The Retro Video Game Scam Gets Worse... 

This seems a bit sus. Big thanks to Displate for sponsoring the vid! Check out Displate's Black Friday sale! Get 1-2 Displates for 34% off, 3-4 Displates for 38% off, and 5+ for 42% off! (Discount automatically applied at checkout): displate.com/promo/karljobst/?art=5fd15d5fdf43c

This is all horrendous, but one thing gives me such a viscerally disgusted reaction; Buying and killing old databases is repulsive.

I like how Mr Karl Jobst made an hour long very detailed video and the response by Wata and Heritage was 1-2 short paragraphs basically amounting to and I'm paraphrasing "Mr Jobst was mistaken, we didn't do anything bad, trust me bro."

The fact that WATA and Heritage called you a liar without actually suing you is basically undeniable proof that they're lying themselves.

“If you open the door for fraud, it eventually accepts the invitation” Words of wisdom right there

I love how a goat goldeneye speedrunner has reinvented as a legit journalist and truth seeker in a field he’s passionate about and has been able to monetize it. Absolute legend

This is what actual journalism looks like. Thank you so much for this Karl. It's sad how rare real journalism is nowadays.

I love how one of the bad guys in this is named "Denies Con", only spelled different.

I’ve been collecting for 10 years. These games aren’t worth anywhere close to their current prices. Not even close. Wata & HA are scam artists. Period. These games aren’t close to being as rare as these companies project. They also don’t disclose if the games actually are being paid for. As many that have sold never got paid for and they won’t disclose that info. A person who works for HA even said if a game goes high by then doesn’t get paid for by the winning bidder and the 2nd place bidder doesnt agree to pay their offer then they hide the game and act like it did sell to keep the price point. Then put back up for auction down the road. This shit will CRASH so hard. 100% speculative based on false and manipulated information.

How bad is it that I immediately recognized the SMB1 speedrun as being by Kosmic?

I was talking about the last video with my dad, a retired commercial lawyer who was practicing during the coin bubble in the 80s. As soon as I mentioned the names of the people involved, my normally pretty chill dad WENT OFF. All of these assholes have form over the last thirty years and it's honestly a wonder any of them are allowed to be involved in this kind of trading.

"Mere puffery" is a legal term that actually exists and this is absolutely delightful.

“As if legality is the purist benchmark for ethical business practices” 2:00 I’m saving this quote

"When crime is organized enough, it's not even illegal." - Huey Freeman

"It isn't illegal" is a hilarious defense. "Honey, did you cheat on me?" "Well, it isn't illegal!"

Those of us who collect for fun, passion and enjoyment already knew all of this was complete bullshit and we've been clowning grading since VGA popped up. Any time people ask about grading, actual collectors, who do it because it's their passion, rail against it, me included. There's basically no good collection reason to grade anything but the most common is protecting the box, but there are so many companies that will provide custom cases that grading for that is pointless. Grading companies have been known to damage products when sealing them in those cases too. Why would I trust a bunch of clowns with a rare game worth five figures?! While I'm not a retro console game collector, I still know that the original Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda are not even close to holy grails. They're so common in NES collections that there is little reason for any of them to be worth all that much. Sealed or not. These clowns know nothing about collecting and what's actually sought after. They pick the popular things everyone, even non-gamers, know about to make it more recognizable to more people. Just another layer of deception. More collectors are turning on Wata and it is glorious.

There is another concern regarding sealed games like NES or SNES. I come from the TGC scene and I can tell you that the wrappers of these games are just plain old blank non-described wrappers. It makes sense since Nintendo was never expecting them to be collectables. However, such seals can be made 1-on-1 these days. The box might be an original as it is usually hard to exact duplicate the ink and cardboard the box is made of but that says nothing about the actual content. A common scam in the TCG world is to reseal already opened boxed that have the most valuable items removed. This works especially well since many that buy sealed boxes (especially the older ones) never open them; they are speculative pieces to sell at a later time for more money. WOTC has made it harder to stamp their foil but even then can be forged. If I wanted to make a lot of bucks cheap I would buy Super Mario Brothers copy with a pristine box, put the needed items in the box even if they are damaged and reseal it. On X-ray equipment it will show as being okay but it is in reality all just above shaft. but no-one will notice as they just keep it sealed for their collection or as an investment. Wata is basically opening the door for scammers and criminals to also use video games for this tactic. Unless you spend thousands on intense research without opening a sealed copy you will never know if you got a real one or a fake. Basically; Wata's copies could just be shaft that got over payed due to believing in grading. Would you believe wata's grading after knowing all this?

