Keep in mind that The Pokemon Company don't make profit off of secondary sales, so they don't really have much incentive to make it a casino. In fact, I believe in the past they avoided this problem by printing cards to such capacity that prices don't dramatically rise due to lack of scarcity.
(special circumstances like very old first edition prints still hold value for obvious reasons, but The Pokemon Company can't realistically make profit off of them now that they are out of print)
Currently they aren't able to do so because of a combination of an insane increase in demand and COVID, but ultimately this seems like a temporary problem that fixes itself once they get facilities in order to meet the demand.
> Keep in mind that The Pokemon Company don't make profit off of secondary sales, so they don't really have much incentive to make it a casino. In fact, I believe in the past they avoided this problem by printing cards to such capacity that prices don't dramatically rise due to lack of scarcity.
The fact that the card pack has a randomness element makes the card pack more valuable in the first place. This is exactly how gamification and random reward schedules drive revenue.
The point of the product is to gamble, not to determine in advance which one has the best outcome or odds.
In much the same way that a casino won't let you hover around and count cards, or watch a machine all day and only play when you've determined that it's about to cache out. They take other countermeasures against that stuff these days but you get the idea.
> The point of the product is to gamble, not to determine in advance which one has the best outcome or odds.
The manufacturer’s goal is to leverage the addictive behavior associated with gambling to get money while not being restricted in market reach (as to venues, eligible purchasers) or profits by regulations and taxes targeting gambling, sure.
That’s not the buyer’s goal, though, and I see no reason that the manufacturer’s buyer-hostile attempt to hack around laws designed to protect against and provide resources to mitigate exactly the kind of predation it is engaging in deserves particular respect.
> In much the same way that a casino won't let you hover around and count cards
Casinos, by law, where permitted to operate at all, in many jurisdictions wouldn’t let most of the market for the goods in question even on the floor except to make through transit, specifically to protect them from gambling.
If the people that care most about rare cards target them more effectively rather than buying however many packs needed to get them randomly, how can it not?
And, also, if those playing by the rules that the manufacturer set up get less of a “ooh shiny” bump to keep playing by the rules than is designed, again, how can it not?
In the small, it still mostly feels like you're unfairly changing the rules of the game out from underneath the next person to walk in the store. By analogy, it's not ethical to rig someone else's slot machine to steal people's money and pay it out only to you - even if you think slot machines themselves are unethical. Claiming to be be curing them of their gambling addiction seems... convenient.
You know that, and I know that, but legal weenies and regulators go to great pains to make it clear that it's not gambling, as do defenders of the "sport". And to be clear I love me some MtG, so I am not criticizing the model or the industry.
That said, if weighing the packs as a viable strategy became common knowledge and is even a marginally reliable method for gaming the system, then there would be a solid case to be made that the companies that produce that these cards need explicit countermeasures to prevent that strategy.
If they don't, and there is a real secondary market, then there is nothing stopping an FLGS from selling individual packs from a box after having weighed all of the packs. The only way to protect yourself from the game being rigged would be to buy guaranteed unopened boxes.
People who buy Pokemon/MtG cards have an interesting relationship with WotC.
They're usually perfectly willing to buy cards on the secondary market (which doesn't make WotC money) but they're constitutionally unable to play "real" (non-"casual") matches — even in tournaments WotC has no relationship to! — if the cards are https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Proxy_card s.
I've never been clear on what the difference is. Both the secondary market, and proxies, result in perfectly usable cards, and result in WotC making no money from you. But one's acceptable to the community, while the other very much isn't.
I have a feeling it's probably to do with the community having a lot of collectors in it, who want their rare cards to retain value, and who fear that that value would be lost if there's no reason to play with the card, only to hide it away in a binder while playing with a proxy.
WotC of course strongly benefits indirectly from the secondary market as it makes packs more desirables (and in fact packs and boxes are priced close to their Expected Value). It is not a surprise that they are strongly opposed to proxies. And most non-WotC tournament organizers of course have strong relationships with WotC.
But a store isn't a casino, it's a store. AFAIK, a company can't prohibit anyone from inspecting their product on store shelves before buying. I would certainly expect to be able to weigh, say, a pack of batteries, and use their weigh as a part of my buying decision.
The store can do whatever they want (within discrimination laws). If they say Hot Wheels collectors can’t look at every single one on the shelf, and doing so will get you banned, they can do that.
Sort of, but it's unfair when you're buying booster packs online from folks that might be selling you pre-weighed packs from booster boxes. For this reason, you're really best off only buying booster boxes or individual cards online unless you really trust the seller.
It used to be you could see what cards were in a Magic the Gathering booster without opening it by pushing each card one at a time to the edge of the pack and shining a bright light behind it. The edge of the packaging was white, so the name of the card would shine through.
I think most people into collectible card games know boosters aren't to be trusted in general.
In addition to weighting, there was also a know vulnerability in the pseudo-rng method used in printing that allowed to know which boisters of a box were the most likely to contains the good cards (speaking of MTG).
Mostly because by taking the high value packs, one leaves nothing for the other players/collectors (especially children, for whom boosters are the only potential source of rare cards, since they're unlikely to have the funds nor internet access to buy individual cards online).
If you want a specific card you should buy that specific card. Packs are not designed so you know what is in them. Weighing them seems like petty cheating to me.
Thats just my opinion though, I know moral debates like this are highly subjective.
Again, if you don’t want to gamble then you’re free to buy individual cards where you know exactly what you’re getting.
Even if you weigh the decks you’re still gambling, as you have no idea what is inside the packs until you break the seal. You’re just cheating to improve your odds.
If you don’t want to gamble then the obvious solution is to buy individual cards and not cheat others out of random decks.
I think it’s more ridiculous that your position is advocating bringing a gram scale into Target with you so that you can weigh cards off the shelf in order to gain a slight advantage.
I know it isn’t illegal, and never claimed it was. I think it’s poor form, morally speaking. That’s why I added the ‘morals are subjective’ part to my original comment.
It isn’t illegal to cheat at your local pickup basketball game either, that doesn’t make it a good thing to do.