Graded Nintendo Switch 2 games appear on auctions

This Thanksgiving week, some gamers are spending their hard-earned cash on some killer Black Friday deals, like the PlayStation Black Friday sale, where not one but three Game of the Year nominees are on sale. Meanwhile, others are spending money on graded Nintendo Switch 2 games.

Wait, what?

Right now, at the time of writing, there has been a surge in graded Switch 2 games on eBay. For those who don't know, people, especially collectors, submit sealed copies to agencies like CGC or WATA, get the game graded on a scale of 1-10, and then resell them online, where people, for whatever reason, bid on them.

For example, right now there is an ongoing bid for an A++, 10.0 copy of Mario Kart World. It is currently at $78 with four days to go. First, it hasn't even reached the $79.99 the game retails for and the extra $40 it costs to grade it, according to the CGC website.

It's not the only game being sold online, as the likes of Donkey Kong Bananza and the Switch 2 version of Mario Party Jamboree are all being resold.

In one example, first shared on Reddit, a bundle of Bananza and MK World has a list price of $649.98. I wish I was kidding, but it's as real as it gets.

“They were already delusional when they rated video games,” one person wrote in response on Reddit. “Rating video games that you can still find on the shelves is just something else.”

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The phenomenon of graded games isn't new, but it seems Switch 2 first-party titles have hit a surge in popularity

Kind of like getting trading cards, Funko! Pops and comics have been graded, games have been part of the collectibles craze for some time, and Switch games have been a particular target for collectibles, as TheGamer reported in July.

It's just that now first-party Switch 2 titles seem like a big target. Part of that is likely to do with the fact that the turnaround time for grading is a little over two months, meaning people are likely to just get their packages back.

At the same time, it probably has little to do with how popular certain Nintendo titles, namely Pokemon, have become and how much more expensive they have become over the years. Collectors probably think they're tapping into a yet-to-be-discovered market by getting copies of games authenticated and hope other collectors buy into the craze.

By the way, this isn't even the first Switch 2-related graded game controversy, as back in June people started grading Game Key Card copies of games, despite the fact that bundled codes in some of the games have an expiration date. It seems collectors have learned their lesson on that front and moved on to something else.

Since someone just spent $42,500 on a sealed copy of Fortnite that was also rated, maybe we're all being delusional with our criticism. Again, I don't foresee a world where Mario Kart World, a bundled Switch 2 title, somehow becomes this golden goose.