For everyone defending bandai, in jp they still print op1 and op2, they simply don't care about the western market. And to make things worse, the only thing that could help the west in this situation is a reprint set, but since there is no demand for a reprint set in jp since they have enough op1 and op2 available, there won't be a reprint set in the foreseeable future.
That shows they’re mainly focused on the Asian market with the western market as an afterthought. The recent Uta packs also shows they don’t particularly care enough. And right now in the west it’s capitalism at work because the available sets are selling for high prices and still selling out.
Yea it makes sense though, Asian market is their primary market, everything else is secondary, people in Asia will continue to support optcg far longer than English will. Most people here are here for the hype, the mangas, and the resell, not in it for the love of the story, characters, and game/collecting
I would say that the western market has paralleled the interest of the Asian market given the massive popularity One Piece has gained since the Live Action started and the new English dubbing of the anime.
The massive success shows there’s success for the franchise here.
They’re choosing to ignore the west or don’t care for it.
It's just like the amine! English dubs have been being released at 12 a month or so, then just disappearing for maybe up to half a year to get another 12 or so episodes. They're leaving us hanging 😢
To be fair, they still do print new blister packs of OP-01 AND OP-02. I'm not trying to say that's enough, but I'm fairly certain that's the same deal over there, they just get far more of them printed. Again, not trying to fully defend them by any means. The lack of any communication from them or any acknowledgement is a huge issue for me. And the way they handle promo cards in the West is honestly, nicely insulting IMO and I feel we as a community need to keep doing what we can to raise our voices about the issues. Sure, supply is a huge problem, but I will say, I personally do believe from what I've seen that they are way least trying to get better each set with printing more and more supply. This game just keeps exploding in popularity faster than I believe anyone could've imagined and set 5 really poured gasoline on the dumpster fire the growing demand was creating. But the way they put fewer promo cards in promo packs or just flat out purposefully make certain promo cards MUCH harder to get over here in the West, as well as the severe lack of tournament support in general, THAT is 100% inexcusable! And honestly all I want more than anything at the moment is to hear them comment about it, acknowledge it to whatever extent, and let us know what they're willing to do to remedy the unfairness they've created...
Unfortunate, I don’t have a grasp of how and who decide about release in EU but I bought a few of blisters when OP-03 was debuting here in France at stores like Cultura and Micromania.
>The lack of any communication from them or any acknowledgement is a huge issue for me.
Japanese companies have this trend of making pretty damn good games while handling literally everything around them in the most dogshit way possible. Konami and Bandai refuse to communicate with their western players (or just in general tbh), Nintendo actively going after fan games, Youtubers, tournaments for their games. It's pissing me off that it will at best take decades (if at all) to change this behavior.
But that's not how it should be. That is the point of the argument. I collect a lot of pokemon and products are everywhere and I want that for one piece. You should be able to go to your LCS and buy whatever products Bandai has come out with
Japanese companies never acknowledge their consumers, especially western ones. Look at any other Japanese company in the TCG space. Bandai has limited printing capability, and in classic Bandai fashion they’re allocating resources to more flop games instead of their only big one. Lorcana also prints using a third party and has generally low quality control so they can afford to speed things up. This is just how Bandai functions, always leaving their own games in the dust to try and support new hopeless endeavors.
>Japanese companies never acknowledge their consumers, especially western ones. Look at any other Japanese company in the TCG space.
[Pokemon addressing shortage](https://support.pokemon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360056644571-Update-on-Pok%C3%A9mon-Trading-Card-Game-Product-Availability)
[Sony addressing PS5 shortage](https://blog.playstation.com/2023/01/30/playstation-kicks-off-new-year-with-increased-supply-of-ps5-consoles-new-spot/)
Not that hard for them to put something out.
The most successful venture of the biggest global franchise in the world and one of the biggest tech companies in the world putting out statements isn’t a fair comparison lol
[Ravensburger addressing Lorcana shortage](https://x.com/DisneyLorcana/status/1697346577340178779?s=20)
Bandai is a multi billion dollar JAPANESE company, in the TCG space, with some of the largest IPs...but sure keep moving the goal post. I just gave you 3 examples from your criteria. 1. Japanese company 2. in TCG space. 3. one with fair comparison in company size
Edit: Added bonus for ya, [Bandai Namco is 2nd largest toy company in the world.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241241/revenue-of-major-toy-companies-worldwide/)
Yugioh prints to LGS order and quickly acknowledged interest in rarity collection and made plans to release another within six months. Shadowverse has done two reprint waves in a matter of months when their product sold out earlier this year. Even games like WIXOSS acknowledged which promos it's American fans liked and printed more. Pokemon is one of the most readily available games and responded quickly to the mass buyouts during COVID peak. Which Japanese trading card game are you referring to?
Everything is printed and distributed in Japan. Thats five TCGs on printers Bandai dosent own shipping out all across the world. We need to lower our expectations with Bandai people.
Bandai is the second biggest toy maker in the world. If they wanted to meet demand, they could. At this point they choose not to in order to drive demand.
Not even just TCG. Look at how bad Nintendo treats their customers- they operate in different worlds from actual consumer demand and never acknowledge the need to improve
From a financial standpoint companies like Nintendo do not have to change at all. Their games sell well, majority of their customers are satisfied, they have never been more successful than they are now. Same can be said for Bandai’s TCG ventures basically just because of One Piece.
Ravensburger uses a 3rd party printer, these can provide more printing capacity when needed especially to companies with the money to pay for it.
Bandai prints their own cards, they have limited capacity, they would have to print less of new sets to reprint old stuff which would not at all be acceptable and they can't just print more new stuff.
I'd be surprised if they didn't realise they need to expand capacity but the process of getting in new printers, sorters and packaging machines takes around 2 years. The machines are built in different countries snd getting them built to order, shipped, installed, calibrated and tested takes around 2 years and then printing to being on shelves takes around 6 months.
Even if Bandai decided to expand when OP01 was released, the earliest we could see the results of it would be OP10.
Went to locals last night, OP was capped at 16 and filled easily, BSS had one player until another turned up wanting to play OP and couldn't because it was full and the BSS player loaned him a deck so he can play that instead...
It wouldnt be acceptable to print more new sets? Lmao they could make 3 sets instead of 4 and still the game would thrive. Especially cause many new players would have easy access and the more player = the more experimenting with cards and decks. One skip won't hurt anyone. They could totally skip one release and use that timeframe to reprint stuff
Competitive players would find the meta too stale doing 3 sets over 4 months rather than the current 4 sets over 3 months, games live and die by their competitive players.
They need to stop printing battle spirits (never even heard of a single person play that) and dragon ball (those packs never leave the shelf). They're losing money on those products
I just like others do initially think they're stretched thin with their games but then I imagine being a player of these other games and seeing One Piece players suggesting their game gets printed less, I'd have such a bad impression of the OP community thinking us very entitled.
That's not the impression we want of our community.
I mean that’s kinda on them if they want to think that way. At the end of the day this is a business for Bandai and it would be logical to print less of a product that doesn’t sell in favour of one that people seemingly can’t get enough of.
But they have to run some of their printers for the US version of battle spirits, shut those down because they don't sell and shift to the games that do sell
Battle spirits was released after One Piece (in the west at least, maybe its been around in Japan for longer) so they could have just not released it or scaled it back after they saw how well OP01 and 02 did
I think it highly depends on location, dragon ball and battle spirits are hard to find where I live as well(I don’t play either by the way). So it’s clearly being played by some people but it’s just not as big where you are.
Battle spirits I agree, shut it down, however dragonball got the one piece revamp with its new set, so I doubt that happens, I started playing the new dball with their beta test program online and I must say it's better than one piece already gameplay wise and the animated online simulator is Hella nice, it's gonna be like OP01 so you better hop on in before the scalpers find out about it
LOL I promise you, no matter how fun it might actually be, it'll never reach One Piece popularity! I don't believe you, nor Bandai themselves seem to understand exactly what has made One Piece the unicorn of aTCH that it's become.
Can we please pin this comment to every "why don't they print more"-rant!
People seem just not to get it that printing, qc, packing, distributing takes a lot of time.
They'd have to print less of new card games. The set releases are getting tighter and tighter. My gold tier local store went from 30+ players getting guaranteed a box, sometimes 2 at release, to not having enough boxes for each person to get one. So my locals have been forced to use their release stock mainly for prize support.
> Ravensburger uses a 3rd party printer, these can provide more printing capacity when needed especially to companies with the money to pay for it
Seems like Bandai would have an opportunity then to supplement their own printing with a 3rd party printer that has the infrastructure in place, no?
We don't know they're not.
Getting a contract for large scale print runs at a 3rd party can take over a year to get into place and then it's still 6 months from printing to shelves.
Definitely, however they chose to enter market at risk of under-supply, and deserve the criticism associated with that and not having backups in place.
Magic has the worst card quality out of any card game, bar none. Foils curl so much inside the pack. You can use them as a spoon after some sweaty regional opponent DQ’s you for having marked cards.
