Recent years have seen rising prices for rare video games, as appraised by Wata. And for this, the institution is being sued with an action class lawsuit, alongside Heritage Auctions, for what appears to be collusion for profit. Both Wata and Heritage Auctions, however, deny any fault in the event.
Considered collectibles within the gaming community, mint copies of video games that have endured the test of time were viewed with exploding value since the pandemic began. For instance, a clean copy of Super Mario 64 sold for a lump sum of $1.56 million. Then, some weeks later, Super Mario Bros. sold for $2 million.
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That was in stark contrast to years back, before Wata’s inception, when a different copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for just more than $30,000 at an auction on eBay in 2017, as per court documents.
Both Wata and Heritage Auctions take a percentage as payment for appraising and selling collectible items, respectively, which insinuates greater revenue for higher-priced commodities. The notion is especially true for the latter, where it gets a cut of 20 percent of the cost of the item sold, plus an additional 5 percent from the seller.
Source: PC Gamer