I don’t think a thread or post about this has been made yet, I’m mid-way through this right now but I figured it’s well worth sharing here as the points Karl outlines seem very relevant and well fact-checked:
Karl Jobst is a Goldeneye 64 speedrunner who has recently started making some fantastic videos about video game feats, exposed cheaters and general highscore history.
The basic tl;dr is that he believes WATA and Heritage amongst a few others have been working together to manipulate the video games market to create an artificial bubble. I figure this is relevant for the General Board here as Heritage is such a big name in high-end TCG auctioning as well.
So a 50 minute video of libel, from someone with minimal knowledge and experience of collectibles. Bonus points, also pins a victim complex comment hoping these companies don’t go after him for calling them frauds for an hour… Literally attacking companies, but is somehow the victim. Typical youtube drama that pretends its educating.
@smpratte I think you should just watch the video first as I think a lot of the things you’re saying aren’t really about the video, rather what I’ve said about it after only watching half of it (I’m not in a position to finish watching it yet, unfortunately).
I personally know very little about the video game collectable scene (it doesn’t really interest me much, if I’m honest), but it seems like market manipulation has been a hot topic since that $1.5m sale.
Heritage’s co-chariman appears to have a lot of involvement in the internal affairs of WATA and it sounds like WATA were given exclusive video game sale access on Heritage before the company had even graded their first game - which doesn’t really make much sense from an auction house perspective as surely they’d be open to accepting any graded or ungraded video game. This is simply something I’ve been told in this video and I don’t know how true it is.
Yeah I understand where you are coming from. I tried watching the video but its the same tired points: over generalizing demand and collectibles markets, savior complex with loads of defamation and gatekeeping. Par for the course.
This tbh. As a fan of speedrunning, Karl’s a well respected source who tends to do his homework. Now admittedly that doesn’t mean this vid is correct, but I doubt it’s a case of clickbait.
I’ve never seen any of his videos so I’ll take what you say about him doing research at face value, but he seems out-of-his-element on this. Around the 18 minute mark, he talks in length about how the new graded video game collectors are anonymous (unlike the older better collectors who did it for love and would show off their collection) and these new bad collectors are just buying at record breaking prices to drive up perceived value and then listing them on eBay for millions of dollars.
Does he not realize that those eBay listings he used as examples are people showing off their collection? He seems so blinded by his stance that he can’t see beyond what fits his argument. Some of the most expensive cards in Pokemon are listed on eBay at exorbitant prices as showcase listings, a way to show off the item to people digitally, but no these guys with million dollar listings can’t be good collectors like the old pure ones who did it for the love. They must be new bad collectors who do it for money.
This guy just made a 50 minute video about the NOT A TRUE COLLECTOR meme.
I’ve been buying coins from Heritage for years and had been watching video games perform from the sidelines. I was thinking about participating in an upcoming video game auction, but not anymore after this.