Wata games and heritage auctions: "We wish you would have included us in the discussions about the allegations" Also Wata and Heritage: "We have nothing to say about the allegations."

I love how the creator of sonic is like “bro my game isn’t worth that much what’s going on here”

I've been collecting since i first got a 2600 in 1980. I currently have about 13,000 titles in my collection. I collect for the love of the format and the enjoyment i derive from playing or the idea of playing that which i own. Any 'collector' who proclaims video games are only now reaching their 'true' value are dead wrong. If that were the case, the oldest and rarest software/hardware would have greater tangible value due to scarcity/working examples. As it stands a sealed Pokemon game from 2004 is worth more than a PS1 dev kit. In my eyes that is not representative of 'true value'. These types of collectors are not in it for the love of the medium. They are in it for the speculative increases in price. The increase in collecting as an activity has been driven by this for at least the past decade. Of course they are going to be happy that their collections are appreciating irrespective of the ethics of viability driving it. 'Buh coooomics, buh traaaading cards' i often hear people proclaim. Video games as a consumer medium is far younger than either of those and far more resistant to damage and loss over time. A mario bros cart selling in the same ball park as Action Comics #1 is absolutely mental given its age, availability and plethora of decent examples.

Long story short, you dug up a shady practises and they s*** themselves now because of possible consequences coming up their way and will come up with even the most ridiculous excuses just to calm the situation down and possibly avoid it going further. Well done sir, much respect for shining a light on that.

You should feel really proud, you broke the flood gates wide open and everyone started looking into these shady people and their companies, you care about games and like all of us hate to see these leeches come into the market just to con people out of their money, you really are an absolute legend karl, I hope you realize that

Thanks so much for letting me add my two cents, Karl! This was a great experience! 😄

"shill bidding" perfectly explains me and my friends in mid 2000s eBay days.

I have a hard time believing that literally the most mass-produced game in the Nintendo Entertainment System's library would ever fetch legitimite 1 million dollar bids. I bet Final Fantasy 1 would be a much more sought-after game than Mario.

Karl exposing scammers in the video game world is the equivalent of Coffeezilla exposing the scammers in the financial world. Keep doing what you’re doing man. It’s appreciated

I love how they try to claim that that Super Mario Bros cart is the most valuable game ever, yet Nintendo World Championships 1990 is a thing, and even back as far as 2014 had a copy sell for over 100,000$. And that was a copy that wasn't graded, had it's front label tore off, and was described as in acceptable condition. So even their claim of it being the most valuable game is provably false.

The entire segment with Alina was incredibly informative and super interesting. I loved how unbiased she was and how you could really see that she didn't simply agree with everything because "big company bad grrr" but rather because... they are shady fuckers doing shady shit. The little segments she pointed out and how damning they were when you look at them in a certain context and everything just really pulled how these guys are probably liable and I really do hope the whole roof collapses on them... even if it has a Master Elite Certification.

Usually, people get serious about ethics when they’re faced with prison. If this hasn’t been reported yet, it needs to be reported to the FTC and let them investigate. I read Jeff’s response. There are attempts at minimizing and redirecting obvious to me.

Speculators masquerading as collectors saying the market is undervalued is like the "source: dude just trust me" of the game collector market.

Them: "We wish we'd had a chance to respond before the video went out" Karl: Shows evidence he tried to reach out. Conclusion: They didn't think he'd have any effect and decided not to respond, now they regret it.

I think the most telling fact is they're picking super popular and common games to value highly, because they're greedy and trying to pick games they can easily find, highly grade, and re-sell at massive profits repeatedly.

Thanks for the update. I seem to recall not long after your first video, there being an article on Kotaku referencing it, and somewhere in the comments there were connections drawn between Kotaku and other related entities. That story was pulled from their front page very shortly afterwards, even though months later they still have stale stories on the front page which predated it. The corruption in the aftermarket runs deep. Honest journalism, is hard to come by.

You are a journalist. In the way that journalism was *meant* to be, doing the legwork and exposing shittiness no matter what enemies you make or what crawls out from the rocks you overturn

I'm a lawyer and I find your dedication and attention to detail mind-blowing. You're a fucking inspiration

If you think this is incredible, wait till you figure out that the same practices are the basis of the entire modern art economy. Artists like Damien Hirst have shell companies buying their own art to inflate prices, which are all determined by auction sales....

