What kind of Trading Card Consumer am I?
Something that we get asked a lot, usually by parents who didn’t grow up interacting with trading cards, is basically, “My kid is super into Pokemon. How do we do… this? What should we buy?” or “How does this work?”
“There’s really no wrong way to be involved with TCGs”
My answer usually involves turning to the kid and asking them a series of questions. This is because there are nearly infinite ways to interact with a trading card game. At its core, every TCG is designed as a game and also for collectability. There’s also a transactional relationship baked into its essence (trading, which can be both bartering and for cash), and artistic value since every card, no matter the game, features an image. This is all a really complicated way of saying that, really, there’s no wrong way to be involved with TCGs, outside of committing crimes or bullying others for “doing it wrong.”
So, the question anyone who is “getting into” trading card games should ask themselves is, “What part of this is scratching my brain the right way?”
After thinking about this basically every waking hour of my day for almost 5 years, I’ve concluded that there are essentially 3 types of TCG consumers:
The Magpie
Magpies are usually in it just because they really like shiny things that make their brain happy. These are the people who do not have a strong intrinsic need for their cards to be worth anything other than being pretty, having a name they think is cool, or art that’s made by someone they think is super awesome. Most kids fall into this category, and it’s one of the healthier ways to collect something. Think of it like rock collecting by wandering around in the woods and picking up some really weird shaped rock that you’re not at all concerned about selling it to someone else in the future. You just take it home, put it on your shelf, and smile when you look at it.
The Investor
Investors come in two flavors. One is the person who has some magpie tendencies, but is buying with the intent to someday flip their collection for more than they originally paid for it. These are the people who have a safe, closet, or room dedicated to storing all the cool old stuff they’ve bought. The other type of investor is what some people refer to as “scalpers” (a word we should maybe replace with something less problematic, but I’m not here to coin it), but are actually resellers. In a healthy trading card singles market, resellers serve a similar role to the LGS, by cracking boxes or taking large collections and breaking them into the pieces that allow players to pick up one or two cards without spending thousands of dollars chasing playables. I will talk more about what happens in unhealthy trading card markets in another article, but for now, know that “scalpers” in the context that people complain about them can ONLY exist in a market that has an unhealthy supply-demand relationship (e.g., there are way more people who want to buy things than there are things to buy).
The Player
Players are the people who just want to play the game. They usually buy singles, they keep playsets of the cards they think they may need in the future, and they let the rest go. They are not the type of player who cares whether the version they have is the coolest. These people will order Moderately Played cards and not care that they’re dirty as long as they save some money and they’re not going to be accused of playing with marked cards.
So which type of player are you? Most people don’t fit neatly into one category, and a lot of times they’ll bounce between them as they age or try new games.Maybe you don’t feel like any fit. Let me know in our Discord if I forgot someone! There are certainly some really interesting subcategories where these identities overlap that we can explore later, like the gambler, the one-upper, and the hustler (or go-again).