Preleases running out of Promos

[Otaku]

Actually, a lot of stores already do this. Do you know why? It's partly because many stores' Black Friday store deals are the same as their online deals. As long as the order is placed at the right time (and you pay for it right there), why would they not do it? Additionally, the whole appeal of Black Friday for the stores is that they get to turn over a large volume at the expense of slightly lowered margins. Why would a store, except under strange circumstances (like being severely understaffed), pass up an opportunity to turn higher volume?

People don't get injured on Black Friday because they isn't enough product. People get injured during these sales because of a combination of psychological and behavioral impulses: herd mentality, stampede, and because people can be ______s. The first 200-300 people in line (those that are pushing; in other words, the group of people that trampled the guy to death and Wal-Mart), pretty much always get what they want to buy at these sales.

I think you say that "Nobody would even consider doing something like that on Boxing Day here" because you haven't tried asking before. You'd be surprised at what people will do for you if you just ask politely and be reasonable about your request.

Everything I've learned working fast food, retail, and studying this indicate its true. More importantly, so does a little not-as-common-as-it-should-be sense. I am not advocating being rude or hostile, but in reality even on Black Friday, stores want to generate sales and keep customers happy. It can be harder in certain stores versus others, depending upon how much autonomy is given the full staff, but if my job is to keep a Black Friday event running smoothly, the last thing I need is for one irate customer storming off to trigger a frenzy as everyone else misunderstands what happened! As long as it isn't a ridiculous demand ("You're out of the sweater I wanted! I demand a free TV!") you've got a good chance of getting it.

In many, many countries haggling is the norm, and paying the sticker price is a joke... it isn't even just the West but specifically places like America (and apparently Canada?) where you go in, find your item, and pay the sticker price. In other places, if you're not yelling you're not trying. :lol:

So tying this into the topic, while supplies last is while supplies last. If you don't like it, don't come back... and make sure you send an e-mail to TPCi so they know that is why you're not coming back. An apology is really warranted even if it isn't truly the fault of the staff: that's not even just how business works, but polite society. If there is a reasonable way to make amends, offer it... and if you're on the other end, accept it and then contact TPCi so that they learn the weaknesses of the system (not to "get someone into trouble").

As is, I am wondering if there just shouldn't be an OP style booster pack for the event; some of this is the fact that the promo is specific. Yes, that is part of the fun, but if it is that much of an issue to keep them overstocked, its got to change.

 

[Prime]

I think people are happy spending a few cents more per pack to travel to PRs to see their friends, get a cool deck box & promo, and have a casual fun event exploring the brand new set.

Or, they could sit at home, in the dark, opening up their boosters, tossing away 90% of the cards because they just aren't metagame crushing, having a pathetically ho-hum experience.

Just my opinion!

 

[deashira]

I see where your coming from Pop, but change preleases to just 6 packs for $25 and watch your attendance drop dramatically. I certainly wouldn't pay $25 for 6 packs $25 for 8 is more reasonable but when I can buy a full box for $90 its still not a "deal" by any means. The deckbox and promo might be extra but it is good customer service. I fail to see how raising an issue about doing more to make sure that everybody receives these little goodies makes me a bad person? Which is kind of how I feel the attuitde alot of TOs are taking here.

I guess I'm out of the loop. Sorry for being off topic, but where can you get a full box for $90?

RM

 

[Otaku]

I think people are happy spending a few cents more per pack to travel to PRs to see their friends, get a cool deck box & promo, and have a casual fun event exploring the brand new set.

Or, they could sit at home, in the dark, opening up their boosters, tossing away 90% of the cards because they just aren't metagame crushing, having a pathetically ho-hum experience.

Just my opinion!

1) Ask Jay why he never had friends over to help him open his boxes for personal tournament. I confess that I never did either, but I think I've only ever opened one or two boxes of product during the game's life. :lol:

2) Probably not the best set to make this argument... and you know some of us "customers" are actually a bit miffed about that for the opposite reasons. It isn't that cards aren't metagame crushing, it's that many are not only ineffective but boring about it as well. I mean, true filler where not only will we get a second version of an existing card... but that second version has objectively worse stats (HP, Typing, etc.) and attacks (vanilla, no effect attacks that do less damage than the previous version). If it is getting that expensive that they don't have time to be creative, just slap the new art on a reprint of the older version. :thumb:

Despite this, I do indeed value pre-releases... but I think Prime misses the point. Something like this can really sour an experience. Too many incidents like these are you really are better off buying a booster box on your own (or for those with less income, splitting one with friends). I loved the Pre-Release experience... most of the time.

