Pokemon Prices WTF

[NexusX]

A number of years ago I bought a complete copy of Pokemon Crystal on the Gameboy Color for my wife as a nostalgia gift. Her first pokemon game she played. It was something like $60 back then in a random game shop I found it in. Didn't really think that much of it. Found it in in a box today and we chuckled it was still there. Out of curiosity I checked what people were asking for it now. Saw they were listed on the $500+ range! WTF people! I know Pokemon fans are nuts but damn! More amazed at what this hobby is asking of people now. Glad I am not a complete in box person. I am happy with a grubby playable loose copy of most games. Sorry for the rant. Just still amazed at some of these price increases.

 

[@M]

I got a loose Pokemon Gold GB cart for 50¢ at a thrift store a while back (it was in the McDonald's toy bin for who knows why). Battery was dead, but, the game worked fine otherwise.

Most Pokemon games really shouldn't be worth a whole lot, since they were produced in such massive quantities and are very common, but, that's not the way our crazy gaming hobby works...

 

[100proof]

I got a loose Pokemon Gold GB cart for 50¢ at a thrift store a while back (it was in the McDonald's toy bin for who knows why). Battery was dead, but, the game worked fine otherwise.

Most Pokemon games really shouldn't be worth a whole lot, since they were produced in such massive quantities and are very common, but, that's not the way our crazy gaming hobby works...

Yeah it's one thing when the Haganes and Little Samsons of the world get stupid expensive. At least those were super low print-runs and there's legitimate scarcity involved. Games that sold millions of copies and are as common as an EA sports game should never go above retail price. Video game collectors are fucking morons.

 

[famicommander]

Backwards compatibility is a factor.

Pokemon Red/Green/Blue sold like 30 million copies, which is absurd, but you have to consider that they sold over 200 million combined Game Boys from the OG brick through the Advance SP Mark II (left the micro out because it only plays Advance games).

Also one of the reasons Gamecube games went up so much. They only sold like 20 million Gamecubes, but like 100 million Wiis. So even the mega hit Gamecube titles only have as many copies in circulation as moderately successful Wii games.

But the main reason is that we're all morons.

 

[terry.330]

Adult Pokemon fans are barely a step above Sonic fans, that's why.

 

[HornheaDD]

I dont know shit about pokemon other than that Pikachu Detective movie which was entertaining.

I guess I'm at the age where certain pop culture phenomena weren't of any interest to me. The last 'thing' (other than gaming) I was obsessed with was the Ninja Turtles. And I didn't get into them until the movie came out. I'd seen the toys but though "turtles... wtf is that" and stuck to perusing the transformers and gi joe aisles at KB Toys.

Then I heard a friend of mine making fun of this show called Power Rangers. I had no interest in it, but watched an episode or two after school and just thought it was fucking retarded. I wasn't even aware of the Japanese origins of the show or anything. It just looked like a shitty live-action knockoff of Voltron to me. But these people are fucking obsessed with Power Rangers wanting to meet some dude that played a certain color guy, etc. I remember thinking the pink girl was hot (she was) but other than that, it was kids shit.

I know that Ninja Turtles is just about the same thing, but that shit was ninjas and they had swords and nunchaku, they fought other ninjas (or robots) and had a dark more adult movie that came out. Power Rangers was some bullshit diversity program (and the yellow one was... asian? for reals lol?) that looked stupid, the mecha looked stupid, with even stupider names "Zords." The fuck was a zord?

Anyway sorry about the tl;dr but yeah I dont know how people can be so obsessed with pokemon, to the point of buying expensive cards or the shitty toys. Say what you want about 45 year old man children buying $600 transformers - but transformers are actually fucking awesome. Not some weird Japanese bastardization of the Wuzzles or bastardization of Kamen Rider.

 

[terry.330]

What's really weird is how many Pokemon fans were not only too old to be into it when it first came out but didn't even get into it until quite late. I remember seeing kids in my high school getting really into it all of a sudden around 98 and then again around 2006 or so. I had friends tell me how I needed to get a DS so I could play, I was like "dude we're 25 why are playing that?" and they had never played any of the previous games.

As for the prices the real reason is because it combines two of the worst and most fanatical fanbases of all time. Nintendo and Pokemon.

It's funny how a franchise that was initially made to be a completely disposable cash cow to steal from children with as many installments as yearly sports titles has turned into such a collectard frenzy. I don't think Nintendo or The Pokemon Co. quite had this in mind when they said you gotta catch em all.

 

[Moob Butter]

You’ll now have Pokemon fans that are parents wanting to show their kids the games they grew up with. And younger fans wanting to buy the original games as ‘a piece of history’.

It’s a little rich us Neo Geo fans judging retards paying well too much for pieces of plastic and metal with a sticker on it, but at least Neo Geo games weren’t that mainstream to begin with - somewhat justifying their inflated sale prices.

 

[AppleiDog]

I got a loose Pokemon Gold GB cart for 50¢ at a thrift store a while back (it was in the McDonald's toy bin for who knows why). Battery was dead, but, the game worked fine otherwise.

Most Pokemon games really shouldn't be worth a whole lot, since they were produced in such massive quantities and are very common, but, that's not the way our crazy gaming hobby works...

it is really easy to replace the battery on them.

 

[AppleiDog]

You’ll now have Pokemon fans that are parents wanting to show their kids the games they grew up with. And younger fans wanting to buy the original games as ‘a piece of history’.

It’s a little rich us Neo Geo fans judging retards paying well too much for pieces of plastic and metal with a sticker on it, but at least Neo Geo games weren’t that mainstream to begin with - somewhat justifying their inflated sale prices.

there is a bit of a difference of games that were no way near mass produced and cost £300+ at launch.