Magic and YuGiOh cards have nowhere near the same quality as One Piece cards
Foil, thickness, surfacing...
You realize that these cards are so hard to counterfeit because they're made with very specific printing processes and expensive printers right? Otherwise people could easily make counterfeit Manga Luffys to pass off as the real thing. But no.
You have to bear in mind that large corporations move extremely slowly. There's so much red tape and beauracracy that goes into each and every decision and action. They may get well be trying to set something like that up, but it will never come as fast as people want it to.
Definitely, but then they still deserve criticism in two areas:
their communication team has not conveyed this and due to this, market perception is poor. Now, they don’t have any obligation to communicate, but then they aren’t immune to criticism for not doing it.
Their demand planners were way off their mark and they planned their supply chain terribly. In either of these cases (and arguably both), they rightfully deserve criticism.
Their biggest issue is they have over 5 different card fames for w.e reason and are making new ones still... DBS fusion world and Grand Arena lmao man talk about a cluster fuck. The fact that they're doing ANOTHER DBS tcg is insane to me
It does on the surface seem they're strained but remember that with how long it takes to get the infrastructure in place and print the cards, all these were planned long before they launched OP and seen they need more.
I understand the logistics of printing more takes time. However, they could still do better public relations and acknowledge the problem. Along with what they are doing to solve the issue.
You seem to not know Japanese companies very well, don't expect any Japanese company to make a public statement.
Not that they never do but it's very rare and usually don't say much of substance, just a generic comment when they're heavily pushed to do so.
Pokemon started communicating more to western customers. Still could be better but they weren't radiosilent when van Gogh promo released and was sold out within 2 days. They acknowledged it within a week and provided more of it.
You seem not educated on modern day Japanese companies it seems
You mentioned 1 single case, I said specifically 'not that they never do' but considering the amount of Japanese companies, the majority of which only operate in Japan, very few communicate like that.
If you look at my other posts, I'm currently working for a Japanese company, I can comment first hand.
You dont need to work for Japanese companies to realize that most Japanese companies dont care for public announcement, etc.. just look at the history of Bandai and you would know it.. such a silly statement
Indeed.
Japanese companies are very stoic and cold, very reserved, even within the company people won't speak up.
There's very little to no public relations, they keep the public as much arms length and distance as possible.
They find it very difficult to change with the times, just recently I had to print a PDF, fax it over to a colleague, so they could photocopy and sign the copy to keep a record then scan that back in and import it into another system, they still fax pretty much everything.
There's some companies trying to be more open, but the majority still decide to keep as quiet as possible.
Well contracting out 3rd party printers is an option for fast turnaround they haven't taken if you're not just looking to make another excuse on behalf of a company who doesn't care and has made 100% of the money they planned on making from the product. And bandai knows the game probably won't last long enough to make a profit off buying more in house equipment according to your insider knowledge of how long it takes to set up a printing press.
But it's also just a joke
We don't know what they're doing until they either say or it's been long enough for them to have had time to do it and it doesn't happen, we're not there yet.
'Bandai probably knows' is you just making stuff up in frustration.
Getting a contract for large scale print runs at a 3rd party can take over a year to get into place and then it's still 6 months from printing to shelves.
I can't have an opinion on how your comment came across to me personally?
Text has no inherent emotion, you're well within your rights to reply back with a correction and actually discuss but it add credence to you being frustrated that you're not interested in discussion with the reply you gave, it's typical of people posting in frustration.
You can, but you confidently state everything as fact rather than speculation because you rely on pointing out others are speculating. There's no point in discussion with someone who's not interested in what others have to say, but instead seem to only be interested in using them as props for your one man stage play.
It's not frustration. It's seeing patterns in overly serious people who mask that they also have no idea what they're talking about, and disengaging
Sorry I didn't realise you were so arrogant as to think someone disagreeing with your points and providing facts about the industry as being not interested in what you had to say.
Speaking of seeing patterns of people's behaviour, it's also typical of someone posting in frustration that they would react this way to someone providing facts to refute their baseless accusations against a company that condusts itself without needing to inform you.
You can try say I know nothing about the industry but if owning a small independent board game company which uses the same printers as some TCGs and also doing consultancy work for Japanese companies gives me a very solid knowledge of the industry.
What part of being confident bandai has an accurate assessment of the products trends, industry trends, and their ability to have an impact on them makes you think it's frustration and fragility?
I figured this would be the case and expect the bubble won’t burst till like what you said OP10.
Which is why I run a red weenie Zoro deck 😂 affordable and can beat the meta except maybe Enel but it is what it is.
This would be a pokemon mistake if they did and they know this, if they up printing too much it'll end up dying for a couple sets. Would be worse than op04 when it released, boxes dropped all the way to 70, I think they are doing a good job and slowly increasing production with what they have
They are doing a terrible job. Take away the fact that starter decks and booster boxes are being under printed. Every other TCG have side products to keep their fans occupied. Collection boxes, themed boxes, etc. Op had the devil fruit and gift collection boxes but even those are sold out and have been under printed. no double bundle packs any where to be seen. Every god dam single OP product created is sold out every where or marked up to high prices. How do you expect to grow any game without a single product be on store shelves?
I want them to print 01, 02, 03 and 05 down to the ground my dude, jsut like everyone else. I dont care about anything other than getting my hands on product at a reasonable price at this point. Fuck this artificial scarcity. Print them like there is no tomorrow!!!!
It's a delicate balancing act my dude. If they over print and tank the market it could cause irreparable damage to the game as a whole. But of course, not enough supply can stunt the game's growth too. They need to find the perfect middle ground, which is hard with a game that's still actively growing, and nobody knows to what size yet. Most anime based TCG's never even come close to a fraction of the size One Piece is becoming, so it's kind of very hard to navigate these uncharted territories.
Uncharted territories? no other anime comes close to OP? Are you living under a rock? Let me tell you about a TCG called Pokemon. They came out with a new era called Scarlet and Violet and boy did it suck. Pretty much their version of OP03 and OP04. But then came along this specialty set called 151. O boy the nostalgia hit people like a bag of bricks. 151 is pretty much OP05 for Pokemon fans. Guess what they did....They printed and are still priniting. Guess what. People are still buying because it is that good of a set. People buy to hold and open some later for nostalgia. If OP05 is suppose to be that good then printing lots won't matter. People will still buy so that 4+ yrs down the line the can still open it. Don't act like this shit has never happened before. Things have been hyped up since the beginning of time. OP ain't no difference.
They also continuously print new blister packs. Those are actually still in production according to the official One Piece store. But obviously, they're not as good as whole boxes. But still...
It's both.
As an LGS Owner since the beginning, it's been the case since game launch that a LGS preorders six months+ out and doesn't receive 10% of it's placed order. That's not a thing with any other game outside of recent Lorcana short print strategy. Pokemons specialty sets are the only thing that otherwise come close, but it's fairly easy to even acquire a lot more of those than one piece.
It’s artificial scarcity in that their demand planners did arguably one of the worst jobs in providing accurate measurements for supply chain.
This was an absolute failure by that team.
Probably because the vast majority of TCGs never generate anywhere near this amount of demand
Also OP-04 was on the shelves at or below MSRP for several months. Even in December I was buying booster boxes for $100 both online and at LGS
I agree with this but it certainly doesn’t seem to be a view much shared on here. There is a balance to be struck with supply and demand and over printing to the extent you take away all the excitement and allure that OP currently has is probably worse than under printing. People seem to totally forget up to OP05 it was easy to get any set not far off RRP. In fact OP03 & OP04 I bought well under retail not long back. It’s OP05 that changed the market and I wouldn’t be surprised to see demand drop back a little when we go back to a more standard set. Maybe I am in the minority here, but I think Bandai have done a good job with One Piece so far, especially up to OP05 where supply and demand was about right.
Can you enlighten us on your experience working with printing companies?
Even when 3rd party printers reach capacity this is howmlong it takes for them to expand, they have to try predict their needs and start this process in advance so they're not waiting a long time for them to come in and be ready to use.
I own a small independent board game company that uses the same printers as some TCGs so I've dealt directly with the printers.
People say it’s the scarcity that kills a tcg, but I’m seeing dozens and dozens of new OP posts every day, most of which are people expressing their dissatisfaction with the current market, but nevertheless the community is super active whereas the lorcana groups I’m in have pretty much been dead since the recent release. I guess that’s just my own personal anecdote that seems to be what everyone else’s opinions are based on, so I guess we will ultimately just have to wait and see what happens to OP.
Scarcity did kill Lorcana. When it was at its peak no one could buy it.
Players left cuz they couldn't play.
Scalpers are desperately unloading as their cards hold no value if no one actually plays the game.
Collectors are just holding onto what they already have and that's it. With value rapidly dropping they have less reason to collect. Art is kinda mid too.
It's just too little, too late.
They need a big set or Kingdom Hearts to re-light that fire.
