News Heads Up! New Pack "Weighing" Method Spotted

[Vracken]

You aren't stealing a physical object by doing so, but people who weigh packs are robbing others from being able to pull Ultra Rares (so long as the method of weighing packs is reliable, in the past for which it was pretty decent, I cannot speak for this current method).

Some people like opening packs, there is nothing wrong with it, there is an awesome feeling gained from pulling something valuable. Saying "You shouldn't buy packs" is silly. People cracking packs is what enables many cards to be as cheap as they are. Whether you think PTCG should be sold as singles or not is a completely different discussion (the answer is yes, since you can't draft Pokemon)


Also, "asking" to have people do shit is not the same as it being ok, just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean it should be done. People who weigh packs leave others with inferior product from which to pull from. You are saying that you have the right to abuse a system for your own gain at the expense of others, usually those who either don't know better, or do not have the money to purchase from non-opened product. To me that is much the same scenario as trying to rip people off, and if you think that is ok, then I would agree that immoral. If you can live with that, fine, but know, that is one of many issues inherent in society and leads people to be unable to trust others.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Picking a pack from a booster because it feels right is not the same as empirical knowing with high certainty that a pack is, in fact, right. Unless you've got the Pokemon pack weighing mutant X gene, that feeling is meaningless and utterly harmless.

Why isn't it? I tend to pick the ones from a box that feels right to me using my own internal scale. Using a scale is also hard as Nintendo has counter measures on them.

My kid likes to buy packs. I'd like it very much if he didn't get blatantly ripped off.

Sure but again, where does this end? A parents job is to protect their kids. You tell them not to drink and drive or pick fights or (insert example here) but at the end of the day, the choice is theirs.

You aren't stealing a physical object by doing so, but people who weigh packs are robbing others from being able to pull Ultra Rares (so long as the method of weighing packs is reliable, in the past for which it was pretty decent, I cannot speak for this current method).
Some people like opening packs, there is nothing wrong with it, there is an awesome feeling gained from pulling something valuable. Saying "You shouldn't buy packs" is silly. People cracking packs is what enables many cards to be as cheap as they are. Whether you think PTCG should be sold as singles or not is a completely different discussion (the answer is yes, since you can't draft Pokemon)

Also, "asking" to have people do shit is not the same as it being ok, just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean it should be done. People who weigh packs leave others with inferior product from which to pull from. You are saying that you have the right to abuse a system for your own gain at the expense of others, usually those who either don't know better, or do not have the money to purchase from non-opened product. To me that is much the same scenario as trying to rip people off, and if you think that is ok, then I would agree that immoral. If you can live with that, fine, but know, that is one of many issues inherent in society and leads people to be unable to trust others.

You can't look at it as robbing someone else because whether or not the packs were weighed, packs are still being removed from stock. This is a first come first serve kind of thing. Am I supposed to be mad that I missed my slot at a regional because I took too long signing up and others beat me for it? No I'm not. I can feel ripped off all I want but a legal transaction took place. If I didn't weigh the packs and still pulled an ultra, someone could still feel robbed. I can get the same feeling at a game store if someone bought the one pack I didn't buy, even though I bought 12 of them.

We are saying it is a pretty shitty thing to do but we are also saying at the end of the day, what can you do about it? If no rules exist against it, people will do it. No we aren't saying its find to do these things because of the lack of rules but this does work for the US government, so....

Joking aside, what he did was wrong and that is the issue. He risked his life to do something he felt was wronged. Had I seen that, I would have moved on. No need to risk my life to stop something that isn't illegal. What he should have done was reported it and let Asset handle it.

 

[Otaku]

My kid likes to buy packs. I'd like it very much if he didn't get blatantly ripped off.

Then buy from someone who won't allow customers to weigh packs. If the seller doesn't care, then what if someone else's kid likes to weigh and purchase packs? Number51x, you're trying to justify being hostile to a person in real life and insulting an entire class of collector/player on this message board based on the emotions and wants of you and your family. Why do you and yours matter more than another person and theirs? We need to see if there are reasons that apply regardless of how it makes us "feel". Emotions provide potentially useful feedback for situations (we have them for a reason), and our personal needs shouldn't be ignored either, but if we let them be your authority we won't get anything resembling good policy.

