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https://indoorgamebunker.com/how-to-weigh-pokemon-packs/ https://indoorgamebunker.com/how-to-weigh-pokemon-packs/ Yep! It's fascinating, aside from how it shoul

https://indoorgamebunker.com/how-to-weigh-pokemon-packs/ https://indoorgamebunker.com/how-to-weigh-pokemon-packs/ Yep! It's fascinating, aside from how it shouldn't be done. Cards that are holographic seem to weigh more.

mort96 5y ago
Why shouldn’t it be done? Weighing items before buying seems completely legit to me.
- david-cako 5y ago
  Sort of, but it's unfair when you're buying booster packs online from folks that might be selling you pre-weighed packs from booster boxes. For this reason, you're really best off only buying booster boxes or individual cards online unless you really trust the seller.
  - city41 5y ago
    It used to be you could see what cards were in a Magic the Gathering booster without opening it by pushing each card one at a time to the edge of the pack and shining a bright light behind it. The edge of the packaging was white, so the name of the card would shine through. I think most people into collectible card games know boosters aren't to be trusted in general.
  - tasogare 5y ago
    In addition to weighting, there was also a know vulnerability in the pseudo-rng method used in printing that allowed to know which boisters of a box were the most likely to contains the good cards (speaking of MTG).
- somehnguy 5y ago
  If you want a specific card you should buy that specific card. Packs are not designed so you know what is in them. Weighing them seems like petty cheating to me. Thats just my opinion though, I know moral debates like this are highly subjective.
  - fl0wenol 5y ago
    ... but what if I don't want to gamble? It's not like buying an item at retail can enforce a "terms of service" like a EULA I'm free to ignore a box if it's dented or damaged. Weighing it to see if it's missing parts (like a return) is perfectly reasonable. How is that any different? Your position is ridiculous; if the manufacturer wanted to enforce randomness then they'd need to make the retail units all weigh the same.
    - somehnguy 5y ago
      Again, if you don’t want to gamble then you’re free to buy individual cards where you know exactly what you’re getting. Even if you weigh the decks you’re still gambling, as you have no idea what is inside the packs until you break the seal. You’re just cheating to improve your odds. If you don’t want to gamble then the obvious solution is to buy individual cards and not cheat others out of random decks. I think it’s more ridiculous that your position is advocating bringing a gram scale into Target with you so that you can weigh cards off the shelf in order to gain a slight advantage.
      - stale2002 5y ago
        > then you’re free to buy individual cards where you know exactly what you’re getting. Actually, he is also free to weigh the packs, as that is completely legally allowed. There is nothing illegal about that. It is fully within his right, and the manufactures do not call it gambling anyway.
        somehnguy 5y ago
        I know it isn’t illegal, and never claimed it was. I think it’s poor form, morally speaking. That’s why I added the ‘morals are subjective’ part to my original comment. It isn’t illegal to cheat at your local pickup basketball game either, that doesn’t make it a good thing to do.
        stale2002 5y ago
- anonymousab 5y ago
  > Why shouldn’t it be done? The point of the product is to gamble, not to determine in advance which one has the best outcome or odds. In much the same way that a casino won't let you hover around and count cards, or watch a machine all day and only play when you've determined that it's about to cache out. They take other countermeasures against that stuff these days but you get the idea.
  - ygjb 5y ago