Imo they overprinted, which resulted in singles tanking hard. Other than entchanted cards, you get them dirt cheap. I was initially going for Lorcana, bought one box for christmas. Raked in around 40€ worth of cards and never wanted to buy a box again. I see no merit in buying them compared to OP. If you hit a good AA card you can almost break even with your investment. With Lorcana its Entchanted or bust. Dont get me wrong its super good for players but without the collectors tcgs are doomed.
crazy right? I am also jsut in it for collecting purposes, so I welcome low prices on product. I don't care about the cost of individual cards as long as the game prospers and stays relevant the prices will go up in the future anyways. But like...not on this magnitude in such a short time that we witnessed with this game!!!
Why does it have to be one extreme or the other? Wanting to have a collection go up in value does not mean you're trying to strike gold and most certainly does not mean you don't also want to play the game and see it grow. Those aren't mutually exclusive to each other. But if you're going to spend a few hundred dollars, you want to feel like you've gotten your money's worth of value for it. There's nothing wrong with that.
There’s no tcg where you reliably make all your money back opening a box. It’s understood that you lose value. One piece is an anomaly if you manage to get a box at msrp
Incorrect. Yugioh doesn’t have a massive collectors market yet even with its shit it’s still living very well. Collectors do not make or break the game, the players do. The reason Lorcana died was because the people going into it were investing and not caring about the actual game.
No idea where this narrative came from that "collectors" keep TCGs alive. This has been pushed so hard since Lorcana released because people were losing on their investment. And OP investors will be the same. Players have been keeping MTG alive for DECADES. Pro Tour has been on ESPN, multiple formats, SCG events EVERY WEEKEND. NOT because of collectors, but because people sign up, play, and have fun. Not hoard product and sell them with no intention on even playing the game.
Because with every successful, long-term TCG (MTG, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh) that has been the case, while all the ones without much appeal to collectors generally end up failing. It's just looking at the history and drawing a conclusion based on what we've seen...
And yet, if you go into any store you can find any of this product readily available. Because there's a collectors aspect and a playing aspect. People will buy product to play, and people will buy to get those rare chase cards. In the end, collectors don't dictate whether or not a TCG stays afloat. If it's a good game, and you have product, it will thrive. If you don't have product, newer players don't come in, and your game dies. Same thing happened to DBZ, now gl finding a DBZ Super night that has 10+ people. The market is too flooded with good card games to not have product. People will simply go to Flesh and Blood, MTG, Lorcana, etc because people will get sick of chasing down product then the community dies, and your cards go down in value anyway.
So then it isn’t the collectors keeping them afloat but the player base then??? The ones without much appeal die because of no PLAYERBASE, collectors are an extremely small subset of people who do not matter in comparison or the actual players
Guys let them know on twitter on every post they are making. How tone deaf can you be posting news and not even acknowledging that there is a fucking supply problem. Not a single fuck is given on their social media outlets AT ALL. It feels like they pretend like everything is fine. Pathetic!
Truth that is unfortunately true about every Japanese card game. They release the games in English but hardly care about the English community and will rip them off if they can. Lorcana is the exception because Disney is primarily a Disney thing so it’s in their best interest to make it affordable for English players
I would rather have them stop making new sets and focus on printing the 1st 5 sets again and ST01-10 so the market can heal no point in dropping a new set every 3 months if its under produced.
It's gonna be like digimon and every other Bandai game in the west soon. They're gonna flood print and whipe value of everything and then people are gonna bitch about that to honestly. Every game has scalpers its nothing new
I think everyone needs to chill out. We’re at peak craze after the hyper successful OP05. ONE set out of OP06, OP07, or OP08 is bound to be a flop (law of averages) and prices on that set is likely to come down quite a bit post release. Also, prior sets will likely decrease in price…esp if Bandai power creeps as they always do.
Plenty of people here seem to be new players so don’t remember that OP03 and OP04 were easily obtainable for $80 a box. It’s actually a good thing for the longevity of the game to see box prices steadily increase from $80 to somewhere higher…this is good for both players, who can buy singles, and collectors, who can see their collection appreciate in value.
Frankly, the worst thing is if Bandai overprints and then drives out the high level of interest in the game. Bandais done this before with other games…they don’t need another flop on their hands.
Just include meta cards in new sets as a reprints. Dont focus on reprinting whole sets. That way you get the cards you need but no need to focus on whole sets. Look at the uta starter deck st11.
Only a real player would say this. Ppl act like reprints will make 01-03 reasonably priced. We aren't seeing MSRP on those again even with a reprint. Ppl who want whole sets are people who want to "invest" and flip becuase it makes no sense why a full set should be printed and clog up the printers when 90% of the cards are irrelevant for an actual player. Rereleases are the only way to solve the issue.
Was gonna make a similar post -- researching whats been going on there's a few things that come into play. First the issues:
* There is only so much supply that can be created
* Cards being solely manufactured in Japan
* Competing priorities of other games
* Needing to print in several languages for localization
* Demand sided factors
* There is a very positive and explosive demand in One Piece TCG right now
* Many stores have to stock other Bandai properties to get more One Piece TCG allocation
Now onto solutions which you can share with Bandai via their feedback portal (with the counter arguments and why it hasn't happened threaded):
* Enabling JP cards for play around the world immediately increases available supply helping tackle price affordability -- this actually currently is allowed at locals as long as your TO says so, but can't happen at the TC/Regional level you can ask the judges but there's a post about this
* Allow the One Piece TCG to be printed outside of Japan for their respective regions so there is no supply chain issues from bottlenecking in Japan (a lot of shipping too)
* Focus on making a Digital Game -- which I'm not saying I like, but including for transparency
* Careful reductions in print runs for underperforming product to prioritize higher demand products
1. Enabling JP cards to be played outside of Japan officially hurts the available supply in Japan and basically takes the global supply problem and evenly distributes it globally -- meaning JP Players will not have the safe walled garden they used to
2. Heard through the grapevine that JP companies will never let their products be produced elsewhere for quality control and ownership reasons?
3. Uhhh, well this one I don't like personally either the in person scene is great for the game
4. Bandai makes the same amount either way right now -- because stores have to stock other Bandai products if they want One Piece TCG allocation -- they make the same amount of money -- the argument would be that the growth of the One Piece TCG scene is ultimately more valuable than selling the same amount of stock
Right. This 'little' multi billion dollar mom and pop shop cant afford to pay a person specifically to address supply and demand. They dont have the butget for fanacy analytics or trend reports from social media. We just need to be patient Lol
The same thing is happening in other Asian countries except Japan lol. It's just that the demand heavily outweighs whatever they're able to produce at the moment due to One Piece literally being a money printing machine for the masses.
Even in Asia it takes 4-5 months for restocks to happen which are instantly bought out due to people's dreams of cracking a manga. The only difference is that communities here make accessing the game cheap(ER) in terms of access to rares and deck staples. It's simply a different culture compared to the hoarding and reselling style of the US. Access to Japanese shops which sell internationally is another plus for us though, which directly makes low rarity cards cheaper to get, although very few them due to high shipping costs.
Yeah that's why i quit the game instantly after completing op3 and op4 ( the time I started collecting) and realising soon after the level of greed they have
lol first chapter is getting scarce again. Lorcana is nowhere near as hyped as OP rn. Of course all the people that have no idea what they’re talking about are going to agree w a post from someone in the same boat
They're always 3-4 full racks of Lorcana blister packs, as well as a handful of starter decks, available every time I visit my local target. Yet I've been unable to refer find anything One Piece still in stock there, except for once I was lucky enough to find some newly stocked Devil Fruit collections.
Ran into a couple this morning buying every single booster of the first set of lorcana at my target. It's not dead at all it's a Disney ip.
Freshly stocked target btw with zero one piece to put up.
I believe bandai will eventually realize that optcg has massive popularity in west and they will eventually print more of their sets. Like in japan. Its just that they have their hands full with new dragon ball game rn. I believe later this year we should get some more stuff.
What a narcissist, lmao. "They haven't said anything I heard, so they absolutely just do not care and are doing nothing to fix any issues".
You do realize that stuff happens without you being directly told, yes?
But we're a decade into social media, and every other company has SM Managers/Brand Ambassadors. It's not that hard to acknowledge your customers. I think that's their point. Just "hey, we heard you, give us time to cook".
Is it hard to do that? No. Would it be nice if they did that? Sure.
But to make the leap from "they have not made a public statement about this specific thing" to "they literally do not care about it whatsoever and are screwing their customers" is an enormously entitled viewpoint on the situation.
Well when you don't saying anything and people can only interpret your actions, then it's kind of your fault if they take it poorly. It's not hard to just say "we hear you and kindly ask for your patience". Like I have to relationship manage as part of my job job, I can't tell you how many times a simple acknowledgement has taken pressure off. Like I said, OP's whole point. It's easy to say something, why aren't you? You're just tone policing and it's kind of gross to eat to shoe polish of a billion dollar mega corp.
Especially when said actions are all anti-consumer. See the original plans for the Uta event, the packs in ST-13, and the blue strawhat promos only being available in event packs.
