Rare video games collection heist(vanityfair.com)
vanityfair.com
Rare video games collection heist
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/06/rare-nintendo-atari-games-stolen
65 comments
There has been a lot of people calling out the role of game-graders and auction-houses in artificially raising the prices of video-games.
For example this expose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A
But I think it's fair to say that the people who are paying these prices are not interested in gaming per se, instead seeing their purchases as investments - after all the prices keep going up, and their grades are "the best". What could go wrong? (Ignoring the fact that millions of cartridges exist, of course.)
For example this expose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A
But I think it's fair to say that the people who are paying these prices are not interested in gaming per se, instead seeing their purchases as investments - after all the prices keep going up, and their grades are "the best". What could go wrong? (Ignoring the fact that millions of cartridges exist, of course.)
I don’t think “investment” is the right word. I think it’s closer to “collecting.”
They may say “investment” to make their expensive hobby seem more acceptable to the judgmental parts of society.
Though perhaps it is like Beanie Babies: people are truly fooled into thinking they’re making an investment.
They may say “investment” to make their expensive hobby seem more acceptable to the judgmental parts of society.
Though perhaps it is like Beanie Babies: people are truly fooled into thinking they’re making an investment.
There was an amusing SNL sketch on this point not very long ago.
Someone announcing his pending retirement at a dinner party, and how he was now going to live off his 'investments'. A display cabinet of beanie babies.
Someone announcing his pending retirement at a dinner party, and how he was now going to live off his 'investments'. A display cabinet of beanie babies.
I always find Christies auctions amusing, take these $150k Harry Potter 1st edition collection, the first paragraph highlights spelling errors, right after authors signature. Clearly valuing that very highly:
> with the ‘wand’ error on p. 53 and the misspelling of ‘Philosopher’s’ on the lower board.
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-rowling-j-k-b-1965-6382...
> with the ‘wand’ error on p. 53 and the misspelling of ‘Philosopher’s’ on the lower board.
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-rowling-j-k-b-1965-6382...
You might be interested in synthetic gemstones, often available at 99.9 - 99.99% discounts to "natural" stones due to their much higher quality.
Good article on the Beanie Baby bubble that occurred in the late 90's:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2015/03/02/beanie-baby-bubbl...
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2015/03/02/beanie-baby-bubbl...
At least some people are being conned into thinking this is an investment - fractional shares exist to own a product you'll never see.
https://www.wired.com/story/video-game-stocks-vintage-games-...
https://www.wired.com/story/video-game-stocks-vintage-games-...
I'm talking about the people buying the carts for $1,000,000+ they're very different from the "real gamers", for want of a better term.
Collectors, gamers and investors are 3 different groups (with some overlap, of course). Gamers buy the games to play them. Collectors buy with the intent of holding on to the collectable forever. Investors buy games with the intent of reselling them later (hopefully at a higher value).
I think at a certain price, collectors and investors wouldn't play the game though - it could reduce the value to either of them. Gamers also don't necessarily care about the condition of games (scratches on the label), having the box and manual, etc. The price difference between loose carts and CIB games, games with matching serials to the box (if applicable) reflects this. Hell, I've seen just a Super Grafx BOX go for a few hundred - but that is a worthwhile investment if you're trying to resell your SUper Grafx, and some collectors need it to completed their collection.
I think at a certain price, collectors and investors wouldn't play the game though - it could reduce the value to either of them. Gamers also don't necessarily care about the condition of games (scratches on the label), having the box and manual, etc. The price difference between loose carts and CIB games, games with matching serials to the box (if applicable) reflects this. Hell, I've seen just a Super Grafx BOX go for a few hundred - but that is a worthwhile investment if you're trying to resell your SUper Grafx, and some collectors need it to completed their collection.
Investors is too generous of a word. These people are speculators, nothing more. They're trying to cash in on an asset bubble in the making. Same story with crypto. A few of them will time the market perfectly and come away rich. The rest will be caught holding the bag.
Speculators and manipulators like Wata/Heritage. An auction house that allows anonymous bids and sales? Hello wash trading.
The most insane or sad is that there is some market for fractional ownership... Of collectibles in general, but also games... That alone should prove that it really isn't fully about owning it or nostalgia... At least in any sense I understand.