The FTC must love you doing their work better than they ever could lmao.

"the same person at the top of the hierarchy was involved in the coin bubble of the 80s" It's crazy how scamming is almost never actually punished and pretty much every famous scammer has a provable history of it behind them.

The investigative journalism we so desperately need more of. Thank you for holding these people accountable.

Most of the collectors I know and retro game stores I frequent now think of WATA as pure cancer and won’t touch their products with a ten foot pole. And that has a lot to do with you Karl. Thank you.

I don't know anything about this. Not from the legal, business, or collecting side. But I feel like I didn't even have to know anything going in. Your explanations are always so clear and thorough :)

Karl: This is so unethical, here's a Video on the details. Them: Yeah maybe but this isn't illegal! Karl: This is illegal, here's a Video on the details.

I think the most damning part of “would the public’s perception of the value of this item change if the relationship were disclosed and known to them” is proven by just how much response has been had to your video. That people are seriously going, “oh crap, maybe WATA certification is barely worth the plexiglass it’s printed on?” means that people are judging the value of things differently post disclosure.

I wonder if Wata or Heritage Auctions has connections to international organized crime, and is using these auctions as a means to move large amounts of cash instead of using banks and appear "legitimate"

Karl: *makes a whole detailed video exposing company* Company: "No you"

The saddest thing here is the deletion of NintendoAge database. Sure, there's a lot of wrong shown in this video, but that one breaks my heart - if I understood correctly, it was volunteer driven, which means people passionate about it spent countless hours on making the database complete, and now it's just... gone.

I just wanna say, Karl's lawyer must be extremely happy. He makes a lot of enemies by making these videos, but the videos are always so well-founded with minimal error that you can't really go at him without losing lol

The good thing about exposing fraud like this, you'll never run out of material.

Is it just me or is anyone else amazed at how good Karl is at unraveling this stuff?

The unfortunate reality is that when these conmen get to court, it won't really matter. Large companies, and wealthy individuals knowingly break the law, not because they don't thing the law applies to them, but that they know when they get caught, that the fines will be less than 1% of the money they made from breaking the law in the first place. There in lies the real issue. If the consequences were they lose everything they've earned from breaking the law, and some on top of that, there would be real consequences. But as it stands, they will lose virtually nothing. And they will most likely do it again. Hell, one of the conmen from the coin bubble, who was found guilty of violated the FTC, walked away with so much of the money he made, that he's willing to do it again 30 odd years later. And the others will do the same 30 years from now as well.

9:22 This feels like one of those episodes of Columbo where the criminal gives away a crucial clue or piece of evidence away in a strange attempt at misdirection, but it only serves to further cement the criminal's guilt in Columbo's mind.

Another fantastic video! Just to mention: something similar happened in the Pokemon world a couple of years back - again Pawn Stars were used as a sort of launch pad for the ruse.

At first I kept hearing "Pawn Stars" as "Porn Stars" and was incredibly confused. Amazing work with the video! This is fascinating to learn about, especially since I have such little knowledge in these fields.

gotta love when someone is SO desperate to do damage control, they get sloppy and further implicate themselves

LMAOOO. I work for the company that the FTC lawyer stated in her case law section, Standard Industries, at their subsidiary GAF. We make shingles and definitely still have GAF certified companies. Had no idea they were recently sued for the practice. Gonna have to ask about that at work. Though I will say them being sued for that sort of thing is unsurprising. I’m waiting for the feds to pop up and declare Standard Industries basically a roofing monopoly considering the company holds about 50% of the roofing market WORLDWIDE. It’s honestly kinda insane when you think about it.

I sure hope the government is looking into this and staying silent to not affect an ongoing investigation. Any wrongdoing should have consequences.

This cycle has been repeated over and over. Some guy has something, another asshole grades it, and now its worth so much!!! Coins, Comic Books, Games and on and on .....

I think the fact that they didn't sue Karl yet just shows how guilty they are, because they know if they went to court of this "defamation" then they'd get their shit kicked in even more.

I have been in the retro game collecting space for many years now, and I have to tell you that your reports have had a huge impact in the market. People are now unwilling to buy WATA graded games because of their deception. There does remain a minority of people who defend them to the death, but these are people who have a collection of WATA graded games and stand to gain from it. Thanks for your great work on this!!!

