“Friend of mine received this sealed and graded original copy of Pokémon Yellow,” Kick said. “U.S. Customs: Broke the acrylic case, ripped and discarded the seal, [and] sliced the front of the box off. Maybe they weren’t fans of Wata Games?”
Wata Games is an independent company that grades and certifies games for collectors. Chances are you’ll encounter Wata Games if you’re looking for high-quality, mint copies of old games. The company was responsible for grading and certifying The_Master_Of_Unlocking’s copy, giving it an A+ rating and a score of 9.2. According to Wata Games’ website, the game is in “exceptional condition” and worth $3,800. Or it was until U.S. Customs came through and decimated the certification.
“So…either they hated the battery inside the cartridge…or they thought it’d contain drugs or something,” one tweeter suggested in Kick’s mentions. “Can U.S. Customs just destroy things without recourse,” asked another tweeter, with many others demanding consequences against the agency.
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Exactly, it’s completely artificial. They’ve taken a collector’s market and intentionally distorted it into the analog equivalent of NFTs.
The value of these was created by them, and it is then held up by other people trading them purely through speculation. The entire market is commodity speculation rather than genuine interest in memorabilia. These people claiming it’s about memorabilia and memories of childhood are full of shit, if it were they wouldn’t want the extra-special-ultra-expensive-inflated one. It’s all NFT brain.
