Personally I don't own any graded games nor do I desire to have any graded. I want to play my games with the original cartridge/disc on their original hardware.
You might think graded games look cool, but i think *you* look cool. Keep being cool, man👍 Also, loved that clean WATA case break, very nice haha. Yea, once you see what an actual like 6-7 grade is, you learn that the bottom of the scale is basically irrelevant. Like a 3 is actual trash haha. Great video!
Also for future reference, you can open a wata case without use of force by pressing your thumbs down in the center near the top of the case and pushing upward.
My kid and I started a graded game collection several years ago. We've had a ton of fun chasing games we like. GetTheGreg channel is the spot for those interested in graded games.
I really like sealed games. I'm not against used games either. I have probably 160 sealed games on my bookshelf that's only ps4. 25-50 for switch and xbox as well. Once finishing a title and fully completing what the game has to offer, walki g over to my shelf and going, "what do I want to open today?" gives a feeling of a gift to myself. It's petty but I'll pay a few extra dollars for that.
I love sealed games just because they're frozen in time. I mostly get 2nd sealed copies of Zelda and Pokemon games but if I beat a game digitally, I'll sometimes pick up a physical copy to keep sealed for the collection. I have never sold a game and don't intend to.
I also believe games are meant to be played so if I obtain a sealed or graded game that sucker is getting smashed open! But I also dont care what others do with their stuff!
I feel the issue boils down to the price. Games in my opinion are designed to be played, and you can't play them if they are trapped in plastic. But the issue is, you're less inclined to Crack open a case for a game you dropped several grand on. Like if I ever got my hands on a mint sealed copy of pokemon gold in box, I wouldn't want to open it given the price, which is always artificially inflated.
Nothing is stopping you from cracking the acrylic and playing it though. The problem with people thinking they’re losing potential value is because those people don’t make enough money to participate in the hobby to begin with.
@danielnam9026 The issue is, something like a Game isn't needed to survive, it's a hobby but not something people would feel comfortable dropping a few grand on. When the game can cost as much as a used car, why are you going to do something to devalue that item that you bought as a impulse buy? You will always have that nagging thought that that money could have went to something more practical and thus your less likely to devalue such a large buy because now you have to write it off as an investment
@LordDiscord I’ve opened a few graded cases to test and go through some games. I’ve also resubmitted to a different grading company a handful of games and on some occasions the grade score became higher. There were also some mixed ones where the grade was unchanged and some were lower than it’s original grade score. There’s more nuance and variance involved than to suggest all cracked sealed games are devalued. It still comes down to desirability and rarity.
@danielnam9026 I get that, but if you paid full price for a sealed and graded game only to open and play it, you will more likely than not not get your investment back. And if you did it was from luck or you had specific knowledge that isn't prevy to everyone about the trick of the trade, you might know where too find people willing to pay your price where others are stuck winging it and likely stuck lowering their price just to sale it. And this doesn't even account potential fakes or scammers that rookies might not know how to defend themselves against
As long as a game console has games for 3 dollars each and it takes 8 hours to beat, you're never going to beat those games in a billion lifetimes. You can buy faster than you can play. By the time you retire your games library will 5x bigger.
Great to see a video about someone's opinion on graded games that isn't just them mumbling about "wata scam". The wata controversy is massively overblown and anyone who actually participates in the graded scene does not care at all and still happily uses wata. Karl Jobst himself even owns a couple WATA games. Grading definitely isn't for everyone, it's for a very specific subset of collectors. As long as they're not screaming at me for being a "market manipulator" because I grade Wii shovelware for the fun of it, people should be free to partake in the hobby however they'd like.
@@gwillakerz if you catch em at the right time they will pay insanely good money for consoles. You can even get more than eBay sometimes and there's no fees. I'll probably never buy from em but selling to them? hell yeah i do.
There are all kinds of things to spend your money on, so you do you. Personally, sealed games are never going to be opened, so it doesn’t change anything, but opened games it doesn’t make sense to me. Other items like comics, which are more fragile, sure grade them, you can still see the cover which is more traditionally artistic in nature, meant to be viewed with the eye; you can’t read it but you aren’t missing sounds and movements. Have fun everyone, enjoy your hobby how you like.
The intent of grading games is to create a secondary market for collectors. I do not know of a company that can grade a game and still allow one to play it, so grading is destructive in concept against the core delivery of what a game provides.
