WARNING: I saw Scott flipping your signature on eBay.
In all seriousness, id pay for your signatures, no flip 
This is why I left all the Facebook groups, I don’t understand all these pissed off people. I’ve never seen so many people mad/salty about the Hidden Fates set. I enjoy Pokemon and this community here on E4 exclusively, especially since we squash all the trollers and unreasonable people quickly.
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An unpopular opinion, but true to an extent. Thankfully we have E4.
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Why does this community have to be so toxic 
It manages to surprise me time and time again. In a bad way.
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Lol.
No charge to you brother. In fact, I’m really flattered:)
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Did I say Pokémon is a young persons hobby? If so, I was probably kidding considering my advance age;)
I gathered it was as much, but I agreed to it nonetheless (to an extent). My point being that although the target audience for Pokemon is the younger generation, and being sometimes (Rarely) wanting of maturity, we have a fantastic community of mature, likeminded collectors here, for which I’m thankful. You’d be hard pressed to find a more respectable community.
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In the ‘unpopular opinion’ thread, this comment came out of left field for me:
Now it makes sense. I’m sorry to hear your efforts and plans are once again thwarted by a small group of toxic, jealous kids. 
Even though I’m at the other side of the world and unable to attend anything you’re helping to organize, I really appreciate all that it is you’re doing for the hobby. Thanks.
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Not really… We have YouTube channels like UnlistedLeaf able to hype up specific cards (Battle Festa, Red’s Pikachu) where they have a large supply off just to gain more profit. Also, the Pokemon hobby is full of students that use their student loans, young adults living with their parents and thus having no monthly expenses using their pay check to make minimal profit on flipping cards and sealed product and sadly those people have the mentality “If I don’t have it, I don’t want you to have it either. Because if I can’t make a profit, you shouldn’t be able either”. That’s Pokemon, and that will be Pokemon for many years.
One of the reasons I think it happens to the Pokémon community more than others is that there are more people “collecting” Pokémon cards purely for profit. Sports and magic are much more niche and you’re more likely to be a true fan if you start collecting.
There’s too many “investors” in the hobby and not enough people with passion. People start viewing their missing out on a card or signing as lost profit (which it’s not, but that’s an economics lesson for another time), so they decide to ruin it for their “competitors”. Whole lotta’ air quotes in there, I know.
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There are just as many investors in Magic and sports, if not even more in the latter, so that’s not it.
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When I say investors I mean people that have no knowledge of the hobby and no passion for the cards. They’re strictly interested in making money from Pokémon. All the magic investors I know actually care about the cards and actively collect as well as sell cards for profit. Pokémon’s easier to get into with no knowledge of the hobby.
Ex: Around my area there’s 3/4 flea markets and at each flea market there’s at least 1 stand where people have thousands of Pokémon cards they try to sell to kids and what not. Only one of those stands has any magic cards and they’re all bulk.
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Been reading some comments on this related facebook group and i honestly dont get the hate E4 get; why people so salty nowadays…
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I know many Magic collectors and they don’t collect like Pokemon collectors. They collect because they play Magic Standard Format, Modern and Commander/EDH. This allows them to have big collections with valuable cards and have them somewhere else than their binder and posted on Instagram. Yes, a few of have bought the latest Brawl pre-constructed decks just to crack them open and sell the singles to make €15-20 profit on each deck but everybody is doing that. It’s a healthy way to finance the hobby.
Pokemon, sadly but truly, has no playability other than Standard. It’s Standard or nothing. Extended is a septic tank of toxic deck combos that is no fun to play unless you can begin and your combo fires off before your opponents. There is no play style that allows you to use a 15 year old card in your deck. And thus so many cards instantly get hoarded when they go out of rotation (or even during rotation when the meta shifts) to be put into binders and flipped 3-6 months later.