Well done. Thank you for your thorough work and care towards the integrity of what you’re saying. I’d really appreciate a video about databases and population reports, as a call to action to show people a way forward on these issues, since it seems like you’ve put enough pressure that it seems forward is the way to go now.

A lot of collectors contributed to NA's database, myself included. It was a great way to track your personal collection while tracking population. Great place to buy, sell and trade. I bought so many of those stupid mystery boxes. I used to keep an eye out for Jurassic Park carts. There was a cat on there that sold some pretty cool stuff, but he would only accept Jurassic Park carts as currency. Good times. Nerdy Nights. 🤓

If they believed their own business practices were defensible in court, they would have simply sued instead of stating in a letter that your claims were defamatory.

Karl Jobst: *spends hours meticulously investigating and clearly laying out examples of fraud by two companies* The Two Companies: "His video is totally baseless, just trust us"

'As if legality is the purest benchmark for ethical business practices' :America slowly slips out of the room during the presentation:

Your videos mean so much to me. Definitely one of my absolute favorite channels. Much love from Minnesota!

It’s insaaane how surgical lawyers are with their language. Bringing in legal bites to basically make the accusations was a genius move, since everything she says is extremely calculated and could never be seen as slander or farse. Great stuff

I love Pawn Stars playing a small part in all this. I mean, it’s relatively entertaining for a reality show, but it’s just SO blatantly staged and orchestrated..

I missed this update in December because I saw the prequel only in November (2021), but finally catching this at the end of June (2022) and all I can say is that I love the work you do, Karl. I truly hope you keep it going in this direction and continue to push the buttons of these types of people in the gaming community.

Literally just stumbled upon your channel due to a YT recommendation for your 'Guitar Hero Cheater'. Then found your first video on the retro game bubble and then this beauty was recommended. 2.5hrs of my life later and I couldn't be happier with my use of time 😂 Got yourself a new subscriber too, good sir! 👌🏼 What's weird is a have no interest in video games at all, yet somehow am captivated by the content you are producing. Keep it up my man! The YT algorithm definitely hit this one out the park for me! Thank you very much... For once in your life 🙏🏼

Turns out the used car dealership I saw on Facebook a few years ago with a bunch of fake reviews that turned out to be from employees and their families was breaking a lot more laws than I thought.

LMAO! Just checked Ebay and resellers are already going out of their way to specify that their games were not graded by WATA in their listings.

Laws mean nothing unless there is enforcement.

Thank you so much for this, ridiculous levels of research and investigative journalism! Predatory companies really do take away so much from these types of industries and as a life-long gamer, I really appreciate that you are out there trying to safeguard us against these greedy bastards! Keep this up mate, you are the true LEGEND!

The Audacity of these companies is disgusting.

"Karl is always targeted by the weirdest people." -Charlie

This is also happening in VHS home recorded VHS tapes who go for high bids by greedy sellers.

I'm not a gamer. My job affords me to listen while I work. Top notch journalism. Keep this quality

23:59 "Everyone involved refuses to admit that basic ethics are important" That simply goes to show how far people will go for greed

Collectors: We want more transparency in your grading policies! WATA: What do you mean? We put brand new shrink-wrap on our games, how much more transparent can we get?

Man before I even watch the video I know this is going to BE awesome I absolutely love Legal Bytes legal take and law knowledge. Her and the crew doing the law breakdown on some of the trials make it very interesting and refreshing to watch.

Love the way the lawyer talks. Situation "as Karl has explained it to me" - this way she takes away any liability from herself and remains a pure "onlooker" at the case - pure brilliance tier. Love this stuff. I just interpret what I see, me - I'm just a humble goat (who happens to have studied 5 or 7 years of law) looking at a case AS IS PRESENTED to me. The way she talks immediately lifts her into a stratified atmosphere of "oh, I know what I'm saying, and there's nothing anyone can do about it". Greetings from Latvia. I just love how lawyers talk. Edited: also, love how she barely contains her laughing when saying - a copy of super mario bros sold for 100k$. Yeah. We're just boys in the sandbox playing with some maniiiz buying and selling cigarette butts. She's great.

8:20 - If they actually thought they were defammatory then where is the lawsuit? I mean if Karl is lying then it should be INCREDIBLY easy to prove a financial loss from his video. Seems like an easy win... unless of course, the statements were not, in fact, defammatory.