    > The point of the product is to gamble You know that, and I know that, but legal weenies and regulators go to great pains to make it clear that it's not gambling, as do defenders of the "sport". And to be clear I love me some MtG, so I am not criticizing the model or the industry. That said, if weighing the packs as a viable strategy became common knowledge and is even a marginally reliable method for gaming the system, then there would be a solid case to be made that the companies that produce that these cards need explicit countermeasures to prevent that strategy. If they don't, and there is a real secondary market, then there is nothing stopping an FLGS from selling individual packs from a box after having weighed all of the packs. The only way to protect yourself from the game being rigged would be to buy guaranteed unopened boxes.
    - derefr 5y ago
      > as do defenders of the "sport" People who buy Pokemon/MtG cards have an interesting relationship with WotC. They're usually perfectly willing to buy cards on the secondary market (which doesn't make WotC money) but they're constitutionally unable to play "real" (non-"casual") matches — even in tournaments WotC has no relationship to! — if the cards are https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Proxy_card https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Proxy_card s. I've never been clear on what the difference is. Both the secondary market, and proxies, result in perfectly usable cards, and result in WotC making no money from you. But one's acceptable to the community, while the other very much isn't. I have a feeling it's probably to do with the community having a lot of collectors in it, who want their rare cards to retain value, and who fear that that value would be lost if there's no reason to play with the card, only to hide it away in a binder while playing with a proxy.
- nrook 5y ago
  Indeed. The Pokémon Company is running a children's casino: it's hard to imagine a business model less ethical than that.
  - yifanl 5y ago
    Keep in mind that The Pokemon Company don't make profit off of secondary sales, so they don't really have much incentive to make it a casino. In fact, I believe in the past they avoided this problem by printing cards to such capacity that prices don't dramatically rise due to lack of scarcity. (special circumstances like very old first edition prints still hold value for obvious reasons, but The Pokemon Company can't realistically make profit off of them now that they are out of print) Currently they aren't able to do so because of a combination of an insane increase in demand and COVID, but ultimately this seems like a temporary problem that fixes itself once they get facilities in order to meet the demand.
    - mhluongo 5y ago
      > Keep in mind that The Pokemon Company don't make profit off of secondary sales, so they don't really have much incentive to make it a casino. In fact, I believe in the past they avoided this problem by printing cards to such capacity that prices don't dramatically rise due to lack of scarcity. The fact that the card pack has a randomness element makes the card pack more valuable in the first place. This is exactly how gamification and random reward schedules drive revenue.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      Lottery tickets don't get profit off of any secondary market either. I think you're focusing on the wrong part.
- Djvacto 5y ago
  Mostly because by taking the high value packs, one leaves nothing for the other players/collectors (especially children, for whom boosters are the only potential source of rare cards, since they're unlikely to have the funds nor internet access to buy individual cards online).
reedjosh 5y ago
Maybe card makers should add fluff to match the weights? Like a thin piece of paper in packs without foils?
- bena 5y ago
  That's difficult because of the way the cards are packed.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  I think they addressed it by just making one card in every pack foil, but keeping the chance you get a foil chase card the same.
salamandersauce 5y ago
What I find humorous about it is Pokemon puts these code cards that give you a booster in the online game. They have a greyish one and a green one. If you get a green one you got a foil 100% in the pack so what I don't get is why don't they just make the grey one thicker to compensate for the weight difference?

