'WATA Certified' Copy Of Sonic The Hedgehog Sells For Record Price

There is no way this WATA stuff isn't a money laundering thing / scam / fraud.

I still don't trust this company. Everything surrounding them is incredibly fishy.

So far from what I read of WATA, there So scamming people, there is just, just to much stuff around them that make them, well not the best company.

@Aurumonado There's a lengthy video going into the backgrounds of WATA, Heritage Auctions, and the other people involved. They're all incredibly shady and this is absolutely a ploy on their part to make money off of a market they have no business getting involved in. I'm not sure if I can share a link to it here, but Nintendo Life posted an article about it before. There's a link to the video in the article they link at the bottom of this one if you or anyone else is interested. As a game collector, I'm frustrated to see that their business model is continuing to work despite being exposed.

EDIT: Somehow didn't notice the video was linked here, too... oops. Anyone curious about the situation should really watch that, it's incredibly informative and eye-opening.

@VIIIAxel I think I will.

This stuff is mega dodgy. Between this and NFTs, idiots are parting with their money based on a puff of smoke.

@Poodlestargenerica it’s people in the company or involved in the company supposedly buying the games. If that is true it most definitely is a scam to get media attention, and cause them to seem more legit.

The U.S. Government is now investigating Activision for (failure of) disclosure of practices to investors.
I hope this has WATA shaking in their boots, because there is no way they can pull off this glorified money laundering scheme for much longer, let alone now that all eyes are on the gaming industry.

@Poodlestargenerica It's been discovered that a lot of people winning these crazy auctions are people working for WATA. They're just artificially driving prices up so they can make more money in the end. Their grading standards are inconsistent as well. WATA and Heritage are also crucial data regarding these sales that would prove (or disprove) the rarity/values of items. This is absolutely a scam.

Wow, they're still doing this, even after the exposé and all eyes are on them.

Easy to prattle on about fools and their poor impulses. Garden variety idiots with cash burning in their pockets don't have this kind of money. And even the most extra Sonic fan wouldn't drop that cash for the game. I don't really care what rich people do to make more money but this is messing up the games market and it's annoying as can be for people who buy old games to actually play them. But this is the symptom of a problem that existed before WATA. Video games becoming collectable was the worst thing to happen, people buying up carts just to sit in their house because they for some god forsaken reason needed to try and get every NES or Genesis game. That was where prices first started soaring. And naturally it caught the attention of people who like to make money, and the games market was just ripe for their picking.

"Sonic's co-creator thinks it might be a scam"
Ya THINK?!

People actually fall for this?
Can't be true in this day and age, right?

@EriXz If you've seen the current state of affairs, then you already know the answer, sadly.

Not sure who is the idiot that is willing to pay that much for this game, you can get the same game for roughly $15 or under complete with case and manual. You can get the Sega 6-Pak for under $9 which includes this game along with 5 other games.

@Poodlestargenerica Um no it’s definitely a form of scam. It’s blatant market manipulation. It’s the opposite of honest. If it were stocks we were talking about, it would be considered an obvious pump-and-dump scheme.

@Poodlestargenerica How is this related to capitalism? Do socialist countries not allow card collecting?

@Specter_of-the_OLED As stated above in the comments, the people buying these are most likely employees of WATA or Heritage Auctions (the companies doing the grading/auctioning) so that they can drive game values up. It's been well-documented that they've been behind a lot of these crazy bids. The video linked in the article goes into a lot of depth on this extremely shady business.

I must say, it is amazing to have the old Super Mario 64, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Sonic games in the world record books.

But it would be nicer if they were added to it in earnest and correctness and without a bunch of friends pushing money from side to side to generate buzz for their business.

It makes me wonder about the state of other auction houses.

@Poodlestargenerica A free market economy would be if people were actually buying the games at these prices. When it's people from the same company that owns the original games buying them at inflated prices, that's market manipulation and fraud.

Something that Jim Halperin (advisor to WATA games and co-founder of Heritage Auctions, both parties behind this scam) was already convicted of and forced to pay millions by the FTC in the 1980s when he was found guilty of pulling this exact same scam with collectible coins.

