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Retro Game Price Scam

Started by Cold Meat Platter, September 05, 2021, 01:46:57 AM

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Cold Meat Platter

Hey there. It seems that retro games have now become (even more of) a target for rich price-gouging wankers thanks to 'grading' or evaluation of the value of retro games by 'experts'.
These prices are being inflated because of the 'grading' experts also being involved in the selling at auction of these games, vastly inflating the prices by selling and buying their own games back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A

Investigation by Karl Jobst, who has done sterling work in uncovering speedrun cheats and Billy Mitchell, well, just being Billy Mitchell.


Cold Meat Platter


Karl Jobst and MetalJesusRocks are odd bedfellows.

Cold Meat Platter

I think he views MJR (not a fan) as a genuine 'collector' rather than an 'investor'.

Sick grabbers are disgusting. You see them all the time in the shmup community. People buying physical copies of games and the cellophane is still on 6 months later. They take a photo to upload to all their social media and get a load of likes and then forget to play the damn things.

You often get that with shmups. "Posers" they call them, people who dabbled in the shallow end then moved on, but they enjoyed the kudos of being a big boy hardcore shmup player in front of their internet friends so they try to keep that going, keep up the charade that they still play and are actually decent.

You get companies now like strictlylimitedgames and limited run games that purely exist to chase the sick grabber dollar.

With retro stuff it's even worse. For folk like me who just want to play the games, it's easy, emulation, but for the collectors, they have to contend with all the hipsters.

Once someone with a big audience on youtube talks about some rare game, the demand increases ten fold and the price rockets.

There was one guy came on some forum and he was like "Hi guys, I'm a collector, I don't like playing shmups, but I want to have a curated collection of them, the best example of each kind of shmup, what games would you recommend?"

I mean, what? You don't even like these games, all you wanna do is spend money.
You don't even want to curate your own collection?

There is no answer to which are the best games, it'd be different for everyone, unless you're a fucking idiot who doesn't play the damn things and just regurgitates the received "wisdom" of your shitbrained peers.
In which case, you'll be wanting ikaruga, sine mora and that lovely new r-type. Now fuck off.

Sick grabbers, that's what they call them, because they post their photos and then 50 people go "woah, sick grabs, brother"

There's this shitty dev called NGDEV who accidentally made one half decent game once upon a time and have purposely released a game that's only for the switch (dogshit console for shmups, performance issues, high input lag, terrible controls, so of course it's the platform of choice for the shit munchers), they're actively pursuing this market of tossers who just want to hold something in their hands and put it on a shelf and then into a landfill when they pop their sorry clogs.

I just don't understand why people do it. Take the cotton reboot as an example, it came out digitally for the ps4 in japan in february, I buy it, download it, play it, beat it, move on, then like 7 months later loads of people are talking about the game and I'm like wha'? turns out the physical editions have landed and now everyone is playing it.
Why would you choose to wait longer and pay more? I can understand buying physical if you're gonna sell the game on, but they never sell them on.

"Look at my sick collection" and they'll have all their boxes laid out flat, 75% of the games will be utter garbage or not even genre adjacent, but you say nowt, you just tut and shake your head at all the other wankers slapping them on the back.

Woooah, this post has gone on a bit. I feel a bit better after that :D

Absolutely no issue with collectors who actually play the games they collect, just to be clear. I do find it a bit strange, there's a hoarder mentality there that might not be too healthy, but they're not hurting anyone.

and sorry, I haven't watched the video yet, I hope this is on topic, just came spilling out.

DocDaneeka

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on September 05, 2021, 11:41:17 AM

You often get that with shmups. "Posers" they call them, people who dabbled in the shallow end then moved on, but they enjoyed the kudos of being a big boy hardcore shmup player in front of their internet friends so they try to keep that going, keep up the charade that they still play and are actually decent.

Bit harsh on Bosto.

That was a decent video, thank you! My god, that's all kinds of shady, I hope if this is what's going on that something will be done.

Quote from: Cold Meat Platter on September 05, 2021, 03:12:58 AM
Care to make your point?

I don't know what sort of point is being made, but ooooft, I looked him up, and that list, jesus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxISX0lCAOI
Even putting personal taste and the quality of the emulation for the psikyo games on the switch aside, that list couldn't be more wrong.

Famous Mortimer

Karl Jobst is excellent, been a fan of his for yonks. I was sort of puzzled about the news around old games, and assumed there was a scam going on somewhere, but he was very thorough on it.

Quote from: Cold Meat Platter on September 05, 2021, 03:24:31 AM
I think he views MJR (not a fan) as a genuine 'collector' rather than an 'investor'.

There are others who view him as a 'scammer' and an 'e-beggar'.

Jobst is definitely on the side of the angels but let himself down with that MJR comment.

Cold Meat Platter

Not aware of his fuckery, just thought he was dreadful. Was this about his flood damage or something?

Yeah, there was that. Also the $50,000 he wanted from his audience for a road trip - that didn't go down so well, even amongst the "Metal Militia", so he tried to remove any trace of it. I hear his good friend John Hancock is still taking donations for his gaming museum...

I just can't believe Jobst wouldn't know about MJR and the Limited Run Games/Revenge of the Bird King shadiness from a couple of years back.

Famous Mortimer

Jobst has just done a new video which gets a bit inside-baseball, where he rips into some Youtuber who appears to be toeing the Wata Games company line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ete5DzlZL8

The guy whose video he mocks is such an obnoxious prick that I'm expecting to get to the end and find out he's an actor friend of Jobst's. Who can possibly enjoy this sort of thing? (presuming the other fella has a decent number of followers)

Sonny_Jim

Quote from: Cold Meat Platter on September 05, 2021, 01:46:57 AMwho has done sterling work in uncovering speedrun cheats and Billy Mitchell, well, just being Billy Mitchell.
TBF the majority of the investigation into Billys infamous Donkey Kong score was done on the Twin Galaxies dispute thread.  They've since taken the thread down (probably due to the legal situation), but I was reading it at the time and when the 'girder finger' post dropped it was like the end of a Columbo episode.  There was no way a physical Donkey Kong board could draw the screen like it did in the video and they even narrowed down the particular version of MAME and command line options that he used.



Jobst I'm a bit hot and cold on, his stuff is interesting but as with all speedrunning stuff there's an undercurrent of internet drama which gets on my tits.  I've never really watched MJR but disappointing to hear he''s a bit of an e-beggar, I get the same sortof vibe from AVGN nowadays.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on September 21, 2022, 03:58:44 AMI get the same sortof vibe from AVGN nowadays.

AVGN is a bit less of a beggar and more like a zombie at this point. He's signed to some fucking company (Screwattack? Dunno), and has a lot of scripts written for him. Even Monster Madness is apparently written for him nowadays. He's basically a paid actor now and his passion for it all is clearly long gone.

madhair60

Will never understand the "Billy Mitchell used MAME" thing. So? It's the same game. Mitchell > whiny Wiebe

Sonny_Jim

MAME lets you save and reload the state of the game at any time which then can be edited into a 'movie'.  He would play a level until he got the 'perfect run', hit save, then do the next level.  If he messed up a section he could reload his previous savepoint and continue playing.  Once he generated this 'perfect run', he recorded it to VCR and submitted it. 

Twin Galaxies does allow MAME scores, but it's a different scoreboard and you have to use a specific version of MAME that doesn't allow savestates/cheats etc

madhair60

Big Billy Mitchell > whinging Wiebe