So this discourse around EB Games Australia pricing with the #Pokemon30 Pokémon TCG products is genuinely impossible to escape on my feed right now, and I get why people are furious. I'd love to collect this set. I really would. But at this point I'm treating that as unlikely.
There was a time I actually liked the idea of a special or holiday mini-set expansion, something a bit extra. But when these things keep getting locked behind special collections instead of just being available as booster boxes or displays like everything else, it stops feeling like a treat and starts feeling exploitative - and a full-fledged 5th or 6th expansion release per year, and not something I've been shy of sharing my thoughts on.
If it were up to me, I'd happily go back to the old rhythm. Four standard expansions a year, no special sets, everything available through normal booster boxes. Nothing fancy, nothing locked away. Simpler times, and easy to manage.
I still think back to the 20th anniversary, that whole year long celebration spread out monthly, and even with special collections involved it still felt attainable and genuinely fun. The 25th wasn't bad either, at least at first. But that one landed right in the middle of the pandemic, 2020 through 2022, when popularity absolutely exploded, and that's really where things began to tip.
And look, the world's in a cost of living crisis. People want an escape, something low stakes they can enjoy without thinking too hard about it. But that kind of casual, care-free hobby enjoyment is getting harder to hold onto when everything's stuck behind rising costs, paywalls and people's focus on investment than what this hobby was built on - collecting, trading and playing.
Then you've got retailers pricing stock sky high because they know full well what happens next on the secondary market. Scalpers will pay well above RRP anyway, so retailers figure they may as well claim that margin themselves rather than leave it on the table for someone else to scalp, making it even worse for when these hit the secondary market.
I dunno. I've had mixed feelings about this hobby for a long time now, and I think this is what eventually does it in. It's turning people off in real numbers. I know chasing new gens is the game, that's marketing, that's sales, that's just how it works. But underneath all that, I just feel a bit sad about it.
I've probably said this a few times already, but I don't think this hobby will go back to what it once was. The current generation coming into it is too deep into monetisation already. For a lot of them, that's not even a shift they've noticed. It's just all they've ever known - and that'll just continue to perpetuate what the hobby will continue to be.
How do you feel about all of this? Are you a collector, player, trader, reseller, retailer, rip 'n' ship-er...?
#pokecollection #pokemon #pokemoncards #pokemontcg