Staff Promos for Prereleases Officially Discontinued After 'Vivid Voltage'

Thankyou Scalpers for ruining this, the event organisers work their butts off to give prereleases to players and now theyve lost out on one of the only perks they get for the hard work they put in.
 
PatchampYoutuber said:
Thankyou Scalpers for ruining this, the event organisers work their butts off to give prereleases to players and now theyve lost out on one of the only perks they get for the hard work they put in.
Click to expand...

Hard to argue after recent events with the TCG, but some blame could be the people who sell/trade off their staff cards
 
...wasn't that the entire point? To reward TOs, store owners and generally unpaid workers that help make Pokemon TCG into what it is, with special versions of cards that can either be collected or resold?

99% of the time STAFF promos aren't worth anything anyway. You cannot "scalp" these, unless you're literally stealing - they always end up in the hands of the organizers first, and they get to sell them. If anything, these should be of higher quality (possibly alternate art, of a chase Pokemon), not cut completely.
 
Just the UK and Europe? So the USA and other participating countries are unaffected? How’s that fair? Scalping isn’t just a European problem.
 
Yaginku said:
...wasn't that the entire point? To reward TOs, store owners and generally unpaid workers that help make Pokemon TCG into what it is, with special versions of cards that can either be collected or resold?

99% of the time STAFF promos aren't worth anything anyway. You cannot "scalp" these, unless you're literally stealing - they always end up in the hands of the organizers first, and they get to sell them. If anything, these should be of higher quality (possibly alternate art, of a chase Pokemon), not cut completely.
Click to expand...
Generally speaking CCG companies operate under the premise that cards aren't monetarily worth more then the cardboard itself because then booster packs would be acts of gambling if they did acknowledge it etc.

But the problem is probably less "staff promos sell for a lot" and more "staff are actively undermining the system to hoard promos and deny others promos so that they can resell them (because staff promos sell for a lot)"
 
Well that’s depressing but not expected, I do wonder how they’re going to make prereleases worth running/volunteering for in the future If they’re going to discontinue these.
 
Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this, but I feel like it's a positive move. I am sick and tired of seeing Pokemon cards so overpriced and causing such mass hysteria. I hope this means that they will handle the stamped cards better, too, by providing easier ways to obtain them. The Charizard Vivid Voltage promo goes for a stupid amount of money.

Yeah, it sucks that employees/volunteers don't get these extra perks, but honestly it's better for the community as a whole. Perhaps those people can be rewarded with extra free packs or a set of all the stamped cards.
 
The simplest ways to sum it up is 1. No one is entitled to/deserves anything for a set price. 2. If no one buys it, the price will drop. 3. I don’t understand why people want something that was meant for Staff. It’s the same as if it said “David” on there. It wasn’t meant for me, so I don’t want it. 4. What Yaginku said. Let the Staff make extra money. It literally doesn’t hurt anyone to not own a piece of cardboard. There’s a lot of things I want in life, so my solution is to work for it.
 
jamestajames said:
The simplest ways to sum it up is 1. No one is entitled to/deserves anything for a set price. 2. If no one buys it, the price will drop. 3. I don’t understand why people want something that was meant for Staff. It’s the same as if it said “David” on there. It wasn’t meant for me, so I don’t want it. 4. What Yaginku said. Let the Staff make extra money. It literally doesn’t hurt anyone to not own a piece of cardboard. There’s a lot of things I want in life, so my solution is to work for it.
Click to expand...
People want it because it's so scarce and therefore collectible.
 
jamestajames said:
The simplest ways to sum it up is 1. No one is entitled to/deserves anything for a set price. 2. If no one buys it, the price will drop. 3. I don’t understand why people want something that was meant for Staff. It’s the same as if it said “David” on there. It wasn’t meant for me, so I don’t want it. 4. What Yaginku said. Let the Staff make extra money. It literally doesn’t hurt anyone to not own a piece of cardboard. There’s a lot of things I want in life, so my solution is to work for it.
Click to expand...
People want it because collecting a master set means collecting everything in the set with a unique identifier of some kind on it. You bet I would still want a card with "David" stamped on it if it was TPCi that printed it.
 
coolcorsola said:
Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this, but I feel like it's a positive move. I am sick and tired of seeing Pokemon cards so overpriced and causing such mass hysteria. I hope this means that they will handle the stamped cards better, too, by providing easier ways to obtain them. The Charizard Vivid Voltage promo goes for a stupid amount of money.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, but how does that affect you? It's not a piece you need to play the game, it doesn't even come in a boxed set to be scalped, it's a set of cards that's always delivered to their intended recipients and they get to decide what they want to do with them. If there's a way of TPCi to jack the prices of these even further by making them more special, then they absolutely should - it's literally free money for people that run tournaments and judge events as unpaid volunteers. There is no person that loses here, unless you have a mindset that you should get everything that's limited and collectible (and therefore desired) for cheap.
 
