Wata Releases NES Game Population Report 

What do you think about Wata's population report so far? Do you believe the numbers? Why do you think they have not released their numbers for all consoles? Check it out here: www.watagames.com/populations/nes/

Karl’s latest upload is a must watch. Also features Pat and Ian!

I'm very sure that WATA would never try to control any narrative regarding the scarcity or population of a game, which in turn would increase or decrease a game's price.. noooo... ;)

Keep in mind that these companies also have massive backup of games and cards to grade. Up until they got exposed, more people than ever were submitting for grading. These numbers will only climb I believe

This assuming that is a real difference between anything graded 9.4 or higher, which there really isn't. You very likely couldn't tell the difference between a 9.4 9.6 or 9.8 without looking at the grade. In the coin market, they always say "grading is subjective" and "pay for the coin, not the grade" because there is a lottery factor to how high anything gets graded. You can resubmit the same item multiple times and get multiple grades. I can almost guarantee that's happening with these highly graded games too.

How do you factor in people that got WATA slabbed games, didn't like the grade, and cracked it... then re-subbed it either for a better or the same grade... or never entered back in the WATA pool?

I don't own video games, I don't play video games, the jobst video Opened this whole collectables in gaming to me, and it has been really interesting to me. You guys are passionate about this shit, and I can't help but respect it. Keep it up lads

Welcome to sealed game grading, collecting, price-setting, and flipping where the grades are made up and the rarity doesn't matter.

Looking forward to seeing the Mario 64 numbers when WATA has their N64 report online.

Remember in press release for the initial SMB sale, when the WATA guys tried to call Mario 1 the "holy grail" of rare NES games? Yeah, good times...

There was a case/pallet of friday the 13th on ebay about a decade ago. Probably a few hundred of them just owned by 1 guy.

What’s funny is seeing a 9.8 with tears and scratches on the plastic…

I'm going to say, 1,000 sealed Spider-man Atari 2600 games have been graded.

I got several games for Christmas and my birthday that I never opened. So there’s some more sealed games that aren’t in the report

just because we only graded 300 doesn't mean that only 300 exist. We better just hide this so people perceive it as rare. yeah, ridiculous not to do population reports because rarity is key. Being one of only two grading services for video games.... Regardless, I'm a video game fan who keeps and collects games to play but I would never trust Wata scoring or send them anything for grading. Even under new ownership. side note: what I find strange is that, unlike art, this is a physical media and as such will not last forever. Just like other fields I'm sure there's ways of protecting from degradation but at the end of the day this isn't wood, canvas, etc. This cartridges will not last centuries. I also understand these graded boxes are sealed so they receive no new oxygen so degradation should be slowed but still... with a life expectancy of 50+ years we're already nearing year 40. Lastly, video games are not art. While they may be works of art they are games. Something that is meant to be played, enjoyed, loved, etc. 2 cents

The funny thing is this market seems to only be effecting 8bit and up. I recently reached out to HA with a fairly large list of sealed Atari games and they scoffed at me because it wasn't currently valued at 10k...which is their new threshold to be able to list with HA...your collection needs to be valued at 10k + to even sell. Also, this is all gatekept by WATA, of which you can't get certain games graded because they don't have boxes that fit...such as the 2600 Mystique titles. At this point they DO NOT accept non WATA graded games to sell, unless you negotiate the titles be added with your sealed collection.

A lot of those high grades could be games returned after being unslabbed for a higher grade. It would be nice to see verification photos etc of the items, to see distinguishing marks etc to see if any have been regraded

Lol, I was just thinking about how many copies of Dragon Warrior 1 there were, and like two seconds later Pat excitedly shouts out "Dragon Warrior!"

Wow, I'm surprised to see that one of my sealed NES games has only 2 graded...I'm not sure if anybody else looked up their collection and found something rarer than they thought it was. We'll see what VGA says eventually though but their population has to be at least double or triple what WATA says.

honestly guys? there are over 2700 graded jordan rc per psa pop report...have you seen those prices?? claiming there are TONS of copies of a game when MILLIONS were made and there are 200 graded isn't a ton imo....