mort96 5y ago

Why shouldn’t it be done? Weighing items before buying seems completely legit to me.

david-cako 5y ago
Sort of, but it's unfair when you're buying booster packs online from folks that might be selling you pre-weighed packs from booster boxes. For this reason, you're really best off only buying booster boxes or individual cards online unless you really trust the seller.
- city41 5y ago
  It used to be you could see what cards were in a Magic the Gathering booster without opening it by pushing each card one at a time to the edge of the pack and shining a bright light behind it. The edge of the packaging was white, so the name of the card would shine through. I think most people into collectible card games know boosters aren't to be trusted in general.
- tasogare 5y ago
  In addition to weighting, there was also a know vulnerability in the pseudo-rng method used in printing that allowed to know which boisters of a box were the most likely to contains the good cards (speaking of MTG).
somehnguy 5y ago
If you want a specific card you should buy that specific card. Packs are not designed so you know what is in them. Weighing them seems like petty cheating to me. Thats just my opinion though, I know moral debates like this are highly subjective.
- fl0wenol 5y ago
  ... but what if I don't want to gamble? It's not like buying an item at retail can enforce a "terms of service" like a EULA I'm free to ignore a box if it's dented or damaged. Weighing it to see if it's missing parts (like a return) is perfectly reasonable. How is that any different? Your position is ridiculous; if the manufacturer wanted to enforce randomness then they'd need to make the retail units all weigh the same.
  - somehnguy 5y ago
    Again, if you don’t want to gamble then you’re free to buy individual cards where you know exactly what you’re getting. Even if you weigh the decks you’re still gambling, as you have no idea what is inside the packs until you break the seal. You’re just cheating to improve your odds. If you don’t want to gamble then the obvious solution is to buy individual cards and not cheat others out of random decks. I think it’s more ridiculous that your position is advocating bringing a gram scale into Target with you so that you can weigh cards off the shelf in order to gain a slight advantage.
    - stale2002 5y ago
      > then you’re free to buy individual cards where you know exactly what you’re getting. Actually, he is also free to weigh the packs, as that is completely legally allowed. There is nothing illegal about that. It is fully within his right, and the manufactures do not call it gambling anyway.
      - somehnguy 5y ago
        I know it isn’t illegal, and never claimed it was. I think it’s poor form, morally speaking. That’s why I added the ‘morals are subjective’ part to my original comment. It isn’t illegal to cheat at your local pickup basketball game either, that doesn’t make it a good thing to do.
        stale2002 5y ago
anonymousab 5y ago
> Why shouldn’t it be done? The point of the product is to gamble, not to determine in advance which one has the best outcome or odds. In much the same way that a casino won't let you hover around and count cards, or watch a machine all day and only play when you've determined that it's about to cache out. They take other countermeasures against that stuff these days but you get the idea.
- ygjb 5y ago
  > The point of the product is to gamble You know that, and I know that, but legal weenies and regulators go to great pains to make it clear that it's not gambling, as do defenders of the "sport". And to be clear I love me some MtG, so I am not criticizing the model or the industry. That said, if weighing the packs as a viable strategy became common knowledge and is even a marginally reliable method for gaming the system, then there would be a solid case to be made that the companies that produce that these cards need explicit countermeasures to prevent that strategy. If they don't, and there is a real secondary market, then there is nothing stopping an FLGS from selling individual packs from a box after having weighed all of the packs. The only way to protect yourself from the game being rigged would be to buy guaranteed unopened boxes.
  - derefr 5y ago
    > as do defenders of the "sport" People who buy Pokemon/MtG cards have an interesting relationship with WotC. They're usually perfectly willing to buy cards on the secondary market (which doesn't make WotC money) but they're constitutionally unable to play "real" (non-"casual") matches — even in tournaments WotC has no relationship to! — if the cards are https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Proxy_card https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Proxy_card s. I've never been clear on what the difference is. Both the secondary market, and proxies, result in perfectly usable cards, and result in WotC making no money from you. But one's acceptable to the community, while the other very much isn't. I have a feeling it's probably to do with the community having a lot of collectors in it, who want their rare cards to retain value, and who fear that that value would be lost if there's no reason to play with the card, only to hide it away in a binder while playing with a proxy.
nrook 5y ago
Indeed. The Pokémon Company is running a children's casino: it's hard to imagine a business model less ethical than that.
- yifanl 5y ago
  Keep in mind that The Pokemon Company don't make profit off of secondary sales, so they don't really have much incentive to make it a casino. In fact, I believe in the past they avoided this problem by printing cards to such capacity that prices don't dramatically rise due to lack of scarcity. (special circumstances like very old first edition prints still hold value for obvious reasons, but The Pokemon Company can't realistically make profit off of them now that they are out of print) Currently they aren't able to do so because of a combination of an insane increase in demand and COVID, but ultimately this seems like a temporary problem that fixes itself once they get facilities in order to meet the demand.
  - mhluongo 5y ago
    > Keep in mind that The Pokemon Company don't make profit off of secondary sales, so they don't really have much incentive to make it a casino. In fact, I believe in the past they avoided this problem by printing cards to such capacity that prices don't dramatically rise due to lack of scarcity. The fact that the card pack has a randomness element makes the card pack more valuable in the first place. This is exactly how gamification and random reward schedules drive revenue.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Lottery tickets don't get profit off of any secondary market either. I think you're focusing on the wrong part.
Djvacto 5y ago
Mostly because by taking the high value packs, one leaves nothing for the other players/collectors (especially children, for whom boosters are the only potential source of rare cards, since they're unlikely to have the funds nor internet access to buy individual cards online).

reedjosh 5y ago

Maybe card makers should add fluff to match the weights? Like a thin piece of paper in packs without foils?

bena 5y ago
That's difficult because of the way the cards are packed.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
I think they addressed it by just making one card in every pack foil, but keeping the chance you get a foil chase card the same.

salamandersauce 5y ago

What I find humorous about it is Pokemon puts these code cards that give you a booster in the online game. They have a greyish one and a green one. If you get a green one you got a foil 100% in the pack so what I don't get is why don't they just make the grey one thicker to compensate for the weight difference?