Sealed Video Game CRASH Continues 

Crypto and Sealed Games both in free fall…. Ahhh what a great time to be alive!

78k for tecmo bowl? I want whatever drugs those buyers are on.

As you mentioned, my favorite part is how cheap these games were a few years ago. Some of these garbage NES or Atari games could be had sealed for anywhere from $10-$50 depending on the title. Suddenly, sealed collector's want people to believe they're worth $10,000+ 😂

it's hard to feel bad for people who lost money doing this because they obviously had no interest in playing the games, they only wanted to snatch the games away from people who did want to play them and see how much money they were willing to pay to get it back

The graded game scene has been over run with speculators from other hobbies, but things will eventually stabilize when enough of them get burned and exit the market.

There's something oddly therapeutic about seeing Miz realize he overpaid for the majority of his sealed collection.

Those prices are insane. For context, for what someone paid for that 1080 Snowboarding 9.6, they could've gotten a Giant Sized X-Men 9.2 (1st appearance of Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, & more) with $1,500 to spare. That Mario Bros 9.6 could've gotten an Amazing Fantasy 15 7.5 (1st Spider-Man). Absolutely insane.

This makes me so happy I only buy/collect games I like and want to play and I definitely don’t keep them sealed.

That 180k drop on Final Fantasy is crazy! I would hate to be the idiot that bought it.

Uh oh, I guess this means Mad Dog is going to be making a new video soon. Also that guy's screaming reaction to the auction result was incredible 😂

Serves them right!! These game were never worth that much in the first place

No matter what happens, never stop covering this topic. I love seeing the investor tears.

This is just like back around 2008 when people were buying houses thinking they could just sell them in a couple of months for huge profits. Its unrealistic, weather houses or collectibles you need to hold onto them for a long time to normally get big profits like that.

Maybe it's just schadenfreude, but these are my favorite videos, hands down. Clicked for "SseeeeeeeeeeeaaalllllleeeeD." Not disappointed.

There's something satisfying about seeing the sealed market crash,around the very people who screamed bad press, and created the problem in the first place.

Mizkif is a prime example of what happens when a young person gets too much money.

I have a sealed Tecmo Bowl! It still has the JCPenny price tag of $14.99 on it and a red clearance sticker for $2.99. It's in really good condition as well! But I just dont see myself shipping it out to be graded when its doing a fine job sitting in my entertainment stand with all my other games. Lol

My god-awful local game store got into this market right before prices started to crater. Maybe this is the kick in the teeth that finally does them in.

When Mizkif was talking about the value going up a while back, he said he would never sell and he would "die with his boxes". After seeing this auction, he quietly referred to them as "worthless junk". Which means he was either lying to everyone about being passionate about the games, or he had convinced himself he actually loved them and wanted them. It is very easy for collectors who just dive into something to convince themselves they love the item, but really people are in love with the idea of having something special and getting good deals they can make money off later.

All this kind of brings a question to mind: What once sold for crazy amounts of money, but now it's practically worthless? The NES zone - or any zone - totally qualifies.

I gotta imagine a lot of the people losing big in this market are dudes that lucked out with crypto before the crash. They're stupid investors that got lucky and now they're going to lose all they made with more bad investments because luck doesn't last forever

That seal thumbnail really shouldn’t have made me laugh as hard as it did

Two words. Money laundering.

You can tell Pat is super done with dealing with the SEALS.

the Sonic game dropped a quarter of a million dollars!!

I just want to say, I found a sealed PS1 game in a thrift store recently. It was called ‘Mort the Chicken’ from 2001, a late ps1 platformer. Anyways I promptly opened it and played it, and yeah it’s not very good. But for $5 who cares.

My girlfriend always calls me an idiot because every time pat says "sealed!" Right as he reaches for the soundboard I usually beat him to it, so all she hears or sees is me randomly saying Seeeallleeedddd!!!!! With zero context. Every show lmao.

