I’ve got a GameStop subscription which gives you a $5 a month coupon. I would almost always use it to pick up Pokemon cards. I haven’t been able to find any cards for a number of months now and decided to ask an employee about it.
Apparently the cards are no longer being sent out in the volumes that they used to. Instead of getting weekly shipments, they might get a monthly shipment (not as many boxes) and it’s a little random.
He mentioned that people would somehow find out that a shipment was on its way and wait overnight just to be able to buy them up in the morning.
Some employees are even being stalked just so that they can figure out when these shipments are coming.
the scalping is insane, i visit the pokebeach forum regularly, and they were posting fights, and scalping issues for a while now. it pushed out true collectors from the game altogether, and POKEMON TCPi/tcp jp isnt really do much to stop it. one of the solutions is increase the pull rates of rare cards, to diminish the value of the cards, so that scalpers wont see a point in doing it, or print out so much that it achieves the same thing.
i exclusively only play the online game, which is free, and basically try out all or most of the cards, it is mildy grindy though.
Imo, any card game with “card rarity” is a scam. It takes all the skill out of the game and replaces it with privilege. Im all for deck building and complex card mechanics, but why why WHY would you ever made some cards less common? It’s pure greed and monetization, and that permanently turned me off of all similar media.
For a game built around limited formats (like drafting or sealed deck play), it makes sense / is a necessity for the format to work. It definitely sucks for constructed formats, though.
Some games also use the rarity system to funnel mechanically simpler cards into more common rarities, which works well in a draft environment, since those are often the cards you want to have come up more. Which is really the point of the system, ideally it would be a system to support draft environments that work well, without artificial scarcity that hurts constructed players.
But you can also make a constructed format that only allows “simpler” cards that have been printed at common, which is neat. Or one that only allows higher rarities.
For example, Penny Dreadful is a fun fan-organized Magic the Gathering constructed format, played exclusively on MtG Online, wherein legality is determined by cards that were worth $0.02 or less during the previous 3-month ‘season’, making decks inherently very affordable.
It has a neat self-regulating effect since enough people play the format that if a card is particularly strong in a given season, the demand created by the format will typically drive the price up above $0.02, and cause it to be illegal in the next season.
It seems like this would create a format with only very bad cards, but card prices are a bit wild in MtGO, such that there’s actually over 14,000 legal cards currently including many rare and mythic rarity cards.
You can play the game just fine without the very rare cards. Pokemon has about 3 versions of all of the very rare cards in a set and the lowest rarity is generally easy to get. The illustration rates are the money makers.
Pokemon center needs to limit purchases on their website, which they have done, but the big box retailers need to do it too. Target, Game Stop. Even this little vending machines need some sort of system to limit purchases.
It’s ridiculous. People should just stop buying things second hand. Only buy direct from retailer and then no more scalping. I stopped collecting cuz of scalping and difficulty finding decently priced product.
I know Target does. At least the one closest to me. The system locks up if you try to purchase more than two packs. And the LP/AP people know to keep an eye out for people making return trips.
one of the solutions is printing out massive amount of the packs to dilute the scalpers aiblity to scalp or increase the pull rate of said rares. when they are limiting it, it still has the issue of it being rare enough to sell for a profit.
they did place a limit on the vending machines, but people and thier friends and families would camp out near the machines to buy it the moment it gets stocked.
that too, unfortunately for pokemon you have to buy it from 3rd online shops, that also include live code cards. one of the reason they have LIVE pokemon , as a promotion to the physical game, im betting demand would fall if they shut down the shoddy game online.
pokemon wants to make money so rare=more money, they created the problem, im seeing mtg is starting to copying pokemon in a way, making full arts like pokemon.
I’ve got a GameStop subscription which gives you a $5 a month coupon. I would almost always use it to pick up Pokemon cards. I haven’t been able to find any cards for a number of months now and decided to ask an employee about it.
Apparently the cards are no longer being sent out in the volumes that they used to. Instead of getting weekly shipments, they might get a monthly shipment (not as many boxes) and it’s a little random.
He mentioned that people would somehow find out that a shipment was on its way and wait overnight just to be able to buy them up in the morning.
Some employees are even being stalked just so that they can figure out when these shipments are coming.
What is wrong with these people?
the scalping is insane, i visit the pokebeach forum regularly, and they were posting fights, and scalping issues for a while now. it pushed out true collectors from the game altogether, and POKEMON TCPi/tcp jp isnt really do much to stop it. one of the solutions is increase the pull rates of rare cards, to diminish the value of the cards, so that scalpers wont see a point in doing it, or print out so much that it achieves the same thing.
i exclusively only play the online game, which is free, and basically try out all or most of the cards, it is mildy grindy though.
Welcome to capitalism.
Imo, any card game with “card rarity” is a scam. It takes all the skill out of the game and replaces it with privilege. Im all for deck building and complex card mechanics, but why why WHY would you ever made some cards less common? It’s pure greed and monetization, and that permanently turned me off of all similar media.
For a game built around limited formats (like drafting or sealed deck play), it makes sense / is a necessity for the format to work. It definitely sucks for constructed formats, though.
Some games also use the rarity system to funnel mechanically simpler cards into more common rarities, which works well in a draft environment, since those are often the cards you want to have come up more. Which is really the point of the system, ideally it would be a system to support draft environments that work well, without artificial scarcity that hurts constructed players.
But you can also make a constructed format that only allows “simpler” cards that have been printed at common, which is neat. Or one that only allows higher rarities.
For example, Penny Dreadful is a fun fan-organized Magic the Gathering constructed format, played exclusively on MtG Online, wherein legality is determined by cards that were worth $0.02 or less during the previous 3-month ‘season’, making decks inherently very affordable.
It has a neat self-regulating effect since enough people play the format that if a card is particularly strong in a given season, the demand created by the format will typically drive the price up above $0.02, and cause it to be illegal in the next season.
It seems like this would create a format with only very bad cards, but card prices are a bit wild in MtGO, such that there’s actually over 14,000 legal cards currently including many rare and mythic rarity cards.
You can play the game just fine without the very rare cards. Pokemon has about 3 versions of all of the very rare cards in a set and the lowest rarity is generally easy to get. The illustration rates are the money makers.
Pokemon center needs to limit purchases on their website, which they have done, but the big box retailers need to do it too. Target, Game Stop. Even this little vending machines need some sort of system to limit purchases.
It’s ridiculous. People should just stop buying things second hand. Only buy direct from retailer and then no more scalping. I stopped collecting cuz of scalping and difficulty finding decently priced product.
I know Target does. At least the one closest to me. The system locks up if you try to purchase more than two packs. And the LP/AP people know to keep an eye out for people making return trips.
That’s good. It’s a free for all at the Targets near me
one of the solutions is printing out massive amount of the packs to dilute the scalpers aiblity to scalp or increase the pull rate of said rares. when they are limiting it, it still has the issue of it being rare enough to sell for a profit.
they did place a limit on the vending machines, but people and thier friends and families would camp out near the machines to buy it the moment it gets stocked.
What if they just printed a ton more but didn’t change the pull rates?
Another idea from Magic is you can buy all of the rare singles directly from them.
that too, unfortunately for pokemon you have to buy it from 3rd online shops, that also include live code cards. one of the reason they have LIVE pokemon , as a promotion to the physical game, im betting demand would fall if they shut down the shoddy game online.
pokemon wants to make money so rare=more money, they created the problem, im seeing mtg is starting to copying pokemon in a way, making full arts like pokemon.