@bobtheduck: [www.animenewsnetwork.com]

Iron_Dragon_2.0

I like my method better: buy big sackloads at a time of NES games desperately hoping that any of them work/are good games.

dowingba

I wonder if they'll eventually do this for Anime... It's impossible to buy second hand anime because it's all frigging bootlegs...

I can't afford Funimation prices, and I haven't liked ADVs offerings as of late...

bobtheduck

Not a bad idea. However, the impact of VGA can only be verified decades down the line; how else are they going to check the rare commidity/payout value of their grading system without trudging through at least a decade worth of time?.

It seems like an expensive indexing system at the moment. Unless every single videogame collectors knows about the VGA...

Fyren

@bangbangblah: Well you can force it open to play the game I'm guessing... But then it will need to be regraded unless you plan to keep it.

Iron_Dragon_2.0

Hmm maybe i can finally get myself megaman x2 and mario rpg.

@[KU]Shindokie: Wishes for a Star:HA! I wish you luck in your endeavor to get suikoden II one of the best rpgs out there, you should try to get the first one too. Good thing I managed to get a hold of the second before they were all gone

Word Man

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: Unless of course it's for sealed games only... Which to me as a gamer is pointless but I know there are collectors.

Iron_Dragon_2.0

I know this may sound dumb, but if it's tamperproof, can I as a buyer get into it to play it?

bangbangblah

It's easy to grade a comic book or paperback. You just inspect the physical quality of it. With a game however it's a lot harder.

You either need to play through every inch of it or do a bit by bit comparison of the data against a verified copy. Since they might run into legal issues comparing the data to an image backup or cart rom dump that option is not likely. It's also impossible for them to play every inch of a game to test it.

So in summary: Their grading is BS unless you're just looking at the disk itself... Which is pointless.

Iron_Dragon_2.0

I'd like to see them try to seal up Steel Battalion

Yin

Oh wow, the wonders that ebay beholds to the badass game seller that doesn't want to go through shitstop and mom and pop stores, oh and shitbuster.

LOLOL good thing this is all voluntary at the moment.

someone, somewhere, sometime at the posting of this, shat a brick.

ManjiKengo

I just want to know what's meant by "white Nintendo seal"...

BPMα

Maybe I should dig up my sealed Combat for the Atari 2600.

klew

Their site isn't even active so I couldn't find out if part of the grading policy includes "works perfectly" because as soon as it's graded and sealed, it no longer "works". If you're buying the game for a shelf collection, fine. If you're buying the game to PLAY the game, why bother?

klew

A $25 dollar fee?
If people are selling just random old games they might not even get $25 for the game. But I guess if you've really got some rare perfect condition stuff you're selling more as a colectiable, like the original gold NES zelda with box and instructions, then maybe. But still, damn $25 seems a bit steep.

Sam_Lowry

hmmm wonder what the original FF without the box is worth. (I still got mine in mint condition)

khuntilla

GIVE ME SUIKODEN 2 for a cheaper price please. :(

[KU]Shindokie: Wishes for a Star

$25 seem a bit much unless it's worth at least $1000...

icepick314

I am in no way a sealed game collector. I do however want my games to remain in mint condition once I have them. I take a lot of care to make sure I don't damage them in any way and that they are all displayed nicely on my shelf when not inside a console.

I never did get into collecting older games (I only have the ones I had when I was a kid), so I don't care about them too much. Loose NES/SNES/GEN games placed nicely in a big box is fine with me (though I do put them in plastic sandwich baggies to protect them from dust). It is a little different for the newer games though.

I love the RPG genre and lately is seems that these are the games which will be worth quite a bit in the future. I have almost every RPG released for the PS2 in mint shape and while I haven't played them all yet by any stretch, I plan to in the future. I care about them being left in a collectable condition, but I couldn't care less what "grade" they are. As long I know they are in nice shape and complete, that is all I care about.

