Read this article and give an opinion… Especially if you have kids http://www.nypost.com/news/14579.htm
Run for the hills, folks! Or you’ll be up to your armpits in martians!
Well, I think they the plaintiffs are right to be suing Nintendo. After all, forcing someone to buy your products is racketeering, which is illegal and immoral. Naturally, the article didn’t say what horrible threat Nintendo used to force the kids to buy their products, but I’m sure there was one.
After all, no one would even think about filing suit if they had just had the freedom to get out of the situation in the first place, would they? Heavens, it’s a good thing we all have so much willpower and good sense in this culture, or someone might blame someone else for their own problems.
Well they do seem to be getting all the sales benefits of running a contest without having to go through the “no purchase necessary, void where prohibited” stuff. The beauty part, for Nintendo, is that they aren’t the ones who have to provide the prizes–the kids jack up the price on rare cards themselves. (Unless it’s like the beanie baby thing where adults are getting into act, too. Creepy.)
I think it is really pathetic for parents to cave in to their kids’ fashion demands to that extent. I mean, really, eight-year-olds with hundreds of dollars to spend on toys?
This isn’t quite the same thing as Beanie Babies. Nor is it the same as a contest.
First, there is no force.
Second, this is more like dealing in chess pieces than any thing else.
It’s kinda like a black market. “I’ll trade you a white bishop for a black knight and four pawns!”
Each Pokemon has a unique set of abilities. Granted, you gotta spend a shitload of money if you want your kid to have a deck, which can win… consistently.
Remember folks, they should only be playing with a 60 card deck. They have to have enough power cards to empower all level I, II, and III cards, in addition to all the evolving shit. And if they don’t choose correctly when building their deck (the only shot at their directing the outcome of the game), they have no chance at winning. God forbid they play for “keepsies.” Then the school/daycare/babysitter gets involved 'cause the older kids take advantage of the younger kids (you know, trading four dots and a diamond for a diamond and a star).
I know too much about this game and the cards.
Fuck, I sound like Brithael. Shoot me now.
Sounds like a junior version of Magic: The Gathering. Don’t recall there being an outrage about that game encouraging gambling, but maybe that’s because it wasn’t aimed at wee tots.
Frankly, collecting and trading anything, from comic books to baseball cards to stocks, is a gamble. Will it gain value or lose value? Were you shrewd to buy it when you did or did you get screwed? Just because these cards can then be used to play a game, well, go back to the Magic: The Gathering example. Gambling was the last thing I heard the nervous Nellies worrying about 
Maybe I’m just jaded because in my youth I used to play poker with my dad for money and he’d whup me every time (figuritively, that is). Gambling schmabling, they’ll grow out of it in a couple years. In the meantime, if the parents don’t like they’re kids spending so much money on it, then they shouldn’t give them so much. Where else is a 9 year old going to get money? If his friends screw him out of his cards, that’s life. He’s just learned a hard lesson in gambling and who his friends are. Some of us have to learn the hard way (see above example of playing poker with dad 
).
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Boris B posted 09-24-1999 05:54 PM
I think that the point that the article was trying to make is that to get the rare cards, kids have to buy a lot of cards they don’t want. Granted, the kids don’t have to get any cards, but I don’t think that it’s reasonable to exp[ect the same level of restraint in a kid as in an adult. Granted, there is certainly no force involved, but given the level of maturity of the plaintiffs, I think that’s it’s quite fair to characterize Nitendo’s actions as coercive.
But all that’s just a digression. The suit doesn’t seem to be based upon the level of coercion so much as the gambling aspects. Suppose Nintendo sold packs for $11, but instead of cards, there were ten bills, which may or may not be of denominations greater than $1? That definitely seems like gambling to me. And I don’t see that this is much different. Yes, there isn’t a definite value set by Nintendo, but by making some rarer than others, Nintendo is clearly intending some to be worth more than others, and distributes those cards based on chance. And this isn’t like Beanie Babies; with Beanie Babies you know exactly what you’re getting, even if you don’t know how much it’s worth.
cher3 posted 09-24-1999 06:05 PM
Well, at $5/week, a kid would get $260/year. Is $5/week “giving into” fashion?
-Ryan
" ‘Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter.’ " -Kurt Vonnegut, * Breakfast of Champions *
Ryan–
I was thinking about the $100 purchases of the rare cards, not about kids buying a pack a week with their allowance. Presumably, if the rare cards are commanding those prices, some kids are actually paying those prices.
Okay, someone explain to me why it says there are 6 replies to this thread on the MPSIMS main board, yet when I click on it, all I get is the title post.
I’ve tried refreshing, reloading, etc., BTW.
Huh. Once I replied, everything was there.
Anyway, I heard the lawyer for this case on the John and Ken morning show this morning. He was a moron. He was supposed to be on for an hour, but he was so sickening with his pompous, greedy, condescending attitude that he was dumped after 15 minutes.
I’d like to know what’s so different about the Pokéman cards and baseball cards. With both, you buy a pack with no guarantee of what’s inside. Some have related how they’d buy pack after pack trying to get a special release rookie card…I see no difference.
No one is forced to buy them, and the kids have gotten sucked into this as they do with all fads. As a teacher, I see this kind of thing every year, and every year it changes–this year it’s the Pokéman cards, last year it was Yo Yos, year before that it was POGs. The kids go nuts with them, and thus with every new fad, a new ban is assigned on our campus. They become hugely disruptive. I’ve confiscated 4 sets of cards so far this year.