Just because it exists does mean it's common though. I doubt very many collectors participate in fractional ownership.
There was an article recently about WataGames and/or other insider companies being the anonymous buyers of games that they themselves put up for auction.
This happens in the NFT world, too. Auction an item then anonymously bid it up to millions with multiple fake buyer accounts (winning the auction). The only money you lose is the money paid to the auction house in fees. But you’ve now established a new price point for the cartridge or NFT.
This happens in the NFT world, too. Auction an item then anonymously bid it up to millions with multiple fake buyer accounts (winning the auction). The only money you lose is the money paid to the auction house in fees. But you’ve now established a new price point for the cartridge or NFT.
I totally see the point, and I wonder if true (really high price) buyers exist, the sums are lesser (but still) but there recently was another story, for simply fake rare games :
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/06/inside-the-100k-forge...
That I found 'fun' (sorry for the victims) is the amount of storytelling around theses items, it seems there is a lot of roleplaying, storycrafting and even work to create fake old legit copies.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/06/inside-the-100k-forge...
That I found 'fun' (sorry for the victims) is the amount of storytelling around theses items, it seems there is a lot of roleplaying, storycrafting and even work to create fake old legit copies.
"Wash trading." Real banking systems have laws making that a crime.
> But I wonder if there is really a market of people exchanging game copy for really high amount with 5 or more digits.
I worked at a pawn shop for 4 years and I learned a valuable lesson in this regard. Collectibles are never worth what they say they are because most people don't want them, and the people who do want them never want to pay full price.
To quote an old adage: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The bird in the hand being liquid currency, the two in the bush being a hypothetical valuation of a collectible sitting on your shelf.
There are extraordinarily few collectibles that you can throw online and instantly get a full value bid on. Unfortunately old video games is not one of them.
I worked at a pawn shop for 4 years and I learned a valuable lesson in this regard. Collectibles are never worth what they say they are because most people don't want them, and the people who do want them never want to pay full price.
To quote an old adage: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The bird in the hand being liquid currency, the two in the bush being a hypothetical valuation of a collectible sitting on your shelf.
There are extraordinarily few collectibles that you can throw online and instantly get a full value bid on. Unfortunately old video games is not one of them.
I could see some games scratching that 5 digit mark. I recently saw Earthbound for $4000 open box, and I wouldn't be surprised if that number goes up for unopened copies.
But I wonder if there is really a market of people exchanging game copy for really high amount with 5 or more digits.
If there's not a market, you can try to create one. Especially if you have a good collection yourself. Hype stuff up on YouTube, talk about it collector forums, drive bids up high on eBay and all of a sudden, you've reset the market. I know it's not that easy, but it's a hustle.
Now that these collectibles are expensive, and talked about as such in mainstream media (like, I don't know, Vanity Fair) so everyone knows they're expensive, all of a sudden they are a status symbol, like a Jackson Pollock or diamond ring.
If there's not a market, you can try to create one. Especially if you have a good collection yourself. Hype stuff up on YouTube, talk about it collector forums, drive bids up high on eBay and all of a sudden, you've reset the market. I know it's not that easy, but it's a hustle.
Now that these collectibles are expensive, and talked about as such in mainstream media (like, I don't know, Vanity Fair) so everyone knows they're expensive, all of a sudden they are a status symbol, like a Jackson Pollock or diamond ring.
It helps if you already did that once 30 years ago and only got slap on the wrist settlement where you just had to pretend to pay ~1 $mil back after being caught. https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/347558/interesting-...
The people paying $00,000s or more for games are not people who are interested in the games, as such. They'll never open them and play them, or even do what the store owner here did and keep them safe, showcase them to interested people. They'll just keep them squirreled away in a safe deposit box, wait a few years and sell on when the games have appreciated some value - i.e. an investment opportunity.
But like most collectibles, they are poor investments. It’s extremely difficult to not a priori which game will be rare and valuable in 30 years. Meanwhile you are paying for climate controlled storage.
I accidently have a few of these 'collectable' games. I did not buy them 20+ years ago to put them on a shelf. I play them.
That's the narrative and it may be true but do you know people doing this for such amounts ?
