Would a Pokemon Marketplace be popular?!

Hey Pokefam,

Two days ago, I posted a discussion about Pokemon and if they had real dollar value. This prompted a new discussion topic. I hope this is as interesting as the last topic. Some said Pokemon do have monetary value, and others said monetary value are meaningless due to cloning/hacks. Some argued to say that clones/hacks are fine with them as long as the game can not detect them as fake. So, here is the NEW topic!

Question/Topic: If Nintendo and/or GameFreak created a Pokemon marketplace where Pokemon players could safely buy and sell pokemon to one another, do you think it would be a popular platform? And why?

I'm sure it would be filled with sketchy Pokemon coupled with ridiculous requests.

There is also no way I would invest real money to purchase digital monsters.

Radiating said:

I'm sure it would be filled with sketchy Pokemon coupled with ridiculous requests.

There is also no way I would invest real money to purchase digital monsters.

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I was thinking the same thing myself at first, with the ability of cloning and hacking. Scammers would look at such a place as a playground, but someone argued to me that if monitored and regulated correctly. Scams would be limited, and the environment would be civil. I still am unsure myself. Without the hacks and clones, I could see people buying items like masterballs and shiny legendnaries for good prices. Seeing as some of these things would take hours after hours to obtain multiple times or even have a chance at obtaining.

colours said:

What is being "monitored and regulated correctly" though? Having a sort of Pokemon Marketplace would no doubt come with a metric crapton of red tape that would essentially make the whole point of one too convoluted to even use. How would Nintendo develop a method that would identify a cloned Pokemon from a legit one? You can catch and breed perfectly legitimate and legal, high-IV shinies and clone the crap out of them and put them up for sale and those people would obviously have the upper hand and generate more profit just by having powersaves to clone, so that's also something to consider.

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And that's something I have no answer for. I would think, the only thing that could be regulated are pokemon and items in legal paremater, and the safe transaction between the buyers and sellers without any shady report backs for money and such that ebay and paypal have often let happen. I think selling virtual things online would require a platform that understands that virtual things are being sold. That being said, I have no idea if cloning and hacking would destroy supply and demand. I want to say it could, but thinking about the mass consumer base that we are as pokemon players. I somewhere deep inside think that type of marketplace could function, and it may even be really popular. Yeah, there will be some who would make a killing off of cloning and hacking, but I would think nintendo or whatever creators would create a reputation and review system that could at least help buyers choose who they think would b a genuine seller. If I spot a guy selling legal pokemon, but he's selling like 100 shiny darkais. I'd most likely not buy anything from him. I think it's easy to spot people scamming versus people who are actually breeding and putting in the hours to catch and recatch pokemon. I think there's value in those who do put in that effort. The platform probably would have some type of risk involved, but at least you'd know you would receive your items/pokemon and you did so in a more monitored and pokemon loved environment. I personally see more value in a seller who isn't cloning and hacking versus one who is, and it's not hard to tell when someone is cloning and hacking. You'll be able to tell by their list of pokemon.

This sounds a little bit like microtransactions; spending money in order to get that shiny, or a competitive mon, a lot faster.

One thing to consider is the group you're actually targetting with that. I don't think teenagers, aka the majority of players, would actually be allowed to participate. Be that because of their parents not allowing it, or because of safety mechanisms made by Nintendo in order to avoid backlash coming from parents who complain about their kid being draining off their money.

If we assume that this marketplace would only be open to grown up people, then it might work better. Though I don't believe the amount of grown up players is actually big enough to make such a place worth building. Especially when you consider the amount of active support that would be necessary in order to prevent scams and hacks and whatever. Hardly viable, I'd say.

That is not to say that I don't like the idea of a (competitive) marketplace for Pokemon. It is particularly intriguing to me to see how demand and supply change over time. It's one thing I do like about the GTS.

Marth said:

This sounds a little bit like microtransactions; spending money in order to get that shiny, or a competitive mon, a lot faster.

One thing to consider is the group you're actually targetting with that. I don't think teenagers, aka the majority of players, would actually be allowed to participate. Be that because of their parents not allowing it, or because of safety mechanisms made by Nintendo in order to avoid backlash coming from parents who complain about their kid being draining off their money.

If we assume that this marketplace would only be open to grown up people, then it might work better. Though I don't believe the amount of grown up players is actually big enough to make such a place worth building. Especially when you consider the amount of active support that would be necessary in order to prevent scams and hacks and whatever. Hardly viable, I'd say.

That is not to say that I don't like the idea of a (competitive) marketplace for Pokemon. It is particularly intriguing to me to see how demand and supply change over time. It's one thing I do like about the GTS.

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That actually makes a lot of sense. I'm not completely sure if the marketplace would only be for adults, since kids spend money on DLCs on their smartphones and other video games. The same way my parents would spend hundreds of dollars for me to buy yugioh card booster boxes versus kids buying pokemon isn't all that different. In fact, I don't play yugioh and those cards are in a bag in some closet I've forgotten about. They've just become a memory, so I think adults would be okay with their kids purchasing virtual pokemon as a memory and experience more than anything else. I also believe teenagers, like 14 and up would use this site. Anyone under it would have a harder time. I also think it would definitely reshape the supply and demand. So, I agree with you a lot. I've seen people let their kids waste money on crazier things haha.

I feel like if this were to happen with the correct guidelines & authenticity, the app/platform would be a huge hit.

That being said, the app/platform would kinda defeat the point of Pokémon :/ It'll take that wholeheartedness away from the game and people just bidding on pokémon which is kinda sad.