Sad part is that the people who made the most money off of this already cashed out because they had an in and connections

"Wata ya talkin' bout?" -The Defense

I think sealed games prices will continue to drop but these population report numbers actually seem lower than what I expected.

I have a 7.0 WATA graded Sky Kid CIB. The fact that somebody had that graded is hilarious to me. I bought it simply bc I would like certain games from my youth to be able to show, definitely not for monetary value. Grading it probably cost more than the game.

Pat: "Well... not everyone" LOL

Didn’t expect that random Foreigner reference in the beginning lol

Why would anyone believe a word WATA says? especially after the NEW karl jobst video

Yes there is a perfect 10 score, but just one (1) single game. It's for the Rev-A, Oval SOQ TM version of The Karate Kid

I just wish to randomly say something to Ian...I'm lovin' the Meowth VMAX sticker on the back of your new laptop! :)

Mr Beast should buy a sealed game and just open it to smell the cardboard.

Imagine spending over a mil on a game and then this drops😬

I doubt WATA released accurate information to us. 🤦‍♂️

same thing has happened with Pokémon cards the backlog is insane PSA alone has over 1 MILLION! cards backlogged to be graded. no chance would i be buying anything graded wait for all those slabs to hit the market.

If you had a sealed case of a game, why would you grade them all at once? You should grade them one at a time and sell it every so often.

I was actually expecting alot more sealed copies graded by wata

You need to understand people crack them and resubmit hoping for a better grade which increases the pop count as they don't send the label in also to remove off the pop.

When CGC enters the grading of video games next year, WATA will be quickly forgotten. So their conmen at Heritage will be auctioning off as much as possible.

This might be a bit out there but I find it interesting that WATA releases a population report just ahead of Karl Jobst’s follow up video about the sealed games controversy, WATA, Heritage Auctions etc. I’m sure it’s just a complete coincidence but still very interesting timing!

Those grade ratings I.e. 9.6 , 9.8 etc. is all rubbish at WATA . There’s been so many examples where they have been giving higher ratings even with breaks in the seals.

Ian's "hot blooded" joke: hilarious. Foreigner.

Great video.

There are well over 1000 sealed Spiderman 2600 out there. I am guessing well over 100 have been graded.

about time they released it

I would tend to agree that some data is better than no data. I think the issue is that population reports could very easily be completely inaccurate. I'm not super familiar with game grading cause I think it's completely stupid, and while I think MTG grading is also stupid I'm a bit more familiar with it. It's common to re-grade items when you don't get the grade you wanted. It's also not uncommon for people to buy lower graded items and then crack them and try to increase their value but gambling on a higher grade. The problem of course is that all these companies will just be adding +1 to the list for each time they see a game. It's totally possible for them to add the exact same copy of a game to the list multiple times. I certainly don't mean to imply this is an excuse for not releasing the numbers. My intent is more to caution people that the numbers may be inaccurate buy factors difficult to determine. That said if someone out there knows better how this is done and can explain how this isn't an issue or if there's some way the above doesn't happen I'd be delighted to learn more.

237 Super mario 3s?!! Omg, so Many!!! Come on, just stop. The game everyone sends in, and only 237? Theres a lot more than 237 people that would want to own a sealed mario 3. Even if we say theres more, say 500. Youre telling me thats a lot? Come the fuck on.

Did one of the guys associated purchase websites with games listed and then ended the websites so the public could not see them very shady

I don’t think prices are coming down at all. The grading industry has changed every aspect of collecting. It will be years (if at all) before this market for graded games collapses.

As we get closer to Christmas, Ian is beginning to look more and more like Santa. Coincidence?

I'll go 256 graded Spider-Man Atari 2600 carts for the overflow.

