Video games have been part of our everyday lives since the 80s. Whether in single or multi-payer, they give us a lot of pleasure. Aside from just playing, a collector's community has also formed over the years. In addition to the community for used video games, the market for originally shrink-wrapped video games also grew rapidly. In recent years, "grading" has also found its way into this collection area. Object grading involves authenticating the object and assessing its condition. Grading has been established in other areas such as trading cards, comics, coins and toys for decades.

Due to the constantly increasing demand for video games, explicitly in the retro area, the value of these also increased enormously. As a result, the supply of cheap and professional reproductions also increased. In addition to reproductions, video games are also being deliberately manipulated in order to resell them as expensively as possible. For the layman, well-made reproductions or manipulated objects are hardly recognizable. To make the market safer again, grading comes into play, which involves a third independent party, the grading company.

The grading company checks the present object for authenticity. The buyer thus has the security that it is an authentic object. In addition to pirated copies and manipulated re-sealed objects, there is often a misunderstanding when describing the condition. The condition of an object is judged differently by each person due to the subjectivity that goes into it. So it is not uncommon for a supposedly very good condition to be described and this ultimately deviates from the actual condition. Grading is also used here, because in addition to authentication, the status is also evaluated according to a given definition. Thus, the seller and the buyer do not have to deal with descriptions such as "very good", "as new", "mint", etc. mess around. The condition is assessed by the grading company and classified according to a scale.