You aren't stealing a physical object by doing so, but people who weigh packs are robbing others from being able to pull Ultra Rares (so long as the method of weighing packs is reliable, in the past for which it was pretty decent, I cannot speak for this current method).

Just to be clear, I am aware that I am now quoting someone else.

Regardless of how it is accomplished, when anyone purchases a booster from one seller, it "robs" others of the chance to buy that same booster from that same seller. Why does it matter how the pack in question is picked? Is it better that Timmy got the booster pack through chance than Tammy getting the booster pack because she studied how the cards were packed, saved her money to buy a scaling device, and now weighs her packs to improve her odds of getting more valuable cards? This is the nature of a Trading Card Game; if you're not okay with it, you're not actually okay with Trading Card Games.

FYI, this is part of why I am no longer sure I'm "okay" with trading card games.

If someone was naturally gifted enough to weigh packs by touch, would they still be wrong to judge packs that way? What if someone's "lucky sense" was astonishingly accurate? Why is it wrong to use a device to simulate such things?

Some people like opening packs, there is nothing wrong with it, there is an awesome feeling gained from pulling something valuable. Saying "You shouldn't buy packs" is silly. People cracking packs is what enables many cards to be as cheap as they are. Whether you think PTCG should be sold as singles or not is a completely different discussion (the answer is yes, since you can't draft Pokemon)

I think you are misunderstanding badly one side of the argument. I mean, if someone posted "There's something wrong with a person who likes to open packs!" then they probably misspoke. I mean, if I did say that without realizing it, that's what happened. XP

The actual argument is more along the lines of

• If you don't want to risk anyone having already purchased the "good" packs from a booster box, then you must only buy from places where you know you're getting the first crack at those packs.
• Buying loose booster packs from these stores is usually not the most cost-efficient way to obtain singles, whether for playing or collecting.

This discussion isn't so cut and tried that the second point is completely separate from the first, or at least it certainly didn't begin that way. You yourself begin by arguing about how people are "robbed" of the chance to pull certain cards by someone weighing the packs, trying to find the heavier ones likely to contain certain premium cards... which means this is not just about the joy of busting open booster packs. People can enjoy opening packs even if their pulls are terrible.

Also, "asking" to have people do shit is not the same as it being ok...

Who said that it was? Context matters, however, and often there is a difference between something bad happening to someone and something bad happening that the person could easily avoid or have prevented. There is a further difference when that person then starts loudly complaining about it.

...just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean it should be done.

Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it should not be done.

People who weigh packs leave others with inferior product from which to pull from.

Again, so do people who just get lucky with their purchase.

You are saying that you have the right to abuse a system for your own gain at the expense of others, usually those who either don't know better, or do not have the money to purchase from non-opened product.

Two people are trying to enter into a mutually consensual transaction. You feel it negatively affects you, so you are objecting to that transaction. You need to answer this from a "neutral" position before we start worrying about specific cases. If we do it the other way around... what about when someone weighs boosters because he or she does not have the money to buy his or her own booster box, or to outright purchase singles? Devices to weigh packs aren't cheap, but if you're in it for the long run they will eventually more than pay for themselves... and even if they don't, how do you know the device belongs to that person? People can borrow such things from someone who does own one.

I'm sure you can contrive another counterexample, then I could contrive another, and we can probably go round and round like that for some time. The point is that probably isn't the best way to address the issue. Find a sound principle that should apply so broadly, where it doesn't it would clearly be an exception. People have a right to life. Sometimes, Person A's right to life clashes with Person B's right to life. That doesn't mean no person has the right to life; it means we recognize the basic principle of the right to life and then start trying to figure out the exceptions.

To me that is much the same scenario as trying to rip people off, and if you think that is ok, then I would agree that immoral. If you can live with that, fine, but know, that is one of many issues inherent in society and leads people to be unable to trust others.