@EveryGameBeLike

Chances are high the "buyer" is employed by WATA Games (or its parent company). Every previous "record-breaking" auction has been WATA simply re-purchasing its own items in order to have the media report the inflated prices. This is all a scam to sucker others into thinking that extremely common games are suddenly a hot investment.

Great to see Karl Jobst linked here on NL, man‘s got some well researched and entertaining content on his channel. Absolute legend.

This is just some money laundering sale for someone wealthy, nothing more.

Thank you for posting the Karl Jobst video under the article.

Manipulating auctions (which is what is purported to be happening here) is not capitalism but a scam.

For capitalism to work as it should requires the free flow of information which is not happening here.

This is pure greed, which was around well before the capitalist system.

This is getting ridiculous. Granted, if someone has that much money to burn, I don't feel sorry for them possibly being taken to the cleaners, but there's no way something from 30 years ago should sell for this high of a price regardless of item condition

Meanwhile, I'm here thinking that $50 for any Sonic game is too much.

It's clearly market manipulation. Why else would the most common games be hitting these record prices rather than the rarest?

I still have my original copy in mint condition with manual, and the poster (which every Sega game came with during that era), I even have the ‘Sega’ seal sticker on the edge of the case, I’m cashing in to pay my mortgage off 🤔😁😀.

Seriously, there is no way this very ‘common’ game is worth this kind of money, it is just sensationalism to spike interest and prices by a company that works of commission of sales.

I regularly buy games, to play, and this type of thing, along with the ‘retro’ bandwagon is, for me, making it a financially unviable hobby to continue with, and will push more a more people toward illegitimate means of playing titles.

I’m hoping the bubble bursts, if only for my own selfish gains.

@ObeseChihuahua2 a shame, really

Psht, it's a scam by default if you ask me. I get it, collectible, but seriously... it's a piece of plastic plus circuitry.

Stop promoting such evil

looks like a scam smells like a scam its a scam. Cant believe this isnt illegal in us. illegal everywhere else

This is insane like no game is worth these prices. Its a common game that was mass produced in 90s, like new condition or not shouldn't be this price at all. Seems very sus

Yeah, at this point I think we all know it's a scam.

I hope the people at WATA and the like get their due. . . .

I have Metroid Prime 2 ntsc u/c version still sealed. Is it worth a grand? Lol

I only want to see Yuji Naka be referred to as ‘BALAN WONDERWORLD CREATOR’ from now on.

I joke. But f*** this graded games situation. The games selling for these record prices (Sonic, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64) are all common as hell. Makes no sense.

Karl Jobst: -Lays out his accusations and arguments very plainly and simply, listing receipts and details which are open to the public and back up his statements-

WATA: "No lol"

As King K. Rool would say: "It's a trick! setup! scheme! scam!"

I'll raise this point again: the American copies has less historical value, as their box and manual artwork are not envisioned by the game creators. Sometimes even in game there are sprites that were not made by creators (this apart of text translations that often are censored and modified at the overseas marketing division's will).
Even with that in mind, American copies cost a lot more for whatever reason.

Stop sharing these scam news articles! You're destroying the fun for real collectors!

They've bought a lot of mint sonic copies. Now many people will try to sell the ordinary game for 10.000 dollars, maybe 5.000 dollars. That's how you destroy a market.
A rare painting from a famous person would require material proofs, historical analyst, complicated documents to prove its value. These guys from WATA are trying to do this with famous, but ordinary games without any decent criteria. VGA was considered a joke by many collectors, but WATA took this to another level.
Karl's video tried to say that this is market manipulation and not money laudering. I really think that maybe, maybe...nevermind.

@TryToBeHopeful Doesn't have to be in cash. All you need is an unknown origin. Protected by any kind of classified international bank. The seller is not responsible to prove if the buyer's money is legal or not.
So, if you have some "illegal money" and you sold Sonic for 400.000 dollars, you can "receive" this payment (of course, paying the bid taxes) and now this money is legal. The origin was a bid. You can say to everyone "I have 400.000 dollars because I sold a sonic cartridge"

I kind of dislike it when people collect games just for the purpose of collecting (and pay insane amounts of money for a game that shouldn't cost much more than the original retail price in my opinion). To have a game that is not played is just sad.