None of these should be worth more than a few hundred bucks (at most) of a regular sealed copy, let alone THOUSANDS or even tens of thousands. At this point it's just better to buy your own UV protective acrylic cases for your favorite games that you want to preserve the box art for.

Cards and Games are ballooning right now. There's no way that the next few years aren't the peak value we will see from these things. Grading is going to kill it. That market for nostalgia is far too small for these kinds of prices. Everyone wants that rare, expensive item..until you're stuck with it.

Donkey Kong 3! It happened!

Wow I guess when investors get into a humble market it doesn't always work out well for them

I collect cart only NES and it’s nice to see markets returning to reality. I can start acquiring a lot more.

I still can't believe these graded game investors are real, it just seems like such a joke to me. Gotta be the biggest suckers ever.

I got a sealed majoras mask that I had forever. Now u telling me it's worth nothing

4:26 Ian verbalized my exact thoughts about the original Mario Bros game.

Just like with anything speculators lose money on, it's kinda satisfying to see.

Thank God I can finally afford to relive my favorite childhood pastime!

It's pretty bad when the losses are rivaling the loss porn of r/wallstreetbets

I wonder if the guy that bought the Super mario 64 for more than 1.5 million dollar last year is still living or if this guy jumped off a bridge somewhere at this point because this guy at least lost a million dollar for sure on that "investment" and holy hell if i would lose a million dollar within like a year i don't even know what i would do ..............

At this point, why is anyone even trusting the grades themselves ? Whoever agreed that the idiots at WATA know what the heck they are doing ? I would not trust ANY of the grades that they have issued. The only thing that they seem to have developed skills on is counting on idiots to continue to submit games to them for grading even after this scandal broke. It's sad that so many people got screwed by them, but at this point if anyone is continuing to submit games for them to be "graded" then they have no excuses for such stupidity.

Crypto is crashing as well. Money is leaving these purely speculative markets and then either held as cash to ride out in looming recession or into traditional investments. Party’s over for the “line go up” crowd. Some made a fortune, others lost their shirt. Market may go up again in 2-3 years once the economy improves. But within reason.

Something I'd like to see is a more in depth discussion about the rare games that aren't selling for as high as they maybe should or would be expected to. But I guess the issue is that a lot of the rare games only have value to people who are trying to complete a set of games from a console. Would love to hear the opinions about this on the podcast.

Sealed video game BOX collecting. Collectors can't know for sure what's even in the box or if it works. Which is fine, up to the person buying.

Aw, even Sonic went down haha. But as much as I love Sonic, such a common game is not worth that much! And yeah, I can't imagine collecting those sealed! The hard plastic case would bust through the cellophane like you said, and that case already protects the game enough.

*"Bwaaa! Hey Pat, why do you hate sealed games?! 😭You want to kill the industry! 😡I'm gonna find you at some event and make an ass of myself, just you wait!😤🛫"*

I’m so glad to see this blowing up in their faces in real time. Having people STILL try to convince me an arbitrary number makes the games worth 40X the initial cost makes ZERO logic. Probably graded by some young kid that never even seen a sealed 2600 cart on the shelf 😂😂

Just remember the grading company and auction company are still making money since they drove the prices up. The owner didn’t really pay for them as they were his. He simply created a demand.

It always fascinates me when people argue this from an emotional standpoint. We get it, we all love classic video games. We all appreciate why you would want to own and keep one in mint condition. The problem is when carpet baggers who do NOT care about classic games come in and artificially drive the prices sky high, which makes owning these classics much more difficult for those of us not spun from golden thread. In theory it benefits those who have held these valuable pieces the longest, but THAT'S NOT WHO HAS THE TOP MARKET WATA PIECES. They are conducting inside trading in the collectibles arena, plain and simple.

So who are the people actually getting hurt by this bubble?

I love your thumbnail! Made me giggle!

I dropped my Diet Coke can when I saw the Super Smash Bros decrease (crash) in price. Do I contact Pat or Ian for a new Diet Coke can?

If only there was a way to short these sealed games.