A lot of harm can be done by someone who means well but is convinced of his or her self-righteousness and correctness in a situation. Far too often, I have been that person. I am not saying that it is ethical to weigh packs with this post; I am saying that the arguments for it being unethical are lacking at best, and some of the actions called for based on faulty reasoning and emotion are themselves highly suspect.

 

[Gruffling]

Immoral is maybe too strong a word. Yeah it's not being a team player and you can infer that this person giving themselves an advantage is leaving every other potential customer at a disadvantage (though to do that he would have hypothetically have needed to scan/weigh every pack that store was selling and then rooted out everything he believed desirable assuming his method was 100% accurate). Sure it's not 'playing by the rules' in what is otherwise a purely luck-based scenario but the way the situation was handled is far worse.

If someone confronted a customer in my store the way you did, I would have asked them to leave. If I had witnessed someone following the person they had confronted out of the shop like that, quite frankly there's every chance the police would have been called. What can be inferred by employees as one customer harassing and intimidating another could get you into trouble with the police. Let's face it that scenario would be worse for your children than the chance that their next booster pack doesn't contain a GX.

I don't agree with scanning/weighing packs but I wouldn't care if I witnessed what you described.

 

[Otaku]

If someone confronted a customer in my store the way you did, I would have asked them to leave. If I had witnessed someone following the person they had confronted out of the shop like that, quite frankly there's every chance the police would have been called. What can be inferred by employees as one customer harassing and intimidating another could get you into trouble with the police. Let's face it that scenario would be worse for your children than the chance that their next booster pack doesn't contain a GX.

Glad you brought this up.

If you catch someone weighing packs at a store where that isn't permitted, or at least is discouraged, the best thing you can do is inform an employee without interacting with the person weighing packs. Why? While my experience is from only a couple of places, these kinds of business usually need to catch someone in the act before they can take any actions. It might seem stupid, but it is a lot like shoplifting; someone can claim they absentmindedly put the merchandise in their pocket, or were just carrying it in there to the register. They need to get out of the store, or at least past where you pay before the case is solid enough to really react. Exceptions exist, but they require things like opening products (especially when that involves removing the devices that set off the shoplifting alarm).

I mean, it would actually be kind of funny if this guy wasn't using the device to try and "scale" packs, but was actually doing a class project on a budget.

(No, I don't think that is what happened. XP)

Oh, and if you want shops to police packs, let them know in a polite manner. Just be willing to accept that their answer might be "We can't afford it." Usually, preventing this requires an employee constantly keeping an eye on the product, maybe even having it kept where customers can't get to it themselves... and the time an employee spends doing that is time they could be doing other things, which means having them work more hours or hiring additional staff.

 

[SquirtleRules]

"You can't suggest we lack morals because we agree no actual crime was committed here. Yes we agree that its a pretty lame thing to do but at the end of the day, what or who was wronged here? I ask that because where do we draw the line?[/QUOTE]"

"No crime?" Just because Congress or some state legislature has not passed an explicit law on this, that makes it ok? Come on.

Look, people are unequivocally harmed by this: the people buying afterwards and getting hosed. That includes kids.

The frustration in opening crap boosters that leads someone to cheat the booster protections with that scanner = the reason to NOT do it to someone else.

Yes, my kid pulled a Tapu Lele GX from a Target purchase. He was on cloud nine for months. It made him incredibly interested in TCG.

We've also been to a Pre-Release where the organizers weighed the packs beforehand. We caught them with a scale - and surprise - only 1 GX out of ~60 boosters. We never went back, and that game store went out of biz. But Target and Walmart are too big to feel a dent, or give a damn about this.

Pokemon the company should be concerned with this since it ruins the experience for many. Confidence in the fairness of the game is their priority. They use opaque card stock and wrappers for a reason. Security is a cat and mouse game, and the people looking to cheat the system (and others who play) are now a step ahead. If Pokemon does not address and fix this, they will lose customers. But keep the cheating ones. Good luck with that in the long run.

 

[The Binder Guy]

But Target and Walmart are too big to feel a dent, or give a damn about this.