I feel WATA is silly for all of the sealed nonsense. But honestly, if I had an NWC cart I would send it in to get graded. I’d like to have it authenticated/slabbed. I’d never play it in fear of damaging it. It’s strictly a collectors’ trophy piece anyway.

Any amico games on the list?

Lemme get the popcorn for this

coming from the Pokemon psa collector market these population reports are insanely rare. in Pokemon some cards can have a population of 10,000 and still reach $1000s , I was expecting much higher populations for these games , but they actually do seem rare too me , not to mention the 9.8 pop reports are low and you only need a few high end collectors interested and you can understand the prices fully. I actually believe in this market a lot more because of this, the way people were acting it was like there were thousands of sealed games left for each game, which isn't the case. I would even argue that games are much bigger than a lot of collectables with a more broader range of collectors and an older collector base with higher wealth. I think these prices will actually spike more because of these population reports, people just can't comprehend people spending money on items like these just because they wouldn't pay it , I can also imagine there are a lot of bitter people out here because these games have been sitting for years and they had plenty of chances but missed out on massive gains for being in denial. just my two cents

I believed that numbers were larger than the ones shown on the population reports.

Hello, 10 grand, 4 grand, for a gameboy game? What the fuck world we livin in?

Can’t wait for the Atari list. Spider-Man- 75 is my guess

Only because of Karl Jobst videos 🤣 no way this list is accurate. I hope yall keep giving these guys pressure. They tryna inflate video games, just like they did with coins.

Heritage only said that after Jim was exposed as a part owner in Wata an folks found out he was selling and buying back his own games

The Cliffhanger ending

What is slabbing?

All i know is we are invested in games

New computers? All the stickers are gone.

And these are just wata numbers. Vga has been around for soo much longer. There's a lot of games out there guys.

bubble go "pop!".

They didn't want to release population reports because it would hurt their credibility, and it would harm the bottom lines of Halperin and the other principles of Heritage Auctions and WATA. These reports will show how many copies of these games are out there, meaning the $2 million Super Mario Bros game isn't as rare as it was thought, meaning it's no longer worth the $2 million that was paid. I said this on Jobst's latest video, but it bears repeating here. The less rare something can be proven to be, the more valuable it's going to be. The NWC Gold Cart, for example. Everyone in the community knows that there were ONLY 26 of those games made. So there are only, and will only ever be, 26 legitimate cartridges of that game. So, when an authentic copy of the game comes up, we KNOW it's rare, so we EXPECT to spend more for it. Now, let's look at SMB. That's about as common as you can get. It's like the Grass Energy cards in Pokemon. But let's suppose there were 100 million copies of the game released. Of those copies, say 80 million were sold. That would mean that there are, potentially, 20 million sealed copies of SMB in existence still. If that kind of information is KNOWN, a collector is not going to pay insane prices for a WATA graded copy when they know they're 20 million copies out there they could get their hands on and get graded themselves, saving them tons of money while still giving them the prestige of a graded game. For the longest time, WATA did not want to release these reports because then there would be no knowledge of how many copies of these games there are. Keep in mind, also, Jobst shows in his latest video that Jim Halperin, founder of Heritage Auctions, also has a position in WATA at the same time. So it is in HIS best interests to keep the consumer in the dark so the auctions of WATA graded games can reach higher prices, meaning his auction house gets a bigger cut. But, likely because of the backlash from the expose's out there, WATA finally does something a LEGIT grading company should have done from the beginning. What's going to happen now? Well, as you guys said a couple times when talking about how much these games sold for, not anymore. I'd expect the prices on these games to come down since now people can more easily see what is actually out there. When something is not as rare as it seems, it's value goes way down. So, to the guy who bought the SMB game for $2 million, you got played. Have fun with your multi-million dollar loss. You might want to sell that game as fast as possible before it goes below six figures.

If there are 157 sealed Super Mario 1s (right now) then that N64 population report is gonna be a shit show. They've probably 300 sealed SM64s. Maybe even more after the one sold for a million.

