I used to see One Piece readily available at all stores just last month. Now I see none and I see collector boxes sitting in scalper cases for almost double MSRP. Im glad theyre focusing onto something else but man do I feel bad for anyone thats into it prior to Logan Paul and Mr Beasts meddling with that hobby. Im sorry One Piece fans, welcome to the hell hole of Pokémon like scalping. I have a feeling this hype around One Piece wont last all thag long. Its great for its growth but terrible for its current collectors.
by IceBergster
3 Comments
Ugh Mr Beast jumped on this too?!
There’s a sad irony with these money hungry people jumping on to the One Piece TCG to make a quick buck given the themes of One Piece.
Unfortunately, the One Piece scalpers never left Pokemon. They just take all of the One Piece stock now too. I’ve run into these guys. They wait 8hrs in store for a restock, have guys in other stores waiting, and clean out entire regions of product. They take all the Pokemon & One Piece.
I wish it was as easy as blaming Logan Paul. But it’s really about ordinary greed among people. It’s never enough. They clear the shelves every week and it doesn’t matter how much they print. It’s basically a new business model that operates without any morality.
I was talking with a friend who is into *One Piece* and he was bragging that “his TCG” is better than *Pokemon* because all the cards are so expensive. He isn’t even a reseller. Like, ok bro. You have fun with that.
One thing I realized in that convo is that I think OP probably is a better investment for scalpers than *Pokemon*. Long term, it’s not gonna have any legs, but the set selection seems less volatile. I mean Pokemon hype is focused on maybe a dozen popular characters, and when TPCi doesn’t print them, like in *Perfect Order* then that drop in demand means you lose a lot of money if you scalped a bunch of product. Meanwhile the OP market is off of an admittedly smaller market of hardcore OP fans who will pull packs off just the brand name along. It’s like if the dedicated Pokemon market that knows what a Skrelp is was the entire core market. Much more stable, at least so long as OP remains a relevant cultural force.
Not that I condone scalping, and it does suck for them that these leeches have found them too. I’m just hoping in this fucked market that I can at least find some packs for myself.