@@inasuma8180 plus some games are more convielent to play on an emulator than origional hardware so theres not a low chance that any physical copy would not have the hardware anyway.
I'm not a fan of sealed stuff myself, though not for the 'games are meant to be played' which I think is a bit of a weak argument. The idea that something COULD be functional usually makes a display piece cooler than if it was just an empty case, it's why I own DVDs of movies that I can just watch online more conveniently. Even with those though, I wouldn't want them sealed, because I like being able to pop open the case, see the disc art, flip through the manual or pamphlets. I do get the idea of having an item 'frozen in time' though, and that is pretty cool.
I think its pretty fun to watch auctions Get the Greg games does some live streams. I wouldnt pay much extra for a graded game myself. but like you said, let everyone collect the way they like
I only graded 2 games that I bought new and sealed and intend to keep that way. My personal opinion is the box keeps the games sealed and in tact without other issues causing damage to said seal. I didn’t do it for money, I only did it to add to my collection
It cost $40 to grade a game at CGC. I think it’s a decent value since you get an acrylic case out of it and it’s verified that you have a genuine copy. That’s a peace of mind for yourself and your buyer if you ever choose to sell it. There may be a chance a counterfeit copy slips through the grader but the liability would end up on the grading company and not yourself. As for “games are meant to be played”, there are plenty of ways to play a game nowadays. You don’t need to break that seal. There’s flash carts that runs the same as original cartridges. The loose cartridges of most of these games are cheap as well so you can just buy an extra copy for playing. There’s digital copies on newer games that are super cheap when they go on sale. A lot of times there’s HD re-releases of the game so that sealed first print copy of your favorite game is not the best way to play the game anymore
I absolutely love graded games, people saying games are way more fun to play are clearly missing the point. The reason we like to grade them is because it's frozen and preserved. We're not interested in playing them anymore, or ever. I've got a dark souls limited edition graded. If I wanna play the game I can play a loose game, it's not that difficult to have 2 copies. Great take though, I enjoyed this
I agree grading a coin or a trading card at least makes some sense. You can still see both sides and enjoy it. However grading something that was meant to be opened and used whether it be books, comics, toys, video games, movies, etc. makes no sense to me. People will claim that grading preserves the item...that's BS. You don't need to grade it to preserve it. Grading is purely for bragging rights IMO and just gives people an excuse to jack up the price of the item. Those Wata cases open pretty easily. If it were to fall off a high shelf, it would probably break open. That manual is definitely not a 6.5. The game is CIB but is missing the inserts and has the wrong cardboard tray.
the issues with grading come from the investors than the grading itself. having a playing physical and a display physical means that collecting sealed games means that a the collector will never play it at all.
@@randomprotag9329 Yeah, I think it's safe to say investors fubar'd the gaming market. I buy sealed games to open and play. I know some people buy sealed games they have a strong attachment with to display on a shelf.
@@GoodVibeCollecting it was all the investors causing the issues with some borderline or actual illegal methods. the general sealed game collecting scene was no issue until the investors got involved.
I have a few sealed games. I’d never get them graded or buy sealed graded games at stores. Many of them I plan to open. You bring up some valid points and i see where someone would have the enjoyment in displaying it. Personally I’m content with box protectors from retro protection or similar online stores. I don’t have to ship my game to a company and wait to get them back, I can just wait till the box protectors arrive and they look nice and it’s cheaper and don’t take up as much space on a shelf. I’m also not looking to sell my stuff unless it’s games I don’t care to play or just unloading extra stuff from the game room
Honestly this whol graded thing has made things so much fkin worse. so many people think they can sell a game at crazy high prices cause they look it up at a glance and the irony is that majority are not even graded it is a bunch of amatuers who think any game can be sold at that crazy price. it has made collecting so much more difficult.
@@777superlightwater Cooper was sick and I was spending time with family, neither of us filmed work content so we filled it with a little back up video. Any time we have no video you’ll see this type of back up video in its place so content is still posted and available:) 😊
Personally I think graded games are stupid but that's just me. I buy a physical because I want to play the game and I want to have something physical I can let a friend borrow or trade or resell then the time comes. Keeping your games sealed is pointless. It's just a trophy for rich people.
I just got a really minty fallout 1 for PC which is something ive been looking for for many years. I am going to have an acrylic case made for it but I dont like the idea of grading it because I wont be able to open it up and see the awesome manual and items inside. I think acrylic cases for displaying games are a way better thing than "grading". I dont really care about what some person says the quality of the game is.