This was the funniest video I saw in a long time.

Also fuck any argument made by anybody caring about the grades of these Wata games, a 9.8 is NOT important. i get what Ian is saying when he says "a 9.8 is the big number here, the important one"; Im not arguing that with him - because it artificially is -- that it has artificially been made to matter. So yeah if i want max value today, i want a 9.8 or nothing and people resubmit to get this fairly arbitrary grade - unfortunately its been manipulated to matter. But in most other rare collectables, you dont get perfect items. There arent 9.8's of basically any old book or comic book. Time itself would take care of that on the paper and the staples and the bindings. So to artificially need a 9.8 just means that there are SOOOO MANY basically perfect ones that they had to arbitrarily make a category that made a very common thing less common. We see this with the stupid NES collecting of 5 screw games and such. There are 120 nice Jaws NES carts on ebay for $5 now. But oh ho ho, we need to make it collectable some how, so an early run with a different amount of screws is like $100. And there are still a lot of those around. So its totally stupid, it doesn't affect the game at all, and is so strange. A 9.6, a 9.4, hell an 8.8 is going to be a very nice copy that in other mediums would be more than enough to satisfy. So to me, the "needing it to be a 9.8" shows how fake and manipulated this all is. If you really step back and logically think about it. the plastic around a video game really does not matter. its insane.

If these numbers are to be believed (and I don't think they are), then these games ARE super rare. Look at any population report for rare collectibles. Anything that is a) super popular and b) in double digits populations result in really high prices. Look at the 1893-S Morgan Dollar for example. That being said, I do not believe these WATA population numbers. They look grossly incomplete.

I like you guys, but claiming that these pop numbers are large makes you look silly. You need to do more work studying collectible markets and basic economics before commenting on this stuff like experts.

No high grade 10 yard fights lol

Kudos to wata for getting the Pop report out, looking forward to seeing it evolve over time

You think a population of 40+ and a price of $10k is bad but there are 21 million bitcoins priced at around 50k a piece and they are just digital code on a ledger. Other people drop $2k on a bag that's produced 10s of thousands of times. The beauty is in the eye of the holder my friends, let's not criticize them. The sealed market are for people with a lot of expendable income. If you like gaming, just play roms?

The last Karl video felt like it was just trying to get views based off the success of the first video. But that's just me 🤓

Big big big news

11:30 - The Karate Kid has a 10 graded game.

they had plenty of time to forge the reports and "refix" the damage done against them.

Could WATA just fold already? They've been nothing but a parasite to the retro gaming community.

Pat is so cute omg

Same deal with PSA and Pokémon TCG

What's with all the porn spam bots in the comments??? Channel must be doing good!!

preach

You could say Wata was in some hot wata. Sorry I'll unsubscribe now.

Wata calamity

so many graded common games

BIGBIG news

Some of these NES games are titles that were blown out for $5 at Toys "Я" Us and KayBee back in the mid '90s. Obviously someone was sitting on cartons of them and probably sold to these scumbags.

This is going to be fun. Bring those prices back down to earth a bit.

😎

There are more CGC graded Amazing Fantasy 15s than there are of the entire top ten WATA graded games combined. Solely in terms of scarcity, I don't think we have the correct perspective here.

#DariusTruxton

*UPDATE*

The classic wall street deep pocket speculators Sealed

What do we need to do to get Ian to shave?

What consider a 10

Why should we believe WATA's numbers?

To honest it’s to late. To many gone through with out. And to be honest it will end up hurting the market that is why they didn’t do this before.

WATA, the tire fire that makes the Amico shitshow look legit.

Is it bad that the prices of sealed games are high.Yes. But if someone is stupid enough to buy it for a extremely high price then let them. Thats all part of sales. There's only a few places out there that are honest about prices.

I recommend a new deep video from Karl -Why Pet hate Deniz? Maybe the video will give answer for everything….