 

[ShadowCard]

I've seen swings of 50% plus or minus from one set to the next.
don't tell me about how easy it is to forecast, please.

Not to say it is easy, but to say it is a "shot in the dark" is not giving yourself enough credit.

I do track the attendances. That's how I know to compare to last year. Tracking it from set to set will result in the +/- 50% that you see. An annual comparison gets you a better number because it takes into account seasonal influences, such as school priorities, sports, and vacations, that also compete with Pokemon. I'm curious how your numbers for last weekend compare to those locations numbers for last year and 2 years ago vs NXD and NVI.

 

[Jaeger]

No, actually not.
I track my attendance from series to series and event to event on a spread sheet.
Pokemon players are freaking hard to predict.
If you have not done it yourself, then you have no idea.
It's a shot in the dark trying to predict attendance at any Pokemon event, let alone a prerelease which has the extra random factor of how much players want specific cards from a new set. I've seen swings of 50% plus or minus from one set to the next.
don't tell me about how easy it is to forecast, please.

Not to say it is easy, but to say it is a "shot in the dark" is not giving yourself enough credit.

I do track the attendances. That's how I know to compare to last year. Tracking it from set to set will result in the +/- 50% that you see. An annual comparison gets you a better number because it takes into account seasonal influences, such as school priorities, sports, and vacations, that also compete with Pokemon. I'm curious how your numbers for last weekend compare to those locations numbers for last year and 2 years ago vs NXD and NVI.

This is the kind of feedback that as a player I don't always realize...

 

[SteveP]

I "second" the comments from ShadowCard, Otaku, and others who understand that although "while supplies last" is a necessary statement, it's often poor customer service to apply this statement in it's strictist sense.

Alternate image, BW promo versions of playable, rare, foil cards are really nice. I'm glad my PTO had enough. There were a number of players at our prerelease who were feverishly looking for willing traders of their Altaria promos.

 

[TLesky]

I see where your coming from Pop, but change preleases to just 6 packs for $25 and watch your attendance drop dramatically. I certainly wouldn't pay $25 for 6 packs $25 for 8 is more reasonable but when I can buy a full box for $90 its still not a "deal" by any means. The deckbox and promo might be extra but it is good customer service. I fail to see how raising an issue about doing more to make sure that everybody receives these little goodies makes me a bad person? Which is kind of how I feel the attuitde alot of TOs are taking here.

I dont believe anyone is calling you a bad person. I look at it like this.

The generic prerelease description that is on th Pokemon website says that you start the tournament off with 6 packs. The other 2 are your "participation prize" for completingthe tournament. If all of the packs were given out at the beginning, many would just take their cards and run. this is very similar to the issue at nationals with people registering just to get the shirt, etc and then not showing up, Bad for the folks trying to run the event and for those trying to actually participate.

the promo card and promo item are there as extras for your participation in the event. Now granted, they are part of the package and should be given out to everyone possible. the fact is we have to base our attendance off of previous events, and with significant jumps comes shortages. Does that make it right or any easier for the players that dont get them? no. But at the same time it isnt any fun for us to tell someone that we have run out. Bad for everyone.

I think the bigger issue for your situation, Jay, is that the people running your event changed times, didnt give out the promos for whatever reason, etc. This kind of thing can give TOs a bad name in general. Most if not all TOs would not condone these kind of actions. Jimmy offered to step up and give you a promo card if he has any left and I would do the same. You are a very well respected member of the community, Jay, and I thknk all of us would do the same thing to make sure that you got what you deserved from the prerelease.

Many of us take great pride in providing the best experience for the players that we can. And, lets face it, we should. Afterall, if the players arent happy and stop coming, why have TOs? At the same time we have to be able to at least get the money back that we spend to run these tournaments. I dont think many of us have any grand dilusions of getting rich doing this, but we also can not lose money at every event by over ordering, or whatever. Without us at least breaking even, there wont be any events run.

We are all in the same boat when it comes to the shortages, both players and organizers alike. We just need to help each other out the best we can and not make assumptions or dog pile on each other. The only thing that these actions accomplish is to draw lines in the sand that everyone chooses a side of..... and then the mud slinging begins.

Everyone please take a moment to look at it from all of the angles involved. For the most part I think you will find that it really isnt all that bad and we can make it better by helping each other out instead of debating over the forums.

 

[bullados]

Prereleases are not something new. Like any business, look at your last year's numbers to base your forecast and then take into account more recent factors to make adjustments. That a PTO has "NO IDEA what your attendance is going to look like" means they are either new or they haven't been watching their area for trends and learning the players. bullados, what you're saying has to be a hyperbole.

