I can’t stand Cool Trainer Ryan. His content is cringeworthy.
People can engage with the hobby however they want, it’s their money but at the same time, if you are throwing cards into the trash can or cutting up cards or etc. that just speaks to your privilege.
People on this forum obviously don’t face this issue, but if Pokemon is meant for kids first, and if the supposed main consumers are single pack buyers, then they don’t have the money to be throwing cards in the trash no matter what cards they pull.
As a kid, yes I would still be looking for the holographic, but the rest of the cards were all I had. If someone else were throwing all of their cards in the garbage for clout, I’m guessing I would either resent them or just stop collecting altogether.
In general any extra eye balls into the hobby is a good thing and people have all sorts of different content they enjoy. I see my short comings of being too close minded in this regard and I appreciate all the insights on this from everyone. My opinions at the end of the day are just opinions and should be taken with a grain of salt . Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad lol.
Thanks for everyone who commented in on this and shared their own opinions and insights <3
I watched your videos, very nice content and I like the pikachu face thumbnail, very enjoyable. Nice editing too. I wish one day I can share some content on YouTube too.
Perhaps a dumb question, but is the TCGFish website with all the data and charts your creation? If so, I’m a big fan . . . very sophisticated and extremely well curated.
Yes, thank you very much. When I first started, I designed everything (UI+ charts) in PowerPoint. And now, I still use PowerPoint…
I use my own website every day to check card prices too, still a lot of work to do. but at least the website works, But I would only give it a 3.5/10, I plan to make tcgfish the ultimate Financial Bloomberg terminal for card collectors. Still doing this step by step, I just added the market cap feature. next step would be adding sealed products pricing within the next month or so + portfolio feature.
It is unfortunate that a lot of common or less rare cards in newer sets are often an afterthought in terms of chase or value. A lot of them can have great artwork compared to many cards in the past. With vintage, many of the 1st Ed Base Set commons for example can hold a lot of value and chase in high grades and have become sort of legendary or iconic in the hobby to me.
I don’t know if theres anything Pokemon could do to improve this. Maybe make certain chase ‘commons’ that have a unique holo or borders that have a lower pullrate? I’m sure it’d be possible for them to take existing commons and make them more rare or chase worthy with some type of treatment. In a sense they have sort of done this with reverse foiling over the years, but it’s not really the same chase as something like an Alt Art or other hard to pull card, unfortunately. The market just doesn’t really care it seems.
Kids are very different these days. Parents are buying them graded cards and they are watching youtube videos where the chase card is all that matters.
I’ve seen a couple of clips of kids opening packs and they are disappointed they didn’t pull a $100 Charizard.
Cool trainer Ryan is trying to show the Pokémon company that they need to offer more in their packs, kind of like the hit rates of VSTAR Universe.
I can’t wait to see his Vstar Universe video because I BET YOU, it won’t be any different then his normal. He will be PISSED OFF on everything except a God pack. $100 bet
Well, there’s a lot to unpack here so I’ll try to keep it short:
Back in the day, base set had little appreciation of artwork. Kids went crazy over Charizard, and everything else was secondary to a certain extent. Whether for financial value or popularity, stonks have always existed in Pokemon, it just evolved into more of a gambling/financial scope as a consequence of modern culture’s obsession with ROI.
The fact that booster box opening is common place in today’s doesn’t help either. When I was a kid, a couple of booster packs per week was pretty much all an allowance could buy. As such, cards were looked at and appreciated for longer and in more detail because there was an idle period between waiting for the next allowance and enjoying/showing of your pulls.
Appreciation of artwork needs to start from within and for several years we had bland 5ban illustrations. Recently, there has been a lot more appreciation of artwork by the parent company and, despite the stonk mentality, the community seems much more appreciative of art in SWSH than in S&M.
I think you are being a bit too cynical, and that’s fine. As previous posters mentioned, each person will enjoy the hobby in their own way. We are entitled to our own opinion and so are others within this great ecosystem that is Pokemon.
To be fair, I’d say this was also the case back in the day. Those of us who opened Base Set packs in 1999 know the sinking feeling of pulling a Trainer in the Rare slot, and we also know the elation of pulling that Charizard, Blastoise or Venusaur.
Kids today are certainly different in some aspects than they were 20-25 years ago, but at their core, they’re still just kids, and I don’t think they really have much of an understanding about prices. So they’re not upset that they didn’t pull the $100 Charizard; they’re just upset they didn’t pull the Charizard (or whatever shiny chase card[s] they are looking for).
But why even bother watching if you can’t stomach his content? It seems pretty evident to me that CTR’s content is supposed to be satirical and light-hearted in nature. Don’t get too worked up about it, and if it irks you that much, just don’t watch his channel.
Probably 99% of the new (sub 5 years experience) pokemon people lost their ass in this last year or so. Talking money is only natural, honestly if you are not down money at this point I’d estimate you are better off than most and if you are down then its only natural to talk about the finance aspects
Agreed. Great post. Getting a booster pack or two here and there slowed the pace down and forced us to appreciate the cards themselves more. Also even counting Jungle and Fossil there were only, what, a couple hundred cards? So aside from the Zard I feel like there was less “chase” back then. At least to me.
Happy to see some Stoicism displayed here! I’m 2/3rds of the way through Meditations and its definitely helped me put things in perspective in the hobby and life at large
. Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad lol.