And that they sell TCG products for a third-party supplier, so there's less of an incentive for them. That said, I've already said that each individual Target's/Walmart's handling of scaling varies although they do tend to waver towards ambivalence due to the supplier issue.

Pokemon the company should be concerned with this since it ruins the experience for many. Confidence in the fairness of the game is their priority. They use opaque card stock and wrappers for a reason. Security is a cat and mouse game, and the people looking to cheat the system (and others who play) are now a step ahead. If Pokemon does not address and fix this, they will lose customers. But keep the cheating ones. Good luck with that in the long run.

And they probably won't do a thing. Blocking metal detectors can be cumbersome and expensive while removing holos entirely, the only other option as far I can tell, will do more harm than good.

 

[SquirtleRules]

The other options include:
- Putting foil in ALL of the wrappers
- making the online cards foil

(The card stock is NOT that much more expensive in bulk.)

Both make the metal detector detect metal for ALL boosters. It would cost Pokemon the company a little. And be a little justice onto the guys with detectors.

And then the cat and mouse game would evolve...

 

[Alex Sableye]

If these guys want to beat the odds, minimize investment, then why not just buy single cards? No, they are just trying to make a dishonest buck. I see them doing and I'll get in their face again. This is so obviously wrong, I can't even believe I'm having to defend my position. If Pokemon is so expensive that they have to cheat anyone else that shops there out of a fair chance at a good pull, then maybe they're too broke to be participating in the hobby.

What about all is kids who love this game and don't have a job, and the only way we get cards is by buying packs with our allowance? I'd say that while bringing a device in to 'weigh ' packs with isn't ok, especially since there are tons of kids who don't have enough money to buy singles, taking packs in your hands and estimating which weighs more would be fair. And, regardless of the ethics of weighing packs, getting aggressive towards people because they're 'cheating' is definitely not ok, and WILL get you hurt at some point.

 

[George]

Also, as a neutral party here, I believe that the ability to find an ultra rare or higher in a pack by weighing is not that great anymore, because of the fact of the different code cards, the white code card actually weighs less (the code that is in packs with holos+) and the green code actually weighs MORE to counteract the weight difference between a pack with an ultra and a pack without. there is a video that BoosterKings did that kinda showed the start of this. Here is the link:

I do hope that I was able to help.

 

[Number51x]

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

 

[Lorde]

I don't agree with scanning/weighing packs but I wouldn't care if I witnessed what you described.

This is most likely the viewpoint most of the people on the opposite side of the argument to you share @Number51x. Most likely no one here actively agrees with people who weigh them, but getting into a confrontation about it is just not worth it. We've just come to terms with it, and have accepted that it's the inescapable reality that comes with a card game such as this one.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

And I understand where you're coming from, but you need to pick your battles.

Pack Weighing - There are no pros to this, but the only con is that the packs in one shop are less likely to contain Ultra Rares. It's annoying, but at the end of the day it's miniscule.
Confrontation - There are minor, temporary pros to this. Maybe they'll leave the store like your guy did, maybe they won't. Either way, it's incredibly likely they'll either come back later or just go to another store to scan packs there instead. It's a temporary solution. The price you may have to pay if that individual gets violent is high, and you won't be likely to get help since you would've technically started the real issue. It's just not worth it.

 

[Number51x]

I choose this battle. This situation is not inescapable. Not on the micro scale at least. The store has to know how you feel about the issue and understand that it will affect your willingness to buy that product at that location and reduce it as an enticement to purchase other items while you happen to be there. If enough people are vocal about it, they set a policy and act. If no one speaks up, nothing will change.

As for the risks of confronting a Pokemon pack weigher/searcher/scanner about what they're doing; until there's an enforced store policy against it, yeah, I think I'll roll those dice... It's not like I didn't try to find security before, during, or after (I may have failed to mention that). They just weren't available. Store staff seemed to take issue with it, but did not contact security fast enough. Next time I'm there though, I do intend to ask what the store's stance is.

