This post is for round 0 of the Nachos Grande Blogger Bracket Challenge.
 |
| 2011 Topps Attax #12 |
I’ve always been impartial towards gaming cards. Most collectors seem to have a hate-hate relationship with them, but you can’t fault Topps for trying to cash in on the gaming craze.
This is a company that already had the infrastructure in place to make collectable bits of cardboard for over almost 60 years, then suddenly you had these other companies were just starting up slapping cartoon monsters on paper and raking in the cash hand-over-fist. And the kids were eating it up, opting for the imaginary battle monsters over real dudes who are real. It must have been frustrating for Topps.
The idea must have looked amazing on paper, too. You’ve got card collecting which had been proven for decades and the competitive aspect that was all the rage what with the Yi-gi-oh and Magic and Pokemon doing so well (I was always a baseball card kid, so I won’t feign specific knowledge here, but there was a competitive gaming aspect to all of these, right?). You also had the Gotta Catch 'em All! mindset of their target market. Perhaps to ignite (pun!) the kids into a completionist frenzy they numbered the cards to reflect the total number in the set. It's not # 12 - it's #12/258. Pretty sneaky, Topps.
Gaming sets will never do particularly well for one reason: instead of a cute little Japanese anime monster there’s a 6ft 200lb Dominican man. It's possible that they would see limited success if it was Charizard spitting flame into a crowd of innocent blue people, but more likely the kids will keep making their parents buy whatever it is they see on Saturday morning TV.
In summation, writing a post all about an uninspiring non-Griffey is hard. Good night, everybody!
No comments:
Post a Comment