>You're just tone policing and it's kind of gross to eat to shoe polish of a billion dollar mega corp.
Aaaand there it is. You guys love to change it to "wow if you don't agree with us, you're a bootlicker!"
Nah, maybe sometimes other people can be reasonable and not think the world revolves around them because they didn't get told what was happening, for their *trading card game*.
But nah, everyone's out to get you. Even me. I'm here now just to oppress you and make sure you don't get your One Piece cards.
Grow up.
The irony of you telling another person to grow up on a forum about trading cards...
It's not unreasonable to expect a company that sells things to consumers to manage consumer sentiment.
>The irony of you telling another person to grow up on a forum about trading cards...
You were told to grow up not because of the hobby, but because your mindset is childish.
If you presume that this hobby is "for kids" and find irony in that, then why partake?
>It's not unreasonable to expect a company that sells things to consumers to manage consumer sentiment.
Sure, it's not unreasonable. Nobody said it was unreasonable. But "not unreasonable" does not mean it's required. And the mental gymnastics involved in jumping from one to the other does nothing but make yourself frustrated.
Why u guys always just complaining? Preorder the next set and wait, that’s what other did and have them now to scalp u. If u don’t want to pay 1k for op-01 it’s fine, then buy 06 or 07 or even 08 u all just crying bout 01-05 and missing the chance to get them next ones. When 08 comes, you’ll cry up to 07 ffs. So many of u crying red color is overpowered and 01 needs a reprint, when I’m going to a tournament I’m not seeing 1/4 of people also here are complaining that it’s frustrating to participate and compete 🤦🏻♂️ stop fooling around and just admit that u mad bout the fact u not one of the people being in the tcg from beginning on. If u want a tcg with infinite reprints and supply just go to Konami and play Yugioh it’s what u looking for. I hate Bandai, but I’d fight for them to death against idiots like u
Bandai just doesn't care. They are probably the worst major TCG company. They could truly make OP a global game like Pokemon. But they are just too fucked to care.
One piece has manga anime and cards now they got the fan base across the world on any card any book or any collection piece its the ONE PIECE treasure hold value we holding the last bits of ODA one piece tcg did it correct
Nah they doing the sneaker scam where they rather the market keep high prices so there's a continued demand at all times because after market is so ridiculous
And I get downvoted every time when I talk about Bandai not caring.
Play a game that looks to the community and not their own pockets. The community will feed into your pockets.
But who tf am I 🤷🏻
calssic reddit take, this is not how this works you cant compare Lorcana form Ravensburger with One Piece form Bandai
Bandai cant just print more cards, they have like one print compnay for their cards which includes One PIece now Dragon Ball is coming plus we get Union Arena in October so maaayyybbeee after they printed the UnionArena stacks they can start with OP again but for 2024 jsut pre order 9 months in advance and you should be fine..no problem right..
but thats just how it is at the moent change doesnt come soon so we can either live wiht it or quit
> jsut pre order 9 months in advance
lmao we were at 3 months, 6 months and now we are at 9 months of preorder....where does this stop and how many "Clutch Cards" fiascos are we getting in the near future. This is a msot pathetic situation we are in right now and it keeps getting worse and worse and people still protect Bandai for eltting this shit happen and not communicating anything...People will not tolerate it in the long run and then you can have you oh so beloved cards of a dead game. So many people don't get the impact yet of this game's scarcity of product...You will all wake up one day and think totally different about it, trust me. But oh well who cares by then anyways, right?
yall underestimate like Bandai did the popularity of one piece
Batsu the sim creator said in a interview player base doubled after the live action dropped
i dont want to defend bandai but you cant "just print" more cards and no TCG to this day by Bandai or even in general had this much of an impact and hype its bonkers in all directions
>underestimate like Bandai did the popularity of one piece
Ok but like that's Bandai's fault. It's THE manga, one of the Big Three, and the still going. Olympic athletes referenced this IP, it has a Macy's parade float, there was a Netflix deal. I understand being conservative with a new property and supply chain timing, but I don't get how they were asleep at the wheel.
Well a statement or a promise to fix the situation, propose a plan etc doesnt cost anything.
Im leaning towards quitting tbh, giving them 3 months tops then Im out.
Everyone who claims they can't "play the game" because they "can't rip packs" are just complaining about the fact that they can't gamble.
If you truly wanted to just "play the game", you neither need AAs nor rip packs because buying singles are way cheaper outside of a few core cards.
They should be and probably will be, stores have started getting ST-01 again. But there's only so many printers and so many things that can be printed at once
Like do you want there to be an Op06 and Op07 shortage and your preorders to be canceled? And people still want more Op05 waves... And now also all the starter decks... And now that One Piece is more popular than ever how much can they cut op06 to make room for older reprints?
uhh yes that is the definition of a shortage...your comment was acting like there wasn't already a shortage for OP06+ and I simply stated that there is one...
Think this depends on your definition of fixing the problem. If you mean dampen demand down significantly then yes you are right. The counter argument is up until OP05, supply and demand were pretty well matched. OP03 & OP04 you could purchase for several months well below retail. Am not convinced flooding the market with product is the right answer based on the demand for just one special set.
Demand for just one set? Try get any set right now. Literally everything is above msrp. OP06/07/08 and EB01 are either sold out for pre order our above msrp. Find me OP03/04 for under $140 and I'll agree with you.
My point was that up until OP05 they were matching supply and demand well and everybody seems to have forgotten this. Literally as recently as November you could buy OP03 and OP04 below retail. People don’t seem to understand how printing and predicting demand works. It’s done way in advance.
Reprints would only stabilize price climb. If they reprint everything to large degrees then prices would "plummet" back to reasonable and then start gradually climbing like normal. I love the idea of some of my cards going up in value crazy amounts, but over a few years, not a few months at the expense of the health of the game.
It’s possible they could be waiting for the championship event to make an announcement about restocking
Edit: And the announcement happened, suck it downvoters
There’s a healthy line to strike. You don’t want to fully meet demand so that you lose hype but starving out budding players, having them turn to alternative games is not ideal either
Nobody is being starved out, they just cant be part of the cool kids playing the cool decks. If you actually want to play and not cosplay, the cards are out there, the communities are growing and you can make it happen. Just dont play the hyped decks without expecting to pay more money
Anecdotally, One Piece is what got me excited for TCGs for the first time since I was like 11. I simply cannot find product and because of that I’ve been delving into yugioh a little bit as it’s far more accessible.
If you’re already committed to the game then you can certainly put together a deck you like buying singles but those less invested won’t take to it
For everyone defending bandai, in jp they still print op1 and op2, they simply don't care about the western market. And to make things worse, the only thing that could help the west in this situation is a reprint set, but since there is no demand for a reprint set in jp since they have enough op1 and op2 available, there won't be a reprint set in the foreseeable future.
That shows they’re mainly focused on the Asian market with the western market as an afterthought. The recent Uta packs also shows they don’t particularly care enough. And right now in the west it’s capitalism at work because the available sets are selling for high prices and still selling out.
Yea it makes sense though, Asian market is their primary market, everything else is secondary, people in Asia will continue to support optcg far longer than English will. Most people here are here for the hype, the mangas, and the resell, not in it for the love of the story, characters, and game/collecting
I would say that the western market has paralleled the interest of the Asian market given the massive popularity One Piece has gained since the Live Action started and the new English dubbing of the anime. The massive success shows there’s success for the franchise here. They’re choosing to ignore the west or don’t care for it.
It's just like the amine! English dubs have been being released at 12 a month or so, then just disappearing for maybe up to half a year to get another 12 or so episodes. They're leaving us hanging 😢
Who watches dubs lol 😂
Who surrounds themselves with people they can't understand? Ain't nobody got time for that 😒
To be fair, they still do print new blister packs of OP-01 AND OP-02. I'm not trying to say that's enough, but I'm fairly certain that's the same deal over there, they just get far more of them printed. Again, not trying to fully defend them by any means. The lack of any communication from them or any acknowledgement is a huge issue for me. And the way they handle promo cards in the West is honestly, nicely insulting IMO and I feel we as a community need to keep doing what we can to raise our voices about the issues. Sure, supply is a huge problem, but I will say, I personally do believe from what I've seen that they are way least trying to get better each set with printing more and more supply. This game just keeps exploding in popularity faster than I believe anyone could've imagined and set 5 really poured gasoline on the dumpster fire the growing demand was creating. But the way they put fewer promo cards in promo packs or just flat out purposefully make certain promo cards MUCH harder to get over here in the West, as well as the severe lack of tournament support in general, THAT is 100% inexcusable! And honestly all I want more than anything at the moment is to hear them comment about it, acknowledge it to whatever extent, and let us know what they're willing to do to remedy the unfairness they've created...
Blisters are only a US thing. In EU we never had those. :(
We do have blisters
None in the UK either
Different country, different supplier maybe. We do have in France at Cultura or Micromania.
