Anyone who’s read my blog knows that I am not a fan of video game grading. Grading companies, in my experience, do marginal quality work, and at a superficial level that cannot be audited once an item has been sealed. The holy plastic WATA box is all too often used to convince sellers that their item somehow has more value than it actually does, and buyers the frustration of passing over finds because of greedy sellers who drank the kool-aid. Overall, video game grading has done more to harm to the hobby than good.

I was lucky enough to find one seller who must have been frustrated that their VGA graded game hadn’t sold for the inflated prices they were led to believe they could get for it, and so I made a reasonable offer on it based on what an ungraded sealed copy would cost me. They accepted. I decided to use this as an experiment to crack open the enclosure and audit VGA’s work, and thought I’d share my findings so that the community would know what to expect a graded game actually looks like behind the plastic.

I’ve been a long-time collector of Famicom Disk System (FDS) games. The Famicom, Nintendo’s Japanese predecessor to the Nintendo Entertainment System, is where many early NES games were first born before coming to the United States. Many of our most beloved games saw their initial debut on Famicom Disk, such as Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Excitebike, and what is known in the US as Super Mario Bros. 2, before Doki Doki Panic was rebranded with Mario characters. Many of these titles are rare to find on disk sealed and in great condition. While some dumb Americans are paying $800,000 for an early sealed copy of Zelda, the original Legend of Zelda was released on Famicom Disk System a whopping 18 months before coming to the US in cartridges covered in gold spray paint. The same spray paint Nintendo used to award games to golfers with at tournaments.

It is both telling and conspicuous that WATA won’t grade these more rare, sealed Famicom Disk games (I asked); this is literally where it all started for many of the most popular titles, so you’d think a legitimate grading company would be interested in them – especially a company with the slogan “WE. GRADE. EVERYTHING.” Instead, VGA graded this game as an 80, which sits on their “Silver” scale. According to their grading scale, an 85 could be used to describe an item that is “case fresh”, and a 75 being described as “somewhat ‘shelf worn’ but still relatively nice.” Unfortunately, because it is encased in plexiglass, it’s impossible to examine the item for flaws. Things like scratches, pitting, and wear are well hidden beneath the plexiglass. The condition of the flaps and edges cannot be examined due to the box being mounted around the edges. A UV light’s effectiveness is also greatly diminished because of the UV protective properties of the plastic, making it difficult to validate the sticker seal or identify any foreign substances on the case or media. So how can we audit VGA’s grading competence with all of these challenges?

Problem solved. Don’t get too freaked out. While this looks like a shattered mess, the plexiglass actually broke free about as easily as peanut brittle, and great care was taken to ensure no pieces made any contact with or applied any pressure to the item.

Before we take a closer look at this game, let’s review VGA’s grading scale for our score range.

An “80” is designated as “near mint”.  So what does a game with a “Near Mint” rating look like when it’s not hidden under all that plastic? Not Mint. In fact, not even worthy of a “slightly shelf-worn” grade.

The first thing immediately noticeable was the stain along the front edge of the case, with a foreign brown substance. Possibly a soft drink, and hopefully not some form of biological discharge. This stain seems to run from the larger brown patch on the left side of the photo all the way up to to the top of the game title, where it tapers off across the front of the case. Because it was obscured by the mounts at the edges, it was not noticible until after removing the game from the plastic.

Ah, everyone’s favorite game: soft-drink or poop? Try and say those words together, “brown stain” … “near mint”. It just kind of rolls off the tongue, and not in a good way.

So they missed a stain on the case… a very… noticeable… brown… sticky… stain. All near mint games have brown stains on them, don’t they? Stain aside, if VGA graded this item as “near mint”, then surely the case must be in excellent condition. Let’s take a look.

It’s very obvious that the case is heavily scratched and scuffed up on both sides. In addition to many common straight-line scratches, there are a significant number of circular scratches on both the front and back, suggesting someone tried to clean or polish the case, causing further damage to it instead. I hope this wasn’t VGA’s cleaning service. (If it was, I’d sure like to know how they missed the poop stain).

Let’s take a look at the front.

By this point, my facial expression matches that of Link’s, this case doesn’t look anywhere “near mint”, or even “slightly shelf worn”. It looks like it got chewed on by a two-year old, and then thrown under the refrigerator for 30 years.

Unfortunately the seal itself also has considerable wear and scratches that are immediately noticeable to the naked eye. In addition to being worn, the time it spent in its plastic jail caused the sticker to become compressed, losing its original shape.

I didn’t bother posting any images of the item under ultraviolet light, because there was nothing impressive about it. The disk was free from dust or other particulates. The underprinting on the SEAL is consistent with an authentic seal. There were no traces of adhesive around the seal that would have suggested it was re-glued. In spite of the case’s condition, the item itself did not show any signs of being tampered with. The ultraviolet highlighted the nasty stain on the case, but since that is visible with the naked eye, there’s no need to post even more gross pictures of it.

Unless “NM” stands for “not mint”, the assessment given to this item by VGA is not only inaccurate, it’s downright incompetent. By their own grading scale, I would rate this in the bronze class, at a firm 70. It’s possible that, with a little proper cleaning of the foreign brown substance, this item could possibly make it to a 75. These sound like small increments, but in the world of collectibles, translates to significant changes in fair market value, which VGA charges a percentage of when grading an item.

Grading was conceived so that prospective buyers could feel confident in the item they’re purchasing, yet under no circumstances does this item deserve an 80. This is a clear cut case of over-grading. I am picking on VGA here because this item happens to be graded by them, however over-grading (and consistency in the grading process) is a widespread problem.

There is no substitute for examining an item with your own two eyes. The narrative that grading companies want to tell about your game – hidden behind plastic to cover over their flaws – is not one that you would likely swallow had you seen the game free from its plastic box. Grading only adds value if you swallow the blue pill and accept the carefully protected reality they’ve set in front of you. Shatter the glass, and you’ll see that reality may not be as blissful as that little number would lead you to believe.