Majora's Mask and MH4U Scalping debacle.

[All Hail Lelouch]

As many of you already know, the Majora's Mask New 3DS sold out within minutes of it being announced on the Nintendo Direct earlier this month. Well, it seems the Scalpers have struck again, locking out all preorders of the new Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate New 3ds and are already selling for $300, $400, and even $500 dollars.

What are your thoughts on this? Should these people be allowed to snatch up all the Pre orders of a new collector's edition and dangle them over our heads like this?

Link for MH4U: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XMonster+Hunter+4+ultimate+New+3ds&_nkw=Monster+Hunter+4+ultimate+New+3ds&_sacat=0

Link for MM: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Monster+Hunter+4+ultimate+New+3ds&_from=R40&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XMajora%27s+mask+New+3Ds&_nkw=Majora%27s+mask+New+3Ds&_sacat=0

 

[SmallHatLogan]

Should they be allowed to do it? Yes.

Are they jerks for doing it? Yes.

It would be nice if the consumers would stop enabling them though. I myself have a strict rule of not paying the ridiculous prices for 20 year old games even if it means I have to live with the ultimate despair of never owning Super Metroid.

 

[Foolery]

Should have just given the New XL faceplates. Produce some Majora's Mask ones, Pokemon, Monster Hunter, Smash, etc. Bam. Problem solved.

 

[EHKOS]

Shouldn't there be a limit per customer address? Or IP? Because this has been a problem for longer than it should be. Every special edition, there are collectors, or people who think it looks cool or feel it's important to them, and then there are people who want to make money off it. There really isn't a good solution and it really pisses me off.

Captcha: pay the ferryman

Woah captcha, I think that's going a bit too far...

 

[Fappy]

It's up to the vendors to determine whether or not they will sell multiples of an item to the same buyer. They can even specify the amount someone can buy. PC parts vendors have been doing this for ages. It's a sensible strategy, really. Any item that can potentially get bought out by scalpers will likely sell out organically, anyway, so you might as well do well by your customers and make it a fair playing field. Stores don't want to lose customers, and this kind of thing definitely contributes to that.

Nintendo could also set standards for sale of their products, but we know Ninty all too well... they don't give a shit about availability of their products :/

 

[Slycne]

Another question is where the sliding scale lands. Obviously if someone buys up 99 of 100 items for resale that's a problem, but if someone buys one for themselves and happens to snag another one or two to sell off to help pay for the first that's probably not going to ruffle a lot of feathers. Somewhere there's a tipping point between acceptably savvy and simple profiteering.

 

[Fappy]

Another question is where the sliding scale lands. Obviously if someone buys up 99 of 100 items for resale that's a problem, but if someone buys one for themselves and happens to snag another one or two to sell off to help pay for the first that's probably not going to ruffle a lot of feathers. Somewhere there's a tipping point between acceptably savvy and simple profiteering.

A lot of times you'll see an item that specifies "only 5 per customer" or something like that. I think the number should depend on the type of product and its availability. Something with a limited release like this should have a smaller number of units per customer than something that is simply in high demand.

 

[CaitSeith]

As many of you already know, the Majora's Mask New 3DS sold out within minutes of it being announced on the Nintendo Direct earlier this month. Well, it seems the Scalpers have struck again, locking out all preorders of the new Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate New 3ds and are already selling for $300, $400, and even $500 dollars.

What are your thoughts on this? Should these people be allowed to snatch up all the Pre orders of a new collector's edition and dangle them over our heads like this?

Link for MH4U: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XMonster+Hunter+4+ultimate+New+3ds&_nkw=Monster+Hunter+4+ultimate+New+3ds&_sacat=0

Link for MM: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Monster+Hunter+4+ultimate+New+3ds&_from=R40&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XMajora%27s+mask+New+3Ds&_nkw=Majora%27s+mask+New+3Ds&_sacat=0

Of course not. After all, pre-orders are intended for consumers, not resellers. If the ticket resale has been made illegal in certain circumstances, why not limited editions?

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

My take on is the scalpers are just doing want they do. They haven't violated any law. They just are jerks. The problem is what EHKOS and Fappy said, the stores aren't limiting sales like they could be. Scalpers can till jump around buying as much as they can, both online and in meatspace, but limits will at least slow them down and deter the casual scalper from bothering.

What really pisses me off about the scalper issue is Ebay and similar sites are letting these products be listed weeks before they are even released. Money is changing hands between scalpers and the poor impulse control people who feed them, before an item is even involved. It is giving the scalpers a good way to gauge the market for when the item does come out and gives them more money to buy out more limited things. The good thing about the problem is it gets customers out of the market for release day, but the scalpers will probably still be there.

 

[Bellvedere]

Huh, when I heard how quickly these sold out I was pretty convinced there'd be at least one additional batch. And in Australia, there is another release scheduled for March (the first batch sold out in a day here but the second is still available)... I haven't been watching this closely so I assumed this would be the same world wide. For what amounts to a different paint job in production, seems pretty crazy that Nintendo aren't offering more units (it would also deter scalpers if there is uncertainty around the possibility of multiple additional releases).

Scalpers are unfortunately the reality of markets where demand exceeds availability to such a scale. I've seen some companies go to crazy lengths to try and keep their products out of scalper hands but the only real solution is to manufacture close enough to demand that it isn't a profitable enough market for scalpers (which in fairness isn't necessarily easy). Even where sales are limited per person, it's easy enough for dedicated scalpers to get around and if the resell profit margin is large enough there's plenty of folks that will decide that they'd actually prefer $400 to a limited edition 3DS anyway.

 

[All Hail Lelouch]

Another question is where the sliding scale lands. Obviously if someone buys up 99 of 100 items for resale that's a problem, but if someone buys one for themselves and happens to snag another one or two to sell off to help pay for the first that's probably not going to ruffle a lot of feathers. Somewhere there's a tipping point between acceptably savvy and simple profiteering.

Well, individually, that's not an issue, but now multiply that by about a 1000 and you suddenly have about 1-2 thousand units that aren't making it into a fan's hands and are instead just being auctioned off to the highest bidder by some dude that's trying to make a quick buck.

 

[Mezahmay]

I feel issues like this begs the question why there's a limited edition at all when there are solutions like what Dead Century proposed and make swappable faceplates. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper to produce than whole handheld consoles that they have to low ball production projections for to ensure they at the very least break even. This whole issue could be avoided if Nintendo's production ideologies weren't so stubbornly rooted to old philosophies.