I watched a Danny Phantump video the other day, and really enjoyed how he laid things out as it relates to how difficult it’s become to “pull” cards yourselves, complete master sets, etc. The data he presents covers B&W and onwards, and it’s really crazy to think about how the number of ultra rares and the like have ballooned.
For example, Dark Explorers had 15 ultra rares and above (regular EXs, FAs, and SRs). The set had 111 cards total.
Fast forward to SWSH, and Evolving Skies had 105 ultra rares and above. That’s a 7x increase from B&W, and nearly total the total amount of cards Dark Explorers had in total!
My question for everyone, do you think this trend will continue? I know this has been discussed before, but is there a breaking point coming where it’s just too difficult to pull the card(s) you want, people get discouraged and sales start to dip, forcing a change from TPCi?
I also feel like (English) sets have been too big with too many ultra rares/secret rares. I think having one alternate version of a card is enough. No need for a regular art, full art, alt art, character rare and rainbow rare, just keep it simple.
My hope is that they return to a 100 card set (including secret rares).
But to be honest, they probably do plenty of market research and found out that bigger sets more spread out sell better than smaller sets released regularly (like Japan). And they probably also found out that the more secret rares, the better.
I mean, I honestly hope they are doing market research on it. It’d be very weird for them not to considering how big the TCG is.
Also a nuance I’d like to bring to “pulling” cards yourself: don’t forget the T in TCG
Do you think people will buy indefinitely? Or will they stop buying packs and just buy on the secondary market if sentiment ends up (stays?) low on modern pulls? Pokemon wants you to open packs yourself, not buy cards off someone else.
Yea but opening packs is like gambling, the thrill is like half of the pleasure. People know it’s more efficent to buy singles, same as people know working is more profitable than gambling, but the thrill of getting chase cards from a pack, basically paying 5$ for 100$, is what makes people continue to buy packs. And gambling has been around for quite a long time so I don’t think this form it is about to disappear anytime soon.
But I see your point and would the masses for some reason stop buying packs the company would for sure react and probably try to switch things up!
But to sum up and answer for your question: Yes, I think people will continue even if it the pull rate stays this way. Something drastic would have to happen for people to stop buying packs, and if that happened the singles would probably just spike aswell which would still create this gigantic thrill of trying to get that ‘‘one pack’’.
Would be nice for sets to not be thousands of dollars to complete, but it is what it is. Pokemon makes so much money that they don’t need to do anything other than release a set every few months. I’m sure they have such a backlog of card art and ideas that they can print cards for years.
yes because if no one opens packs then there will be no cards on the secondary market. if that were to happen, the market would self correct very quickly and people would go back to opening packs. It is a delicate balance yes, but if it were to go off balance for some reason it would self correct very quickly.
Personally would love some sue-happy American to sue the pants off Pokemon.
It’s gambling marketed towards kids. They get away with it with the TCG, with Pokemon Go - at least Pokemon Masters I think has rates laid out.
I like the art but I have no love for the corporation. I’m surprised no one has tried yet, but it has also never been harder to pull what you want since the sets are humongous.
I remember back in the day opening up three to six cases of newer sets. I would be able to put together one to two assets I would try to sell the second master set on eBay as a complete set for any more from 300 to $500. Now, good luck getting one master set from six cases. Based on one of Danny phantom videos you need 30 to 50 cases. Master sets for each new set if you were just buying the singles probably cost you around $1,500 to 2,000. So even if you were doing it the most cost-efficient way it would still cost you 5 to 8,000 a year to get all of the sets.
People say collect Japanese, but is Japanese really viable? I collect only Japanese due to my location and I feel like it has the same problem because they put out sets every couple months. It’s good for Youtubers and gambling addicts who froth at the mouth for this stuff, but combined with Gym boxes, promos, decks, and lotteries it basically turns into the same problem as English if you want a decent collection of alternate arts. I guess the good thing is you don’t have to collect less interesting sets like Towering Perfection or Explosive Flame Walker.
Thanks, though the most recent is 2001 over 20 years ago.
Not sure what cards they were making - probably sports cards?
But I think a lot has changed since then, especially with gacha game mechanics being outlawed in certain countries.
I think there’s enough study to conclude that these are gambling and they mess with impulse control etc.
In any circumstance, I’m just saying that the odds need to be published and then adhered to. The deluge of people on Reddit who don’t even know what pull rates are is incredible.
Look at the Flareon, Vaporeon and Jolteon VMAX cards. So many cards are locked behind tournaments and lotteries.
Yeah, they are more focused on the game so these carrots make sense, but collectors are shit outta luck.
Then their quality control has been atrocious since at least the SM era with print lines seemingly on every card.
And lastly even though there is a guaranteed SR/box, they now have excessive amounts of SRs/set so it’s not much different than English for collectors. For players it’s still good because you pretty much get nearly every card inc. holos/UR/VMAX per box. In 2 boxes definitely whilst in English you can go cases without VSTARS lol.
Belgium considers Pokemon card packs gambling but they are explicitly excluded from the gambling laws. Falling under “kaart- en gezelschapsspelen” or card and board games.
Game lootboxes are heavily regulated here, making many games illegal for example: Pokemon Masters, Lost Ark… OR they restrict the lootboxes like I think Valve and Overwatch did.
Nice to meet a fellow Belgian on this platform! What are the odds. And yes, the laws are quite strict. Same as with FIFA where you can buy packs and stuff like that. At least that’s what my brother who plays told me.
