Plagued Consoomers / Consoomer Culture - Because if it has a recogniseable brand on it, I’d buy it!

[Very Professional]

Sure, go ahead, perfect thread to do so

Fair enough. I'm going to assume anyone reading this doesn't play the game so I hope this post doesn't come across as condescending. Magic the Gathering is a fantasy game where you have five colors of magic that use mana of a corresponding color, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. To supplement this, you can play more than one color and it's often advantageous to do so. Different lands, your resource cards, generate mana of different colors. This leads to one of the biggest and shittiest of WotC's tricks.

Lands are one of the biggest bottlenecks to playing the game because some lands generate mana of multiple colors, some generate mana faster than others, some come with other gameplay utilities. Bad land cards are worth pennies and you can even make a decent deck using them, but good land cards that should be the game's baseline can command $10, $20, even $40+ prices on the secondary market because they're rarely reprinted and always kept at rare. See the point about FOMO above.

There are even more subtle tricks WotC uses with lands such as how they're named (no, I'm not fucking kidding). Magic's story takes place across different worlds and major locations on those worlds are represented through land cards. So take something like the "triomes" from the setting of New Capenna, which each command a $10-$15 pricetag on the secondary market. Each is named for a character from New Capenna that inhabits them. You'll never see a "Raffine's Tower" from a set that doesn't take place in New Capenna because Raffine lives there in her tower. This means that anytime WotC announces that we're getting a new set from Capenna, people are already interested before they have any other information because they can safely bet those necessary cards will see a reprint. Maybe even with a fancy foil alt-art treatment if you buy the Collector's Edition packs! Spend more!

This is just one example of many but is one of the most blatant. Wizards of the Coast isn't legally allowed to acknowledge that a secondary market exists for their cards, but they know that it's crucial they contribute to its maintenance because the ecosystem of 2nd party tournaments, YouTube content creators, and the aforementioned speculators help prop their game up. If they make it too easy to get the good cards, the FOMO dries up and those institutions wither, and WotC withers in turn because they lose the guaranteed spending and the cloud of artificial hype that surrounds the game at all times.

 

[Skylavijas]

This is fascinating. I've heard of "whales" as a concept to describe the people mobile games and loot box shooters exploit, by making them dump MASSIVE funds into their games, but I never heard of such phenomenon occurring in real life.

You are right @Very Professional, these sort of practices have been labelled as scummy in video games for years, sometimes warranting games to get banned in entire countries because of it.

 

[Very Professional]

This is fascinating. I've heard of "whales" as a concept to describe the people mobile games and loot box shooters exploit, by making them dump MASSIVE funds into their games, but I never heard of such phenomenon occurring in real life.

You are right @Very Professional, these sort of practices have been labelled as scummy in video games for years, sometimes warranting games to get banned in entire countries because of it.

Magic being a TCG has always had some degree of this, as any TCG does, but it never used to be this bad. WotC has only gotten more Jewish with their business practices, particularly in the past 5 years (reaching a fever pitch this past year), and they've been making money hand-over-fist for it. There's really no way to avoid it now, it actively affects the health and artistry of what used to be a respectable game. I don't know what change came over people, but at some point "sellout" went from a dirty word to a point of pride. Maybe the companies really have just mastered propaganda. Maybe social media just made everyone dumber. All I know is I fucking hate redditors.

 

[SuzukaKobayashi]

When I used to play card games with friends back in highschool, we would just print the cards into a sheet, then cut with scissors and glue them into a piece of cardboard or thick paper, it always works and you spend only the price of the ink unless you go to a store to print them and cardboard/thick paper can be found around a house almost all the time. That's something people do here when they really want to play a card game but have no official means to get the cards due to country/stock shortage/etc. I mean the images are online most of the time, if not just draw them yourself (I had one classmate who did this exactly, it was funny because he couldn't really draw well)

 

[Lady Bizness]

Does black people spending thousands of dollars on prom count as consooming? I didn't realize this until it was talked about a bit recently but its crazy how all out they go for a stupid school dance that most people barely remember. I know they are stupid but I just don't understand why they latch onto prom so bad, I guess its because they know its the last big event that most of them will ever go to that isn't some ghetto gang party.
View attachment 7420997

I'm guessing they don't ban kids from dances for truancy or shit grades at this school...

 

[74164978231]

During Covid Trading Cards of all types developed a massive Scalping issue that persists to this day. its why despite everyone kind of agreeing that Magic has gone downhilll in design in the past few years WOTC still has record profits..because no matter what set comes out it will almost always sell out.

Especially Universes Beyond (Non magic IPs like Lord of the Rings) shit.

Its not cards, its ANYTHING of remote value that is also remotely scarce. Video cards, shoes, cards, etc. literally everything is being scooped up by scalpers.

Part of the problem is weve entered the age of the consoomer. 10-15 years ago it was called conspicuous consumption and understandably mocked, for example beats by dre. Now with social media you have people making their entire livelihoods entirely around xyz simply because its "rare" or "unique" regardless of how rare or unique the thing genuinely is. See the retards with complete collections of bygone consoles.

Other half is the globohomos have become fully well aware and take advantage of the psychology of all this. Look no further than trading card games and how they distribute cards. Game cosmetics are another good example, endless FOMO with time gated or limited cosmetics.