I mean it's based on :
- video game are a popular subject
- some people like to collect things for disproportionate money values (it's even a 'nerd' cliché)
- some rare art collectible like famous painting can be worth hundred of thousands or even millions
- everyone dream of a small item you can store and sells with an increased value just by waiting
But an old video game cartridge is not a piece of art, it's a cheap industrial produced thing.
I'm curious if there are really people investing in theses for company grade amounts of money.
I mean it's based on :
- video game are a popular subject
- some people like to collect things for disproportionate money values (it's even a 'nerd' cliché)
- some rare art collectible like famous painting can be worth hundred of thousands or even millions
- everyone dream of a small item you can store and sells with an increased value just by waiting
But an old video game cartridge is not a piece of art, it's a cheap industrial produced thing.
I'm curious if there are really people investing in theses for company grade amounts of money.
To be fair it seems like the topic of the story didn’t play most of these games, based on their condition and description of their packaging.
It's... nuanced.
There is absolutely fraudulent pricing in the collectors market. But it does calcify in people's minds to cause real transactions. Insurance values for your illiquid possession because they're based around a fraudulent but highly publicized price elsewhere, a charitable donation of an illiquid asset and tax deduction being based around a fraudulent but highly publicized transaction elsewhere. Of course, all currently unknown as fraudulent at the time, and unproven to be fraudulent, and by completely different people in the transaction.
The other thing to help you make a rounded opinion is looking at price distortions across all niche collectors markets. Delaware license plates went absolutely wild in pricing over the past several years, just like some trading cards, just like some video game cartridges, just like non fungible tokens. So its almost unproductive to put too much scrutiny on any specific market.
Yes, there is fraudulent pricing, yes, it affects how people do real transactions that also happen. Pricing is based on prior pricing, not based on whether there exist anyone sitting around willing to pay it.
The last prior price exists indefinitely at a volume of 0, until someone negotiates something different.
In some opaque markets based on magic, like at fine art galleries, they manipulate prices slowly upwards by using their market position to resist negotiation pressure and simply saying what the price is, and guilt tripping any buyer into saying "surely your interest in this piece is exclusively because you love the piece, it should bring you joy, market dynamics? hogwash!". with the only variable being if some collector or estate floods the market with a specific artist's work, which rarely happens so they don't need to adjust.
There is absolutely fraudulent pricing in the collectors market. But it does calcify in people's minds to cause real transactions. Insurance values for your illiquid possession because they're based around a fraudulent but highly publicized price elsewhere, a charitable donation of an illiquid asset and tax deduction being based around a fraudulent but highly publicized transaction elsewhere. Of course, all currently unknown as fraudulent at the time, and unproven to be fraudulent, and by completely different people in the transaction.
The other thing to help you make a rounded opinion is looking at price distortions across all niche collectors markets. Delaware license plates went absolutely wild in pricing over the past several years, just like some trading cards, just like some video game cartridges, just like non fungible tokens. So its almost unproductive to put too much scrutiny on any specific market.
Yes, there is fraudulent pricing, yes, it affects how people do real transactions that also happen. Pricing is based on prior pricing, not based on whether there exist anyone sitting around willing to pay it.
The last prior price exists indefinitely at a volume of 0, until someone negotiates something different.
In some opaque markets based on magic, like at fine art galleries, they manipulate prices slowly upwards by using their market position to resist negotiation pressure and simply saying what the price is, and guilt tripping any buyer into saying "surely your interest in this piece is exclusively because you love the piece, it should bring you joy, market dynamics? hogwash!". with the only variable being if some collector or estate floods the market with a specific artist's work, which rarely happens so they don't need to adjust.
This is as good a time as any to remind people that the prices for vintage video games are artificially inflated and largely the result of wash trading via auction houses and grading services, which locked out the preexisting retro gaming communities and turned a beloved hobby into an instrument for dubious financial speculation (and arguably set the precedent for NFT crypto trading, which has even fewer regulations and even less transparency that could prevent these wash trades): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A
The story says the collector described his collection as an "archive". This flies in the face of actual archival efforts like The Internet Archive, which persist digital copies of old games and make them available to the public when possible. Having a large collection of rare games in pristine condition in locked cases in your vault is not archival, it's hoarding at worst and financial speculation at best.