Meanwhile, parents whine about their kids spending their allowance money on it. So? I spent my birthday/allowance/gift money on Breyer model horses for years when I was a kid. Frankly, it was my money, and my lesson to learn when it came to managing it. My parents didn’t like it, but I was happy, and they didn’t intrude. (And I also sold my collection for over $5,000 during my college years. My parents gained a whole new respect for me after that! ;D)
And if the parents are whining about having to buy the cards themselves, then they’re idiots.
“My cat’s breath smells like cat food.” --Ralph Wiggum, hero and icon
Criminy! Next thing we’ll be seeing is the DA arresting some kid at a playground for gambling when the kid’s just playing marbles!
My kid gets no more than a pack of (random)11 cards a week. And not forever. And I get him to DO STUFF for each card!I’m not complaining, yet.
This lawsuit is full of crap.
As any Pokemon card player knows, there is one rare card in each pack, guaranteed. (It’s marked with a star in one corner… sorta-rare have a diamond, common have a circle.)
It’s not up to Wizards of the Coast to even out which rare card comes out where… they’re rare. Even so, you’re sure to get one of them in each purchase. That doesn’t mean it’ll be the one you want, however, which is where these whining kids come in.
This is obviously a keen case of lawsuit-happiness. Children should not get everything they want - that’s just not how life works. What kind of lesson are these parents teaching their children? If life hands you a lemon, sue the pants off the grower? These kids will have no idea how to deal with real life with coddling idiot parents like this.
Yeesh. I trade for the cards I want.
lovelee
(who just got a common Pikachu for $0.25)
It’s very simple. If they don’t want to buy their kid(s) Pokemon cards, they shouldn’t buy them. And if they don’t want the kid(s) to buy them with their (the kids’) own money, they should never give the kid(s) money and never let the kid(s) figure out for themselves that sometimes what that the fad item they absolutely have to have isn’t worth wasting hundreds of dollars on.
My nephew is 9. He plays both Magic and Pokemon. His mother will not buy the cards for him, but he is allowed to spend his “spending” money on them. Of course, he knows once that’s all spent, he doesn’t get additional money for cards or anything else, so he has learned to “budget” (as much as a 9-year-old can) his money. Of course, for his birthday, he got Pokemon cards from his friends. Out of their own collections. And not crappy ones either, from what he says. He doesn’t care if they’re rare or common, just if they are fun to play with.
I’m still scratching my head over this one. Isn’t their lawsuit a gamble- and a high priced one at that?
If this lawsuit is the parents’ idea, I hove no hope for the kids.
I figure if they win this case, there’ll be a good precedent for declaring the sale of stocks to be a form of illegal gambling. After all, you’re buying a product (the bet) in the expectation it will be more valuable in the future (a chance of winning money) but no guarantee that it won’t lose value (a chance of losing money). Unlike a legal sweepstakes you cannot write in and request a free ticket; you have to buy something to win.
Anyone want to join me in a class action suit against every publically held business in the country?
Interesting perspectives, all. And intelligent discussion with no name calling! This could be a record!
I agree that no one is forcing these kids to “compulsively” buy these cards. I do wonder about the gambling aspect of it though.
Object: buy packs of cards to possibly obtain a “rare” card (which, due to demand could be worth a lot of money, not just play fun)
Sounds a lot like pull-tabs or slot machines to me. Many adults don’t have control over these “winning” impulses. Kids sure as hell don’t.
For the record, I think it’s a ridiculous lawsuit. I just wanted some other opinions
Run for the hills, folks! Or you’ll be up to your armpits in martians!
Okay, first of all, I don’t like Pokémon. I hate it. But when I want to say that I hate Pokémon, I say “Hey, I hate Pokémon.” But unfortunately, it seems like many other people can’t figure out how to do that, so instead they try to attack Pokémon for things that aren’t true. “Pokémon promotes evil values,” “Pokémon promotes gambling,” etc. If you think it’s bad or annoying, just fucking say so! Argh.
Pokemon, from what little I’ve seen, is baaaaaad animation backed up with bizarre pointless weirdness. And GameBoy advertising.
I don’t get it. It’s not like South Park which is at least seriously hilarious. Pokemon is just a trashy quality cartoon.
Being an animation fan, it sickens me this crap parades in front of kids as an example of human non-achievement.
Jeez its something every week
They called pogs gambling…pitching pennies…marbles…this is old news rehashed with a new product. Its just getting silly
Quote: It’s very simple. If they don’t want to buy their kid(s) Pokemon cards, they shouldn’t buy them. And if they don’t want the kid(s) to buy them with their (the kids’) own money, they should never give the kid(s) money and never let the kid(s) figure out for themselves that sometimes what that the fad item they absolutely have to have isn’t worth wasting hundreds of dollars on.
Let me be the first to nominate Kat to Congress.
What the hell, are we gonna let anyone who ever got a sucky prize out of a box of Cracker Jacks sue? How about comic collecters who spent exorbant amounts of money on a title that was supposed to be valuable, but wasn’t? I know, let’s start up a class action suit for anybody that ever bought a happy meal, and didn’t get the toy they wanted.
I’m starting to get really tired of irresponsable parents trying to make a buck off of their own mistakes.
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.