Konami’s Scams And Quality Decline or How Yugioh is Anti-Consumer

Justin explains every anti consumer practice Konami has implemented in the yugioh TCG. From upshifting rarities to cutting cards, and even lowering physical card quality.

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[Spllmen]

As a near 10 year TCG comp player, the best way to save money is look for a cheap deck you love, and only buy singles. The only time you buy boosters is when the next set is going to have an extremely good deck that will be in high demand. Then sell all the cards and start picking up staple cards every deck needs/wants that can be put into any deck you want. That way any if you want to get a stronger deck down the road, you have the staple cards you need already to make that deck really good. Most of these staple cards have been good for 5 years and still can be really good

[rovad]

Gotta love how no matter how much videos expose Konamis shenanigans, they ultimately don't have any effect on the situation whatsoever and Konami keeps ripping us off

[dubbyplays]

Imagine people paying $1000 of meta deck with all their life savings just to see new banlist in 1 week banning half their deck. They rage but they decide to pay for another 4fun deck that will not be hit by the banlist: $150 for 3 Secret Rare cards only to hear Konami announcing new structure deck having that card as common, worth 0.37cents.

*"You need to adapt to the game"* my ass

[WinterShorts]

I will never get tired of videos exposing Konami's blatant, unacceptable greedy standards. Fantastic watch as always!

[KazeMemaryu]

I'd honestly say that's just how Konami has been working for the past 20 years. They had their big run during the 8-bit and 16-bit console era, and since then, have been desperately trying to replicate these successes. They branched out into several directions, and struck gold almost nowhere - except TCG. With how popular Yu-Gi-Oh! has become over time, it's their biggest juggernaut left in their business lineup. Their pachinko parlors are collapsing, their soaplands are falling out of favor, their gaming endeavors are pathetic. Only the OCG and TCG is still thriving.
Here's the thing: they have to deal with so much more direct competition in JP and Asia than in the US. The US currently has only two serious competitors on the TCG market: Pokémon and Magic The Gathering, and all other card games had their quick burst in popularity with little long-term growth. But Pokémon is on a constant up and down, while Wizards of the Coast is mutilating Magic and enraging the fanbase with their insistence on tremendously overpriced collector sets and swamping of the card pool. In the east, Yu-Gi-Oh! cannot afford to mess with their playerbase, since there are at least ten similarly popular competitors waiting around the corner - so they remain "humble", offer a reasonable balance in rarities to make every archtype playable on multiple levels of monetary investment, and rely on collectors hunting after the highest rarity versions for the big bucks. But in the west, they have little to lose, and can exploit the not yet completely fried desire sensors of the playerbase to own rare and expensive cards, partially because they don't have much of a choice.

[byssted]

fun fact: cost me less to *import* 3 ultimate rare copies of The Bystial Lubellion from Japan than it would to buy a regular copy here

[TeaRektum]

Isn't it also funny how Konami doesn't allow the cheaper ocg cards to be playable on TCG tournaments?

[tachyon]

As an OCG player, I was so shocked how expensive the TCG was…the most expensive cards in OCG were usually hand traps like maxx c and ash, and they cost like 10 dollars before the RC04 reprints. The most expensive cards that I’ve seen with lowest rarity is probably nyan when virtual world was meta…even then it cost at most 30ish dollars, and it’s because nyan is a promo card in Vjump. You could probably build a purely deck for about 20-30 dollars now in the OCG(yes a fully functional meta deck), TCG really is too expensive.

[butterguardian]

This is why I will never understand and never buy booster boxes filled to the brim with meta cards bait. Why risk spending an arm and a leg for a deck that will get KILLED in a matter of MONTHS??? I will always buy decks/cores that are cheap to get and/or probably in the middle tier of decks. Also, 2 words as old as time for the people reading this BUY SINGLES😂😂😂

[gobulgobbler]

As much as I love the game, I just can't justify spending several hundred dollars to even stand a chance at tournaments. I'll stick with digital formats.

[Adam-wtid]

Imagine being a kid in 2006. You buy random assortments packs from the store. You open every pack and literally get only rares and no holos. Konami even when they had great quality would make you buy cases for playsets back in the day

[Danielss]

I really have to aplaud you, most ygo fans knows these things are happening but the yugitubers never talk about it, so as to not upset daddy konami and potentialy burn some bridges in the process, gotta get that dough.

I'm brazilian and I really wish I could play the physical card game, but as you said, the cards are WAYYYY too expensive and their quality is questionable at best and also because of economy, let's just say that everything here is 5 times the cost it should be, and I can't use my whole paycheck to buy some staples LMAO

At least I can play the game now thanks to master duel.

[soldiermxdeath]

What actually drives me crazy is precisely the poor card quality. I'm just a collector of cards I want because I liked the art, and I'm looking for those in almost perfect condition, but even buying sealed product, the cards come with slightly factory lines or scratches, sometimes are just visible with more light but other times is like someone used a big knife on the front of the card.

[vincentbise]

Lol. The final moment was amazing. Konami will suffer with Dueling book for the rest of their life as they were so greedy with the game

[Crashes_sends]

Incredibly accurate video, sometimes I feel some people hide behind the take of “what hobby is cheap”, without really taking a look at how truly ludicrous the difference is not just from game to game. But from region to region. Keep up the great work man🙌🏾

[spookster]

Youve talked about it on the channel before but NO card, let alone a card ESSENTIAL for a deck to function, should be locked above super rare.

The OCG, as youve mentioned, will have 2 rarities for cards in sets, which lets collectors chase the high rarity ones but lets NORMAL PLAYERS simply OWN cheaper copies.

Its so predatory to release intentionally overpowered decks that require short printed/expensive/high rarity only cards.

[uraoka]

The first and probably the biggest price-gauging from Konami was in 2008, when they released Dark Armed Dragon, a three-of, as a short-print secret rare that jumped from $150 each, to $300 EACH at the peak of the format. The same card was originally printed in Japan as a common regular rare. Didn't help that the card broke both the game and many wallets.

Great video.

[BetrayedTangerine]

I tried getting into the TCG a couple of years back. I had a ton of fun learning the game and met some really cool people, but once I realized I had to spend 500+ dollars on a decent deck I had to stop. The point of buy in for a hobby should never be that high.

[mglikeabossplaysMC]

I really wish Konami knew they're just losing more players in the long run...

I've been playing Yugioh since I was a kid, but the prices of keeping up on the metas was just absurd. Once Nekroz happened and I saw the prices, I was done. I've been playing on YGOPro since then and haven't looked back.

As you said, new people get pushed from the prices too. Any friends I have who get interested I just tell to play EDOPro because even official Konami games have terrible pack pricing.

[yofyo]

I really appreciate you transitioning the cards from rare to secret rare and show the difference in foiling -- it's a great visual aid