 

[PokeMedic]

A few nights ago my friend and I weighed a bunch of boosters from each SUM and on set using a laboratory grade scale that could measure grams down to the hundreth. Could have done pennyweight or nanos, but grams were fine. We found a variation of weight between all packs anywhere from 22.18 grams to 22.23 grams. However the greater weight of the pack wasn't any indication of its contents. Just because it was heavier didn't mean it contained any sort of ultra rare, full art, etc. Variations in weight are expected, but this range of variation is nothing significant and hasn't accounted for any particular type of content within the packs.

We then weighed individual cards. A full art Bridget, a Full art Sycamore, and a full art N all came in at 1.83 grams. Common non-shiny cards we used across XY to Forbidden Light came in at the same weight of 1.83. We found it funny that Bridget weight the same as a Snorlax for other reasons.

From this little experiment the whole scaling controversy doesn't seem like its worth getting upset over. The person who is scaling can't tell the quality of the pulls within from the weight alone. In the past I know it was far easier to get an idea of what was inside. Older cards weighed more and had different variations in their ink distribution, cut, and card stock. We even put some older ones on the scale from base set up to HG/SS. We got a lot of cards to come in at 1.80 grams a piece up to 1.98 grams based on their shiny-ness. I'm sure over the years all TCG companies have become privy to this practice. TPCi wants all the cards to sell after all. Getting all cards to the same weight or close to it helps to mitigate that potential loss of sales from scalers.

At some point in the future we'll try using a caliper and then try to attempt the same thing the OP said he saw just to see if it gets results.

I know I just used high class scientific equipment to do something you might hate, but remember that it was done to demonstrate that scaling isn't a real threat to the integrity of packs that some think it is. Just don't go thinking that I condone scaling because I didn't explicitly condemn scalers in this post and demand that they be tared and feathered for not buying singles like the rest of us.

 

[SquirtleRules]

@PokeMedic : Great stuff. We also have a lab-grade scale and out of curiosity I weighed boosters (and cards) with my kids the last time we bought a booster box (Burning Shadows.) We found it to be completely non-deterministic. (And yes, Ribombee weighed about the same as Charizard GX. I also explained to my kids: that if this worked, circumventing booster security/integrity in a store is a bad thing to do.

So, fast forward a month or two, when I saw a scale at a game store at a pre-release (Crimson Invasion). I was skeptical on its efficacy so I did not say anything. Then, afterwards, when everyone went 1 GX in 60 packs, I was so confused. (Am I missing something in weighing? How hard can that be? Am I an idiot? The 1 in 60 data was unequivocally bad. The store owner played and collected.) The scale was gone when I went to question afterwards. My guess and unfounded suspicion now is that they also had a stud finder (or some other better technique??), and I just didn't know what it was at that time.

I'd love to see someone test the foil-detecting efficacy of a stud finder... using a booster box that they already own.

And then inform Pokemon directly.

 

[The Binder Guy]

I decided to talk with a friend of mine who used to scale YGO (he quit the game a couple of years ago due to, ironically enough, how much theft went on during tournaments) about this and even showed him the metal detector Number51x mentioned a couple of days ago and he says that it's questionable at best. The aluminum foils used in both the cards (holos, higher-rarity cards, and reverse holos) and pack wrapping would cause the detector to register the entire blister as a positive. That said, the person Number51x encountered may have found a way to get a general idea of what's in a pack even withe previous detail in mind.

Either way, it's incredibly likely they'll either come back later or just go to another store to scan packs there instead. It's a temporary solution.

100x this, people who scale just lay low until the heat dies down and usually end up carrying something to protect themselves or bring friends that cover for 'em in various ways in the future.

 

[PokeMedic]

just lay low until the heat dies down

You make them sound like they're La Cosa Nostra

 

[Otaku]

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

One time, while I was still in high school, my dad gave me a ride to a friend's house. While trying to get out of the car, the sleeve of my hooded sweatshirt snagged something and snagged it good. Feeling this, I decided to let myself fall back into the car seat, as there was nothing that would hurt me or that I would hurt by doing so. My dad saw this, and simply thought I had slipped; he gave me a shove to help me get back onto my feet and tore a hole about 18 inches long and four inches wide in that sleeve.