The story says the collector described his collection as an "archive". This flies in the face of actual archival efforts like The Internet Archive, which persist digital copies of old games and make them available to the public when possible. Having a large collection of rare games in pristine condition in locked cases in your vault is not archival, it's hoarding at worst and financial speculation at best.
I don't know the collector personally, but for having been/witnessed friends being interviewed by entertainment press reporters a few times, it's totally possible the article author just wanted to make the story more dramatic and overwhelmed him with oriented questions full of superlatives :)
I don't understand the cognitive dissonance seemingly on display by the game collector throughout the article:
> He’d had a kind of philanthropic hubris as an owner and collector, someone who never gave a second thought to keeping his legendary game collection a secret. He’d gladly let YouTubers film in the back; he would even open the safe back there and show them, item by item, his Louvre. Other collectors had rare games, sure, but in the back room of his store, and especially in the safe, he was proud to own 10,000 of what he described as “cherry” copies—his preferred term for virgin condition.
and again...
> And though the value of retro games had exploded in the past few years, he’d never been concerned about the safety of the thousands of games from his legendary collection—some of the most valuable video games on earth.
and yet again...
> Though the vault door didn’t work then and was mainly for show, that anything behind it could be, would be, stolen seemed unimaginable.
It is repeated time and time again that these items are valuable, that the collector was keenly aware that they are extremely valuable, and yet he also repeatedly seemed to refuse to acknowledge that you need to take steps to protect valuables, and the more valuable something is the more steps you need to take to protect it.
I don't want to 'victim blame', suffering a burglary is a horrible experience, but it is one compounded by foolhardiness.
> He’d had a kind of philanthropic hubris as an owner and collector, someone who never gave a second thought to keeping his legendary game collection a secret. He’d gladly let YouTubers film in the back; he would even open the safe back there and show them, item by item, his Louvre. Other collectors had rare games, sure, but in the back room of his store, and especially in the safe, he was proud to own 10,000 of what he described as “cherry” copies—his preferred term for virgin condition.
and again...
> And though the value of retro games had exploded in the past few years, he’d never been concerned about the safety of the thousands of games from his legendary collection—some of the most valuable video games on earth.
and yet again...
> Though the vault door didn’t work then and was mainly for show, that anything behind it could be, would be, stolen seemed unimaginable.
It is repeated time and time again that these items are valuable, that the collector was keenly aware that they are extremely valuable, and yet he also repeatedly seemed to refuse to acknowledge that you need to take steps to protect valuables, and the more valuable something is the more steps you need to take to protect it.
I don't want to 'victim blame', suffering a burglary is a horrible experience, but it is one compounded by foolhardiness.
The guy advertised to the world on youtube his collection, where/how it was located, and so on.
Stored that collection in an area anyone could locate with a google search.
Did not have agreed value insurance for the collectable games, likely because he was worried about documenting the collection to avoid taxes.
The vault/safe were non-functional.
There were no interior or exterior video cameras.
Considered collectable items his "retirement plan" (again, avoiding taxes would be my guess.)
Absolutely insane. At least he seems to have landed on his feet - he's now employed as a video game grader by CGC.
The other thing that is insane is that over and over the other video game store owners strongly suspected or knew what was going on, had had opportunities to call police, and plenty of ability to stall the thieves. One of several examples:
> Again, Jackson declined to provide any ID. While Young pretended to look up prices—he had no intention of purchasing any of the games—he told a colleague to take a picture of Jackson’s license plate. Young remembered reading about Trade-N-Games, and he called Brassard.
Oh. My. God.
Call. The. FUCKING. POLICE. In many states you don't even have to call - you can text, so it just looks like you're fucking around on your cell phone.
Stored that collection in an area anyone could locate with a google search.
Did not have agreed value insurance for the collectable games, likely because he was worried about documenting the collection to avoid taxes.
The vault/safe were non-functional.
There were no interior or exterior video cameras.
Considered collectable items his "retirement plan" (again, avoiding taxes would be my guess.)
Absolutely insane. At least he seems to have landed on his feet - he's now employed as a video game grader by CGC.
The other thing that is insane is that over and over the other video game store owners strongly suspected or knew what was going on, had had opportunities to call police, and plenty of ability to stall the thieves. One of several examples:
> Again, Jackson declined to provide any ID. While Young pretended to look up prices—he had no intention of purchasing any of the games—he told a colleague to take a picture of Jackson’s license plate. Young remembered reading about Trade-N-Games, and he called Brassard.