@KoopaTheGamer Especially for games like this, which you can just buy on the Wii U Virtual Console for like 8 dollars.

This copy of Sonic the Hedgehog is a rare game because it's not a Not For Resale copy.

Having played the Balan demo, I'm pretty sure Naka is a scam, too, though...

If this is "normal capitalism" then all those mafioso really were "legitimate business men" all along!

@KingMike And the only thing that sets it apart from the millions of other Not for Resale copies is a piece of shrinkwrap.

But.....correct me if I'm wrong, but the Not for Resale copies came in the console box and.....weren't.....srinkwrapped.....?

So how is this sealed....?

I mean I still have my copy, not sealed, because it was never sealed. Can I be a half millionaire, please?

@Poodlestargenerica

It's not. It's manipulated market. I don't mean all selling rare copies in general but this insane high prices (like those million dollar Marios) WATA does the certificates games owned by auction house and then auction house either buys their own items or basicly give someone..I am sorry.. invest money to buy their game and then they sell game again with better price within next year or so. Same guys are behind WAKA. It's a scheme ran by handful of people.
Market manipulation has always been around and it will be around. There is always new trendy thing and people hype and will be caught by hype because they think they are going to get rich.

So one rates and one sells their own items. I think YT vid explains it well.

And idk what WATA owner complains, Jobst guy had quite good proof for the information he presented, he wasn't making stuff up and throwing accusations without evidence to back up.

Best NintendoLife could do is to stop giving attention to these.

@dazzleshell
I have sealed copy of the failed first release of FF XIV online. I smell moneyz.

Of course it's a scam, there's an actual tear visible in the wrapper and they rate it a 9.4. Any true collector would see that tear and wouldn't pay a dime more than it retailed for.

I know you have to report stuff about games but I am so sick of hearing about this crap.

WATA + Heritage Auctions = Scam. It's about rich people pumping up values to get richer off of other rich people. Hoping the bubble bursts soon.

I've got a sealed WiiU copy of Sonic Boom. Who's got a mil for me?

"Six Degrees of NintendoLife"
I tried to stay away and not give this article any traffic, but curiosity over the price overwhelmed me.

Wait, they're still selling these things even after the whole enterprise was definitively exposed as a scam?

@Anguspuss,

illegal, that's a sick bird, isn't it ?.

@NEStalgia,

I will give you $3.50 and not a cent more.

@NEStalgia I was joking. I doubt either version is rare.
But "Not For Resale" indeed means it was a console pack-in copy. No idea if it was ever shrinkwrapped.

Copies lacking NFR were yes, copies that were sold separately.

NFR copies of both Sonic 1 and 2 seem to be more common than standard retail copies, so I've assumed that both games the console-sellers they appeared to be.

@Poodlestargenerica I really don't think you understand how scams or the free market actually work.

@johnvboy & Knuckles.

@KingMike haha, right over my head. Hindsight is 20/200.

My question is how these prices when from $500 then magically jump in price by 100,000 times the value in just a few months time by a mysterious grading company?🤔

To the people that are confused, just watch Karl's video and he'll break everything down. Coming in here not watching that is only going to make you look misinformed.

They are buying there own games it's a scam.sad thing is people actually believe it.

@Poodlestargenerica you do know it was proven that dude bought his own cooy of mario bros lol

@Poodlestargenerica you do know dude bought his copy of mario bros that he put up for auction
..I will Put money on it.super mario bros will never ever sell for that price again
But when you buy your own product that you are selling.o BTW on eBay there is a graded sonic game for 5000 sealed and steal hasent sold

This is a scam there is a graded sealed sonic game on ebay for 5000.and still hasent sold for that much let alone half a million.

So far in a matter of a month, they're outright exposed by largely solid work of massive researched by Jobst.

Their response, pffttt...he's lying.

Then, early this month one of them sells sealed Atari stuff for like nearly 50K on ebay.

Their response, fingers in ear, dodge and deflect, more 'lying' about them and their stellar awesomness.

And now this crap with what should be like what a 5-6 grade Sonic with dents, no less than 2 rips in the seal, and just a tinged wrap as it is on there as it doesn't look clear... and it sells over 400K.