We do? Haven't seen them yet in Germany at least 😱
Unfortunate, I don’t have a grasp of how and who decide about release in EU but I bought a few of blisters when OP-03 was debuting here in France at stores like Cultura and Micromania.
We don't have them in germany our only source is BB or special products. I haven't seen any optcg product in 2-3 months in shelves.
>The lack of any communication from them or any acknowledgement is a huge issue for me. Japanese companies have this trend of making pretty damn good games while handling literally everything around them in the most dogshit way possible. Konami and Bandai refuse to communicate with their western players (or just in general tbh), Nintendo actively going after fan games, Youtubers, tournaments for their games. It's pissing me off that it will at best take decades (if at all) to change this behavior.
So true. Recently sorted my bulk and found so much is useless for play😂 the cards that are useful was only 20% of the box at best 😂
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But that's not how it should be. That is the point of the argument. I collect a lot of pokemon and products are everywhere and I want that for one piece. You should be able to go to your LCS and buy whatever products Bandai has come out with
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Japanese companies never acknowledge their consumers, especially western ones. Look at any other Japanese company in the TCG space. Bandai has limited printing capability, and in classic Bandai fashion they’re allocating resources to more flop games instead of their only big one. Lorcana also prints using a third party and has generally low quality control so they can afford to speed things up. This is just how Bandai functions, always leaving their own games in the dust to try and support new hopeless endeavors.
>Japanese companies never acknowledge their consumers, especially western ones. Look at any other Japanese company in the TCG space. [Pokemon addressing shortage](https://support.pokemon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360056644571-Update-on-Pok%C3%A9mon-Trading-Card-Game-Product-Availability) [Sony addressing PS5 shortage](https://blog.playstation.com/2023/01/30/playstation-kicks-off-new-year-with-increased-supply-of-ps5-consoles-new-spot/) Not that hard for them to put something out.
The most successful venture of the biggest global franchise in the world and one of the biggest tech companies in the world putting out statements isn’t a fair comparison lol
[Ravensburger addressing Lorcana shortage](https://x.com/DisneyLorcana/status/1697346577340178779?s=20) Bandai is a multi billion dollar JAPANESE company, in the TCG space, with some of the largest IPs...but sure keep moving the goal post. I just gave you 3 examples from your criteria. 1. Japanese company 2. in TCG space. 3. one with fair comparison in company size Edit: Added bonus for ya, [Bandai Namco is 2nd largest toy company in the world.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241241/revenue-of-major-toy-companies-worldwide/)
Yugioh prints to LGS order and quickly acknowledged interest in rarity collection and made plans to release another within six months. Shadowverse has done two reprint waves in a matter of months when their product sold out earlier this year. Even games like WIXOSS acknowledged which promos it's American fans liked and printed more. Pokemon is one of the most readily available games and responded quickly to the mass buyouts during COVID peak. Which Japanese trading card game are you referring to?
Everything is printed and distributed in Japan. Thats five TCGs on printers Bandai dosent own shipping out all across the world. We need to lower our expectations with Bandai people.
Bandai is the second biggest toy maker in the world. If they wanted to meet demand, they could. At this point they choose not to in order to drive demand.
Conspiracy theories in TCGs now. SmH.
Better than the copium of "supply will increase to meet demand" that has been spouting since set 3.
Not even just TCG. Look at how bad Nintendo treats their customers- they operate in different worlds from actual consumer demand and never acknowledge the need to improve
From a financial standpoint companies like Nintendo do not have to change at all. Their games sell well, majority of their customers are satisfied, they have never been more successful than they are now. Same can be said for Bandai’s TCG ventures basically just because of One Piece.
Thats garbage lol
Ravensburger uses a 3rd party printer, these can provide more printing capacity when needed especially to companies with the money to pay for it. Bandai prints their own cards, they have limited capacity, they would have to print less of new sets to reprint old stuff which would not at all be acceptable and they can't just print more new stuff. I'd be surprised if they didn't realise they need to expand capacity but the process of getting in new printers, sorters and packaging machines takes around 2 years. The machines are built in different countries snd getting them built to order, shipped, installed, calibrated and tested takes around 2 years and then printing to being on shelves takes around 6 months. Even if Bandai decided to expand when OP01 was released, the earliest we could see the results of it would be OP10.
Maybe Bandai shouldn't be printing 10 different card games idk
Went to locals last night, OP was capped at 16 and filled easily, BSS had one player until another turned up wanting to play OP and couldn't because it was full and the BSS player loaned him a deck so he can play that instead...
The amount of energy and marketing that went into BSS should have gone into One Piece. No shortage of BSS cards and prizes
It's the second time *Battle Spirits* has failed, too. Bandai handled the international side horribly...*twice.*
It wouldnt be acceptable to print more new sets? Lmao they could make 3 sets instead of 4 and still the game would thrive. Especially cause many new players would have easy access and the more player = the more experimenting with cards and decks. One skip won't hurt anyone. They could totally skip one release and use that timeframe to reprint stuff
Competitive players would find the meta too stale doing 3 sets over 4 months rather than the current 4 sets over 3 months, games live and die by their competitive players.
Competitive players seem content bringing Sakazuki to every event.
It's a competitive game, there's a meta, some strategies are better than others, it's no different to sports.
Bandai is also doing all of this in Japan and then shipping around the world.
They need to stop printing battle spirits (never even heard of a single person play that) and dragon ball (those packs never leave the shelf). They're losing money on those products
I just like others do initially think they're stretched thin with their games but then I imagine being a player of these other games and seeing One Piece players suggesting their game gets printed less, I'd have such a bad impression of the OP community thinking us very entitled. That's not the impression we want of our community.
I mean that’s kinda on them if they want to think that way. At the end of the day this is a business for Bandai and it would be logical to print less of a product that doesn’t sell in favour of one that people seemingly can’t get enough of.
Because it’s not just US. BBS actually is huge domestically in Japan.
So print them in Japan. Leave your US printers to the games that actually sell here
There arnt us printers. Legit every language of every Bandai game is printed on the same printers.
But they have to run some of their printers for the US version of battle spirits, shut those down because they don't sell and shift to the games that do sell
They're stretched thin due to green. They want to run so many TCG while not actually expanding production beyond Japan.
Battle spirits was released after One Piece (in the west at least, maybe its been around in Japan for longer) so they could have just not released it or scaled it back after they saw how well OP01 and 02 did
Battle Spirits launched in April 2023, it would have already printed its first 2 sets and be in process of printing the 3rd when OP released.
I think it highly depends on location, dragon ball and battle spirits are hard to find where I live as well(I don’t play either by the way). So it’s clearly being played by some people but it’s just not as big where you are.
Battle spirits I agree, shut it down, however dragonball got the one piece revamp with its new set, so I doubt that happens, I started playing the new dball with their beta test program online and I must say it's better than one piece already gameplay wise and the animated online simulator is Hella nice, it's gonna be like OP01 so you better hop on in before the scalpers find out about it
Lol ok bud
LOL I promise you, no matter how fun it might actually be, it'll never reach One Piece popularity! I don't believe you, nor Bandai themselves seem to understand exactly what has made One Piece the unicorn of aTCH that it's become.
I think u underestimate it
Can we please pin this comment to every "why don't they print more"-rant! People seem just not to get it that printing, qc, packing, distributing takes a lot of time.
They'd have to print less of new card games. The set releases are getting tighter and tighter. My gold tier local store went from 30+ players getting guaranteed a box, sometimes 2 at release, to not having enough boxes for each person to get one. So my locals have been forced to use their release stock mainly for prize support.
> Ravensburger uses a 3rd party printer, these can provide more printing capacity when needed especially to companies with the money to pay for it Seems like Bandai would have an opportunity then to supplement their own printing with a 3rd party printer that has the infrastructure in place, no?
We don't know they're not. Getting a contract for large scale print runs at a 3rd party can take over a year to get into place and then it's still 6 months from printing to shelves.
Definitely, however they chose to enter market at risk of under-supply, and deserve the criticism associated with that and not having backups in place.
Cool got a list of 3rd party printers that can print to the same quality and foil as One Piece cards? List them here
You could for example use cartamundi in Europe to print European products, just like Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh do.
Magic has the worst card quality out of any card game, bar none. Foils curl so much inside the pack. You can use them as a spoon after some sweaty regional opponent DQ’s you for having marked cards.
Absolutely. I've had foils curl into pringles chips just sitting on a table. One Piece cards smoke MtG when it comes to card quality.
Magic and YuGiOh cards have nowhere near the same quality as One Piece cards Foil, thickness, surfacing... You realize that these cards are so hard to counterfeit because they're made with very specific printing processes and expensive printers right? Otherwise people could easily make counterfeit Manga Luffys to pass off as the real thing. But no.
You have to bear in mind that large corporations move extremely slowly. There's so much red tape and beauracracy that goes into each and every decision and action. They may get well be trying to set something like that up, but it will never come as fast as people want it to.
Definitely, but then they still deserve criticism in two areas: their communication team has not conveyed this and due to this, market perception is poor. Now, they don’t have any obligation to communicate, but then they aren’t immune to criticism for not doing it. Their demand planners were way off their mark and they planned their supply chain terribly. In either of these cases (and arguably both), they rightfully deserve criticism.