Another time, my friend and I were on our way to a Pokémon event. The short version is we accidentally entered a parking lot through its exit, angering another man who was leaving the parking lot at the same time. We safely went by each other the first time, but he thought our actions so "dangerous" that it was worth he himself pushing (if not violating) traffic laws and parking lot guidelines to zip back in and yell at us while shaking his fists. The thing is if we were "dangerous criminals", how smart is it to do that? We were all legally adults, though we were in our early 20's and he was probably in his 30's, maybe even 40's. If we'd panicked, or just been the kind of thugs he assumed, yelling at us could only have made the situation worse. As is, we saw his young daughter in the front seat - probably too young to safely ride there under current laws - crying. He said that was because we'd scared her with our driving; as you would expect, I have my doubts. For the record, it didn't improve our driving; I wouldn't be surprised if it was a little worse, given that we were now very upset.

My father saw a problem, an evil, befall me but he didn't identify it correctly. He then took a simple action, but because he was so worried about doing something now "before it was too late" because he didn't see that me taking an extra 30 seconds to get out of the vehicle wasn't that big a problem, we had a larger, more expensive problem. This other man saw wrongdoing, and chose to confront it... but he didn't consider the situation, but assumed the worst of others in an illogical and inconsistent manner, and set a terrible example for his child.

I'm thinking that isn't too dissimilar to what we have here. If weighing packs (or whatever method is being used) is a problem, getting aggressive with people in a store is likely to do more harm than good. Similarly, demanding action without due consideration is also a surefire recipe for causing more harm than good. I don't have time to get into some of the idiotic legislation, business decisions, etc. that have occurred because someone got upset then got loud about it and the people in charge reacted without due caution. Speaking of lack of time, I've got a busy enough weekend that I'll probably shut up for a bit again. I mean, if I was truly self-disciplined, I'd probably have bowed out completely at this point and just hoped that most folks reading it did stop and think about it fully. I'm not saying that weighing packs is correct, I'm saying that the reaction I'm reading about to it is disproportionate, and some of the suggested actions detrimental to everyone's long-term enjoyment of the game.

Edit: Oh, and while it doesn't excuse it, the lack of time is why this post isn't as concise or polished as I would have preferred. And I still took a good 30 minutes making it! >_< Also why I've had to edit it a few times, as I find fun little mistakes like "too" instead of "took". >.>

 

[Rammus Support]

How can the cheaters/enablers be held accountable?

Talk to the store manager. Record the conversation. If the manager says it is acceptable weigh packs, then spread this information to hurt their profits.

Stores that allow weighing should be common knowledge in the hopes they lose sales and change their tune.

 

[Vom]

How can the cheaters/enablers be held accountable?

Talk to the store manager. Record the conversation. If the manager says it is acceptable weigh packs, then spread this information to hurt their profits.

Stores that allow weighing should be common knowledge in the hopes they lose sales and change their tune.

I'm pretty sure anyone who is against pack weighting and has witnessed it in a store has spoken at least to their friends about it, who may have then spread the word, and so on. Keep in mind that while not everyone may have done this, anyone who hasn't will certainly not talk to the store manager about it, let alone record the conversation (which, for the record, I think may be a bit much).

Going public with something like that may actually cause more harm than good.

Sticking a "we are ok with pack weighting" sign on stores will if anything make it sort of a safe haven for pack weighters, making up for the loss of non-pack weighters in which case you will have accomplished nothing in terms of hurting the store.

Or (arguably) worse, it could have an effect and force the store to either get more staff on it or get rid of the packs altogether. Which do you think is more likely? Big stores literally don't care and it will always come down to cost vs profit. If staffing that part of the store solely to watch the packs would end up costing more than losing profit from pack sales here and there, they will get rid of the packs, and now you have left some people without a seller to buy from.

You have to understand what you're asking from stores here: use money to lose money (staffing isn't free, and like it or not, pack-wighters are still paying customers) or lose money anyway but without spending money to do it.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, and pack sales are only part of a store's income, and an expendable one at that.