My events in a small town in the middle of nowhere have been easy to predict. Because we were so far from everything, were reasonably small (100,000 total population), and I knew the school structure, I pretty much always knew what to plan for as far as the purely local events went.

But I just moved to Minneapolis. And I'm getting an education in the fickle Pokemon attendance.

On Saturday, we had a Prerelease at a location that generally gets 20-30 players between the TDC and the Prerelease. This time, there were 77. And that was the first time this venue had ever gotten close to those numbers.

On Sunday, we had a Prerelease at a different location that generally gets 30-40 players between the TDC and the Prerelease. This time, there were 51. And it's been a long time coming to get to those numbers, longer than a year according to the PTO.

And I'm told that these kinds of attendance swings are fairly common up here.

If that's the attendance swing for a player base in a large city nowhere near any other large city, I can only imagine what the swing might be in the New England area, where cities are far closer to each other, and it's more difficult to know what might happen set-to-set. Which is, BTW, how sets are ordered on the PTO side.

As far as the manufacturing side, I have absolutely no idea how long that takes. But I think my 6 month guess is fairly reasonable. I don't think the turnaround time is as fast as 3 months, the amount of time between two Prereleases. So they're basically planning for two Prereleases in the future, and we really don't know how the game will progress in that time span.

I hear the argument about yearly stability, but I just don't see it. Something about that argument just feels a bit off to me. But I don't have the nation wide attendance numbers to show what it actually looks like...

 

[SteveP]

I'm curious. Do most organizers give out the promos upon payment?

Players should probably be told at the point-of-sale (POS) whether they're getting a promo or not. Going back to the original post in the topic, it's unclear whether Jaeger's brother was told at the POS that the promos were gone.

Going back to my McDonalds Happy Meal analogy... Certainly, my kid wants his Happy Meal even though he won't get his Pokemon toy/card. He might be a little bit disappointed when he gets a Hello Kitty doll substitute, but at least he can use it as target practice for his GI Joes. :biggrin:

 

[GodBlessAmerica]

He might be a little bit disappointed when he gets a Hello Kitty doll substitute

woah, woah, woah man. Hello Kitty is awesome, I would not be disappointed to get a hello kitty toy in my happy meal, regardless of the context

As for the pre-releases I go to, there was one time where I was not given a promo at the event, but the PTO was nice enough to ask other PTOs if they had extras and was able to get me one afterwards. I think organizers should at least try to do that for their customers, and give them an apology if they aren't able to get the stuff. Especially if they advertise the wrong registration times by accident.

 

[Prime]

Despite this, I do indeed value pre-releases... but I think Prime misses the point. Something like this can really sour an experience. Too many incidents like these are you really are better off buying a booster box on your own (or for those with less income, splitting one with friends). I loved the Pre-Release experience... most of the time.

I'd pay $25 to go PR base set, if I had the transportation and the $$$ to do it. That is how much I value my friends and a laid back fun environment.

Back when I had some spending money, I would spend $$$ to travel 90 miles west into another state just to experience a Pre-Release. That's gas, food, PR, and a decent trip to and fro.

A missing promo isn't going to kill my day. A bad set won't do that, either.

Perhaps Pre-Releases aren't for everyone.

 

[Otaku]

I'd pay $25 to go PR base set, if I had the transportation and the $$$ to do it. That is how much I value my friends and a laid back fun environment.

Back when I had some spending money, I would spend $$$ to travel 90 miles west into another state just to experience a Pre-Release. That's gas, food, PR, and a decent trip to and fro.

A missing promo isn't going to kill my day. A bad set won't do that, either.

Perhaps Pre-Releases aren't for everyone.

Or perhaps we had a failure to communicate. My point was when stuff goes wrong too often at a Pre-Release, it simply sucks the fun right out of it. It isn't just not getting a Promo once, or even once in a while. Sounds like you're also assuming everything else is just peachy. For me, if one thing goes wrong, it suggests more might. After all, if the organizer didn't expect a huge turnout, that's usually when venues end up being overcrowded.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong that have nothing to do with the organizer or staff... but not only is a new player not likely to know that, but even when dealing with someone who does know, it is still staff's job to make the event as good as possible.

I have to emphasize this because this is already at three paragraphs and not quite done, but I am not talking about the odd shortage of promos, but a consistent shortage. Once a year is plenty, considering that is what, one in eight events? Small issues like this breed distrust. If it happens as often as many imply on this thread (even at different locations), that just means we've got some production/distribution issues.