Imagine if Billy Mitchell started taking part in the schemes of Heritage and Watagames, it would be the most epic Karl Jobst episode, i hope it happens

I really like watching your videos. One suggestion for improving would be to link previous videos in the description when you refer to them or when this video is a direct follow up to a previous video.

And about sealed games is a joke, in the early 90’s I tried to return a CD that was suggested by a store salesperson, went back in less than 24 hours because it was not what I was looking for but was told I couldn’t return it because it was open and that was before the listening booths. So the next day at work we had a shrink wrap machine and sealed the CD back up and returned it the same day with no problem ...lol

An absolute legend in journalism right here. Presents arguments involving legal statues in easy to understand ways while presenting sufficient background and proofs. Well done as always!

I looked up that Halperin guy on wikipedia, he literally started a scam at 13 years old that netted him at least $100k. You can't make this stuff up.

I'm new to this channel... and discovered Wata-gate! *Legendary* work keep it up!

I absolutely love that you used the GTA5 pause menu music!! I use that to sleep a lot as it’s very soothing.

We need a Wata Games/Heritage Auctions/Twin Galaxies crossover. Imagine if Billy Mitchell and Todd Togers were secretly pulling the strings behind this entire thing??

As someone who played Magic the Gathering for a long time, I have a burning hatred for "collectors" that are only interested in the value of what they buy and how much money they can make. I feel they will cause short term gains for whatever realm they target, and great harm in the long term unless kept in check. Thank you for working to expose these people for what they are. They aren't collectors, they are investors or traders, and when they call themselves "collectors" its an insult to anyone actually passionate about gaming.

The Superman comparison is absolutely inapliccable regardless, because these were low print run comics, issued on not the best paper, and were generally thrown out as disposable childish rubbish, it taking decades and decades for them to acquire any potential perceived value. Super Mario Brothers was the pack in game for one of the biggest, best selling game console in the 1980s. Comparing something that sold over FORTY MILLION COPIES, less than four devades ago, to Action Comics # 1, which has a print run of 200,000, in NINETEEN THIRTY EIGHT, of which only around 100 copies max are speculated to even exist anymore, is just baffling.

I mean, this is just standard rich people business. The entire high art market is like this as a ploy to do some good old tax evasion, so it seems they're trying to do the same to videogames. Fun world we live in

"most valuable video game cart in existence" Between the original version and the duck hunt combo cart there's like a hundred million copies of it, but sure whatever.

I love that one of their "defenses" is that they consider themselves the "trusted leader" in this market, completely ignoring the fact that all that "trust" has been manufactured by them and their collusion with the auction house in order to make themselves the "leader" by consequence in order to sucker in people outside the scam. Self-awareness: Zero. EDIT: I also love that all these companies getting exposed, not just these frauds, always turn to the "we weren't contacted first" defense. Well, duh, why would an expose on your company's shady and probably illegal actions warrant any statement from you? The only reason you're mad you weren't contacted is because if you were, you'd effectively have advance warning that the cat was out of the bag and would give enough time to dump your assets and start hiding/scrubbing the incriminating evidence. You don't tell the guy, who is already in the process of stealing from you, that you intend to report him to the authorities and that you know his face when you're the only witness. That only gets you deleted.

This is some good information here. I love when I can learn so much from a video about legality from a video about the retro video game market!

All I know is I miss the late 90’s, when the most valuable an NES game was, was maybe $50. You could go in video stores or pawn shops and find them for a few dollars most times.

This entire video’s message can be summed up as “WATA Games and Heritage Auctions have been in bed together from the very beginning” and despite all of the blatant information pulled from WATA and Heritage themselves, such as who works where, it’s now just a bunch of these people backpedaling to the point where it’s no surprise they are tripping over contradiction after contradiction.

The problem I see with all of this is: the damage has already been done and seems to be irreversible. Even if the involved parties would have to pay fines or are forced to announce endorsements, WATA is now an elite player in the grading market, Heritage has all the PR to get more auctions and the market of video games seems wildly inflated. I wholeheartedly thank Karl for doing all this and hope this crazy scheme can still be stopped somehow in a way that brings satisfaction to all true collectors.

when he was talking over the displate add I honestly thought I was lagging. brilliant video karl I cant believe they get away with this blatant crimes and scummy tactics