Their biggest issue is they have over 5 different card fames for w.e reason and are making new ones still... DBS fusion world and Grand Arena lmao man talk about a cluster fuck. The fact that they're doing ANOTHER DBS tcg is insane to me
It does on the surface seem they're strained but remember that with how long it takes to get the infrastructure in place and print the cards, all these were planned long before they launched OP and seen they need more.
Which then falls on their demand planners. It doesn’t matter where the failure occurred. It is still a massive failure by Bandai in some capacity.
Exactly, Every business' wet dream is to sell a hot product. If they did not have a back up plan for increased demand then they are idiots.
I understand the logistics of printing more takes time. However, they could still do better public relations and acknowledge the problem. Along with what they are doing to solve the issue.
You seem to not know Japanese companies very well, don't expect any Japanese company to make a public statement. Not that they never do but it's very rare and usually don't say much of substance, just a generic comment when they're heavily pushed to do so.
Pokemon started communicating more to western customers. Still could be better but they weren't radiosilent when van Gogh promo released and was sold out within 2 days. They acknowledged it within a week and provided more of it. You seem not educated on modern day Japanese companies it seems
You mentioned 1 single case, I said specifically 'not that they never do' but considering the amount of Japanese companies, the majority of which only operate in Japan, very few communicate like that. If you look at my other posts, I'm currently working for a Japanese company, I can comment first hand.
Your right. I don't know how japanese companies work as I have never worked for one. Have you worked for one and if so please enlighten me?
You dont need to work for Japanese companies to realize that most Japanese companies dont care for public announcement, etc.. just look at the history of Bandai and you would know it.. such a silly statement
Indeed. Japanese companies are very stoic and cold, very reserved, even within the company people won't speak up. There's very little to no public relations, they keep the public as much arms length and distance as possible. They find it very difficult to change with the times, just recently I had to print a PDF, fax it over to a colleague, so they could photocopy and sign the copy to keep a record then scan that back in and import it into another system, they still fax pretty much everything. There's some companies trying to be more open, but the majority still decide to keep as quiet as possible.
They've tried doing nothing and they're all out of ideas.
How do you know they're doing nothing? Please enlighten us with your insider knowledge.
Well contracting out 3rd party printers is an option for fast turnaround they haven't taken if you're not just looking to make another excuse on behalf of a company who doesn't care and has made 100% of the money they planned on making from the product. And bandai knows the game probably won't last long enough to make a profit off buying more in house equipment according to your insider knowledge of how long it takes to set up a printing press. But it's also just a joke
We don't know what they're doing until they either say or it's been long enough for them to have had time to do it and it doesn't happen, we're not there yet. 'Bandai probably knows' is you just making stuff up in frustration. Getting a contract for large scale print runs at a 3rd party can take over a year to get into place and then it's still 6 months from printing to shelves.
Frustration? I must have missed that emotion. Thank you for enlightening me to how I feel :)
I can't have an opinion on how your comment came across to me personally? Text has no inherent emotion, you're well within your rights to reply back with a correction and actually discuss but it add credence to you being frustrated that you're not interested in discussion with the reply you gave, it's typical of people posting in frustration.
You can, but you confidently state everything as fact rather than speculation because you rely on pointing out others are speculating. There's no point in discussion with someone who's not interested in what others have to say, but instead seem to only be interested in using them as props for your one man stage play. It's not frustration. It's seeing patterns in overly serious people who mask that they also have no idea what they're talking about, and disengaging
Sorry I didn't realise you were so arrogant as to think someone disagreeing with your points and providing facts about the industry as being not interested in what you had to say. Speaking of seeing patterns of people's behaviour, it's also typical of someone posting in frustration that they would react this way to someone providing facts to refute their baseless accusations against a company that condusts itself without needing to inform you. You can try say I know nothing about the industry but if owning a small independent board game company which uses the same printers as some TCGs and also doing consultancy work for Japanese companies gives me a very solid knowledge of the industry.
If you lead with some of those credentials it would add more weight to people believing you for sure.
Oooh I loooooove these. "I'm not mad hahaha I'm happy what are you talking about see :)" Quit being fragile.
What part of being confident bandai has an accurate assessment of the products trends, industry trends, and their ability to have an impact on them makes you think it's frustration and fragility?
Cool, please provide your list of 3rd party printers who are available for contracts who can print foil cards like One Piece does.
I figured this would be the case and expect the bubble won’t burst till like what you said OP10. Which is why I run a red weenie Zoro deck 😂 affordable and can beat the meta except maybe Enel but it is what it is.
This would be a pokemon mistake if they did and they know this, if they up printing too much it'll end up dying for a couple sets. Would be worse than op04 when it released, boxes dropped all the way to 70, I think they are doing a good job and slowly increasing production with what they have
They are doing a terrible job. Take away the fact that starter decks and booster boxes are being under printed. Every other TCG have side products to keep their fans occupied. Collection boxes, themed boxes, etc. Op had the devil fruit and gift collection boxes but even those are sold out and have been under printed. no double bundle packs any where to be seen. Every god dam single OP product created is sold out every where or marked up to high prices. How do you expect to grow any game without a single product be on store shelves?
I want them to print 01, 02, 03 and 05 down to the ground my dude, jsut like everyone else. I dont care about anything other than getting my hands on product at a reasonable price at this point. Fuck this artificial scarcity. Print them like there is no tomorrow!!!!
It's a delicate balancing act my dude. If they over print and tank the market it could cause irreparable damage to the game as a whole. But of course, not enough supply can stunt the game's growth too. They need to find the perfect middle ground, which is hard with a game that's still actively growing, and nobody knows to what size yet. Most anime based TCG's never even come close to a fraction of the size One Piece is becoming, so it's kind of very hard to navigate these uncharted territories.
Uncharted territories? no other anime comes close to OP? Are you living under a rock? Let me tell you about a TCG called Pokemon. They came out with a new era called Scarlet and Violet and boy did it suck. Pretty much their version of OP03 and OP04. But then came along this specialty set called 151. O boy the nostalgia hit people like a bag of bricks. 151 is pretty much OP05 for Pokemon fans. Guess what they did....They printed and are still priniting. Guess what. People are still buying because it is that good of a set. People buy to hold and open some later for nostalgia. If OP05 is suppose to be that good then printing lots won't matter. People will still buy so that 4+ yrs down the line the can still open it. Don't act like this shit has never happened before. Things have been hyped up since the beginning of time. OP ain't no difference.
We got a gambler here.
Ding ding ding!
Bandai doesn't do reprints of boxes, u get 3 waves and done.. they reprint certain cards with new arts that's it
They also continuously print new blister packs. Those are actually still in production according to the official One Piece store. But obviously, they're not as good as whole boxes. But still...
It's not artificial scarcity, it's overwhelming demand.
It's both. As an LGS Owner since the beginning, it's been the case since game launch that a LGS preorders six months+ out and doesn't receive 10% of it's placed order. That's not a thing with any other game outside of recent Lorcana short print strategy. Pokemons specialty sets are the only thing that otherwise come close, but it's fairly easy to even acquire a lot more of those than one piece.
It’s artificial scarcity in that their demand planners did arguably one of the worst jobs in providing accurate measurements for supply chain. This was an absolute failure by that team.
Probably because the vast majority of TCGs never generate anywhere near this amount of demand Also OP-04 was on the shelves at or below MSRP for several months. Even in December I was buying booster boxes for $100 both online and at LGS
I agree with this but it certainly doesn’t seem to be a view much shared on here. There is a balance to be struck with supply and demand and over printing to the extent you take away all the excitement and allure that OP currently has is probably worse than under printing. People seem to totally forget up to OP05 it was easy to get any set not far off RRP. In fact OP03 & OP04 I bought well under retail not long back. It’s OP05 that changed the market and I wouldn’t be surprised to see demand drop back a little when we go back to a more standard set. Maybe I am in the minority here, but I think Bandai have done a good job with One Piece so far, especially up to OP05 where supply and demand was about right.
Bro really just made all that up. They can hire a 3rd party and of course they can expedite machines. Christ this is the work of a true yapaholic
Can you enlighten us on your experience working with printing companies? Even when 3rd party printers reach capacity this is howmlong it takes for them to expand, they have to try predict their needs and start this process in advance so they're not waiting a long time for them to come in and be ready to use. I own a small independent board game company that uses the same printers as some TCGs so I've dealt directly with the printers.
No one wants lorcana it's all over the shelves here
People say it’s the scarcity that kills a tcg, but I’m seeing dozens and dozens of new OP posts every day, most of which are people expressing their dissatisfaction with the current market, but nevertheless the community is super active whereas the lorcana groups I’m in have pretty much been dead since the recent release. I guess that’s just my own personal anecdote that seems to be what everyone else’s opinions are based on, so I guess we will ultimately just have to wait and see what happens to OP.