...future response? We're awesome, it's just worth that much, nothing to see here move along.

What is it going to take? I mean it didn't take much to get that psycho Jack Thompson all over games a decade ago. Is there no lawyer who grew up loving video games who want to take these a-holes to task for clear cut cases of fraud, deceit, market manipulation, just outright scamming. Some of this may not be criminally easy to nail down, but at a civil court level you just need to create only a shadow of doubt, create some pause to make a jury say — you pay, you're a crook (like criminal where it needs to be concrete.)

They need to be destroyed.

Meanwhile, actually buying a retro game in order to play is getting harder and harder every day...

I mean cult members trust the cult leader; doesn't make it any more right.

retro game auctions 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

So this is me responding to the updates and response from Ken in the article. Pfffftttttttttt hahahahahahahahahahaha

Wow, I haven’t seen Kenny Goldin since he was dealing baseball cards with Don West on Shop At Home in the late 90s/early 2000s. He was full of it then, but this is a whole other level.

dont know about us megadrive games but in europe they werent sealed just had sega sticker on them

@Darkyoshi98,

At the very least it's market manipulation, too many people involved making money of this to be legitimate, and as you say similar graded games still on sale for much less, I would not be surprised to find any of these massive sales are bought by people involved with these companies, just to push the prices up.

Unless of course it's a genuinely rare game.

Our customers…. Mainly from Columbia…. And Italian sounding family names…. Are very pleased with our service….. that money comes back clean….

It's pretty telling that Ken Goldin felt he had to respond to a quite harmless-looking "What's this?" tweet.

Of course they vet their bidders. That's how scam auctions work. Rich guys building up hype and value of an item in hopes some ignorant person enters the fray with years of savings. They plan this out but they're pretty dumb as they don't realize gamers will complain about budget pricing even

If this is legit, then they aren't scammers, they're idiots. Guy paid over 400k for the equivalent of a 1990s Toyota Camry that someone bought and parked because "it'll be valuable someday!" The game is not rare and no one knows how many of a variation/misprint actually exist.

This is getting insane. If someone has half a million to buy a new copy of something the rest of us opened and loved 30 years ago, let 'em throw their money away. Video games belong in systems and on consoles, not in some homemade museum

Considering a graded 9.8 sealed copy of sonic sold on ebay for 5000

Nothing is stopping Wata/Heritage from making an hour-long video countering Karl from their perspective, but that won't happen.
This sale is them trying to squeeze out a few more bucks before it all crumbles.

“We have investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong”

Of course your customers will trust you, they want in on this scam.

Sell on ebay for 30
Or grade it and sell for 3000

WATA scam.... it ain't funny unless it's punny

“Our customers trust us.”

There’s a sucker born every minute.

@Poodlestargenerica, if it's true that people who work for the company are submitting these bids and NOT ACTUALLY PAYING, that is not a free market thing, that's fraud. if true, they're lying about actually selling games at those prices. I'm a huge free market advocate, we don't you giving it a bad name

Yuji Naka was clearly joking. They had to have been really paranoid to feel like they actually had to respond to him.

If this was a very rare game that had very few copies released worldwide or even in a particular reason I could understand the price for a near perfect condition copy. The fact that this has happened with three very common games recently that while in near perfect condition have nothing special about them other than that and probably have several copies floating around in similar condition. They aren't even limited edition packaging or variants of these games. So to me it is one or two things that either they are artificially selling these to people that work for them or it is some kind of money laundering as this and the two Mario games do not reflect the prices of what used to be a market that only the very rarest of games would fetch the highest prices.

@Poodlestargenerica I agree with that. Some people are just offended by others making money.

PLEASE READ AND BE INFORMED !!!!

This is NOT A SCAM and WATA is not the author of some made up conspiracy theory.

If you take a step back with a non bias opinion you will understand that it's not just video games but the whole pop collectible culture from the 80's and 90's which is getting a lot of traction. The market is moving away from hobbyists and moving towards investors who are looking for new territories.

Please look into it yourself instead of believing what you see in a random youtube video. You will get a much better understanding that way instead of coming up with false conclusions