RetroLogic - Episode 47
This week we've got a special guest Seth from the All N Podcast with us to talk about…
Today we'll be chatting about …
- The Weta/Heritage Auction situation
- WarioWare
RetroLogic isn’t just a podcast, It’s a retro game store! Visit Retrologic.games to check out our growing inventory of Cleaned, Tested, and 100% Authentic Retro Games! And now Merch!
ALL N - A Nintendo Podcast
Icebreaker - what did you buy? And what did you play?
Seth: BOUGHT: Shantae LRG CE, WarioWare Touched, Major Minor’s Majestic March. PLAYED: No More Heroes 3, Spelunky 2.
Sam: Bought: Dan’s extra copy of General Chaos (trade).Played: Beat NEO TWEWY, Master ranked Pokemon Unite, Castle of Illusion, Penguin Land, Claymates. Warioware Get it Together Demo
John:
Dan: Sega Genesis Classics on X360 (Golden Axe Warrior), Metroid Zero Mission
The price is RETRO
John’s list
Dan’s list
Sam’s list
Seth’s list
ChrisHL94’s list
Weekly Topics
Old News
Weta/Heritage Auction - fraudVideo by Karl Jobst on Youtube.“Exposing fraud and deception in the video game market”Story:In 2017 - Sealed Super Mario Bros NES sells for $30K.
In 2019 - Sealed Super Mario Bros NES sells for $100K.In 2020 - “Rally” a fractional share company bought the game for $140KIn 2021 - The exact same game sells for $2 million.
- Weta Games is a rating company, that will give your collectable games a grade based on condition, and seal the game in hard plastic to preserve it. Theoretically, the higher the “grade” given by the company, the more valuable it will be. These companies take a percentage of the projected value of the game it’s rating as a fee.
- Heritage Auctions is the auction website where all of the “record breaking” video game sales are taking place. ALL of them. And they charge a 20% buyers premium on every sale. So if you actually bought a game for $1mil, you’d owe the auction house $200K. Plus they taker 5% from the seller.
So if these 2 companies were in any way connected, it would be a massive conflict of interest.VGA has been grading games since 2008 and they didn’t have this kind of impact on the market. Because they didn’t manipulate the market.The ONLY reason Wata had this impact is because of it’s games being sold for millions at Heritage Auctions. And Heritage Auctions ONLY sells video games rates by Wata.The Founder of Wata Games is Deniz Kahn- He is quoted in a press release “Wata certified games have been selling at record prices ever since Heritage started selling them”- Deniz appeared on the show ‘Pawn Stars’ many times overvaluing the price of his sealed games.- Deniz on multiple occasions (articles, press releases) pumping up the value of SPECIFICALLY Wata rated games.The Founder of Heritage Auctions is Jim Halperin.- Jim is listed on the Wata website as an advisor. And is an investor in the company.- Jim is one of the purchasers of the Sealed SMB game for $100K. Purchased from Heritage Auctions.“So what you have here is the chairman of the auction house buying a game for a record price, and then creating a press release about his own purchase, in which himself, and the president of the grading company are stating that the value of games is going up”- And the press ate it up.
Who is buying the games?- The identities of these huge sales are kept secret.- Heritage auctions never tell you who the buyers are, or even if money was exchanged at all.
Eric Niaman:
- Dentist called “worlds most avid video game collector” by articles.
- He started collecting in 2019.
- Articles falsely stating that Eric bought the games, but he wasn’t using his own money. It was a trust fund.
“It’s not collectors that are buying any of these games. It’s purely people with a lot of money, trying to scam other people out of theirs, by manufacturing a bubble that otherwise shouldn’t exist.”
It gets deep:- Multiple accounts of shill bidding (fake bids to drive up prices)
- Employees confessing to manipulation of the market by posting and buying their own item for higher and higher prices. If there’s “sales data” then people will believe it.- Proof of Wata fraud related to the “Carolina Collection” - According to an SCC filing, the purchaser of this collection, who also had the collection rated by Wata and sold much of it through Heritage, is a director at Wata. HUGH conflict of interest. (Jeff Meyer)- Proof of wild inconsistencies in Wata’s game ratings. (re-grading)
- Jim Halperin involved in the 80s coin bubble. He was found guilty of intentionally mis-rating coins, and was fined $2mil.
What can we do?Call for Wata to release a ‘Population Report’ to tell us how many of what games they have rated. Wata has not released this info.Tell them to release the population report:www.watagames.com/contact-usAftermath Discussion.
Break
Game Highlight
WarioWare - Retrospective
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! - GBA, GameCube
JP: March 21, 2003
NA: May 26, 2003
WarioWare: Twisted! - GBA
JP: October 14, 2004
NA: May 23, 2005
WarioWare: Touched! - DS
JP: December 2, 2004
NA: February 14, 2005
WarioWare: Smooth Moves - Wii
JP: December 2, 2006
NA: January 15, 2007
WarioWare: Snapped! - DSiWare
JP: December 24, 2008
NA: April 5, 2009
WarioWare D.I.Y. - DS, Wiiware
JP: April 29, 2009
NA: March 28, 2010
Game & Wario - Wii U
JP: March 28, 2013
NA: June 23, 2013
WarioWare Gold - 3DS
JP: August 2, 2018
NA: August 3, 2018
WarioWare: Get It Together! - Switch
September 10, 2021
Community Content
Retro Rewind
Our Retro Rewind game for August is Claymates!Available on the Switch NSO app
Sep 2 at 9:30pm
Spotlight
Seth and the All N Podcast
Outro
Thanks for listening to the RetroLogic Podcast! We are proudly part of the Nintendo Dads family of podcasts. If you like what you hear, check me out on Twitter and Instagram @RetrologicGames. You’re also welcome to jump into our friendly and 100% non-toxic Discord Community! The link to that is in my twitter bio.
You can also find everything on our website Retrologic.games
