Why did the retro game prices spike so much this year?

This year we and other media sites have covered multiple price records of retro video games, such as Super Mario 64 (N64) going for US$1.560.000 and The Legend of Zelda (NES) going for US$ 870.000

Let's be honest, we just reported on it and wasn't to critical about why the sudden spike. Then on August 24th Karl Jobst posted a YouTube video called Exposing FRAUD And DECEPTION In The Retro Video Game Market, which I watched the same day and it brought up some interesting information

Jobs point out that many of the events that have helped grow the prices of video games, can all be traced back to a few people, with often undisclosed connections

Jim Halperin is the co-founder of Heritage Auctions, but he's also been involved with WADA. Halperin himself bought his own WADA graded Super Mario 64 cartridge from Heritage Auction for over a million dollars. The first game to be sold for so much

On December 1st, Jobs did a follow-up video called The video game scam gets worse.... Where he involved a lawyer who reviewed Jobs findings. Some areas where in a very gray area and others was straight out illegal, based on Jobs findings