When buying games online (ex. Ebay), I care that the games I buy are in good condition, but I wont be looking for anything graded. The way I see it, those people out there who collect sealed games are nuts, but I get it. I don't have the money to spend so much on something that I can't play. The only reason I keep my games as nice as the day I bought them is so that I can enjoy them that way for years to come. I don't plan to sell them and God willing, they won't ever be sold until after the day I die.

thinkfreemind

@thinkfreemind:

Amen. I should think about the plastic baggie thing, my SNES is getting up there (going on 16 years) and the games aren't far behind. Still works like a charm, but I want to preserve these things as long as possible. A lot of childhood memories are tied up in those cartridges.

zgrowler2

@khuntilla: much less than the $25 fee. heh

ankylo

@BPMα: I think that means the Nintendo seal of quality, the older versions of NES games had a white seal on usually the black background of the box and was more of a circle shape before the seal became gold and oval shaped.

fearing

Lame, lame, lame. Neckbeards everywhere are rejoicing, though.

Maxathon

WTF?! I knew comic books were graded then sealed in plastic, but video games? Really?

Angryrider

Yes. Make it that much harder to open and play my game, like I stole it from K-mart.

Fucking collectors. I hate them.

"My neogeoes, let me show you them."

Billkwando

Meh, doesn't really apply to a poor college student like me. Cheap old games going back a generation is as far as I go for now. Serious game collectors with money can have their fun, I'll have mine playing old gamecube games on wii.

tnx3

@[KU]Shindokie: Wishes for a Star: I can't believe I sold my mint copy back to Gamestop, and a month later found out the rarity.

H8ff0000

$25 EACH? That's a little steep, IMO. Maybe $25 for 5-10 games. Woohoo, some group in God knows where put some plastic around a game and gave it a grade. I can do that too, and for free.

edgeblade

I sold Suikoden II on eBay for $150. Figured it wouldn't hurt as I bought it for around $40 and didn't really intend on playing it. Don't think this grading system will really affect the current market value THAT much, only for a really small portion of classics.

HibikiRush

This is the biggest scam ever. I can maybe see doing this with a comic book, but a game? Seriously?

OtherAdam

FUCK!

I hated this when the CGC came around and starting making the price of comic books artificially inflated if they're in some shitty plastic slab that can't be removed so you can never read & enjoy the comic, and artificially deflated if they're NOT in the plastic slab. Horrible. And now with videogames? Please, everyone, for the sake of my own personal sanity, do not partake of this company's services!

Strange Bedfellows

@Doomstink: What the...? 70-175 dollars for Final Fantasy VII? When the hell did that game become so valuable? Makes no sense! There are MILLIONS of copies of that game out there!

Strange Bedfellows

@Doomstink: I love that that FFVII is considered "rare" now just because Gamestop/EB liquidated their PS1 stocks.

A game that has millions of copies in print in the US alone, is rare...genius.

Lackshmana

This is a scam with comic books, and it will be a scam with video games.

Collectibles are valued at whatever price collector's are willing to pay. And serious collectors don't care about some arbitrary third party's grading system.

This whole rating system is just meant to trick people who don't know better in to thinking they can get more money for a graded game. When the truth is collector's know how much they're willing to pay already and you aren't gonna get higher than that.

What is confusing is that a lot comic book fans are also collectors, but most video game fans don't care about that sort of thing. So this really is meant for a very small, and mostly uninterested market.

Lackshmana

I just started selling "rare" games on eBay last week and haven't found the need to get any of them graded. So far I've sold 3 copies of FFVII and a copy of GC Fire Emblem. I got $175.50 for one of my FFVII copies, don't know how or why it went so ludicrously high (most FFVII copies peak at between $70 to $105).

Anyways, I don't even know if I'd send my sealed games into this site. I'm supposed to have a sealed Panzer Dragoon Saga coming to me sometime soon, and I bought a sealed Punch-Out!! at a second hand shop for $10 last summer. I might send them off if getting the games graded actually helps the sale price.

Doomstink

EXPENSIVE.

