- Picture Brock entering a Pokémon Center. He sees a pretty girl. He walks up to her and says, “I’m a gym leader. Please marry me”. That’s direct marketing.
- Picture Brock entering a Pokémon Center. He sees a pretty girl. He walks up to her and asks for her phone number. He calls her up later and says, “I’m a gym leader. Please marry me”. That’s telemarketing.
- Picture Brock and Ash entering a Pokémon Center. He sees a girl. He asks Ash to go up to her and say, “My friend over there is a gym leader. He wants you to marry him”. That’s advertising.
- Picture Brock entering a Pokémon Center. He sees a pretty girl but does nothing. Nurse Joy walks up to the girl and says, “That guy over there is a gym leader. I think you should marry him”. That’s publicity.
- Picture Brock entering a Pokémon Center. A pretty girl walks up to him and says, “I know you’re a gym leader. Please marry me”. That’s brand recognition.
- Picture Brock entering a Pokémon Center. He sees a pretty girl. He walks up to her and says, “I’m a gym leader. Please marry me”. She slaps him. That’s customer feedback.
Congratulations, everyone. You just got a general idea of what marketing is.
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind about “marketing”, anyway? I’m guessing “advertising”? Well, advertising is one part of marketing, but it isn’t exactly the whole pie.
At this point, some of you may be wondering why I’m talking about marketing. What does marketing have to do with the Pokémon TCG? Most of us get the cards we need from opening booster packs or by buying them from other people. As I’ve said in my previous article, it isn’t practical to just keep on opening booster packs to get the cards you want. Quoting myself, it’s often more practical to get the cards you want from someone else, and that is a generally accepted idea.
Marketing is basically about creating and satisfying needs. In my illustration above, you could see that in most scenarios, Brock had to tell the girl that he was a gym leader in an attempt to convince her to marry him. It’s the same thing about The Coca-Cola Company putting advertisements on TV during the summer about how refreshing an ice-cold glass of Coca-Cola is.
In the Pokémon TCG, the need for certain cards are affected by three factors: the discovery of new deck archetypes, the annual rotations, and the local metagame. As players naturally get bored with a deck and often seek to build a new one, cards are typically being bought, sold, and traded – this provides a steady supply of cards circulating within the community.
What we most often overlook is that, beside buying/selling/trade cards, we’re also marketing ourselves.
Economics in the Works
Like in the real world, prices are determined by both supply and demand. Most of the time, people unintentionally contribute to the good of the whole by doing what they think is for their own personal interest. There are times, however, when things get out of hand (such as the occurrence of a financial crisis), and the government, the controlling factor, steps in to intervene with the use of fiscal or monetary policies. There are those that believe that the government should not intervene and let things work out for themselves, and there are those that believe that the government should intervene because will not work out for themselves – microeconomics vs. macroeconomics.
It’s the players and their collective personal interests and preferences that determine the future of the Pokémon TCG. In this case, Play! Pokémon is the controlling factor, and things do get “out of hand” (such as a certain card managing to clearly dominate the entire metagame and becoming way overpriced). In such cases, Play! Pokémon puts a “fix” by banning the use of certain cards from the tournaments and implementing seasonal rotations. There are players that believe Play! Pokémon should just let things be, and there are also those that believe Play Pokémon should step in to intervene.
Pokémon TCG in the Philippines
I decided to write an article about basic marketing, economics, and relevant ethical concepts after remembering a story a friend told me a few months before about a highly respected Pokémon TCG player here in the Philippines (let’s call him “P”). A competitive player, P had one of the largest collection of cards anyone here in the Philippines has ever seen. People didn’t initially wonder how he managed to build a collection like that – P used to be a Gym Leader, after all. What my friend told me, however, changed my view of P.
During one of the weekly unofficial tournaments hosted at one of the local card stores, my friend saw P talking to a small kid who was probably around ten or twelve years old. Apparently, this small kid had pulled a rare card (a Pokémon-ex, if I remember correctly) from a booster pack he just bought, but he wasn’t exactly aware of it. With a bit of smooth talking, P managed to convince the small kid to trade that rare card for a couple of uncommon cards.
This was apparently just the first of many similar stories.