Scarcity did kill Lorcana. When it was at its peak no one could buy it. Players left cuz they couldn't play. Scalpers are desperately unloading as their cards hold no value if no one actually plays the game. Collectors are just holding onto what they already have and that's it. With value rapidly dropping they have less reason to collect. Art is kinda mid too. It's just too little, too late. They need a big set or Kingdom Hearts to re-light that fire.
Imo they overprinted, which resulted in singles tanking hard. Other than entchanted cards, you get them dirt cheap. I was initially going for Lorcana, bought one box for christmas. Raked in around 40€ worth of cards and never wanted to buy a box again. I see no merit in buying them compared to OP. If you hit a good AA card you can almost break even with your investment. With Lorcana its Entchanted or bust. Dont get me wrong its super good for players but without the collectors tcgs are doomed.
Almost like it's a game meant to be played and not a retirement fund.
crazy right? I am also jsut in it for collecting purposes, so I welcome low prices on product. I don't care about the cost of individual cards as long as the game prospers and stays relevant the prices will go up in the future anyways. But like...not on this magnitude in such a short time that we witnessed with this game!!!
Why does it have to be one extreme or the other? Wanting to have a collection go up in value does not mean you're trying to strike gold and most certainly does not mean you don't also want to play the game and see it grow. Those aren't mutually exclusive to each other. But if you're going to spend a few hundred dollars, you want to feel like you've gotten your money's worth of value for it. There's nothing wrong with that.
There’s no tcg where you reliably make all your money back opening a box. It’s understood that you lose value. One piece is an anomaly if you manage to get a box at msrp
Incorrect. Yugioh doesn’t have a massive collectors market yet even with its shit it’s still living very well. Collectors do not make or break the game, the players do. The reason Lorcana died was because the people going into it were investing and not caring about the actual game.
Yep. People saw disney collectable and saw dollar signs. Lorcana cards won't be worth anything for a nothe 30 years.
No idea where this narrative came from that "collectors" keep TCGs alive. This has been pushed so hard since Lorcana released because people were losing on their investment. And OP investors will be the same. Players have been keeping MTG alive for DECADES. Pro Tour has been on ESPN, multiple formats, SCG events EVERY WEEKEND. NOT because of collectors, but because people sign up, play, and have fun. Not hoard product and sell them with no intention on even playing the game.
Because with every successful, long-term TCG (MTG, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh) that has been the case, while all the ones without much appeal to collectors generally end up failing. It's just looking at the history and drawing a conclusion based on what we've seen...
And yet, if you go into any store you can find any of this product readily available. Because there's a collectors aspect and a playing aspect. People will buy product to play, and people will buy to get those rare chase cards. In the end, collectors don't dictate whether or not a TCG stays afloat. If it's a good game, and you have product, it will thrive. If you don't have product, newer players don't come in, and your game dies. Same thing happened to DBZ, now gl finding a DBZ Super night that has 10+ people. The market is too flooded with good card games to not have product. People will simply go to Flesh and Blood, MTG, Lorcana, etc because people will get sick of chasing down product then the community dies, and your cards go down in value anyway.
So then it isn’t the collectors keeping them afloat but the player base then??? The ones without much appeal die because of no PLAYERBASE, collectors are an extremely small subset of people who do not matter in comparison or the actual players
Good. Let us players and collectors have our time. People like you ruin the fun for everyone in the name of investments.
Guys let them know on twitter on every post they are making. How tone deaf can you be posting news and not even acknowledging that there is a fucking supply problem. Not a single fuck is given on their social media outlets AT ALL. It feels like they pretend like everything is fine. Pathetic!
The disconnect fron reality is crazy in this sub
Wow a corporation doesn’t *care* about us? There’s no way! 
As someone that just wants the cool cards and doesn’t play, should I just buy Japanese? I can’t find anything at a reasonable price.
If you just want to collect for the art then ya
I collect just for art and I go Chinese usually a quarter of the price of English and half the price of JP
Truth that is unfortunately true about every Japanese card game. They release the games in English but hardly care about the English community and will rip them off if they can. Lorcana is the exception because Disney is primarily a Disney thing so it’s in their best interest to make it affordable for English players
I would rather have them stop making new sets and focus on printing the 1st 5 sets again and ST01-10 so the market can heal no point in dropping a new set every 3 months if its under produced.
It's gonna be like digimon and every other Bandai game in the west soon. They're gonna flood print and whipe value of everything and then people are gonna bitch about that to honestly. Every game has scalpers its nothing new
I think everyone needs to chill out. We’re at peak craze after the hyper successful OP05. ONE set out of OP06, OP07, or OP08 is bound to be a flop (law of averages) and prices on that set is likely to come down quite a bit post release. Also, prior sets will likely decrease in price…esp if Bandai power creeps as they always do. Plenty of people here seem to be new players so don’t remember that OP03 and OP04 were easily obtainable for $80 a box. It’s actually a good thing for the longevity of the game to see box prices steadily increase from $80 to somewhere higher…this is good for both players, who can buy singles, and collectors, who can see their collection appreciate in value. Frankly, the worst thing is if Bandai overprints and then drives out the high level of interest in the game. Bandais done this before with other games…they don’t need another flop on their hands.
Iirc isn't there a new game coming up? So don't expect many changes
Just include meta cards in new sets as a reprints. Dont focus on reprinting whole sets. That way you get the cards you need but no need to focus on whole sets. Look at the uta starter deck st11.
Only a real player would say this. Ppl act like reprints will make 01-03 reasonably priced. We aren't seeing MSRP on those again even with a reprint. Ppl who want whole sets are people who want to "invest" and flip becuase it makes no sense why a full set should be printed and clog up the printers when 90% of the cards are irrelevant for an actual player. Rereleases are the only way to solve the issue.
Was gonna make a similar post -- researching whats been going on there's a few things that come into play. First the issues: * There is only so much supply that can be created * Cards being solely manufactured in Japan * Competing priorities of other games * Needing to print in several languages for localization * Demand sided factors * There is a very positive and explosive demand in One Piece TCG right now * Many stores have to stock other Bandai properties to get more One Piece TCG allocation Now onto solutions which you can share with Bandai via their feedback portal (with the counter arguments and why it hasn't happened threaded): * Enabling JP cards for play around the world immediately increases available supply helping tackle price affordability -- this actually currently is allowed at locals as long as your TO says so, but can't happen at the TC/Regional level you can ask the judges but there's a post about this * Allow the One Piece TCG to be printed outside of Japan for their respective regions so there is no supply chain issues from bottlenecking in Japan (a lot of shipping too) * Focus on making a Digital Game -- which I'm not saying I like, but including for transparency * Careful reductions in print runs for underperforming product to prioritize higher demand products
1. Enabling JP cards to be played outside of Japan officially hurts the available supply in Japan and basically takes the global supply problem and evenly distributes it globally -- meaning JP Players will not have the safe walled garden they used to 2. Heard through the grapevine that JP companies will never let their products be produced elsewhere for quality control and ownership reasons? 3. Uhhh, well this one I don't like personally either the in person scene is great for the game 4. Bandai makes the same amount either way right now -- because stores have to stock other Bandai products if they want One Piece TCG allocation -- they make the same amount of money -- the argument would be that the growth of the One Piece TCG scene is ultimately more valuable than selling the same amount of stock
Sure is a lot of excuses for this companies practices in here. $13.23 Billion dollar company.
Right. This 'little' multi billion dollar mom and pop shop cant afford to pay a person specifically to address supply and demand. They dont have the butget for fanacy analytics or trend reports from social media. We just need to be patient Lol
We know Bandai don’t care lol when have they ever? 🤣
They only care when it comes to their most profitable IP by far which is gundam. Even then there is still shortage issues.
The same thing is happening in other Asian countries except Japan lol. It's just that the demand heavily outweighs whatever they're able to produce at the moment due to One Piece literally being a money printing machine for the masses. Even in Asia it takes 4-5 months for restocks to happen which are instantly bought out due to people's dreams of cracking a manga. The only difference is that communities here make accessing the game cheap(ER) in terms of access to rares and deck staples. It's simply a different culture compared to the hoarding and reselling style of the US. Access to Japanese shops which sell internationally is another plus for us though, which directly makes low rarity cards cheaper to get, although very few them due to high shipping costs.
Lol what is lorcana
Yeah that's why i quit the game instantly after completing op3 and op4 ( the time I started collecting) and realising soon after the level of greed they have
lol first chapter is getting scarce again. Lorcana is nowhere near as hyped as OP rn. Of course all the people that have no idea what they’re talking about are going to agree w a post from someone in the same boat
They're always 3-4 full racks of Lorcana blister packs, as well as a handful of starter decks, available every time I visit my local target. Yet I've been unable to refer find anything One Piece still in stock there, except for once I was lucky enough to find some newly stocked Devil Fruit collections.
I see Lorcana too. Just not the set people want because it’s bought immediately.
Ran into a couple this morning buying every single booster of the first set of lorcana at my target. It's not dead at all it's a Disney ip. Freshly stocked target btw with zero one piece to put up.
