watched one of rudy’s recent videos last night about MTG possibly going the direction of sports card releases where they would have these ultra premium sets at 500+ USD possibly to satisfy the collectors segment in the hobby. in 2020, MTG started releasing collector booster boxes for about 250-300USD at release with the standard booster boxes. the collectors boxes have done pretty well. now in August, MTG is releasing this ultra premium product where each booster pack is 100USD retail, with 4 packs in a box for around 400USD. rudy thinks MTG is just conditioning us to this ultra ultra premium releases they are planning for 2021 and beyond. they should have the regular 90USD standard booster boxes for the regular players to get their cards for tournaments, but you are only able to get premium version(s) of the cards in the premium booster boxes (full art, alternate borders, foil, etc.).
with that being said, two questions for the community:
do you think pokemon would ever consider releasing two, or more, versions of the booster box, with one being standard and the other(s) being more catered towards the collectors, such as a 1st edition or collector’s edition?
do you want pokemon to go this route of releasing more premium booster packs/boxes?
Modern Pokemon is aimed for kids. So I highly doubt we will see crazy premium products. This is also something I really do not want. It is inorganic convoluted collecting that mostly will be exciting on the short term.
It depends where the money is for them. At the end of the day they’re a business looking to maximise profit (e.g. Hidden Fates did well = 3 reprints). I have no insight into TPCi’s company philosophies but would not be surprised if they’ve turned at least *some* attention to this latest boom in the collector’s market, and are now discussing ways they might be able to capitalise on it.
It might be that they don’t need to do anything new or different and therefore we may not see any drastic new shifts in product releases; for example I’ve heard that distributors are pretty much having to allocate Darkness Ablaze due to the sheer demand (not 100% on the accuracy of those claims, but still). ‘Ultra Ultra’ premium collectors items, if they were to be released, would be of limited print/quanities and therefore TPCi would have to weigh up whether it would be worth investing their time into a limited-release product aimed specifically at collectors. If they’re satisified with the $$ numbers, particularly those coming out of the actual trading card game, then I can’t see them injecting any extra effort into ultra premium collectors releases, though I would really like them to. Just a guess.
Saw that too and definitely cool, but I can just imagine if sports cards have been around for like 100 years and started doing it later on, and now MTG that’s been around longer than Pokemon is only now beginning to consider it, it would probably not happen until years later. I don’t follow all the official Pokemon Company press releases, but someone was saying somewhere that they once popped a tweet or made a comment that when modern/fairly modern product would get gouged and price out their target audience on the secondary markets, they would continue to issue reprints or not hesitate to issue reprints.
This was being discussed in regards to the Ultra Prism reprint announcement I believe of last week that’s supposed to start shipping as early as some point this week. So it seems their philosophy is geared towards keeping the costs lower and available to a broader audience… I don’t play the TCG, but from what I see in the different groups and subs, a lot of MTG players seem pretty disgusted at how expensive it is to stay invested in playing the game, and as of a few months, the YGO community in my local scene seems to be barking away and almost daily there’s some hardcore player just dumping his binders and cards for sale saying he’s done with the game and how expensive it’s become.
Maybe it would be cool to have stamped numbered cards randomly inserted in booster boxes like sports cards. The numbered cards could be a different variant of the cards. Have cards that are 1/1 or numbered to /10 /99 /499 etc
I think once Pokemon becomes older, I can see them going this route, maybe for their 25th anniversy they can do something for the collector base with a premium product. To me the last premium product released was that solid gold pikachu card. I think with time we will see some exciting things.
25th anniversary is next year and they haven’t shown any signs of wanting to do this yet. I bet they will be doing a nice celebration with some special product though
I suspect you will have people in the pokemon TCI watching what magic is doing for their 100 dollars a pack experiment and if it works well they might follow suit. But this is just speclation and I have no evidence to back up my claims. As far as rumors for the 25th anniversary, I have heard of a neo reprint for the anniversary.
My thoughts as well. It’s something that only really benefits high-end collectors who are able to afford that kind of thing from the get-go. Better that the TCG continues to be established with the general consumers. Part of what makes collecting fun is the hunt to begin with.
While I love having premium items in my collection, I think they can do a lot of harm to the hobby. Maybe this isn’t the right parallel, but to me it’s similar to how they kept introducing more and more rarities (i.e. holos > ex > Lv.X > half art/full arts > rainbow rares > gold cards. Nowadays no one values the average holo pull or even the half arts unless it has playability, something that I kind of lament as it’s made opening packs kind of deflating unless you pull a fa/sr. Before, if you pulled a holo every 3 packs that was awesome, now you’d have to open a whole booster box to get the same equivalent.
Whenever something is marketed as premium/special/exclusive, it probably isn’t (: So for “investing”/“value” purchase purposes, I’d steer away from that. Then again, I typically steer away from modern with the exception of Shining Legends.
For collecting purposes, however, e.g. if I could get my blastoise in yet another frame or yet another design, why not?
I want redemptions & premium products for sure. A lot more fun to open special sets like Shining Legends/Legendary Heartbeat and they know it.
For those who dont know, redemptions in sports cards are blank cards that have a code on them that can be redeemed for some rare autograph or something. Makes sure the buyer knows that they pulled something special (Otherwise kids may not notice/throw it away)