All sorts of hobbies require some amount of money – the Pokémon TCG included. Unless you’re strictly into buying and selling cards (by this I mean you don’t play), don’t expect to earn even a bit of money in the TCG. In fact, you may find yourself spending more than what you initially expected to spend. I assume most of us here in 6P play the TCG competitively, and my question to you competitive players is this: How far are you willing to go to get the cards you want without spending too much?
I should tell you more about the Pokémon TCG community in the Philippines before I continue. POP left the country around 3-4 years ago. There was a lot of speculation as to why this happened, but many in the community generally believe that POP had some disagreements with the official distributor of the Pokémon TCG before. For one, promotional cards that were supposed to be earned with attendance points or given away for promotion were instead being sold. Many players, including Gym Leaders, were accused of “hoarding” key cards, and scams were commonplace.
Collecting or Hoarding?
Compared to the Pokémon TCG community in the United States, the Pokémon TCG community in the Philippines is relatively small. As such, the supply of cards circulating within the Philippine community was also smaller. Players that had an extensive collection of cards literally dominated both the official and unofficial leagues, controlling the supply of key cards and effectively the prices as well – this is what many players in the Philippines refer to as “hoarding”.
The average Filipino’s purchasing power was also relatively weaker – compare the minimum wage of $8 an hour in the United States and the minimum wage of $9 a day in the Philippines.
Buying cards online was also difficult. Not many Pokémon TCG players in the Philippines had debit or credit cards, and there’s a tax for almost every item that arrives from abroad.
With POP gone, the growth of the Pokémon TCG community in the Philippines is arguably in a state of decline, overshadowed by the popularity of other trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! Without a controlling factor like POP, the direction of the Pokémon TCG community (and all the unofficial leagues under it) is left to those with the most impressive card collections. One of my close friends in the Pokémon TCG said that what was once fun community is now a bit similar to a Russian mafia.
I’ve been playing the Pokémon TCG since the release of Base Set, and I must say that I am deeply disappointed with the current state of the community here in the Philippines.
One of the things that I would like to tackle about in this article is the matter of hoarding. In truth, there’s a fine line between collecting and hoarding. It’s the same as the difference between a gift and a bribe – the difference lies on the intention (the problem with intention, however, is that it cannot be measured by quantitative data).
In a small community like the one here in the Philippines, the effect of hoarding is easily felt. Although hoarding itself has no direct negative impact on the community, it does give a leeway for price manipulation and scams.
Scams, which are driven by the same human greed, often involve misinformation. Avoiding scams is pretty easy – you only need to be well-informed, and this isn’t really something difficult to do. What if it all happened in reverse, and you happen to get into a position where you could scam someone? Would you scam another player for a valuable card?
Let’s create a scenario. Suppose someone would offer twice the usual price for a certain card you have. Would you sell it for that much? I personally think this is very tempting. I recently pulled a Reshiram and a Zekrom the other week when I was in Hong Kong, and a lot of people here are offering me ridiculous prices for them.
What Should We Do?
In college, I was taught that when you would be doing business in the future, you would have three responsibilities: one to your suppliers, one to your customers, and one to your environment.
It has become a habit of mine to inform people interested in buying cards from me of the local market prices and give them a chance to correct their offers. My friends could testify this. I feel like by doing so, I’m helping make the community a better place.
I’m not in the position to tell any of you what should be done exactly, but I do want you to think about what you could do for your community.
As I’ve said earlier in this article, we aren’t just buying/selling/trading cards – we’re also marketing ourselves. Surely you wouldn’t want to be remembered as someone like P.
Put this article under “Spirit of the Game.”
Before I became a League Leader I was mentored by the Curry Family here in Florida. They emphasize “Spirit of the Game,” family environment, having fun, assisting newer players, to grow and spread the game. One of the things stressed was to keep an eye out for the situations listed above. Pokemon TCG is a family-environement and as such should encourage fairness and reasonable expectations of accountability.
Which to me means, when juniors start trading cards, the Gym Leader can let players (and their parents) know if the cards traded are of equal value or not. Some times, kids just trade regardless of Gym Leader advice. But I always review rarity marks with newer players at my league so as to cut down on the out-of-balance trading.
I have also seen veteran players part with rare cards they are not using to boost the morale or deck lists of newer (mostly junior) players. It is one of the things I love about Pokemon TCG.