 

[Lady Bizness]

When I was a dork in middle school I tried playing MtG but the other nerds were such insufferable assholes that I had a moment of introspection and decided to try and be a normal person. Still bought cards for awhile. Almost 30 years later my mother dumped my cards on me during a visit and I got $1k in total for all of it to some place that grades cards. Half came from some stupid land card. A volcano. Can you fucking believe it?
I hope somebody actually uses it in a tournament or something.
...yes I bought my mom a really nice mother's day present with the volcano money.
The beanie babies on the other hand...lol. Now see, I had some because I was a kid and they were cute. I still have the memory of some middle ages woman grabbing a lady bug out of my hand at a craft mall, counting the spots, remarking to her friend it was a normal one, and then throwing it back in the basket of beanie babies I was rummaging through.

 

[stupid frog]

There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.

 

[Cuntspiracy Man]

There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.

no stop that's consumerism, stop, don't consoooooooom aaaa it's too late she can't hear us she's already consooming i see her reaching for the soy now, nooooo

 

[Rembrandt]

There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.

If you look hard enough there's definitely a forum out there with its roots back in the 90s that still operates to this day, congregating people in their 40s-50s that just trade beanie babies, actively hunt for and take photos of toys in shops, with an occasional troon tourist trying to assimilate into their culture.

Case in point, same shit but for ponies.

 

[NoReturn]

I was "lucky" enough to be at Traget today and witness a Pokemon card restocking in person. There were five or six guys in their twenties hovered around the shelf and a female employee was sort of holding them back while another male employee was unpacking boxes. I guess they weren't allowed to touch the cards until he was finished. Once he was done, the female employee stepped aside and they all started shoving boxes into their carts or baskets by the armful. Shelf was cleared in literally ten seconds flat. Never seen anything like it. I stood there and watched the whole thing. I'm a gigantic fucking loser and even I was cringing.

I wanted to talk to them and figure out how they knew there was going to be a restock at that specific date and time. Do they just hang out there all day waiting for the boxes come out? I don't get it. Were they scalpers or collectors? So many questions.

Scalper account

 

[Barry Williams]

There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.

I remember a long time ago when entire Beanie Baby collections would just get dumped at various charity shops a friend of mine bought several BB's that were inside those very nice protective collectors cases for a couple bucks each. He only wanted the cases so he could put his Gundam models into them. Then he re-donated the BB's back to the same store.

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

Case in point, same shit but for ponies

You know, comparing MLP to Beanie babies means you do not get the situation with BB.

 

[SuzukaKobayashi]

Scalpers are not a thing here where I live, but good god I'd have the time of my life just taking their carts and running like an idiot, I mean I'm not stealing since technically I won't get out of the store, man I would love to do that and fuck with them, they all are such lolcow material.

 

[John Titor]

This is fascinating. I've heard of "whales" as a concept to describe the people mobile games and loot box shooters exploit, by making them dump MASSIVE funds into their games, but I never heard of such phenomenon occurring in real life.

You are right @Very Professional, these sort of practices have been labelled as scummy in video games for years, sometimes warranting games to get banned in entire countries because of it.

If you didn't know already, whale has its origin in casino slang for someone who spends a lot of money on gambling.

 

[74164978231]

Scalpers are not a thing here where I live, but good god I'd have the time of my life just taking their carts and running like an idiot, I mean I'm not stealing since technically I won't get out of the store, man I would love to do that and fuck with them, they all are such lolcow material.

Complete scalper death. Every last one one them needs to be taught a lesson in being a parasitic faggot.

 

[John Titor]

Complete scalper death. Every last one one them needs to be taught a lesson in being a parasitic faggot.

I had no intentions of getting a PS5 but that faggot who called himself an entrepreneur for flipping (probably unsuccessfully) PS5s made me MATI.

 

[FILTH Tourist]

This is fascinating. I've heard of "whales" as a concept to describe the people mobile games and loot box shooters exploit, by making them dump MASSIVE funds into their games, but I never heard of such phenomenon occurring in real life.

I have seen these types in Warhammer 40k. They enter the hobby then immediately dump fat stacks on fucking full Krieg army or something. Any hobby where it is easy to get swept up into buying the top of the line stuff will have this problem.

 

[moocow]

If you didn't know already, whale has its origin in casino slang for someone who spends a lot of money on gambling.

A neat little tidbit to add onto that. At denominations of $1,000 or higher, a lot of casinos use "plaques" (i.e. thick plastic cards) instead of the chips we're all used to. They're harder to fake, and these days with RFID being so common they're trivial to deactivate if they're stolen.

The crazy thing is casinos make so much fucking money that they can afford to do all that and still enjoy mad profits.

 

[Cuntspiracy Man]

A neat little tidbit to add onto that. At denominations of $1,000 or higher, a lot of casinos use "plaques" (i.e. thick plastic cards) instead of the chips we're all used to. They're harder to fake, and these days with RFID being so common they're trivial to deactivate if they're stolen.

The crazy thing is casinos make so much fucking money that they can afford to do all that and still enjoy mad profits.

with the progress of technology casinos started making more money because rigging became easier
machines are easier to rig than card games, and modern electronic machines are even easier to rig than old mechanical ones that had to use weights or wedges that don't permit the slots to land in certain patterns often
which baffles me why anyone would even choose to play them, it's not a question of winning even being difficult or unlikely, it's downright made to be near impossible, with only the slight chance of it happening needed to not have the place labeled as a scam being permitted
the actual games against a human being like blackjack or go fish, i understand, not that they can't be rigged but that's hard to do without fully stepping over the line into cheating which could be considered illegal, but, say, a slot machine? they can straight up program it however they want and say "those are the odds, deal with it"