Yaginku said:
I'm sorry, but how does that affect you? It's not a piece you need to play the game, it doesn't even come in a boxed set to be scalped, it's a set of cards that's always delivered to their intended recipients and they get to decide what they want to do with them. If there's a way of TPCi to jack the prices of these even further by making them more special, then they absolutely should - it's literally free money for people that run tournaments and judge events as unpaid volunteers. There is no person that loses here, unless you have a mindset that you should get everything that's limited and collectible (and therefore desired) for cheap.
Click to expand...
It just seems like it has been mishandled. People just end up selling those staff cards on eBay or get stolen and sold by one person. I’m sure volunteers can be compensated other ways and ideally just paid for the help they provide. I’m not against those people getting compensated.
 
coolcorsola said:
People just end up selling those staff cards on eBay
Click to expand...
...which is exactly what will also happen when you provide them with boosters or boxes. These are provided to tournament winners and generally I see them flipped immediately for hard cash. To match the value of this apparently very expensive Charizard, they would need to send a couple of Vivid Voltage booster boxes to thousands of people across the globe. This is obviously unfeasible and with a massive cost to them.
They cannot pay TOs or judges, because that'd make them employees - and they put a lot of trust in the hands of these people, as Pokemon have no good way of monitoring their performance. Promos are the next best thing, they're cheap to produce and send, but can be purposefully designed to fetch a high price on the collector's market. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you feel entitled to these cards without putting in the effort.
 
Yaginku said:
...which is exactly what will also happen when you provide them with boosters or boxes. These are provided to tournament winners and generally I see them flipped immediately for hard cash. To match the value of this apparently very expensive Charizard, they would need to send a couple of Vivid Voltage booster boxes to thousands of people across the globe. This is obviously unfeasible and with a massive cost to them.
They cannot pay TOs or judges, because that'd make them employees - and they put a lot of trust in the hands of these people, as Pokemon have no good way of monitoring their performance. Promos are the next best thing, they're cheap to produce and send, but can be purposefully designed to fetch a high price on the collector's market. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you feel entitled to these cards without putting in the effort.
Click to expand...
I don’t think they should be matching the value to any staff card. That’s self-imposed by the market after the cards are given out and sold. If that’s the case, no volunteer is going to be wanting the lesser staff Pokemon card. They should all be getting a Charizard to be equally compensated. And I’m sure often times these cards are stolen and don’t even end up going to the volunteer.
You may be right, they may be unable to be paid. I would hope the shop has enough staff that is already getting paid to help, but if they do need volunteers I’m sure they can find ways to compensate them. Store credit, booster packs from the current set, the regular stamped promos, other products they have at their stores, etc.


I get what you’re saying and agree that it’s a cool perk to those that help out during these events and is well-deserved. It’s all good. I just feel like this is part of a larger issue with the hysteria, FOMO, scalping, and “invest in everything” mentality that has been going on even more than normally in the community as of late. Which I have found to be pretty negative.
 
Last edited:
coolcorsola said:
I don’t think they should be matching the value to any staff card. That’s self-imposed by the market after the cards are given out and sold. If that’s the case, no volunteer is going to be wanting the lesser staff Pokemon card. They should all be getting a Charizard to be equally compensated.
Click to expand...
Exactly, all of the promos should be of the same card and each should have an alternate artwork. This way, every person is equally compensated.
coolcorsola said:
And I’m sure often times these cards are stolen and don’t even end up going to the volunteer.
Click to expand...
These cards are (were?) sent to the address participating in the pre-release, and are meant to be distributed by the TO to everyone they deem to be "staffing" the tournament (including themselves). If your TO hasn't distributed these, despite you feeling like you're owed one, you can either report the situation, or stop supporting such TO. If these cards are outright stolen by somebody they don't belong to, that's a crime and Pokemon cannot control these instances.
coolcorsola said:
I just feel like this is part of a larger issue with the hysteria, FOMO, scalping, and “invest in everything” mentality that has been going on even more than normally in the community as of late. Which I have found to be pretty negative.
Click to expand...
But it's not. Investing is only bad if it affects regular players, making it unable for them to play the game, purchase regular product, or access cards they need for their decks. As long as all the pieces of high collectible value remain "collectibles" and nothing else, nobody's affected negatively. The only reason you'd buy any of these cards is to have them. As long as that's the case, no price is unreasonable. You cannot have something that's rare, desirable and "cool to own", but also cheap.
I feel like some people see the recent boom and, instead of laughing at it or awaiting the inevitable crash, get their own version of FOMO and get annoyed that they haven't bought them when they were underpriced.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top