Thank you for taking the time to share your insight and knowledge on TCG Trading in a fun and entertaining manner!
Thank you. :-)
This was a real good read, and a prime example (no pun intended) happened at my league last night.
It was my last time at the AZ league before leaving to go back to the UK and I really wanted to get a load of rev holos for my B&W set. I know the guys there well so I know I can get a good trade and 2 guys combined have about 19 I need, including Kilngklang and other rares. As I know theyre good people, I traded one a Magnezone Prime for for 9 and the other a Donphan and Magnezone for 10 (including the ‘Klang).
Even though I know these cards will have greater value next season than they do now, their worth to me was less than the amount of rev holos and felt I was doing a good thing for the other guys. Marketing really is something to consider alongside personal card value.
Great article!
Hey, i think i met you at the B&W pre release at hero Comics. Are you talking about jermain’s league at game nites?
I think youre right, you had the massive binder if I remember correctly? Nah, I go to Atomic Comics on a Monday and Saturday, all done now though!
Just about the people offering you the high prices for Reshiram/Zekrom; it’s about supply and demand. There are more people who play over there, so rare cards will be wanted more, and people will pay more for them.
Possibly, people in Hong Kong like rare cards more than American/Europeans/Australians do.
If people are willing to pay a certain amount for something, then that it what you can logically sell it for. I mean, think about Magnezone Prime; as soon as it won in europe somewhere, it’s demand went up significantly but it’s supply remained the same. I think you would know what this means, since you know about marketing.
Is it wrong to sell things for what people are willing to pay?
Is what something is ‘worth’ based on your perception, or their perception?
First and foremost, supply and demand do dictate price. That’s a basic principle of economics. It’s also true that value is based on people’s perception. Beauty is in the eyes of its beholder, as they say. I don’t mind people offering me some high price for, say, a Zekrom card. I just want them to know what they’re doing. I believe they have a right to be informed.
What I mean is, maybe Zekrom is legitimately worth that much over there. I wouldn’t think they would mind that, in, say, America, Zekrom full-art is worth $15 when, in Hong Kong, it could be worth $50 (just a random number I pulled out of my behind).
I think it’s good to inform people when they’re trying to buy something for more than it’s worth; but I wouldn’t think they would care if you told them that it’s cheaper to buy from other countries.
Just curious, was this on a different language of card? If they were after an english card, perhaps pointing them in the direction of trollandtoad would indeed be a good thing.
Cards were in English. :-)
It is a shame to see someone writing bad things about something with only hear-says or remembering from what a friend said. Please do check your sources very well… Pokemon TCG in the Philippines???
I’m disappointed that you started the topic Pokemon TCG in the Philippines with a negative scenario, where a person is taking advantage of a child. For someone who doesn’t go or rarely attend weekly league, that is a big statement. Whether we like it or not; there are players, who takes advantage of children when it comes to trading. And as third parties there is nothing we could really do if both parties are in an agreement. Also IMO, we could only give our opinion in their trade if one party asked for it.
Going back to your example, during the EX-series era, all weekly tournaments are official tournaments, some gym leaders even upload the results at the POP website. So where is this unofficial tourney you are saying? Among the gym leaders at that time, only one of them could be involve in unjust trading and that former gym leader is not anymore an active pokemon tcg player for more than 6 months now. Also an EX-card is a silver border card and it is obviously shining; common sense dictates that a child would also like a shiny card in exchange (at least holo). In your many similar stories, I’m wondering if it is the same pokemon tcg player P or a lot more others because I can’t think of a lot of players.
IMO, this kind of trade happens once in a while not just in Pokemon but also in other card games (e.g. In MTG, old players offering huge trades to beginners) however someone who doesn’t or rarely attend weekly league should not cite it as an introductory to a topic named ” X-TCG in the Y-country ” especially if he only had one example; It is unfair for the Y-country to be judge on one faulty example. Lastly I don’t think it is wise to cite something that is way back Z-years ago.
IMO, being competitive means spending to much (money, time, effort,etc) . If you can’t spend that much money, time, effort, etc. your race probably ends there.
