muk
3815
You sound exactly like that edgy 16 year old italian teen in my school that tried to convince everyone that the mafiosi are good guys and that he “knows the right people” and could sell us machine guns and stuff. Hehe.
20 Likes
The Lillie promo went for 100k on eBay and it looks legit. I contacted my guy in Japan and asked him about it. He said it’s easy to flip this locally for 130-140k depending on contacts and negotiating skills. Pretty good even minus the expenses.
4 Likes
Wait, so someone would spend 100k on an item that has never been sold for anywhere near as much, only in hopes to flip it? Furthermore, why didn’t the person they want to resell the card to bid on the initial auction on ebay? You can’t tell me that anyone would rather pay a 30k premium than use a middleman for shipping…right?
5 Likes
Viral
3819
I’d be wary about this. Sure many stores are advertising high buy-back (買い取り) prices, but they’ll definitely offer lower and add in fees etc. You’ll never get what they say on the storefront, that’s just to get you in the door.
6 Likes
Thats exactly what I told my guy, but he insisted while yes, thats a common method by the shops, you can still easily flip the card for the amount mentioned above if you have the card in hand. Every shop wants to buy this card. Obviously you dont go into one randomly and try to sell it. You need contacts, someone who speaks Japanese and negotiation skills, also as mentioned above.
4 Likes
Selling to legit shops in Japan, you need a residence card . The Legit pokemon shops are kind of like Pawn shops in the USA. The shops need documentation of the transaction and paper trail to a Japanese residence . You can be a foreigner , but you need to have the proper ID and reside in Japan. There are some grey market sellers that do it for a small transactions fee. But what do i know, i am at 16 yr old right , with no contacts. …
5 Likes
Dyl
3822
Forgive me if I am misunderstanding your posts on this thread, but are you suggesting that you’re a 16 year old yakuza-adjacent e4 member?
17 Likes
Read the thread… That is what your OG friend said.
3 Likes
zork
3824
Let’s all holster our weapons – I don’t even remember how we got here.
5 Likes
Is it just me, or are people currently more on their edge than usual? First dyls error thread, now here, the Lillie thread as well.
9 Likes
pfm
3826
It’s part of the cycle when prices start to climb, emotions do too.
17 Likes
I love E4 and The Giant Japanese Market Thread. Spreading love and staying on topic cc admins
6 Likes
That’s so annoying. Good thing I paused E4 for 2020 
But come on. Yes, some of us have expensive cards now. Congrats to them. Yes, it’s probably just an artificially created pump.
But in the end, most of us on E4 are in it for the Hobby, so we should keep up the go vibe that made me join E4 and don’t attack fellow members because we might disagree in a minor part of the hobby we love and share.
6 Likes
It’s not really that artificial. It starts to make a lot of sense when you dissect what Trusthub, Clove, Hikaru, Alty and that new Pokemon Gacha platform are doing.
5 Likes
Yes, I have been to 360 cards stores in Japan this year. I saw every variant of a lucky bag out there. I saw the prices they went for and the hype they created.
But saying that such an immense price jump in this short amount of time is organic,
is something I simply can not agree with.
These lucky boxes are not new in Japan. If it was purely organic, it would have started a longer time ago and would show a different looking price curve.
8 Likes
You know, I’ve been wondering what this whole gacha waifu situation reminds me of, and it just hit me! I’ve seen that very same chemistry in Genshin Impact.
5 Likes
ddk
3832
Predatory Gacha game mechanics have been around for years way before Genshin Impact. The concept of paying real-world money to gamble for a chance of getting a jpg of a character has fueled the whole mobile gaming industry in the East in the past decade, with many of these games even seeing widespread success in international markets.
Given that there were players who thought nothing of spending over $70k on a single mobile game, it comes as little surprise to me that “lucky bags” or similar slot-machine type approaches have worked well in the Japanese Pokemon market.
What’s interesting though is that this kind of stuff is often seen as less predatory in Eastern countries, whereas Western consumers are quick to call companies’ shady business practices out (ie. the controversy with EA Games and loot boxes).
8 Likes
The thing I’m wondering about is the sustainability of this gacha cycle. And please correct me if I’m wrong.
People buy into the lottery because the jackpot cards are expensive. They are expensive, because stores offer to buy them back at significant amounts to put them in the lottery again. That’s the loop, the lotteries create the “market value”.
So as far as I understand, if that is the main way prices are pushed, it’s about people’s trust in the lottery, and slots selling. Since the system is not new, it would be interesting to know how this has been sustained in the past. And, how quickly it could turn around.
7 Likes
70k on a game?!?!?! What?
4 Likes
beggles
3836
People have been walking into casinos and handing over their money for decades, fully well knowing that except for blackjack played at professional level, the odds are always in favour of the house, and you are guaranteed to lose over time. Japan is also a country where people are willing to go to clubs and pay to just to talk to women or men. Or they sit in front of pachinko machines for hours even though legally they are not even allowed to win back money. I would say, it’s pretty darn sustainable if you tap into the right mindset and hook people who are easily manipulated. Also the J-Gov doesn’t care as long as everyone is paying their taxes. I believe they are planning to build a huge casino resort in Nagasaki, the first of its kind in Japan.
Personally, I don’t really have an issue with the price of these older cards. I think the issue comes when it effects brand new sets right out the gate, and TPC fails to make their supposedly retail product available at retail.
15 Likes
