the open. They didn't even attempt to hide it.

 

[rsfour]

Can something like the SEC be involved? Or whatever the hell it is in the US

 

[ItIsOkBro]

i think the FTC is gonna cook this guy. they did it before they'll do it again.

the audacity to try the same scam 40 years later.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Unopened games gaining intangible, arbitrary value has always been really stupid to me. The fact that there's fraud tied to it as well is not surprising when the value of it can be ... $40,000,000 or $0.75 or 70 trillion doge coins because why not? It's an unopened electric good that will never do anything or function. It's not art (whole different world of potential fraud, money laundering, etc). It's just literally just an electric thing that was printed and shipped from a factory. It's no different than an unopened pack of discontinued batteries or a limited run of a toaster that ~OH MY GOD~ had a misprint on the label.

 

[SecretCharacter]

Anybody who follows high end collectibles knew this as it was happening. I made some remarks about the SM64 sale in it's own thread, but it's blatantly obvious that there's an unnatural pump in the market for no real reason.

Heck, I feel like the graded game market is a scam already. It's one thing to preserve a comic book or trading card that could be significantly rarer and more fragile than a game, but the whole point of encapsulating a boxed video game eludes me. Very few things in the hobby are that rare and the numbers being thrown around are just not lining up.

 

[Lebon30]

I totally agree with everybody that says grading is a scam.

 

[Curler]

Disagreed. Heck, Karl even talks about it in the video proof at the ready.
People sell loose copies of Mario 64 and other games at rediculous prices on ebay over the worth of the full copy sold at the auction (1.8M$)

Example, this copy of Smash Bros 64: https://www.ebay.com/itm/203534638879 . It is NOT worth 3500$. No fucking way.
Or this copy of SM64: https://www.ebay.com/itm/224583263548 Is that really worth 1900$ ?!

This is not always the case, sure, but clearly, it HAS influence.

EDIT: https://www.ebay.com/itm/273826208423

Super Mario 64 - Nintendo N64 Game Authentic Geniune Original | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Super Mario 64 - Nintendo N64 Game Authentic Geniune Original at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Do these really are worth that? No.

Click to shrink...

Yeah it def influences the regular market. Either from people who don't know better (the seller or the buyer posting/buying at those prices), or people snapping stuff up because "I need to grade it! Have you SEEN what graded ones go for?!" The graded market is a lot smaller than people tend to think, though. I've never seen a collector with more than a few graded... anything for their own personal collection. Never seen an exclusive graded-only collection, graded stuff is just made for investors, and change hands as a game of "profit hot potato".

 

[suaveric]

In the video they mention the FTC getting involved in the 80s and fining people for similar practices. I wonder if the same thing is about to happen?

 

[Cow Mengde]

Heritage Auctions was also involved in selling an illegally acquired Tarbosaurus fossil back in 2012. The owner of the fossil has been arrested as I recalled.

Fate of Auctioned Tarbosaurus Yet to be Determined

An almost complete skeleton was sold for more than a million dollars, but what will become of this rare specimen?

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[MegaManTrigger]

Disagreed. Heck, Karl even talks about it in the video proof at the ready.
People sell loose copies of Mario 64 and other games at rediculous prices on ebay over the worth of the full copy sold at the auction (1.8M$)

Example, this copy of Smash Bros 64: https://www.ebay.com/itm/203534638879 . It is NOT worth 3500$. No fucking way.
Or this copy of SM64: https://www.ebay.com/itm/224583263548 Is that really worth 1900$ ?!

This is not always the case, sure, but clearly, it HAS influence.

Click to shrink...

Your argument is incomplete bids set by people. Like come on, this is textbook unrealistic ebay Buy It Now/bids that's available in any market (especially comics, cards, etc). Just because a seller puts a price/bid at a certain level, doesn't mean that there's inherent value at that specific price. There's a reason why these bids often go without a completed sale. We see this time and time again and it's a story as old as ebay's uprising in online shopping.

Look at the actual completed deals for better context: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...64+cib&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

The only egregious sales was the $560 for CIB Super Mario 64. Mind you this was opened, so the gradeability is hurt (although it doesn't stop someone from scamming by resealing). Otherwise, this is because there was 23 bids that forced the price up, so this person quite overpaid when you consider that other CIB SM64 averaged at around 150-175 dollars. Complete loose sales of averages at around 25-30 dollars. Not too far off from the price set in the last couple of years even when we factor the pandemic spike.

So no, this idea that graded boxes influenced prices of regular retro games is without merit, and disregards the conflation of price increases due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

To go a step further, if you track the gains over pricecharting's, the lineage follows the exact trend that Covid-19 increased the price of retro games as a whole (although the consistency is all over the place. Some Pokemon games remain sustained, and some have even rose like Pokemon Platinum).

 

[Lockness Mobster]

Wow okay so that's how this shit started. Crooked ass assholes. And if any of you come to this VG forum and are reading through this thread,from the bottom of my heart Fuck You.

 

[Curler]

I'll also toss this up here, from this week. Their response is just "no we didn't!"

Rovell: eBay Pulls PWCC Off Market Due to Shill Bidding

Those in the trading card industry were shocked Tuesday afternoon when a mass blast email from eBay said that it had restricted the selling privileges of its largest trading card seller, PWCC, as a result of what it said was shill bidding.

www.actionnetwork.com

 

[StereoVSN]

I'll also toss this up here, from this week. Their response is just "no we didn't!"

Rovell: eBay Pulls PWCC Off Market Due to Shill Bidding

Those in the trading card industry were shocked Tuesday afternoon when a mass blast email from eBay said that it had restricted the selling privileges of its largest trading card seller, PWCC, as a result of what it said was shill bidding.

www.actionnetwork.com

Click to shrink...

They were "shocked", shocked I tell ya. I am wondering if there were actual laws that have been broken and if this company could be investigated for fraud.

Also, on the main subject, yeah, these sky high prices for graded games have always been suspect, much as a lot of expensive artwork. Got to be a whole lot of money ey laundering and tax evasion going on. Of course Feds don't bother with this as usual.

 

[spectrumfox]

Receipts brought.

 

[headspawn]

That's a pretty strong case, I suspected it to be some kind of shenanigans when that Mario game blew up a bit ago but didn't think it was something nearly this messed up.

 

[Lebon30]

I'll also toss this up here, from this week. Their response is just "no we didn't!"

Rovell: eBay Pulls PWCC Off Market Due to Shill Bidding

Those in the trading card industry were shocked Tuesday afternoon when a mass blast email from eBay said that it had restricted the selling privileges of its largest trading card seller, PWCC, as a result of what it said was shill bidding.

www.actionnetwork.com

Click to shrink...

Of course they're going "no we didn't". That's the first thing culprits say.