A lot of these “high” insane prices that sold at the beginning I believe was fake bids by Wata/HA people who owned the games trying to set super high standard prices. Which is why they are crashing. 😊

This reminds me of the speculator boom in comics in the early 1990's

Ahh such sweet schadenfreude to see some rich streamer get burned “investing” in graded sealed video games 😌 Thanks Pat and Ian been a rough week for me and this video was just what i needed atm. It validated not only by what Shawn from reserved investments has been saying this whole time but also what I’ve felt about over paying for ya game collection and calling it an investment

This is why I have no interest getting any of these expensive sealed graded games because as you pay amount of money with them, trying to re-sell it in auction again you're not going to getting exactly more money then you originally thought you were going to get. "IF YOU ARE LUCKY" But at the end of the day you already losing money.👎💰

That European Mario Bros. game is part of the Classic series. That port is based on Kaettekita Mario Bros.

I have no clue for sure but the Tecmo Bowl could possibly have some crossover value from the sports side of things. Somewhat unique that it doesn't have the NFL license, but does have the NFLPA license? Again. Not sure. Just speculating.

What’s the story with the baseball, football and hockey cards? Are they failing/crashing too?

I’ve only bought one pretty-penny NES title: an excellent-condition, CIB Zelda II with opened factory seal still attached. That sucker’s going into a protective case, and I plan to pass it down as an heirloom of sorts to my future kids with an attached letter describing why the game was/is a touchstone of my childhood, how it affected me over time, etc. Not sure why I’m writing this, but other than to illustrate making buys with intention/purpose/meaning rather than mindlessly. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I admit my bias: I buy games to play them!

I own sealed non graded Xenia and Commander and Conquer for N64 that I bought on clearance back in the day I have loose copies to play. They are just a fun conversation pieces to me lol

Found a Smash Brothers sealed but not graded on eBay 20,000. Definitely the price has gone down but would it be too much to say that the prices were inflated to begin with?

I think I'll just carry on buying my games from the charity shops... 🤔☺ Rare or not... Those prices are insane! 😊 Seriously though - Who _actually_ pays these prices for them? 🤔

This is so wild!!!!!

That's also the original Tecmo Bowl. It's an okay game but not the one that is actually sought after. Super Tecmo Bowl is the one people are still playing and updating.

Haha the Sonic… Obviously not sealed but I’ve seen not for sale Sonic games at thrift shops before so they aren’t super rare. I just don’t get the sealed graded video game market.

Now crash the price of Chrono Trigger cib's so I can buy mine back lol

WATA Games/Heritage Auctions: The gifts that keep on giving the whole year.

After seeing the video game market drop like crazy,I will wait cause I am not paying any crazy priced for games.

Anyone can say X is worth $Y, and if you have enough friends you can trick a few people into thinking X is worth $Y, but at the end of the day if nobody is willing to buy X at $Y then it's worth what it is sitting in your collection, which is $0. This is a lesson the Comics Book industry learned and is once again relearning, and it is a lesson that every secondhand market, and hell, some firsthand markets, will learn eventually. Your crap is worth what people are willing to pay for it and not a penny more, it doesn't matter how many + or Seals you put on it, a boxed Turd is still a Turd.

the more sealed games that get slabbed the more the price of sealed wata games will drop.