When I find a sealed game I will buy it and if it a game I want to play you bet your ass I’m cracking that seal. I don’t buy games so I can have a sealed copy, I want to play my games, I have a lot of games and am sure I could never play them all. But my kids will play them when I am gone. But I don’t like to get sealed copies of games if it is an expensive game but either way if I wanna play it that deal Is gone.
I personally think that it's up to people to decide for themselves. I would never grade any of my sealed games, but if that's something you enjoy go ahead. Whatever floats your boat. But why would you use Wata Cooper? I know you're saying that you don't care about the controversy around it but come on man, there's better options out there.
@@DoubleJumpVideoGames Makes a lot more sense. I've been following you for a while and judging from your previous content you almost always have the same thought process/opinions as me, that's why I was so surprised by that choice.
"gAmEs aRe MeaNt 2 bE pLaYed"..... not sealed ones. you can get a raw copy to play at the fraction of the value. preserve the sealed pieces of gaming history
I've said it in other videos. Grading comic books your grading it based on every page, every corner and the spine. A sealed video game your basically grading the cellophane. Also, a comic comes unsealed you put it on your shelf (as it comes) it's going age, get dirty over time while a sealed game can be kept in fairly new condition with a dusting. With that being said, while I may not see the point or value in it, people are free to do what makes them happy.
Im actually against grading completely. You're basically turning a game into an overpriced brick. You're essentially sealing your game in a coffin. My beat up Ghouls N Ghosts with the sticker pretty much gone, is easly 10000% more enjoyable and fun than anyones graded, sealed paper weight of a copy.
The people grading games are not experts and have fooled many times. Since they never, open them up or x-ray them they have no idea what is inside. If you try and tell me, you had a sealed game graded I would laugh in your face.
In my opinion is better to just buy acrylic cases separately and not grade games. So you can open them up, play them, put them back in the acrylic case and display them.
I think graded games are pointless. I can see why card packs are graded since you don’t know what’s inside. (Even though most are weighed) with a game, you know what you’re getting so I don’t see the point in keeping it sealed and graded. The cases do look nice
What about collecting sealed games and getting them graded because it's almost cheaper or close to the same price than buying good acrylic cases. Them just emulating what you want to play? I started grading because I like my games to be protected for longevity. Idk about the "grade"
To the camera man and dude in front of the camera. That game with that tray wouldn’t have a dust sleeve. The later snes didn’t have dust sleeves. Also good catch on the wrong side opening.
i see games as something u can do for fun so grading i dont see the logic in that. But i collect games and will be less playd then others, like here the most playd game is porbaly blur on 360 because it is fun to play with friends.
Graded games is trash. Games are meant to be enjoyed and played. I can see all the CIB behind you and that's the way to collect games. The graded situation is super bad anyway. About 2 month ago a collegue at work lost around 100k in graded game an committed "unalive". I will always fight against graded, only fake games collect this shit. So far I bought around 5 really cheap graded game to open them. Congrats on opening this game
I don't believe in grading. It ruined the hobby for a lot of comic book collectors, stamp collectors, and coin collectors. And now, they are ruining video games. Grading exists to make money.
Your complaint is about capitalism, not specifically comics or games. Where there is profit to be made, there will be efforts to realize that goal. All unregulated markets are this way, and for better or worse, you have no control over it. Might as well adapt and figure out a way to make collecting fun again. You can always just stop - no one is forcing you to pay small fortunes.
Personally find graded games... well... 'dumb'. "It's a show piece"... yeah? who are you showing it to? Did you get your 5 seconds of internet fame from it? Show it to your friends? They're going to be impressed for about 5 mins and then completely forget about it. But hey, you have $5000 "valued" piece of plastic on your shelf. Thumbs up!
@@GetTheGreg Did you read through my comment? My point is what is the point of paying an over inflated price for something that means very little in the grand scope of retro gaming? If a game or two had so much meaning in your life and you want a show piece on your shelf, more power to you. It's the amount of ferocity that graded gamers go after a game they have ZERO interest in except for the fact that it's sealed in an acrylic box.
I like games you can put into the appropriate system and play. I think graded games is a total sham. It makes them un playable, also you cant even verify that there is a game in there. Lets say a shady grader guy puts a copy of Ceasars Palace instead of Chrono Trigger... you would never know unless you opened it and that would ruin the grade on the game. anyway I think its dumb, but do what you want with your money.