Also, the last time I bought a video game on eBay, I got an illegibly crappy CDR with a sticker of the cover art on it after the auction claimed it was an original (yes, the seller had a good rating of 100+)

I tried to inform eBay to get his account pulled, but after tons of searching, I found an address, submitted, and got no reply.

...then three years later they contacted me with a list of pseudonyms he'd used and said the FBI was looking for him. Gee, thanks guys. Maybe you shouldn't have knowingly let him sell pirated games for years - clearly you got my message or you wouldn't have contacted me down the road. pfft.

fuchikoma

@fuchikoma:

When something like that happens, besides contacting eBay, you should also contact the Postal Inspection Service and file a mail fraud complaint (assuming it was shipped to you via USPS). They have a form you can easily fill out online.

Powerlurker

@[KU]Shindokie: Wishes for a Star:
I never understood the outlandish prices for the first two suikoden games. It's not like they were in short supply, at least around here and I can tell you that I live in buttfuck nowhere.

Tizlor

that's why you had more copies...you lived in the middle of fuckin no where dude. when you get to heavily populated places, you get more people that know about certain collectable games, or what to look out for. so they're always gone. when you live in the middle of no where, you have a better chance at finding stuff like suikoden 1 or 2 because there's less competition for it.

blackdice

@Sam_Lowry:

This might be worth it for Panzer Dragoon Saga

KingDavid73

This is completely stupid. Whoever falls for this grading scheme deserves to lose their money.

Dave Silva

I've got an unopened copy of Starsiege signed by all the developers. Any takers?

Eldragon

Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of a chunk of plastic inside of a box, wrapped in shrink wrap, enclosed in another chunk of plastic and given a meaningless number. Enjoy destroying the entire value of the game (You know, the game part?), since apparently you just want to own a box in shrink wrap and care nothing for the disc/cart, much less the data on that disc/cart.

Illusion

The big question for the VGA is going to have to be "are game collectors willing to buy in to the rating system". One can buy a video game from many more places than eBay, and there is absolutely no guarantee that the "hardcore" collectors will bite on this prospect. A quick survey of some collecting websites shows that many game collectors are cursing this development.

Personally, I see this as some person or group trying to make a quick buck in what is currently an honor system of buying. I don't see collectors buying into this system, and if this does actually become the predominant system of grading on eBay there will still be thrift stores, garage sales, and other auction sites where game collectors can buy their loot. Sure, VGA may get the naive collector or the average gamer, but I find it hard to believe that the collecting community as a whole will buy into this development.

TraderJake

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, this is exactly what killed the sports trading card industry. Now, those cards you own aren't worth half of what they were without paying one of two or so companies to "grade" them. What-a-fucking-racket.

Strangelove

AS an Ebayer I won;t let this happen. In my opinion - there are 3 states to a game used - (up to seller to describe condition) then Sealed - Factory Sealed , then Sealed with box damage. IF your gonna nitpick little scratches on a factory sealed box or a dented corner, ebayers - like myself - will be up in arms. The point of ebay is - you take pictures (hopefully many) of athe game - especially a collectable - and you let people bid on what they think it is worth. IF som 3rd party is going to give games a GRADE like comics and shit - then buyers will low ball every tom dick and harry looking to sell their old shit. I also have been buying DOUBLES of popular games since SNES - and putting one away - I have a SH&*Tload of stuff put away - I don't want to have to get all that stuff graded - I sell them off one by one when the prices seem about right to me. Noone has the right to tell me what my stuff is worth before I put it up for ebay...

IF people allow this - gaming as we know it is OVER!

Comp1demon

another waste of money. i can understand figures, cards & comics but games? bullshit. the way I see it like my aquaintance al said to me, "there's no need if there's a demand" Additionally, if you buy it in mint condition of the shelves & take good care of it in boxes like the 30yr virgin or maybe even me & some other people that I know in other forums, you can score big time without even getting them graded. The way i see it, if you take care of the product you purchase & store in a safe place, there will never be a need to have it graded. the latter is for the reassurance of idiots to be honest. I agree only with the aforementiod (comics, cards & figures) nothing more.

cherrybomb

mitch079