FYI, POP left the Philippines around two years ago not three to four years ago. Also promo cards and stuffs were given away by attending leagues and joining tournaments; they were never being sold by the distributors. The only means of buying them is from another player.
Again among the previous gym leaders only one could be a candidate for hoarding key cards. Also if a player wants to do some hoarding, who are we to tell them to stop; it is their money they are using and can we justify that they intentionally hoards the key cards. There is no rule that states on How many, a player can have a certain card; A typical pokemon player in the Philippines have 1-2 deck/s, so if one wanted to have 3 or more deck and has the capacity to do so would you consider it hoarding? E.g. If a player wanted to create 5 different decks which could possibly translate to 20 pokemon collectors; is he hoarding pokemon collectors?
Since I don’t have much time left to waste I’ll go straight to my point…
There are several Filipino players who are trying to make a good image for the Philippines. Some of which are based outside the Philippines yet they wear something that indicate they have Filipino blood during Worlds. Some who earned invites without travel awards yet go to Worlds with their own money to represent the Philippines. Yet you speak badly of the Philippines because of your economic/businessman like mindset. From my point of view, I think you have a grudge to Pokemon TCG Player P.
Pokemon TCG almost died during the time the relationship between previous distributor and Pokemon ended. During the time that the Philippines have no official distributor, players who still play the game are divided into many groups [maybe your Russian mafia], obviously you can’t play alone and there are no tourneys or leagues. In the second half of 2010, Philippines already had a new distributor however the new coordinator is lacking in knowledge about Pokemon TCG. Thus it took a lot of time to be able start a league and get players back attending leagues. It is just really sad to see something like this on the net, especially when we are on the way to recovery.
Lastly, Pokemon TCG is a hobby… you spend money not earn… and being competitive means spending more not just money but also other things like time, effort, etc..
I’m not saying all players in the Philippines are bad. For one, I know a lot of good people. What I wrote in my article is based on what I know and what I heard from others. I don’t attend the leagues anymore (official or unofficial), but I did the official leagues a long time ago. You have to agree with me, however, that the community here is in a state of decline, even when a lot of players are trying to recover the Pokémon TCG community back to its Golden Age. I do give them a lot of credit – I love the Pokémon TCG, and I would like to see the community flourishing again. I actually wrote this article to get the attention of P!P and hopefully give us another chance in becoming an official league. Lastly, I also said that you will not earn money from the TCG if you’re playing it, regardless of being competitive or not. Thank you for your comments, though. Lawrence here, by the way, is one of the best Pokémon TCG players in the Philippines. He usually ranks first or second in the weekly tournaments.
Philippines is already under Play!Pokemon… And the Philippines might have a Nationals tournament this July…
You have to understand everyone’s entitled to an opinion, so as much as you have the right to give yours Mike has to give his.
“IMO, this kind of trade happens once in a while not just in Pokemon but also in other card games (e.g. In MTG, old players offering huge trades to beginners) however someone who doesn’t or rarely attend weekly league should not cite it as an introductory to a topic named ” X-TCG in the Y-country ” especially if he only had one example; It is unfair for the Y-country to be judge on one faulty example. Lastly I don’t think it is wise to cite something that is way back Z-years ago.”
1. In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter whether or not it happens in other card games, the goal of the article I believe is to make people aware not to spite anyone, being aware is a good thing, especially for newer players who oftentimes get overwhelmed by the amount of cards there are in a given format.
2. You should understand one bad experience is enough to turn people away from the game completely, young people especially. Because of this I believe that one bad example is a one too many, it happens everywhere but unlike in other countries the effects of hoarding or cheating other players are easily felt by smaller communities.
3. History lesson what happens Z-years ago eventually leads to what’s currently happening in Y-country.
“IMO, being competitive means spending to much (money, time, effort,etc) . If you can’t spend that much money, time, effort, etc. your race probably ends there. ”
….some people just like to play for fun.
“FYI, POP left the Philippines around two years ago not three to four years ago. Also promo cards and stuffs were given away by attending leagues and joining tournaments; they were never being sold by the distributors. The only means of buying them is from another player.”
Have you ever asked yourself WHY POP left the Philippines? I’m sure it’s not something as simple as the promo cards.