Oh. My. God.
Call. The. FUCKING. POLICE. In many states you don't even have to call - you can text, so it just looks like you're fucking around on your cell phone.
I can really identify with the dissonance you identify.
Until you've had your bike stolen (or known people who have), you just can't imagine it happening with clarity.
Therefore I don't really think it's cognitive dissonance as much as lack of imagination.
Dissonance would be if there were break-in attempts that he ignored. Or if he got threats and did nothing.
He didn't actually have concrete reason to believe that he was a target.
Until you've had your bike stolen (or known people who have), you just can't imagine it happening with clarity.
Therefore I don't really think it's cognitive dissonance as much as lack of imagination.
Dissonance would be if there were break-in attempts that he ignored. Or if he got threats and did nothing.
He didn't actually have concrete reason to believe that he was a target.
[deleted]
> Until you've had your bike stolen (or known people who have), you just can't imagine it happening with clarity.
It's _very_ common for cyclists to use bike locks even if they personally haven't suffered a bike theft.
It's _very_ common for cyclists to use bike locks even if they personally haven't suffered a bike theft.
It is also common for cyclists to use cable locks until the first time their bike is stolen.
And then they learn that cable locks do not work.
And then they learn that cable locks do not work.
D-locks don't work either, since thieves discovered battery-powered angle grinders
If cycling is to be a significant part of the future of transport, we need to solve bike theft.
If cycling is to be a significant part of the future of transport, we need to solve bike theft.
On the other hand it might take multiple thefts to learn the lesson for some people. When I was a kid/teenager, someone stole my bike and the police found it(yay small town) abandoned several blocks away. Of course it took my sister and brother-in-law pretending to steal it for me to really learn.
Our house was burgled a few years back and it certainly served as a wake up call. My room was untouched somehow whilst my roommates gaming pc and anything else electronic was taken.
At the time my backups were all sitting next to my computer, encrypted but physically present. That day I started to appreciate the value of offsite backups for personal data and adjusted my strategy
At the time my backups were all sitting next to my computer, encrypted but physically present. That day I started to appreciate the value of offsite backups for personal data and adjusted my strategy
My heart is aching for the owner. At the same time I feel a sense of relief because I am moving between countries. A lot of what I am doing these days is giving away my "stuff" and shedding attachments to "things". I do understand him thou. My 8 cases of Magic cards will be sorely missed, but I am happy to know that the Magic cards don't own me.
When I was in college, I had stopped playing MTG, but several of my DnD friends still did. Once in a while, I'd bring down a box of my cards, and let them pick through whatever they wanted for 80%-ish of their value, traded towards food. In a way, that was probably one of the best ways for me to get rid of some.
My problem is that this is a 20 year plus collection. It's of a size where logistics are needed to move the darn thing and monetizing it's value will be somewhat hard.
On the monetization front I’ve been looking for something to automatically catalog a large collection of cards but it looks like the only ones that exist are for large outfits (https://tcgmachines.com/shop/phyzbatch-9000) given the cost.
I imagine it’d be pretty easy to have a camera identify cards with OCR being what it is today but then you have to go about laying out every single card which is labor intensive.
I would just love some automatic way to have my cards automatically registered in a database. Then it becomes incredibly easy to quantify the worth of a collection and identify which cards are actually worth the time to sell (anything over $5, $10, etc.).
I imagine it’d be pretty easy to have a camera identify cards with OCR being what it is today but then you have to go about laying out every single card which is labor intensive.
I would just love some automatic way to have my cards automatically registered in a database. Then it becomes incredibly easy to quantify the worth of a collection and identify which cards are actually worth the time to sell (anything over $5, $10, etc.).
I have the perfect HackerNews link for you, my friend!
https://www.hackster.io/chev-eldrid/trading-card-inventory-t...
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Buon appetito!
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1) Always bolt down your safe.
2) Most “safes” are not actual safes but “residential security containers.” A real safe will be UL rated and one this size (guessing it was large, didn’t see any pictures) weigh in the thousands of pounds.
