Just saw this on a /vp/ archive… lots of good memories in that thread, including…
Yep, I’m definitely still running it. Thanks for remembering me, Anon! :D
The Actual News:
I’m not gonna say it’s been a slow news day, only because… well, PA! isn’t in the Daily Pokémon News business much anymore… BUT we still are in the “Pokémon Data Agregation” business, which is why I’m gung-ho on this McDonald’s Pokémon stuff. It might also be spurred on by the whole “no one can find any!”… though it doesn’t help that some people are buying 100 Happy Meals for Fun and Profit. On the flip side, at least TPCi recognized the increased demand and is willing to pump out more cards and products just to meet demand:
Oh COPE harder (inb4 “pretending to be retarded”). None of this would be an issue if scalpers and low-quality YouTubers didn’t follow Logan Paul’s lead and assume Pokémon cards were a quick and easy was to free money. I’m not gonna play the “this is a kids game about magic animals hurr durr durr” card, because Pokémon is supposed to be for all ages… and while Pokémon is a lot of things to a lot of people, if there’s one thing definitely NOT, it’s being a sound financial investment. If you want to profit from potentially risky investments because you correctly predicted a mad increase in value, you’re better off investing in some altcoins or in the stock market. I did the cryptocurrency thing for a year and made like $3000 off an initial $150 investment. Yeah, Mr. Moneybags, I know… but that’s what cryptocurrency is for. I play Pokémon because I ENJOY playing and collecting and sharing my fun thoughts and artwork with an audience… not because I think of it as a way to profit from it. And you might be surprised to find that a ton of Pokémon TCG players feel the same way.
For example, I was low on cash a while back, and I had to sell some of my Aquapolis and Skyridge holos for a spot of cash. I HATED digging into my collection like that, but I needed the cash. If it was all about money, I would’ve cashed out ALL of my cards by now, especially since those six cards were potentially worth $1200! But it’s not about that for me… my cards mean more to me as part of my collection than as dollar bills.
Of course then there’s stuff like Magic: the Gathering where Wizards of the Coast recognizes and plays with the value of their cards on the secondary market—going so far as to market their “Secret Lair” series of cards at premium prices—but TPCi has never been about going that far. Perfect example: when Mewtwo-EX was blowing up the tournament scene back around 2012, going as far as being considered Pokémon’s “Jace the Mind Sculptor” to such a degree that the best tournament decks used Mewtwo-EX either as their win condition OR to defend against other players using Mewtwo-EX’s to win. So what was TPCI’s solution? Stick a promo Mewtwo-EX into a $10 tin (alongside Rayquaza-EX and Darkrai-EX, which also were highly sought-after cards). To be fair, it was a promo version, so at least the regular Next Destinies version of Mewtwo-EX would retain some nominal value… but at least anyone who wanted it could get it for at least a quarter of Mewtwo-EX’s secondary market cost, plus you got a tin and a few packs out of it too. Magic’s solution to Jace the Mind Sculptor, besides banning it, was to stick it into a $40 From the Vault gift set, only to print that in limited run. But the real cherry on this sundae is that Mewtwo-EX is worth peanuts now… definitely a far cry from the $40-$80 during its peak; if there is ever good proof of how short term a Pokémon TCG card’s value is, it’s Mewtwo-EX. Maybe HGSS Yanmega Prime too.
The point here is… anyone crying about Pokémon cards losing value, or even trying to profit from it to begin with, is in the wrong business here. I’ve been playing the Pokémon TCG on-and-off since day one, and it has never been about money, and that’s one reason why I keep gravitating towards it. Like, I enjoy Magic for the chess-like gameplay challenge, but I enjoy the Pokémon TCG for the same reason why I enjoy drinking a nice cold beer on a warm day with my friends: to kick back and relax in the company of my friends. It really is a damn shame that scalpers and other profiteers have made the McDonalds promotion hard to find to begin with, and it’s even worse to see those same people cry foul when TPCi doesn’t cater to their whims. Pokémon is a franchise built with the players and fans in mind first-and-foremost, and that’s what I love about it. Seeing the announcement that they’re going to continue printing more McDonald’s packs to meet demand was great news, but one that was definitely within expectations. If that kind of news disappoints you, well, I’m not gonna say “go away” and other Gatekeeper-y things… but honestly, I think you’ll have a lot more fun and experience less resistance from the community if you put that scalping and profiteering energy into a field that is actually BUILT with that mentality in mind.
…Ahem. OK, rant over.
With all that said, I’m here today to share just a few minor bits of research and tidbits with you; afterall, people can see someone open up packs of McDonald’s card anywhere, but people come to PA! for the atmosphere and the attitude!
Yeah I’m not fooling anyone here.
Anyways… well, first off, I updated the McDonald’s page with more info; I got the Green #4 packs today, so that’s something. To be specific, the Green #4 promo packs contained a cute little card frame you can slip one of your favorite cards into.
I also realized that having a simple scan of a flat cardboard item probably didn’t give anyone any good ideas of how it actually functioned, so I added some example photos of the items to the page as well.
Yep! My Alakazam card fit nice and snugly inside the Card Frame.
Anyways, if you missed the previous scans, just pop on over to the McDonald’s page for more info.
Finally, I wanted to share an interesting observation that I just noticed concerning the kinds of cards I get in the McDonalds packs. Specifically, as a reminder, the McDonald’s packs have four cards in them: one holofoil card which is placed in front, and three other normal cards after it. But once I started getting duplicate cards in a specific slot in the packs, I checked to see if maybe ALL my duplicates appeared in the space slot, and here is what I got:
Wha… hold on there… there IS a pattern here!
Look, you can see that each card that I got—at least the non-holo ones I have duplicates of—only appears in a specific slot. For example, all my Fennekin appear in the middle position, and all my Oshawott appear in the last position. And not a single card ever appears outside of that.
Now this might just be a weird coincidence, or maybe the way the cards are cut from the card sheet and stuffed into packs ALWAYS ensures that they appear in a modulo manner. That is to say, the card sheet is some multiple of 3 wide and high, so no matter how the card sheet is cut and its cards place into packs, cards will remain in their relative position. Or something like that. Maybe next time I’ll go into more detail about what I’m getting at here. Still tho, it’s an interesting coincidence… I wonder what causes it?
…
Anyways, that’s all I have to share at the moment. Speaking of money, I need to do my tax return soon! Maybe I’ll take care of that… after I go to McDonald’s again for lunch, lol. Good times.