TL;DR - Video game collecting, especially for good copies that are sealed or CIB, is getting expensive. This happens to anything remotely collectible and games are no exception. The upside here is that games are digital, and tens of thousands have been preserved so that they can be enjoyed in high fidelity without the need to buy the original cart or even hardware.
Physical game collecting is becoming just like any other pop culture collectible. If you demand original, high quality copies, they are going to be expensive. This happened with comic art over the least few years, (thanks to Heritage Auctions), so that I will never be able to afford originals of some of my favorite artists. Yes, it is sleazy, but the art world is built on this (I mean just look at modern art prices and tell me with a straight face the prices are reasonable). The upside here is the increased awareness means more high quality scans and discussion so that the art can still be enjoyed, so it’s all good really.
Luckily, games have a huge advantage over art and books in that the games themselves are digital. A dedicated community of volunteers have been working for years to preserve games in the form of digital copies, including scans of box art and ‘feelies’. Tens of thousands of games (including virtually all of the most expensive titles) have been preserved in the form of ROMs and ISOs. From here games can be replicated virtually endlessly and in perfect fidelity. Thanks to things like emulation, ports, flash carts, clone consoles, and ODE drives, retro games are honestly more accessible than ever. Even game manuals and packaging is often digitally scanned in high quality. If someone wanted, Super Mario Brothers could be recreated pretty much perfectly, box and all, without too much effort.
Of course collecting is fun and can be rewarding, but whether it is an original Action Comics #1, a first edition of Lord of the Rings, or a sealed copy of Super Mario Brothers, these things are just physical media carrying a story, images, or game. If you want to look at Action Comics #1, it is available as a reprint or digitally. LotR can be checked out of the library or found in used book stores for under $10. Super Mario Brothers can be played on Wii, Wii U, handhelds, Switch, your browser, on a flash cart, through emulators on a dozen devices, and probably 5 other ways I am forgetting.
The thing is, if someone wants the physical item of SMB64 sealed, a first edition of Lord of the Rings, or Action Comics #1, that’s completely fine and their buying price can be whatever they are willing to spend. I don’t have any issue with this because the game/art/story itself, along with scans of it’s original packaging are available much more affordably or even ‘freely’. Nothing of note is really being taken away from anyone aside from being able to claim ownership of that one cart, box, and manual which is identical to many others.
My only issue here is if the game in question is not already available otherwise. Say an unemulated title, rare prototype or unreleased version of a game. This is also something that is often seen in the art world, a private collector buys something and hides it away from the rest of the world. Luckily this doesn’t happen often with games and the community is very passionate about open source projects and accessibility.
There are still many games out there I’m sure that only exist as cartridges/disks/tapes, but at least we have so many folks dedicated to freeing these games from the constraints of their original media.
So coming from this perspective, I just don’t think this WATA stuff matters much to the average enthusiast, any more than an Action Comics #1 matters to even a die-hard comic book fan.