And speaking from experience, I love collecting sealed boosters, but I have no plans to sell them even though I know I could. Sometimes people just wanna collect sealed product the same way other people collect opened product.
But why?
Like, I'm not calling you out specifically. I also have sealed product for ptcg and mtg that I save for various reasons. In the case of pokemon, its fun to open them on stream or with friends; I love smeargle so having a sealed neo discovery pack is part of my collection of that specific character. In mtg, opening packs is reserved for limited generally speaking so there is a gameplay reason as to why sealed product should remain sealed. I get that, and I get that people's tastes are hard to generalize.
Wanting to protect a box isn't solely for value appreciation... And even if it was, It's just like keeping your cards in some sleeves and toploaders. It's so they stay in good shape.
I keep cards in sleeves, sometimes 2x sleeves, because I handle my cards. Same with comics. I don't play with as many of them as often as I used to, but I'm glad I've used sleeves for many years and have cards from across the game's life in great--or rather, consistent--condition. Protection of game pieces (cause, lest we forget, that's what they are) makes sense regardless of the value of the card, for longevity as well as consistency.
This is not that. This is very clearly a product designed to preserve value for the secondary market. There is no game here, no value from a gameplay perspective, to be preserved. There is no reason to handle a box repeatedly. They aren't that fragile and they come wrapped in plastic. Protecting a sealed box of randomly distributed trading cards is protecting the potential value of the objects inside that box. I understand some people do that for fun, for collecting, whatever. I don't have a problem with them doing that, I do it too.
It is the monetization of this kind of behavior that disgusts me. This is a company that regularly interacts with tpci. They distribute cross-brand merchandise with them all the time. Now they are releasing something that encourages the consumer to put a sealed box on a shelf and call it a collectors item. Again, I'm fine with individuals deciding to do that, and I'm fine with them spending their money on whatever they feel best protects or displays that kind of thing. But this is designed to hold pokemon boxes specifically. This is designed to encourage sitting on product, to encourage consumers to protect that product not because it has gameplay value, or artistic value, or value as a card or cards to be traded, but because...? I can think of no other reason to encourage this specific kind of consumer behavior than an implicit promise of increased secondary market value with time.
And not only that, this has tpci's implicit seal of approval.
I'm shocked that anyone could be positive, or even neutral, about this product.
but I can say with certainty that I enjoy it, as much as you like having an anime girl as your avatar.
