Wata Games SUED For Market Manipulation!

hello you absolute legends in august of 2021 i released a video called exposing fraud and deception in the retro video game market in the video i focused on what are games a video game grading company and heritage auctions the largest auction house of collectibles in the world i described how water and heritage colluded to artificially create a speculative bubble in order to profit from the rising value of sealed video games the response from the public was overwhelming with almost universal agreement that the actions of water games and heritage auctions were unethical water games and its owners lied to and deceived the public many times in order to personally profit the only question was if anything was going to happen everyone knew it was wrong but no one knew if there would be any consequences personally i was hoping that the ftc would step in and investigate this hasn't happened yet but it still might in the meantime we won't have to wait before we see some action though on the 10th of may a class action lawsuit was filed against water games and its current owners collector's universe the lawsuit pulls no punches attacking water for multiple alleged injustices including market manipulation deceptive advertising insider trading and more in this video we will take a quick look at how this all went down we do have to give ourselves a bit of credit here because apparently the video we made last year may have been the inciting incident that made this all happen also i've been receiving messages about a new type of collectible that's been selling for massive prices on heritage auctions lately sealed vhs tapes many people are immediately calling this a scam and one of the reasons is because heritage is involved so in this video i'm also going to give my opinion on this new collectible as well i really hope you enjoy now before we go on a big thank you to this video sponsor bespoke post bespoke is a monthly membership club which delivers boxes containing a wide selection of really interesting and useful products every month they will send you something new and their lineup is constantly changing so there will always be new things to try before your box is shipped you can preview it and decide if you want to keep it swap it for something else or skip the month entirely for no charge bespoke sent me the stealth box which contains a great knife for everyday use around the home the stealth box also contains a money clip a heavy duty capsule and a multi-purpose pen which is also a screwdriver ruler and level i also chose the weekender bag which i use when i go on trips with the family but i have to say it's also just fun to browse boxes and choose which one you want to receive next every box has around 70 dollars in retail value but only costs 45 dollars and if you want twenty percent off your first box just go to the link in the description and enter kyle jobs 20 at checkout or go to bespokepost.com kylejobs20 when i released my initial video on water games and heritage auctions last year there was a huge public backlash people immediately knew what they were trying to do and rightly so they were angered even news outlets picked up on the story and despite what these salty speculators claimed this wasn't just a case of journalists blindly parroting what i said in the video it was definitely a case of them also looking at the evidence and coming to the same conclusion however despite the uproar nothing really happened and it looked like nothing might ever happen but then in april of this year a very interesting post appeared on the gang collecting subreddit it was titled potential class action against water games in california the user outlined that they were an attorney and game collector and that their law firm was preparing a class action case to be filed against collector's universe and what are games the point of the post was to ask members who had graded games with water if they'd like to join the class as a plaintiff it also confirmed that this lawsuit would address claims of unfair business practices rico violations and fraud claims what i found pretty interesting was a reply from the supposed attorney to a question asking if i was involved they stated we do not have direct involvement from jobs or abramson however the work those gentlemen did absolutely convinced the attorneys and staff here especially the non-collectors to take this matter on they did amazing work and we are really grateful to them for doing the legwork and laying everything out as they did everyone was obviously very excited but understandably skeptical anyone can make a reddit post and there was no way of knowing if it was legit truthfully the odds of this actually being real was pretty low but shockingly a month later on the 10th of may a class action lawsuit was filed in the united states district court the defendants were water incorporated and collector's universe which now owns water games the claims listed were rico unfair competition law false advertising intentional misrepresentation non-disclosure and breaches of the constitution of water games in 2018 it talks about the sale of the initial super mario brothers for 100 000 that was purchased by the founder of heritage auctions jim halperin it describes how the water and heritage executives used the media to pump up the market it mentions the porn stars episode where richard lecher who had a business relationship with water and was friends with water president dennis khan went on to try and sell that same copy of super mario bros for 1 million dollars but they failed to disclose that the parties knew each other the lawsuit outlines how the market drastically increased in value after it was artificially pumped and how water and heritage directly profited from this manipulation the claim also talks at length about something that i didn't mention in my video it says that the inflation of the market caused collectors to send in their games for grading hoping to sell them for profit however at the same time water was bogged down and fell massively behind their advertised turnaround times yet they failed to adequately notify the public or update their website regarding the delays thus providing false advertising my video also makes an appearance the filing reads on or about august 