Someone wanted me to blog about the financial aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh. I have spoken my opinion on this multiple times. By now I'm sure every player which a brain realizes that Yu-Gi-Oh is the most expensive competitive card game, especially in the TCG.
The prices of cards in the OCG are in some cases unfairly lower than in the TCG. Take Pot of Duality for example (it's one of the best examples). When this card was released in Japan it wasn't released at a high rarity and the price for a playset was reasonable. When Duality first hit the TCG the card was already more expensive than in the OCG ($40). However after a decent amount of time passed it became a $200 card in the TCG. That's clearly an unjustice.
My theory is Konami doesn't realize the potential certain cards have when they are designed. Once an over-used card is released in the OCG Konami will realize that and hit the TCG with the same card at a higher rarity with a ridiculous price. Consider this: Cards that are released in the TCG first won't surpass $40 upon their release. After a few months the price of an exclusive card either goes down because no one plays it, or rise in financial value because it is over-used (Tour Guide from the Underworld...). This is similar to what happens in Japan.
Recently Konami hit a rough spot financially. Since Konami is a business they need to fabricate methods of making money. How did they do this? Massive amounts of reprints; of good cards. These products include the 2011 tins, Turbo Pack 6, Gold Series 4 and Legendary Collection 2. Is it convenient that Konami changed the wordings of cards at this point in the universe as an excuse to reprint an enormous collection of excellent cards...
This next example was discussed on Facebook yesterday and I will relay it here in more details. The Dark World structure deck is to be released in literally a few days. Konami is intelligent because they are going to make money by allowing players to access a Tier 1 deck by buying 3 of the structure decks. However the players of Europe will be likely to buy this deck much more than the North American players because of one card; Tragoedia. In North American this card was released in the Shonen Jump (therefore easy to get) and as a turbo pack ultimate rare (therefore not-so-easy to get). Europeans don't get the Shonen Jump. This implies that the easiest way for European players to get Tragoedia is to pull it in a turbo pack... Konami is specifically releasing Tragoedia in this deck so the Europeans will have another reason to buy this deck. Also Konami put Tragoedia to 2 in the latest ban list. Coincidence...
Konami uses every dirty trick they can in order to make some profits. This is the reason this card game is still going, and will continue for a long, long time. Konami makes insane amounts of profit off of this one game. Any competitive player unfortunately has to put up with this or quit. I would go into more detail but I'm in class right now... I know pretty much everything about this topic, or at least have good assumptions. If there is anything you are unsure of ask me. I will respond to it in some way, even if it means creating a follow-up post. This is a serious issue after all.
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