I don't run these events. I have a rough idea of how much each promo costs, and the pre-release boosters in general. We can't make the system "random" proof; sometimes there will just be a surge in attendance, but even multiplied across all the Pre-Release events across the globe, I would think customer disatisfaction worth the price of shipping some extra promos. I mean, if I went to a Pre-Release and they were out of product so I couldn't participate, giving me a free Promo and sending me on my way would just tell me to get their earlier next time, and see if I could pre-Register.

 

[Unfallible]

I wouldn't be surprised if they kept the promos, just saying.

WOW. This is just amazing. We actually a highly playable prerelease promo, and then you start accusing "them" of not printing enough or stealing or something. Don't make everyone regret this...

EDIT: Just finished reading the other 3 pages of thread and realized I was beating a dead horse. Sorry for being so hot-headed...

 

[Envoyofduels]

this I am guessing will not be an issue 6 months down the line when the growth of attendance is accounted for in that partial area. If it doesn't then I hope it gets settled soon.

 

[r3skyline]

I think people are happy spending a few cents more per pack to travel to PRs to see their friends, get a cool deck box & promo, and have a casual fun event exploring the brand new set.

Or, they could sit at home, in the dark, opening up their boosters, tossing away 90% of the cards because they just aren't metagame crushing, having a pathetically ho-hum experience.

Just my opinion!

hmm, i open my packs in a brightly lit vintage style living room with my son and we have a great time even though we dont make it to pre releases. its kinda rare that im ever home for a pre release. im usually out in the field doing some kind of dumb army training. so yea, id rather stay at home and relax and have my "ho-hum" experience than be surrounded by a bunch of kids who dont shower and are screaming their heads off.

this is coming from someone who goes out and doesnt shower while training, and being around adults who do the same...and yell their heads off, while also being next to an aircraft engine. kinda says a lot

 

[bullados]

this I am guessing will not be an issue 6 months down the line when the growth of attendance is accounted for in that partial area. If it doesn't then I hope it gets settled soon.

PTO orders are on a 3 month delay. I.e. they order their stuff based on the previous Prerelease, and no other number.

TPCi orders are on a much longer delay. I don't know what that delay is, but my guess is about 6 months.

So if there's explosive growth for two consecutive sets, then the PTOs will have it in hand for the next set as long as that next set doesn't also have explosive growth. However, they might get shorted promotional items like the boxes or promos b/c TPCi's delay is 2 sets, bare minimum.

 

[Envoyofduels]

PTO orders are on a 3 month delay. I.e. they order their stuff based on the previous Prerelease, and no other number.

TPCi orders are on a much longer delay. I don't know what that delay is, but my guess is about 6 months.

So if there's explosive growth for two consecutive sets, then the PTOs will have it in hand for the next set as long as that next set doesn't also have explosive growth. However, they might get shorted promotional items like the boxes or promos b/c TPCi's delay is 2 sets, bare minimum.

Yes, I know that. I knew that before this thread was started.

If what i said is too unrealistic then change the amount of time i said to the amount of time it would take of be expected*

*Assuming there is growth that stays, Besides Have too much is better then not having enough.

 

[ShadowCard]

I hear the argument about yearly stability, but I just don't see it. Something about that argument just feels a bit off to me. But I don't have the nation wide attendance numbers to show what it actually looks like...

You did say you are new to the area. Perhaps I am lucky to be in a stable area? My over all point is, no matter how you forecast, it should not be a "shot in the dark." It's not like you have a better chance of forecasting by throwing a dart and taking the number from the dartboard as your forecast.

 

[bullados]

You did say you are new to the area. Perhaps I am lucky to be in a stable area? My over all point is, no matter how you forecast, it should not be a "shot in the dark." It's not like you have a better chance of forecasting by throwing a dart and taking the number from the dartboard as your forecast.

I'm friends with quite a few PTOs on Facebook. I swear that the two most common status updates they post are either "OMG biggest attendance EVA!!!" and "WTH smallest attendance eva..." I see at least 2-3 of those statuses during every Premier event cycle, including Prereleases. Now, that's not a scientific thing, and I get that. But I think there are some areas that might follow a "blind squirrels" trend more than anything else.

As far as my current area, I'm in fairly close contact with the PTO. He told me that the growth he's seen over the last 6 months is unprecedented during his time as a PTO (basically since TPCi took over). His events are usually fairly predictable as far as attendance. But 100% growth event-to-event AND year-over-year is insane, and his allowable orders just can't follow that kind of growth.