We still get promos, but I’m wondering how you would envision a modern promo distribution akin to the Pokemania days at the turn of the millennium.
What events or activities would work really well in the modern era?
Squid Games.
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Personally, for a good promo distribution I want the rarity aspect to play some kind of role. The second aspect to consider is that a way of distribution should be chosen that avoids mass gatherings, like people standing in line for literally miles. With so many Pokemon fans around the world, that’s just not a smart way.
My favorite way to achieve both goals is the play promo reward system. People registered on the Pokemon website and could then start collecting points. Points would be given for attending events, winning or ranking high in tournaments, reaching milestones of matches recorded on your account etc… For reaching a certain amount of points, participants would be rewarded with promo cards. The more points they gathered, the more sought after the rewards were. What made this so difficult was the limited time span to gather enough points to get the top rewards.
I like this system because it creates a sort of genuine rarity. Rewards are not locked behind luck based mechanics like lotteries nor first-come-first-serve. Instead, those who dedicate the most time and effort to participate in the hobby get the most points and better rewards. And you avoid lots of chaotic one-time events and instead have well-visted regular tournament events. It also prevents lazy scalpers from getting rewards (at least initially), and those who spent so much time getting enough points to get the highest rewards will be less inclined to just sell the cards, so you end up with cards that are both genuinely rare and scarce.
The best part is that the infrastructure needed to reintroduce this way of distribution is still in place. The Trainer’s club still exists and PLAY! points still exist. TPC just isn’t distributing rewards for them as of now.
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It’s interesting you mention rarity because I think this is why a large scale promo set could never work again like it did during the early years.
I doubt anyone ever intended Lucky Stadium or Pokémon Centre from WOTC black star set to be the rare cards of the set. It was simply a soft marketing tool for the NY Pokémon centre opening. It meant kids who had seen one episode on TV would maybe visit naturally and get one, another kid going in to grab a Pikachu plushie and the card is thrown in the bag at checkout. Now it would be queues round the block and probably a lottery like special delivery Charizard. There would be no possible natural collection for a promo if rarity is involved.
Having said that, that’s why I think what you mention is great. Really having to stick at something and progress/collect it, to eventually send off and receive a card is cool and how a lot of the early Japanese ones worked.
But even that would be gamed, multiple accounts, still a lot of work but you could end up grabbing three or more of the promos. I doubt anyone was going for two unikarps at the same time, doing all the quizzes and send ins, it was just natural and fun.
I think the best way would be print into oblivion and give out for actual tangible events. This is kind of what led my question, tangible events (watching a movie, travelling on the subway, visiting a store and making a purchase in person). Just curious how it would all look in the modern era. Rarity could be incorporated by having limited printing and cards put into packs with inserts making sure there is no way to tell what promo is being handed out. Stuff like that.
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I don’t think multiple accounts would be a problem. KYC exists, and even if you’re not a fan of that, I don’t see how anyone could get twice the amount of points after attending an event. Like, what’re they gonna do, ask the host to transfer points to two of their accounts? That won’t work.
They can’t even get their online version of the TCG working properly (or so I’ve heard) so it’s going to be difficult to do anything based on that.
I tried their old version sometime during the pandemic and it was like using an interface in the early 2000s. Awful user experience. Didn’t touch it again.
But in theory, that would be a good place to start.
I like the idea of replicating the play promos of the past, my concern is that people would find ways to game the system, but then I guess that’s on TCP to design a good system. In general I’m surprised by how little effort there seems to be to get collectors to cross over to playing the game. Maybe I’m just missing something.
Personally, I’d love to see a promotion akin to Masaki; sending one/multiple items to TCP and receiving a reward. This could be in a specific timeframe with a mass delivery date so that the promotion could be made to order to meet demand. Of course there would still be mayhem surrounding the qualifying items.
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Promo distribution which focuses on the TCG itself. A lot of the mid era promos? (DPt / PCG / DP) were given out as prize cards for different tournaments. Not only were there different promo prize cards at different level (participation / 1st round / 2nd round / 3 continuous wins… etc), but there were also promo cards given out at different side events. I am not sure if such a promo distribution scheme still exits in Japan or even elsewhere anymore, because of covid, maturing digital platform etc and just due to increased popularity of Pokemon and the TCG. It would be interesting if this was re-introduced again in competitions, wherein progressing deeper in the competition, reduces the participants and the number of cards being given out and thereby increasing card rarity.
I think the GYM promos still exist which partly does this, but there are no different tiers or rarity levels. The winners just get more of the promo packs than the participants.
But I also think that Pokemon itself has changed so much from these past era’s. Lot more interest, lot more money involved, lot more exploitation. What I am trying to get at is that promo cards won via participating in competitions tend to have a much richer history, but not sure if it is feasible anymore in the modern era.
Cheers!
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