2) Most “safes” are not actual safes but “residential security containers.” A real safe will be UL rated and one this size (guessing it was large, didn’t see any pictures) weigh in the thousands of pounds.
I think the larger takeaway is that the level of protection needs to scale up with the value of the contents, and he unfortunately did not keep up. The value of those games has gone into the millions recently, so this setup was not sufficient anymore to withstand the level of attack.
For example, if what you have moves into hundreds of millions of dollars (not the case here) then any safe is no longer sufficient, you need to move to a vault and armed guards.
For example, if what you have moves into hundreds of millions of dollars (not the case here) then any safe is no longer sufficient, you need to move to a vault and armed guards.
The threat model for (2) is really more of a fire thing if I understand correctly. Which does make a lot of sense for most people. I’m pretty confident I will never be burgled. I could see my house burning down.
In America, a home robbery including injury to the habitants, is more common that a whole house fire. I looked this up years ago when discussing gun ownerships with friends, refuting why they think gun ownership is for the paranoid, but yet they all have fire insurance on their homes.
“America” is as helpful as “Europe”. The “average” experience is completely irrelevant to your local situation. For many Americans, adding a gun to the home will net increase the danger to its own family members on a statistical basis.
A gun is a pretty terrible means to prevent burglary too. Unless you’re gonna make it really publically clear that you’re a gun nut, it does nothing to act as a deterrent to potential burglars. A simple security system or a dog is often plenty. Conditioned on you being burgled anyway, the probability that you can safely get your gun and load it and defend yourself is pretty abysmal for most means of safe storage. Most burglaries are also just someone getting in, grabbing a handful of crap and leaving. A safe is typically a pretty good defense against this tbh.
Speaking as a gun owner and someone who has been burgled.
A gun is a pretty terrible means to prevent burglary too. Unless you’re gonna make it really publically clear that you’re a gun nut, it does nothing to act as a deterrent to potential burglars. A simple security system or a dog is often plenty. Conditioned on you being burgled anyway, the probability that you can safely get your gun and load it and defend yourself is pretty abysmal for most means of safe storage. Most burglaries are also just someone getting in, grabbing a handful of crap and leaving. A safe is typically a pretty good defense against this tbh.
Speaking as a gun owner and someone who has been burgled.
The stat I gave was for the home owner being injured during the burglary. This is not even talking about all the burglaries when no one is home or when they run off when they realize someone is home (and could have a gun).
But definitely, if someone doesn't live near a big city like SF or San Jose or Berkeley, they probably don't need a gun as much as people in those towns. But it's still probably a good idea just in case. Without one, you just have to hope it never happens to you.
Almost all gun safes are at this level, and California DOJ just released the home addresses of thousands of legal gun owners. The threat model for those people has dramatically changed, but unfortunately the barriers to entry for a 'real' safe are quite high (cost, weight).
I expect a statistically significant bump in stolen guns hitting the streets directly attributable to CA DOJ's incompetence.
I expect a statistically significant bump in stolen guns hitting the streets directly attributable to CA DOJ's incompetence.
Why would you prefer to rob someone who has a gun? A gun in a locked safe is hardly a good target compared to the typical valuables. It’s also likely to be deep within the house in a harder to find spot. And, they have a gun.
Because gun safes aren't actually safes according to insurance companies. They're easily defeated with a crowbar or a saw, and generally light enough that criminals can just take them (if they aren't bolted down) and defeat them somewhere else if need be.
These aren't currency/jewelry-grade safes with relocking plates and the like. They're thin metal that's just about good enough to keep a child out and that's it.
Re: someone with a gun — just wait until the person goes to work. Many burglaries happen in the middle of the day (like the one my family experienced).
These aren't currency/jewelry-grade safes with relocking plates and the like. They're thin metal that's just about good enough to keep a child out and that's it.
Re: someone with a gun — just wait until the person goes to work. Many burglaries happen in the middle of the day (like the one my family experienced).
I felt crushed for the owner, reading this. What sounds like a lifetime of work collecting these rare, perfect condition games, just to have it destroyed in service of making the games harder to track when being pawned for short money.
Personally I don’t think I’d collect and not play these games, I like using my things for what they are for and I think the regular use enhances the value, but still I empathize with the store owner.