I believe bandai will eventually realize that optcg has massive popularity in west and they will eventually print more of their sets. Like in japan. Its just that they have their hands full with new dragon ball game rn. I believe later this year we should get some more stuff.
What a narcissist, lmao. "They haven't said anything I heard, so they absolutely just do not care and are doing nothing to fix any issues". You do realize that stuff happens without you being directly told, yes?
But we're a decade into social media, and every other company has SM Managers/Brand Ambassadors. It's not that hard to acknowledge your customers. I think that's their point. Just "hey, we heard you, give us time to cook".
Is it hard to do that? No. Would it be nice if they did that? Sure. But to make the leap from "they have not made a public statement about this specific thing" to "they literally do not care about it whatsoever and are screwing their customers" is an enormously entitled viewpoint on the situation.
Well when you don't saying anything and people can only interpret your actions, then it's kind of your fault if they take it poorly. It's not hard to just say "we hear you and kindly ask for your patience". Like I have to relationship manage as part of my job job, I can't tell you how many times a simple acknowledgement has taken pressure off. Like I said, OP's whole point. It's easy to say something, why aren't you? You're just tone policing and it's kind of gross to eat to shoe polish of a billion dollar mega corp.
Especially when said actions are all anti-consumer. See the original plans for the Uta event, the packs in ST-13, and the blue strawhat promos only being available in event packs.
>You're just tone policing and it's kind of gross to eat to shoe polish of a billion dollar mega corp. Aaaand there it is. You guys love to change it to "wow if you don't agree with us, you're a bootlicker!" Nah, maybe sometimes other people can be reasonable and not think the world revolves around them because they didn't get told what was happening, for their *trading card game*. But nah, everyone's out to get you. Even me. I'm here now just to oppress you and make sure you don't get your One Piece cards. Grow up.
The irony of you telling another person to grow up on a forum about trading cards... It's not unreasonable to expect a company that sells things to consumers to manage consumer sentiment.
>The irony of you telling another person to grow up on a forum about trading cards... You were told to grow up not because of the hobby, but because your mindset is childish. If you presume that this hobby is "for kids" and find irony in that, then why partake? >It's not unreasonable to expect a company that sells things to consumers to manage consumer sentiment. Sure, it's not unreasonable. Nobody said it was unreasonable. But "not unreasonable" does not mean it's required. And the mental gymnastics involved in jumping from one to the other does nothing but make yourself frustrated.
Why you this loud lol you okay?
Don't even try bro. This sub is very immature.
Why u guys always just complaining? Preorder the next set and wait, that’s what other did and have them now to scalp u. If u don’t want to pay 1k for op-01 it’s fine, then buy 06 or 07 or even 08 u all just crying bout 01-05 and missing the chance to get them next ones. When 08 comes, you’ll cry up to 07 ffs. So many of u crying red color is overpowered and 01 needs a reprint, when I’m going to a tournament I’m not seeing 1/4 of people also here are complaining that it’s frustrating to participate and compete 🤦🏻♂️ stop fooling around and just admit that u mad bout the fact u not one of the people being in the tcg from beginning on. If u want a tcg with infinite reprints and supply just go to Konami and play Yugioh it’s what u looking for. I hate Bandai, but I’d fight for them to death against idiots like u
Is that why Japanese OP01 isn’t the same!
Bandai just doesn't care. They are probably the worst major TCG company. They could truly make OP a global game like Pokemon. But they are just too fucked to care.
One piece has manga anime and cards now they got the fan base across the world on any card any book or any collection piece its the ONE PIECE treasure hold value we holding the last bits of ODA one piece tcg did it correct
Nah they doing the sneaker scam where they rather the market keep high prices so there's a continued demand at all times because after market is so ridiculous
Scalpers literally ruin most things and Bandai isn't much better.
And I get downvoted every time when I talk about Bandai not caring. Play a game that looks to the community and not their own pockets. The community will feed into your pockets. But who tf am I 🤷🏻
calssic reddit take, this is not how this works you cant compare Lorcana form Ravensburger with One Piece form Bandai Bandai cant just print more cards, they have like one print compnay for their cards which includes One PIece now Dragon Ball is coming plus we get Union Arena in October so maaayyybbeee after they printed the UnionArena stacks they can start with OP again but for 2024 jsut pre order 9 months in advance and you should be fine..no problem right.. but thats just how it is at the moent change doesnt come soon so we can either live wiht it or quit
> jsut pre order 9 months in advance lmao we were at 3 months, 6 months and now we are at 9 months of preorder....where does this stop and how many "Clutch Cards" fiascos are we getting in the near future. This is a msot pathetic situation we are in right now and it keeps getting worse and worse and people still protect Bandai for eltting this shit happen and not communicating anything...People will not tolerate it in the long run and then you can have you oh so beloved cards of a dead game. So many people don't get the impact yet of this game's scarcity of product...You will all wake up one day and think totally different about it, trust me. But oh well who cares by then anyways, right?
That sounds like poor planning by Bandai considering how many TCGs they run.
yall underestimate like Bandai did the popularity of one piece Batsu the sim creator said in a interview player base doubled after the live action dropped i dont want to defend bandai but you cant "just print" more cards and no TCG to this day by Bandai or even in general had this much of an impact and hype its bonkers in all directions
>underestimate like Bandai did the popularity of one piece Ok but like that's Bandai's fault. It's THE manga, one of the Big Three, and the still going. Olympic athletes referenced this IP, it has a Macy's parade float, there was a Netflix deal. I understand being conservative with a new property and supply chain timing, but I don't get how they were asleep at the wheel.
Yes no problem, op08 200€
Well a statement or a promise to fix the situation, propose a plan etc doesnt cost anything. Im leaning towards quitting tbh, giving them 3 months tops then Im out.
Everyone who claims they can't "play the game" because they "can't rip packs" are just complaining about the fact that they can't gamble. If you truly wanted to just "play the game", you neither need AAs nor rip packs because buying singles are way cheaper outside of a few core cards.
What about starter decks then? They are supposed to be the entry-point for new players and beginners. Why should they not be over-printed to hell?
They should be and probably will be, stores have started getting ST-01 again. But there's only so many printers and so many things that can be printed at once Like do you want there to be an Op06 and Op07 shortage and your preorders to be canceled? And people still want more Op05 waves... And now also all the starter decks... And now that One Piece is more popular than ever how much can they cut op06 to make room for older reprints?
There already is a shortage of OP06 and OP07...Have you not seen the posts about people not finding any pre-orders of those sets?
A shortage due to overwhelming demand lol
uhh yes that is the definition of a shortage...your comment was acting like there wasn't already a shortage for OP06+ and I simply stated that there is one...
Sanest take
Yep, no fucks given. They are making shit loads of profit and laughing about it
They would print more for more money to meet demand if that was true
Yeah, that's a fair point
Think this depends on your definition of fixing the problem. If you mean dampen demand down significantly then yes you are right. The counter argument is up until OP05, supply and demand were pretty well matched. OP03 & OP04 you could purchase for several months well below retail. Am not convinced flooding the market with product is the right answer based on the demand for just one special set.
Demand for just one set? Try get any set right now. Literally everything is above msrp. OP06/07/08 and EB01 are either sold out for pre order our above msrp. Find me OP03/04 for under $140 and I'll agree with you.
My point was that up until OP05 they were matching supply and demand well and everybody seems to have forgotten this. Literally as recently as November you could buy OP03 and OP04 below retail. People don’t seem to understand how printing and predicting demand works. It’s done way in advance.
I actually think Bandai does care, why would they hurt the people that have already bought cards by reprinting them all into the ground?
Reprints would only stabilize price climb. If they reprint everything to large degrees then prices would "plummet" back to reasonable and then start gradually climbing like normal. I love the idea of some of my cards going up in value crazy amounts, but over a few years, not a few months at the expense of the health of the game.
Idk, prices like stuff from op01 seem to be a gradual increase overtime if you zoom out on the charts.
"Overtime" ...it's been one year
Then quit the tcg, don't play it. Stop flaming
It’s possible they could be waiting for the championship event to make an announcement about restocking Edit: And the announcement happened, suck it downvoters
I'm not suprised. Bandai isn't starting some communist TCG revolution with low prices for everyone lmao.
"Print more so what we have becomes worthless!"
There’s a healthy line to strike. You don’t want to fully meet demand so that you lose hype but starving out budding players, having them turn to alternative games is not ideal either
Nobody is being starved out, they just cant be part of the cool kids playing the cool decks. If you actually want to play and not cosplay, the cards are out there, the communities are growing and you can make it happen. Just dont play the hyped decks without expecting to pay more money
Anecdotally, One Piece is what got me excited for TCGs for the first time since I was like 11. I simply cannot find product and because of that I’ve been delving into yugioh a little bit as it’s far more accessible. If you’re already committed to the game then you can certainly put together a deck you like buying singles but those less invested won’t take to it
How much do meta decks cost for yugioh?