 

[lithy]

I dont know shit about pokemon other than that Pikachu Detective movie which was entertaining.

I guess I'm at the age where certain pop culture phenomena weren't of any interest to me. The last 'thing' (other than gaming) I was obsessed with was the Ninja Turtles. And I didn't get into them until the movie came out. I'd seen the toys but though "turtles... wtf is that" and stuck to perusing the transformers and gi joe aisles at KB Toys.

Then I heard a friend of mine making fun of this show called Power Rangers. I had no interest in it, but watched an episode or two after school and just thought it was fucking retarded. I wasn't even aware of the Japanese origins of the show or anything. It just looked like a shitty live-action knockoff of Voltron to me. But these people are fucking obsessed with Power Rangers wanting to meet some dude that played a certain color guy, etc. I remember thinking the pink girl was hot (she was) but other than that, it was kids shit.

I know that Ninja Turtles is just about the same thing, but that shit was ninjas and they had swords and nunchaku, they fought other ninjas (or robots) and had a dark more adult movie that came out. Power Rangers was some bullshit diversity program (and the yellow one was... asian? for reals lol?) that looked stupid, the mecha looked stupid, with even stupider names "Zords." The fuck was a zord?

Anyway sorry about the tl;dr but yeah I dont know how people can be so obsessed with pokemon, to the point of buying expensive cards or the shitty toys. Say what you want about 45 year old man children buying $600 transformers - but transformers are actually fucking awesome. Not some weird Japanese bastardization of the Wuzzles or bastardization of Kamen Rider.

Dont delude yourself. It's all the same shit, you were just slightly too old for Pokemon. I was slightly too young for Transformers and GI Joe. I was a He-Man kid through hand me downs, then a TMNT kid. Caught a bit of excitement for Power Rangers when my younger brother were into it but was too old by the introduction of Pokemon, that shit was for babies and I was 11. I played through Red/Blue, later took some of my brother's cards to play the game but never cared that much about it.

Now, 25 years later, my oldest is nearly 8 and nuts about the stuff through no input of my own (other than paying for it). We go to the card shop and play once a week and he has messed around with the Switch game and the Pokemon Go phone app. We will see how long it lasts.

Bottom line, there is nothing that makes Transformers objectively better than Pokemon and adults buying toys (sorry models/statues) for hundreds of dollars is just as stupid as buying Pokemon stuff.

 

[SignOfGoob]

Pokémon is popular. It outsells everything and every year you have more fans trying to hoard games released in numbers now too small to satisfy the fan base. This will always cause inflation.

Why don’t they just bail on their fandom? Well, in addition to every generation of Pokémon fan being bigger than the one before it’s also more capitalistic. They don’t like paying $$$ for games but they want their games to be more valuable so they engage in the inflation. They LIKE the high prices.

Being a crab in a bucket is hard…but if Pokémon and collectardation are all they know they’re too stupid to ever get out.

 

[lithy]

How insightful.

 

[HornheaDD]

Bottom line, there is nothing that makes Transformers objectively better than Pokemon

Literally everything about Transformers is better than Pokemon.

 

[@M]

it is really easy to replace the battery on them.

Yeah, but, I just bought it because it was there and stupid cheap. I don't even remember where I put it after testing it.

I still play Pokemon Shuffle & Rumble World on my 2DS, but, that's it. I like the spinoff Pokemon games, like pinball, puzzlers, mystery dungeons, etc. a lot more than the main series RPGs.

 

[lithy]

Literally everything about Transformers is better than Pokemon.

To a....guessing...39 year old vs a 32 year old.

 

[neo_mao]

i always see this grown man near my work in a pikachu hat and every time I just want to snatch it off his head and slap him

 

[@M]

That's risky shit, moe, what if he challenges you to a Pokemon duel after you snatch his hat?

 

[pixeljunkie]

It's all stupid. I was too old for Pokemon. Too young for Man from Uncle toys and shit. All relative. All garbage if you zoom out far enough. Just enjoy whatever you enjoy as long as you can.

 

[SignOfGoob]

Transformers and Pokémon both have a spectrum of fandom. If they just monkey around with Transformers/Pokémon that’s the OK end of the range, if they name their kids after Transformers/Pokémon then they are on the garbage end.

I do have to say though that Pokémon fans my age make me uncomfortable more than Transformer fans my age and it has nothing to do with how old the stuff is. It’s fuct to be in a Pokémon tournament when you’re 40 years older than some of the other players.

 

[basic]

Transformers and Pokémon both have a spectrum of fandom. If they just monkey around with Transformers/Pokémon that’s the OK end of the range, if they name their kids after Transformers/Pokémon then they are on the garbage end.

I do have to say though that Pokémon fans my age make me uncomfortable more than Transformer fans my age and it has nothing to do with how old the stuff is. It’s fuct to be in a Pokémon tournament when you’re 40 years older than some of the other players.

you make me uncomfortable

 

[Burning Fight!!]

it's very easy to forget that for other people everyone here is just a videogame variation of the stamp collector or model train enthusiast

live and let live

 

[StevenK]

it's very easy to forget that for other people everyone here is just a videogame variation of the stamp collector or model train enthusiast

live and let live

for what it's worth I've been both of them

 

[theMot]

Imagine having hair on your balls and being into Pokémon. That’s some fucking low level existence right there.

 

[Moob Butter]

I bought a copy of Pokemon Cock Edition a couple of years back. It was great fun but I didn’t bother completing it. It’s basically a rom hack of blue/red with the text changed to really juvenile humour and the game balance being fucked with for lolz. 10/10 would recommend.