Personally I don’t think I’d collect and not play these games, I like using my things for what they are for and I think the regular use enhances the value, but still I empathize with the store owner.
I’m sure he had multiple copies of the non-rare games that were not mint and which he played.
During peak bubble, heists are common, I wonder if there is a deflationary event coming to collectibles in general. They've ballooned astronomically in the past few years and I wonder if its sustainable seeing that in auctions the buy or sell it to each other in order to increase the valuation in hopes that some billionaire will come and buy their rare super mario bros cartridge.
I don't know if you had the money and can't think of what to buy next, you end up collecting these insanely expensive nintendo cartridges that you don't even know will work.
The FPGA and CD emulator hardware that lets you run games off SD card seems to have put some liquidity suppression. However, there is a novelty to owning the complete game box, complete with mint condition manuals and covers, so there will always be demand for that.
Not a good spot for the owner to be in.
I don't know if you had the money and can't think of what to buy next, you end up collecting these insanely expensive nintendo cartridges that you don't even know will work.
The FPGA and CD emulator hardware that lets you run games off SD card seems to have put some liquidity suppression. However, there is a novelty to owning the complete game box, complete with mint condition manuals and covers, so there will always be demand for that.
Not a good spot for the owner to be in.
> During peak bubble, heists are common
But I didn't get the impression that the thief here really knew what he was after - he seemed to do a really poor job pawning the stolen goods (and settled for a lowball figure in some cases for games that were worth much more).
To me it seems like a boring robbery - they went after the safe because those typically contain valuables (in this case it also contained cash and precious metals). I'm not sure he ever realized the value of the games he'd stolen.
But I didn't get the impression that the thief here really knew what he was after - he seemed to do a really poor job pawning the stolen goods (and settled for a lowball figure in some cases for games that were worth much more).
To me it seems like a boring robbery - they went after the safe because those typically contain valuables (in this case it also contained cash and precious metals). I'm not sure he ever realized the value of the games he'd stolen.
When you're selling a stolen rare "artifact", you have to pay the "don't ask the five people who are known to have one of these" fee
I'm not convinced - if he was aware of the rarity of these items and the difficulty fencing them he wouldn't have taken them. If he was knowingly stealing them in order to pawn them for a lowball figure, he could've instead taken the numerous PlayStations that were also in that store and would've sold for similar amounts while attracting much less attention.
That was an enjoyable, nostalgia filled, and depressing read. It's obvious he didn't have the right security in place, but it seems he also didn't insure his collectibles appropriately. It's hard not to feel sorry for someone who collected as a labor of love, moreso since he seemed generous in opening his collection up to the greater community.
Does anyone see an irony that these pieces would have been less likely to be stolen if they were on a shelf in plain site?
Sort of like if you drop off a Monet at a thrift shop. Nobody would steal it.
Someone might buy it for 5 dollars.
Someone might buy it for 5 dollars.
The street artist Banksy put real works for sale in NYC at a booth outside the met. He sold very few, for almost nothing. This after people going through extraordinary lengths to preserve anything he created.
https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/video-banksy-set-up...
https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/video-banksy-set-up...
He's nothing if not a humorist.
He did a work for "The Outlaws" show. If you're OK with spoilers:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59236187
He did a work for "The Outlaws" show. If you're OK with spoilers:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59236187
I'm geniously wondering (but not too hard I admit) what part about theses stories of 'million dollar videogame cardridges' are trues and wich are urban legend.
There were multiple alleged scam story about this 'milieu' and stories about crazy prices were indeed fake (or more exactly PR for derivated product like 'expertise' and 'unusual placement and money laundering friendly').
But I wonder if there is really a market of people exchanging game copy for really high amount with 5 or more digits. (no doubt for dedicated fans, I know a few, but event if they pay hight sum we are still in the 3-4 digits sums and often a lot of time, it stays a hobby).
People passionated about a specic game, willing to pay hundreds of dollar for a legit cartridge and nostalgia kick not doubt.
People willing to spend thousands of dollar on an occasional project of making a restoration of an old arcade cabinet, not doubt (it's a nice tinkering hobby, but the hobby part is probably the most important, not the result).
But "numerous insanely rich and anonymous peoples willing to spend millions on black market with shady people to buy stolen video game cartridge" I doubt ^^