I wonder how much Pokémon Plant'em went for

Thank God. Anybody else have awesome memories of making a day out of going around to all your local flea markets/thrift stores/yard sales and picking up hauls of old games dirt cheap? I have bought hundreds of retro games at under ten dollars a pop. I used to find stacks of games and walk away disappointed because I ALREADY HAD THEM ALL. I stopped bothering with collecting games this way because for years selling retro games has been becoming more and more of an industry rather than a hobby. Go to any flea market and the only games you'll see are in huge booths that are basically just retro GameStops run by guys spending their off time meticulously looking up what games are going for on ebay and then adding five bucks to that number as their price. Example - ten or eleven years back I paid $15 for NES SMB3, Ninja Gaiden and Genesis Sonic and Knuckles all together. $5 per game. Today this would cost $50 easy. Anybody remember the comic book bubble in the 90s? Comics jumped in popularity and price after the average Joe heard about copies of Action Comics #1 going for $50,000 and decided to start collecting comics as an investment, not realizing that the prices on those old comics are all about rarity and fan love. Comic dorks (like me) love Superman, and his very first appearance is a grail item because there are so few copies left that we're willing to pay exorbitant prices. That doesn't mean all #1s will eventually be worth thousands and thousands of dollars. In fact, the best selling #1 of the time, Spawn #1, has LOST value, going from $1.95 to an average of about 25 cents. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN WITH RETRO GAMES. This is all going to come crashing down exactly as the comic book bubble did and these morons spending their life savings to buy a $300,000 Super Mario Bros 3 cartridge aren't going to be happy when it goes back to being worth about ten bucks. Sorry so long, all that to say that if anyone reading this has a stack of sealed and graded NES games in a safe somewhere, pull them out and sell them RIGHT NOW before the bubble bursts. I've seen this situation already. It doesn't end well.

I wonder how many of these sales are investors cashing out at the end of the year to rack up some capital gains deductions

8:20 Don't forget Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge for the NES

Gotta point out that Tecmo Bowl was similar to Mario Bros in that it didn’t hold that prestige like Super Bowl did. TSB is THE game everyone played.

I own sealed copies of pilotwings and F-zero on snes. Not the players choice versions they are from launch... I bought them at toysrus over 20 years ago for nothing lol. They are safe in my collection

That moment when you realize that the market in general is in serious trouble.

Still better than crowd-investing in the Amico.

I have one sealed game: NES Play Action Football (not the best game). I bought it on a fluke for $20 back in 2019. It's just fun to have a sealed game; I don't ever plan on playing it. :)

Hard copies are still great for having the option to resell them to a store. I enjoy them while I can. There are ports I would love to play like the Pokémon games.

The other factor would be covid pricing. In alot of other industries priced sky rocketed for no reason and people were paying it. Now those prices are gone and alot of people made terrible investments

I don't usually do the sealed thing, but I have a sealed yellow Metroid that I'm going to hang on to. Got it graded, too. It's a 9.0. It might be fun to see where it goes...

Donkey Kong 3 is my favorite of the three original so I don't know what you mean about that especially the arcade version it's awesome

all collectibles have taken a dive since the pandemic overpaying spree. sportscard are done 65% .. it is what it is.

Lol those prices are insane...

Wish I had $144,000 to waste on a video game in a plastic box.

Lets be real none of us are gonna get nods wearing a plain shirt lol

. THX GUYS!!!! .

You guys seen the WATA Maximum Carnage segment on Pawn Stars yet?

So for comparison, a first edition Harry Potter is $30k. A first edition Dicken's Christmas Carol is $70k. But go for something less well known and Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit is only $2k. So that's your long term comparison (and TBH books are going to hold their value much better). These games will be $2k in the longer term...

Rich peoples tax write offs. They knew what they were doing and will end up w the games for free by the time it’s done and the loss will benefit them and their other businesses.

For the cost of 1 game you could hire someone to find you the complete NES American release's.

21:40 wtf! its bigger in size too!!!!! WTF!!!

When are people gonna hold WATA accountable for this fraud?

They are not down they were never worth what you think they were unregulated market pump & dump at it's finest

That Super Smash Bros. consistently dropping really highlights how wrong this graded thing got. It’s the same grade (essentially) all the way through the year and it dropped worse than Meta stock.

We need more Fleamarket Madness

Problem is gaming in general with these current gen push digital getting people use to digital. When that happens video game collecting becomes pointless. Becomes why pay 100 bucks for this game when I can download a emulator and rom. Years ago it was all about building collections enjoying the fact you hunted something down bought it and now own it. That’s all gone these days and will continue to go away the more and more current developers and the industry allows it.