Do not support the vga!

[Madigan]

Originally Posted by Twisted

what if ONE OF US is VGA?.....or it get's discovered and it's rocked my some scandal..turns out VGA is nothing more than a teen age kid living in his parents basement..hahahahaha

[LonestarGoner]

Madigan....I think I love you a little bit for posting that picture. History Channel, you used to be so awesome, and now you have, um....that guy.

Lizard Slayer, the "hate" comes from the VGA misrepresenting themselves. They are not appraisers. Real appraisal in the antique collectible market is EXACTLY like appraisal in the real estate market. It comes with a legal obligation. If an antique appraiser, for example, over-assesses an item, the insurance on said item skyrockets. If that item were to be damaged and they insurance company investigates before pay-out and the item is found to be over-assessed, the appraiser may be found to have committed fraud and can possibly be sued.

Disk games may be cheaper to manufacture than cartridges, but with the variety of extras and bonuses, collecting will be big business, ESPECIALLY when games go all digital, which is very likely. Kiss collector's editions goodbye. EA, Squenix, Activision aren't going to send you fancy trinkets along with a download code. It will all be data, nothing you can touch. Building a dedicated appraisal house will be necessary not only to make sure charlatans like VGA don't continue to bilk unsuspecting collectors, but also to keep the joy of physical collections and collecting alive when games become nothing more than a phantom transaction over a net connection.

I'm not much of a blogger, but I think putting information out there might help build a forum and consensus. As one person mentioned, we have a worldwide community here, but doing it all over pictures is not reasonable. If anyone is interested, I'll post a line either here or in a new thread with a link once I get a blog up and running.

[Lizard Slayer]

Originally Posted by LonestarGoner

Madigan....I think I love you a little bit for posting that picture. History Channel, you used to be so awesome, and now you have, um....that guy.

Lizard Slayer, the "hate" comes from the VGA misrepresenting themselves. They are not appraisers. Real appraisal in the antique collectible market is EXACTLY like appraisal in the real estate market. It comes with a legal obligation. If an antique appraiser, for example, over-assesses an item, the insurance on said item skyrockets. If that item were to be damaged and they insurance company investigates before pay-out and the item is found to be over-assessed, the appraiser may be found to have committed fraud and can possibly be sued.

Disk games may be cheaper to manufacture than cartridges, but with the variety of extras and bonuses, collecting will be big business, ESPECIALLY when games go all digital, which is very likely. Kiss collector's editions goodbye. EA, Squenix, Activision aren't going to send you fancy trinkets along with a download code. It will all be data, nothing you can touch. Building a dedicated appraisal house will be necessary not only to make sure charlatans like VGA don't continue to bilk unsuspecting collectors, but also to keep the joy of physical collections and collecting alive when games become nothing more than a phantom transaction over a net connection.

I'm not much of a blogger, but I think putting information out there might help build a forum and consensus. As one person mentioned, we have a worldwide community here, but doing it all over pictures is not reasonable. If anyone is interested, I'll post a line either here or in a new thread with a link once I get a blog up and running.

VGA does not appraise (when talking about what an item is worth) anything so this does not make sense....

I agree with the History channel guy though, lol.

Do you guys have some examples of things they have done incorrectly?

[LonestarGoner]

This is what I was talking about, Slayer. True, the VGA does not officially "appraise" anything. They do, however, apply a "grade" to games which are used in turn to impact resale value. This is appraisal in all but name only. They can even say that their 'gradings' can increase prices for sales.

What are the benefits of selling a graded item?
Graded items will normally sell for much higher prices than un-graded items. You will be able to sell graded items faster and easier through the mail and internet.
(http://www.vggrader.com/faq.aspx#benefits)

As I posted initially, they do multiple things wrong as faux appraisers. They maintain absolute secrecy which defies all standards of ethics. They do not post credentials. At least a name, degree, experience (they post years but not what they did during those years), etc. would be fine. They have a long way to go from validity.