“Again among the previous gym leaders only one could be a candidate for hoarding key cards. Also if a player wants to do some hoarding, who are we to tell them to stop; it is their money they are using and can we justify that they intentionally hoards the key cards. There is no rule that states on How many, a player can have a certain card; A typical pokemon player in the Philippines have 1-2 deck/s, so if one wanted to have 3 or more deck and has the capacity to do so would you consider it hoarding? E.g. If a player wanted to create 5 different decks which could possibly translate to 20 pokemon collectors; is he hoarding pokemon collectors?”
The truth is, everyone has the right to make as many decks as they like to have as many cards as they like, but this doesn’t mean that they should be ripping off little kids, or preying on newbies. I think you speak from a very specific point of view. You may be one of the few people who contribute to the improvement of the environment here in the Philippines but as I was saying it just takes one bad experience to turn newer players away from the game completely.
“There are several Filipino players who are trying to make a good image for the Philippines. Some of which are based outside the Philippines yet they wear something that indicate they have Filipino blood during Worlds. Some who earned invites without travel awards yet go to Worlds with their own money to represent the Philippines. Yet you speak badly of the Philippines because of your economic/businessman like mindset. From my point of view, I think you have a grudge to Pokemon TCG Player P.”
I think this is true, I for one run a small league for young kids at my old High School here. But the sad truth is that all card games are a business people make money off of it, even if we don’t somebody else does. I think that it’s fair to judge with an economic mindset because at the end of the day supply and demand determine the price of cards in a given environment.
“Pokemon TCG almost died during the time the relationship between previous distributor and Pokemon ended. During the time that the Philippines have no official distributor, players who still play the game are divided into many groups [maybe your Russian mafia], obviously you can’t play alone and there are no tourneys or leagues. In the second half of 2010, Philippines already had a new distributor however the new coordinator is lacking in knowledge about Pokemon TCG. Thus it took a lot of time to be able start a league and get players back attending leagues. It is just really sad to see something like this on the net, especially when we are on the way to recovery.”
The Philippines never lost distribution rights just so you know, we still get our cards through a secondary source and not POP directly, which is why we get our sets 3 weeks late. And about this new distributor, as far as I know he’s a retail seller with distribution rights getting from a local importer. And on the contrary it’s very good to see something like this on the net because it prepares players for the environment here in the Philippines.
“Lastly, Pokemon TCG is a hobby… you spend money not earn… and being competitive means spending more not just money but also other things like time, effort, etc..”
I’m sure people over at PP have intentions as pure as this.
Anyway regardless, I think it’s a great article for people to become aware of potential problems they can run into, especially if they’re new to the game. Granted, Lawrence has the best intentions I’m sure but I think blasting away at an article like this is unfair which is why I couldn’t help issuing a rebuttal. However, understand that anything that involves money is risky, you can’t help people trying to protect themselves. Hopefully you don’t take this personally, I’ve met you before and I know for a fact that you have the best intentions for the game.
Peace.
-Nick
this is way deeper than the usual deck lists, tournament reports etc. but its nice to have a change now and then… like the brock thing at the start.
Thank you. :-)
haha the intro was very Clever ! I laughed at the end. The part with the “That’s customer feedback.”
I understand that cards are worth a certain but is it wrong to personally value a card higher then it sells for? Like take gdos for example. That was one of my all time favorite decks and I finally finished reving it out fight before the news about rotation (I still knew it would be gone soon but didn’t think that before nats would be possible) and I have people asking me for my 4 rev karps (which were the hardest to find) but they offer me what would seem fair if you were to compare actual prices but I don’t see it as fair just because of how much i love the deck, how hard they were to find etc. Not that i would try to rip anyone off but I think anyone reading this can relate.
Same goes for Lux X. In the past couple weeks the prices of that card has bombed and if maybe worth a full art now but I still find it hard to get rid of my 2 because one was a graduation present and I pulled one from a booster box that i bought just to get that card. (lucky me) haha
So what im asking is is it wrong to value a card higher based off factors like that?
No, it’s not. If someone comes up to you and makes a ridiculous offer for a card you have, it’s only logical for you to take that offer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I would only take that offer if that someone really knows what he/she is doing.
You can value a card for as much as you want. Doesn’t mean anyone else will.
