Wata co-founder accused of breaking company rules on selling graded stock

A detailed Proof Games report into Mark Haspel, the co-founder of game grading company Wata, has brought to light worrying details of his business activities, and of Wata in general.

Wata appraises and rates the quality of collectible video games, often pushing their prices into the hundreds and thousands of dollars. To avoid any conflict of interest, it has previously stated it does not allow employees to have their own games graded or sell any that have been graded by the company.

But, this week, Proof Games’ Seth Abramson discovered he had apparently bought several WATA-graded video games from an eBay seller that turned out to be Haspel. One of his purchases reportedly included a yellow sticky note that invited Abramson to email Haspel privately “for more games”.

At the moment, Haspel is simply accused of breaking Wata’s company promise not to own or sell stock it has graded. But after looking into the matter further, Abramson’s report raises a number of concerning questions.

The eBay account in question currently lists nearly $50k worth of Wata-rated games, almost all of which have been rated as 9.0 or higher, described as an “investment grade” tier. The majority are 9.6 or higher, among the highest-possible grading Wata gives.