People are getting pushed out of the Pokemon hobby by bad actors and that’s kind of sad. Every human activity seems to have bad actors (a person that is responsible for actions that are harmful) but Pokemon’s bad actors are really starting to rub people the wrong way.
An example of the frustration people are feeling popped up on reddit recently…
Think after a life of collecting I’m close to being pushed out of the hobby.
byu/CmCrunk78 inPokemonTCG
If the post gets deleted the original text is as follows:
Think after a life of collecting I’m close to being pushed out of the hobby.
It sucks , cuz I love this. But I’m tired of having to drive to 5 store a day in a hope to get anything not Shrouded Fable .
The community is so toxic at this point cuz everyone wants to flip a 5 dollar pack for 9 And call themselves investors .
Like congratulations, you’re pushing the market you sell to give up on the hobby . I work man I can’t camp in parking lots overnight to get a couple packs of surging sparks . And with the next two sets I genuinly believe this clown shows bs gets worse .
We just got scalpers buying from other scalpers before to long .
They are not wrong. The scalping, the stealing from stores, the endless gambling in an attempt to pull an expensive card. I mean nobody needs to spend $20,000 on Pokemon cards but we have people doing exactly that.
Pokemon cards are part gambling though. They’re meant to be! The entire point of booster packs is to give people the element of surprise and chance. You could always get lucky and pull a Charizard or Venusaur, but you could be just as unlucky and pull a non holo Zapdos. That’s fun for people and we have to understand that. It’s a reason why people are doing what they’re doing money wise. Moderation just doesn’t exist for some people when it comes to Pokemon.
There’s also the issue with investing / scalping. Buying out stores entire inventory of Pokemon products is inappropriate. But the thing is collectibles like sports memorabilia, baseball cards, coins, all have long histories of being alternative investments for people. They’re not always good ideas but that doesn’t change the fact that they have in fact been investments and people have bought and sold collectibles. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But we’re right back at moderation. If you cannot moderate your behavior you should not be investing in collectibles. Collectibles are an alternative investment for a reason.
And there is an argument to be made that if people weren’t so obsessed with the value of a card, the actual value of cards would drop, and cards would be unattractive for thieves. It’s kind of an old fashioned psychology type thought line but I think there might be some truth to it. The other truth is of course people are going to continue to steal Pokemon cards regardless of value simply because they like them.
At the end of the day Pokemon cards are meant to be played with and collected. And while collectibles are and have been perfectly valid investments, moderation is key. Spending everything you have on Pokemon cards is NOT a good idea and you should not justify gambling on opening packs for good pulls as an investment.