23 2021 an independent journalist named karl jobst released a youtube video called exposing fraud and deception in the retro video game market which highlighted many of the problems and misstates by water and operant association with the company also in august of 2021 journalist attorney and video game collector seth abramson wrote online articles also detailing many of the false statements and unfair business practices detailed herein the release of the jobs youtube video and the abramson article caused waves in the video game collecting community water customers became very nervous and were unsure what the impact of the revelations would have on the collector's market after the disclosures by independent journalists prices for the retro video games began falling now it is true that some collectors became nervous about the impact of my video on the market and since the video was released prices have fallen a lot but it's hard to say if my video had any real impact on the market as a whole the market was already way overvalued when i made the video so it likely would have corrected anyway the initial hysteria over retro video games seems to have subsided and the entire market is down in value as much as 50 percent prices for the most valued games are still pretty insane but for the meantime the upward trajectory seems to have reversed the lawsuit goes on and on explaining everything that most of you already know if you've seen my video i must say though they were extremely thorough i can't really think of anything else that i would add the big question is does this have any chance of being successful i am not a lawyer so i have absolutely no idea if this were the ftc investigating what is misleading advertising i would be extremely confident however this is a civil suit and it's an entirely different story in saying that i have heard that civil suits can be even easier to win because the burden of proof is lower the fact that this is going to court at all is a massive win and it's honestly more than i ever thought would happen i will definitely keep you up to date when anything interesting happens and in other somewhat related news i had several people message me in regards to the most recent craze in the collectibles market sealed vhs tapes about a week ago a sealed vhs copy of back to the future sold for 75 000 this made headlines of course because you can't pump a market without publicity mind you people have been trying to pump vhs tapes for a while now and the tactics seem very similar to what we saw with video games for example take these articles from last year why your vintage video games could be worth a small fortune why your old video games may be worth millions now take this article that just came out recently rarity and nostalgia old vhs tapes could be worth a small fortune to the naive reader this just looks like any other random news article some light reading but in reality articles like these are very calculated and they are designed to pump the market the articles always contain two critical pieces of information a high value sale and the name of an auction house people with connections will buy stock in an untapped collectibles market and then flood the market with hype in the form of articles videos and press releases they do it all the time and they are very successful at it but here's the thing and you probably won't like hearing this from me hyping up a market isn't inherently wrong trying to convince someone else that something is valuable isn't necessarily wrong either just because you think spending thousands of dollars on a vhs tape is stupid that doesn't make it a scam when i made my video about water and heritage auctions the point wasn't to attack people over the fact that they were paying a million dollars for video games the point was to attack people who lie and use deceptive tactics to mislead people as soon as you lie it then becomes a scam i don't care if video games or vhs tapes are worth a million dollars or a hundred dollars people can value these items however they like and that's fine but as soon as you trick people or break the law in order to artificially inflate an item's perceived value well now you're just a scumbag and you need to be called out i haven't really looked into it but i haven't seen any deception or lies with these vhs sales so i can't really call it a scam i don't think the vhs market will blow up like the video game market did because vhs tapes are terrible and they always have been when it comes to video games there was only one way to play them buying or renting the game itself when it comes to movies people usually first went to the cinema that was always the best experience and after that they usually watched movies on tv as soon as dvds were released the entire world let out a collective sigh of relief as they could now throw their vhs tapes away and watch the same movies on a far superior medium vhs tapes were never the only nor the best way to watch movies so i doubt many people will see the value in them but who really knows the world is a crazy crazy place please let me know what you think in the comments thanks so much for watching you legends i hope you are having a fantastic day and i will see you in the next video

Channel: Karl Jobst

Views: 372,842

Keywords:

Id: FMtjl0O2a4Q

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 30 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Dashey10]

we have seen a screenshot of an Instagram post about Karl buying a WATA game. Here's a link to that post. We reached out to Karl to verify the authenticity of it, and here is what he said.

[u/BillTheTriangleDemon]

Now this, does put a smile on my face.

[u/Bariq-99]

Let's fuckimg goooooooooooooo

Good send off to go study for the exams

Hopefully the market would crash while I'm gone 💀

[u/i_broke_wahoos_leg]

That vhs stuff is beyond fucking ridiculous.

[u/wiesga01]

Thanks for posting, Daddy

[u/GoldGangsta0211]

Awesome to see. Hopefully, WATA can fuck off for good after this. Obligatory Fuck WATA.

[u/80sRetroman]

This kind of news deserves an award. Take my upvote and award.

[u/mzachi]

VHS grading??? That’s ridiculous….what’s next they are going to inflate??? cassette tapes? vinyls??

[u/Freebiesaregreat]

Is market manipulation illegal in the videogame market?