In Magic a card like Thoughtseize (
) was hated in Standard, got hated more when it got reprinted, it went out of rotation but got picked up into Modern, Legacy and Vintage kept it’s value (it went up a bit, down a bit, stabilized, goes up a bit due new combo from new set etc.). Reshiram Charizard WILL NEVER EVER experience that. The card will become a $20-30 PSA10 card in 3 months from now and unless someone has 5,000 copies of it and burns them all, value won’t increase. These “investors” will stumble over each other trying to get them for the lowest price possible as soon as possible and stumble over the same people again when they want to cash them trying to get the highest price possible before the market collapses.
FOMO is so, so, so big in Pokemon that these people do anything to make sure they get the item. And if not “If I can’t have it, you can’t have it” will apply.
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Contrary to the kitsch Collector Charizard bullshit, I think Charlie or Ludkins will strike a balance somewhere. This does strike me to how I feel inevitably to Pokémon’s (somewhat abeit unreleastic expectation toward nichés) lack of touch to it’s auidence.
As a result let’s get @smpratte and @KingPokemon to make a autograph Venustoise doodle campaign perhaps with someone who is an actual part of the machine like Arita or @imakuni perhaps?
Back to my welcome thread topic about being where I’m at personally on subjects of my ignorance (something I’ll pick up soon on thread) I feel like the living allegory in the cave. I also never used Virbank or any other social media community groups in this hobby. Of course there is no intended feel of enitlement but I won’t know what I can learn unless I try.
So with what I could salvage, I’ll try to keep an unbiased learning perspective. Did the artists talk to the offered comapny about the alledged flipper businesses contact? Strange how the previous business had got caught up but didn’t have initiave it seems to help themselves provide stronger contact/ future collaborations. Could their hate be possibly that short sighted?
Also who cancelled, the artists or the Pokémon Company’s involvement?
In seriousness who are these “wee flipper businesses” and shouldn’t they be exposed for this? The real white knights are the people causing this shit and also defending it at another time like a, well actually a flipping white knight.
Lastly big generalisation, does the majority of failed social attempts seem to happen in the US but seem to work internationally elsewhere?
I’d knew there would be a Notorious BIG reference in you somewhere. Imagined you metaphorically as the Big Poppa to Pokémon, no offense.
Agreed with autos as it’s the experience of meeting them with the memento after that matters. Did it countless amounts waiting for muscians in unpleasent conditions and almost went for a framed Christopher Lee auto at a CC barely months before death that made me question authenticity. Wether it wasn’t the right idea at the time compared to now I’m unsure one thing I know for sure however is buying them is never the same and feels forced when it’s a baseless framed up junkpile.
@mjs61290 , Oh you want to make sales and collaborate with artists to encourage more work and future sales oppertunities for more people? How dare you!
I actually read that in her voice.
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The issue is not in the Pokemon community specifically. The community reflects the general issue in humanity.
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Not enough hate in this thread on the hypocrisy of the artists. Scott addressed it in his video but this is as much their fault if not moreso than the salty kids who acted like crybabies over it all.
They make an agreement to have an all expenses paid trip to the US to sign some cards for their fans while pocketing a ZERO RISK 5 figures and back out over it because there is a potential that the business running the event may make as much if not more, but also carries the RISK of potentially not breaking even. Childish and hypocritical of them.
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@gottaketchumall, I am glad someone else recognized this aspect! There is a lot that got lost in the fog of the virbank cancer.
Facts:
- Every artist profits from signings. Because its work.
- Every previous host/sponsor makes money and/or sold signed cards from the event.
- Artists whining about people profiting or selling cards are inherent hypocrites.
- The amount of artists who have done free public signings and absorbed all the costs: 0
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Fing Virbank and almost that entire community, I can’t believe I was on there. When I was new to the hobby, I got scammed there for a couple thousand. The community knew about the guy and his continuous scamming and yet still let him take advantage of people. It’s not like he created a new Facebook account under another alias… Sorry about venting on the past, but this is just a reminder of the cancer