I bought an Uxie X for me and my family. We treated it like gold only taking it out for tournaments. I had planned on selling it before regional’s, but missed the opportunity. We all still love the card, but now when i try to trade it I recognize at most I may get 10-15 dollars worth of cards.
To me it has the look and feel of the card I paid 45 for (should of sold it when it hit 60 Ugh). However, I know it isn’t worth that. In fact in six months it may be a 2-3 dollar card.
This is a very interesting article. People in North American don’t really think about the foreign games, and the eccentricities of it, Although there are are not a lot of Pokemon players, there are enough people so that the hoarders dont have a real effect on the market.
THough I know in small area’s hoarders can keep cards between a certain amount of players. I have heard about this in Ohio. BUt, I thionk it is rare with the amount of cards you can buy online, that a few people can control a market.
“During one of the weekly unofficial tournaments hosted at one
of the local card stores, my friend saw P talking to a small kid who was
probably around ten or twelve years old. Apparently, this small kid had
pulled a rare card (a Pokémon-ex, if I remember correctly) from a
booster pack he just bought, but he wasn’t exactly aware of it. With a
bit of smooth talking, P managed to convince the small kid to trade that
rare card for a couple of uncommon cards.”
The kid is happy, the “P” guy is happy. Where’s the problem ?
Because a few days later, the kid might not be so happy anymore. ;) Also, it’s ethically not accepted.
Say someone sold you a vase for 300 bucks, saying it’s beautiful (which is true) and that you should really buy it for 300 bucks because it’s so cool (might or might not be true, I’ve never seen a cool vase personally). Now imagine that a week from buying the vase you see it at the shelf of your local supermarket, in numerous quantities. Going for 20 bucks a piece. Instantly, you start feeling bad about buying the vase from that now-shady-looking guy.
The problem here is that the second-hand seller technically never did anything wrong. He didn’t lie, and he had every right to sell that vase for the amount of money he did. You were just stupid to accept the offer. You’d feel down, and 280 poorer than a minute ago, even if you really weren’t.
Now imagine that you were 10, and the seller was twice your age.
EDIT: Nevermind about vase not being cool, just googled this up: http://interiordeco.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/fast-vase.JPG
“Because a few days later, the kid might not be so happy anymore. ;) ”
Most of the time the kid won’t know about the real price of his card days / weeks / months / years later.
And if the kid knows the price of his card days after this trade, at least he will have learned something that shall help him grow as an adult, do not trust too naively a stranger about something you don’t know.
Are you saying scams are justified because they are used as tools to teach people? It’s like you’re saying it’s OK to scam.
We’re talking about Pokémon cards a 11-years old boy asked his mum to buy…
It’s not that simple though. Typically, the inexperienced trader in these situations isn’t even happy with the trade at the time it’s made – they get pressured into believing they’re making a good decision by others and believe them due to their inexperience.
Often, these kind of negative experiences can turn new players off of the game for good (young and old). If you’re interested in the health of the game over the long run, then you should be against this kind of thing. Looking to make a quick buck off of someone else’s inexperience has negative consequences for the game as a whole, which is why it is generally frowned upon by most serious players with an investment in the game.
This is one of the best articles I have ever read on 6P. Thank you SO much for writing this. It deserves one-million thumbs up. I’ve seen people try to scam others, and I even got scammed myself. I felt horible when I found out my cards were fake (this was before I learned how to tell what’s real and what isn’t). I believe this is a very good topic that should be expanded on; for example, an article helping newer players find out what fake cards look like and what real cards look like, or explaining the value of cards, and how to figure it out. Again, thank you for writing this article, Michael. :)
Thank you. :-) I’m no expert, really. I just love the Pokémon TCG and writing stuff. With most of the articles here about deck lists or tournament reports, I decided to find my own niche and take a different route. :-)
Here’s the thumbs up i owe you lol.
Great Article Mike, keep it up. I think lawrence is right, I’ve recently attended the league in galleria last sunday and it was great. I believe the community is making a great recovery. Play with us again it’s really fun. No “P” in sight. This is G by the way.
I haven’t completed my decks yet. I have almost have all the components for LostGar already, and I’m still working on my TanPerior deck idea.
I really enjoyed this one! A good ethical reminder, and I loved the business side of things, particularly the intro.