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

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Honka Honka Burning Love said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.
 
stupid frog said:
There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.
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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.
 
ForgedBlades said:
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.
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Scalper account

 
stupid frog said:
There was one beanie baby I always wanted as a kid, maybe I should buy it. It's dirt cheap now.
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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. :lit:
 
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.
 
Skylavijas said:
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.
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If you didn't know already, whale has its origin in casino slang for someone who spends a lot of money on gambling.
 
SuzukaKobayashi said:
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.
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Complete scalper death. Every last one one them needs to be taught a lesson in being a parasitic faggot.
 
Skylavijas said:
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.
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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.
 
John Titor said:
If you didn't know already, whale has its origin in casino slang for someone who spends a lot of money on gambling.
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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.
 
moocow said:
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.
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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"
 
Cuntspiracy Man said:
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"
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Yup. Slot machines have always been "here, Mr. Casino Operator, let me feed you all my money $20 at a time!" The payback on them tends to be 80-85% or worse. It's considered a miracle these days to find a 9-6 video poker machine (which has something like a 98% payback with perfect play). There's typically only one per casino, well-hidden in a back corner way out-of-the-way too. And you can forget about drink service when you play it, too.

Your odds are literally better if you make any of the "sucker bets" on a craps table. Your betting strategy can be the worst possible and you still have higher winning odds than at a slot machine.

I understand the motivation behind playing slots as opposed to table games -- it's automatic, you just sit there and push a button over and over, and hope for a jackpot. Compare that to table games where there are no jackpots and you have to constantly interact and make (hopefully intelligent) decisions. But the horrible odds are your penalty for "coasting" on automatic at a casino. Hell, if you're just going to sit there pushing a button over and over for hours, you might as well sit at a mini baccarat table and just slide a bet into the "Banker" box every time the dealer takes it. It's still boring af (you do nothing after placing your bet; the game is automatic and the dealer does all the work) but at least your odds are better.
 
SuzukaKobayashi said:
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
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Mtg cards would actually be super easy to counterfeit. Its funny how the company says their cardboard is some special thing no one has , made artisanal from unicorn threads in a shack in the himalayas but its just cardboard, you can google or go to a printer and find a dozen alternatives with similar grammage and finish. Turbospergs will claim they can instantly spot a fake but from personal experiences, they can't.

Trading is part of the fun of the hobby and for most cards it wouldn't be worth it to go the extra mile to make a replica but if they are so damn overpriced might as well. And if someone can slip a fake lotus or something like that to some youtuber speculator kike , that is super based, actually.
 
Speaking of slot machines, this is how some people in the balkans unironically spend their graduation money.

 
LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV] said:
Mtg cards would actually be super easy to counterfeit. Its funny how the company says their cardboard is some special thing no one has , made artisanal from unicorn threads in a shack in the himalayas but its just cardboard, you can google or go to a printer and find a dozen alternatives with similar grammage and finish. Turbospergs will claim they can instantly spot a fake but from personal experiences, they can't.

Trading is part of the fun of the hobby and for most cards it wouldn't be worth it to go the extra mile to make a replica but if they are so damn overpriced might as well. And if someone can slip a fake lotus or something like that to some youtuber speculator kike , that is super based, actually.
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If it's like Pokemon, they put a layer between the cardboard. Fakes tend to be thinner and see through.
 
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