Several thousand players have filed complaints against Wata and Heritage Auctions, two companies involved in the resale of retro games. The plaintiffs indeed accuse the latter of having falsely predicted a surge in prices on the market in order to artificially increase the figures during the auctions.
Anyone who is directly or indirectly interested in retro gaming knows it: in the space of just a few years, the price of games and consoles has skyrocketed. Last year, for the first time, an auction of a retro game exceeded one million euros. Barely a month later, a new record was set with a Super Mario Bros cartridge that sold for the staggering price of 1.7 million euros. Admittedly, these old games are necessarily rarer and their status as cult works contributes to soaring prices.
But the latter could ultimately be the result of a long process on the part of two companies. Starting with Wata, a rating company that is responsible for judging the quality of a game and, in doing so, having a huge influence on the resale price of the latter. When the company assigns a rating to a game, it then collects a commission when it is sold at auction. It therefore has every interest in pronouncing high ratings, in order to increase the price of the securities concerned.
These two companies would be responsible for the skyrocketing prices of retro games
Another player in this lucrative business, Heritage Auctions is responsible for organizing sales at auction. Naturally, the company also collects a percentage on transactions amounting to 20% of the sale price and then 5% directly from the reseller. However, on May 10, a collective complaint was filed against the two companies. In the latter, the complainants, estimated at more than 10,000 people, accuse the companies of “manipulating the market for retro video games”.
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Thus, Wata and Heritage Auctions would have collaborated with the aim of artificially driving up market prices. Deniz Kahn, CEO of Wata, notably gave multiple interviews in 2020 and 2021 where he predicted that the value of games would soon explode. Among other things, he had expected the first sale to exceed one million dollars. In addition, Wata employees would have themselves sold their own games at exorbitant prices. In a press release, the company “strongly refutes any allegations that it or its agents are involved in fictitious tenders”.
Source : Video Games Chronicles
