I guess what I’m questioning is whether people are (1) paying for the parasocial experience or (2) being deceived by the content creator to buy something at a huge upcharge for no good reason. I’m not convinced that (1) is what’s happening for the majority of people buying into these breaks.
How would a content creator be deceptive? I’m just curious as I thought most just state their price, and someone chooses to participate.
With a bit of thinking i came to this conclusion.
I was recently reading a thread about graded sealed games.
The cardridge and whats all inside can be bought for pretty cheap prices but a sealed copy can be extremely valuable.
So i guess a sealed box can still become valuable, whereas the content inside is not.
It might be less of a matter of deception and more of an issue of buyers not doing adequate research into what they’re purchasing. Either way, I’m skeptical of the idea that people are paying huge premiums on sealed product for parasocial reasons. These breaks aren’t being done by PokeRev or Leonhart; they’re being done by relatively uncharismatic randos on Instagram.
That is the normal progression for sealed vintage items. Rudy talks about it in some old videos. In theory this behavior for old Pokemon boxes follows that principle. The box breakers do add a twist to the formula that isn’t seen in other tcgs as much. They pay good prices for sealed items. In some sense they are taking these items from the sealed collectors. They then drain the population, driving the price up for the sealed collectors and themselves. Perhaps they’re just catalysts to a natural process but it seems rapid in pokemon.
Perhaps it’s nieve of me to think things will be different when breakers leave. Why would they leave. They’re still here going every day in the bad market
I think for people like Leonhart & Pokerev its definitely about parasocial relationships. I could understand the argument more for a smaller streamer, but Rev is literally the largest streamer. From a business perspective alone, it would be worth just buying a pack to get your name out there. And I’m sure there are plenty of people that just want their name mentioned and think that sort of thing is cool.
But I agree with your practical analysis. If the focus is just the product then clearer they can get it cheaper. But I think its the experience combo that drives streamer premiums.
I think the problem for people who look at sealed collecting from a very practical sense is the influence of the streamers on the sealed market for collectors. You must compete with breakers when buying boxes. They’re driving the prices up for everyone. As a seller if a streamer will pay more for a box than a collector, guess where that box is going?
Will the streamers eventually leave and do something else? I’m not sure since this would be the time to do that if any. Singles low, economy pretty shaky in the usa limiting frivolous spending. It’s quite possible they’re here to stay for the long term
I think streamers, especially the larger ones are not going anywhere. Until sealed product becomes so scarce they can’t replenish, its such easy content. Its also probably still fun for most of them to open. If I knew how to stream I would give it a shot!
They really are just speeding up the natural growth of vintage boxes I guess. Good or bad
You should learn to stream and do an e4 box break and make shoutouts for the buyers of the packs👀
Well this could be a nice way to unboomer yourself.
Shouldnt be too hard to stream for someone that does youtube i would say, right?
Theres a lot of tech dudes on e4, you could get one of them to show you!
Even within the microcosm of e4, the allure of box breaks are here theres certainly something to be said for the strong sense of community here, but its just funny to me that i would never participate in a box break, yet someone says e4 break and my eyes light up
As for sealed stuff… i think we could see older, more scarce sealed items separate in value from the contents of the box entirely in the future (which already appears to be happening in ex). Which is interesting because my take has always been that singles in the set are the core of box prices. Kinda sad tbh
Is the consencus that this discrepancy is pretty normal? Just pushed faster by streamers?
This is also true, but nobody is going to watch or participate in a expensive box break when the jackpot is a 50 dollar card.
At that point all the interest from the box breakers will fade away and only the true collectors will remain interested in these boxes.
I think the people who participate and host breaks are collectors. They just go about collecting their stuff differently than most of us here. Maybe they just have a higher risk tolerance than most of us. I don’t see many of the non-knowlegable people hosting anymore like during covid
I have to do some more research on the arbitrage of singles vs sealed boxes over time.
Could be some nice opportunities to be found when the correlation gets too out of hand.
I like buying shadowless and 1st edition singles at current prices.
I could buy a complete mint shadowless set for around 1/10th the price of a box.
No idea if it will stay this way or prices getting even more disconnected.
Is it really surprising that as the supply of boxes goes down and the supply of graded singles goes up the prices go in opposite directions?
Also, there’s no sense in trying to apply logic to an emotional decision. People pay $500 for a booster pack because their hope is the best card in the set in PSA 10 condition. It’s entirely copium and adrenaline hunting. It’s the same as gambling at a casino. People dump thousands of dollars in one night meanwhile the expected value of literally every bet they make is negative.
No, but it is surprising (to me, at least) to see them diverge to this extreme.
Also, there’s no sense in trying to apply logic to an emotional decision. People pay $500 for a booster pack because their hope is the best card in the set in PSA 10 condition. It’s entirely copium and adrenaline hunting. It’s the same as gambling at a casino. People dump thousands of dollars in one night meanwhile the expected value of literally every bet they make is negative.
The thing is that the most valuable PSA 10 in the set is barely even $1000. And there’s not a single PSA 9 in the set even worth the price of a pack. It’s one thing to play the gold star lottery with Deoxys or TRR, it’s another to play the lottery with a set that doesn’t even have any jackpots.
$1000>$500
Plus people really value the experience of pulling and grading the cards themselves. It’s really not different from buying a single $5 modern pack for the far removed chance of pulling a $50 alt art, just add a couple of zeros