My kids are into the Pokemon Trading Card Game, which means I am unwillingly aware of the business side of TCGs. You can’t get Pokemon cards anywhere – scalpers have made sure of that – so I’ve gone through the card-game-dad’s stages of desperation. Going online is rough because you are paying those scalpers’ prices and enabling the whole sad situation. I’ve got chummy with shop owners in the hope that they’ll hold back a pack or two, and let us know when new sets are in. And I’ve weighed up the benefits of buying single cards (less fun, but cheaper) versus opening our own.
My experience of Pikachu Capitalism means I’m reasonably well prepared for TCG Card Shop Simulator (there’s something that bothers me about the tautology of Trading Card Game Card Shop Simulator). I know enough that I can appreciate some of the fine details, but am also aware of when it is an unrealistic fantasy for TCG collectors. Not least, the shop actually stocks cards at retail price.
Scented Clouds and Panic Buys
There are observations that I love in TCG Card Shop Simulator. Some customers come in with clouds of stink around them, sending potential customers out the door. Even protective TCG players will know that this is very much the case in real life. Your only options are to build air circulators in the shop and serve the walking body-odour as quickly as possible. I scanned the online stockist for a can of Lynx to spray them with, but alas no.
I love that customers seem to be in utter disbelief that you have stock. Some come in and buy armfuls of ‘product’, dumping so many booster packs and boxes on the counter that they fall onto the floor. While your shop in TCG Card Shop Simulator is an utter fantasy land of everything always being available, the customers come from our world, and they panic-buy.
The Bizarre Economics of a Card Shop Fantasy
Not everything is realistic, of course. Some of the weirdnesses make me wonder if the devs have ever set foot in a shop like this. Customers buy ten or twenty packs of card sleeves all the time, as if they’re going to run out. Selling cards individually, instead of selling the packs, is an absolute gold mine. I average $600 of cards from every $200 booster box, which makes the economics all a bit bizarre. If there was 200% profit on every box, we’d see Wall Street investing in Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh.
Game Preview Jank
Some of TCG Card Shop Simulator’s weirdnesses come from the jank, which we shouldn’t be too surprised about since this is a Game Preview title; a work-in-progress. Things will undoubtedly improve. You can hire people but they don’t actually work. They stand outside on a fag break and refuse to come in. You’re fired, Jimmy. Boxes of cards can slip under the floor of the shop, only to reappear weeks later to give you a jumpscare. Customers refuse to leave the shop at the end of the day, sitting at tables with a Tetromon game in front of them, swirling in fart.
But it’s in the places where the jank and observations coincide that I had the most fun with TCG Card Shop Simulator. I found myself talking to the customers. “Got anything smaller, Barbara?”, I’d find myself saying, as a customer handed me $50 for a $2.45 booster pack. “I have better things to do, Geoff”, I’d say as a stinky customer tried to sell me their card for a single buck. There were some lovely observations in there, even if they were a little askew.
Scanning Packs
What surprised me most about TCG Card Shop Simulator was how much time I would be spending away from anything remotely TCG related. It’s one of those simulators where everything is 1:1. You have to pick up and scan each item individually, which is a challenge when the customer buys thirty individual booster packs (“come on, Sally, you could have just bought a booster box”). You have to count out and add up the change yourself, introducing some basic arithmetic. And stock refilling (“you could have been doing this, Jimmy!”) is as manual as it sounds.
The Inexplicable Allure of Inefficient Management
I actually quite liked how manual and labour-intensive this was. I mean, I would have liked more ways to automate it (some card opening machines help things out a smidge, but you still can’t meaningfully hire anyone) but I found a little joy in serving everyone one-by-one. It means you get those moments like your graded card finally selling after a week of sitting on the shelf, and a dodgy customer buying ten cleaner fluids. We’re onto you, Stanley.
It all makes TCG Card Shop Simulator one of those inexplicable simulator games that, on the one hand, are awkward, menial, janky, buggy and all sorts of other negative adjectives. On the other hand, though, they keep tugging you back. I still have a few goals in mind. I have a weird, deep-seated need to buy the licences for all of the plush toys. I want to see a wall of cuddly Pokemon rip-offs.
I also want to sell that one graded card that refuses to sell. I’ve put it at -10% of the market price, so it should sell. But everyone struts up to the glass, stares at it wistfully, and says “oh I wish I had the money for that”. Which, I suppose, is like real life too.
The Primal Rush of the Digital Booster Pull
And I can’t deny the pure pleasure of opening a booster pack. Any TCG opener will tell you that they get it wrong – the rares are at the front! The boosters are listed as ‘Rare’ rather than the cards! – but there’s something primal about a shiny, full-art card staring at you from the front of the pack. The game stops to ‘ping’ and show you the value of the card, and I could imagine the $$$ signs on my eyes, like I was Tom from Tom and Jerry.
I can see why TCG Card Shop Simulator is getting its audience. At one point, more people were playing it than the big releases of the week. It is just polished enough to satisfy the fantasy of owning a TCG shop, and it actually lets you open packs when the real-world sort of doesn’t. And it’s got that funky, shonky feeling where the bugs and weirdnesses collude to make a moment that is very odd indeed.
When that Game Preview sticker comes off TCG Card Shop Simulator, I almost hope that the jank isn’t completely gone.
You can buy TCG Card Shop Simulator in Game Preview form from the Xbox Store for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, PC and Play Anywhere. It’s part of your Game Pass subscription too.
