Has anyone ever tried to do this? Did Pokemon make them sign NDAs? Would it be grimy to do this? The thing that spawned this thought in my mind was that CGC article (https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/10263/ghost-stamp-pikachu/) about the Ghost Stamp Pikachu Error that I posted yesterday. It was fascinating to hear that type of information from a primary source. My gut tells me that I would feel kind of gross tracking them down & asking. Thoughts?
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Many have tried and many have failed. It’s grimey but it’s also not. 23 years later and everyone still wants to know how much WotC printed…I’m more curious to know how much Nintendo printed between 2003-2013. No one ever talks about it, but those numbers would probably give us more insight than numbers for WotC ever could, mostly because we already have an idea of the latter. Most would say 2003-2007 are the dark ages of Pokemon, and 2007-2013 are the “coming back into the light” years. Would be nice to have better ideas of print runs for ex, DP, Pt, HGSS and BW. All we can deduce thus far is least, little, less, more than less, more than more than less.
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100% agree. With Nintendo sets, it’s pretty much impossible to come to an accurate conclusion due to how poorly fleshed out the pop reports are (especially for anything released after Power Keepers). I think it’s generally accepted that print runs bottomed out at some point between Aquapolis and Delta Species, and that print runs were on a slight-moderate incline between 2006 and 2013. But even then there are many specifics that aren’t clear: like, did print runs bottom out in 2003, 2004, or 2005? Did Platinum era have higher print runs than DP era? What about Platinum vs HGSS? Much is not clear. Whereas it’s pretty clear with WotC that the print runs started out high (Base) and ended low (Skyridge), and that the decline occurred over the course of the entire era.
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Has there been any attempts to have an AMA request to talk to a WotC employee? An organized list of questions with the right interviewer could get us somewhere.
If CGC recently interviewed the employee is there a way we could do the same?
I know a lot of high-end collectors have knowledge on things an average collector (such as myself) won’t know. I imagine once people leave the hobby more secrets will be shared.
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This is the thing. I’ve been considering this for a while, mentioned it in a few posts how keen I am for something like this. I may even have a means for contact, but really need a solid and legitimate proposal. Would love for something to materialise, but hard without a solid backing like a professional outlet has for these types of things. Even with good prep we could still fall short, but perhaps we could prep and give it a go later this year. Would be happy to help out with anything (even if limited) that I could offer.
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There’s a massive difference commenting on a specific print anomaly vs someone releasing entire print run information. As much as all collectors, myself included, would love that information, it’s most likely a conscious decision to keep it private. In fact they stopped sharing print run information in mtg years before pokemon existed.
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I spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Wizard myself and they told me things you wouldn’t believe. Unfortunately I can never tell. It is their wish.
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Send a fake job offer to an old Wozzie employer and ask about their KPIs during the 1999 financial year as a “sample question”.
I am a genius
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I agree that there was most likely a conscious decision to keep it private. I’m not really talking about exact numbers - just some anecdotal information would be phenomenal. I’m aligned with some of the other members in possibly trying to organize a well-structured and thoroughly-planned interview/AMA request at some point. I’ll toss it on the 'ole backburner.
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Pokemon and Nintendo employees do sign an NDA so they were not allowed to talk about things that go inside the company. I knew someone that was at TPCi during the early days and I just remember him telling me cards were doing ok but the games were the bigger bread winners. I do remember seeing Platinum having a lot more cards in stores cause it was a big promotion for the game during that time. HGSS was a hit and miss for things just cause the ratio of cards were meh
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