The Math Behind The Pokemon

I am here today to discuss a lucrative business operation to enrich the world of Broodwar. Our long time associate Eywa has already come up with a great idea (which you can find here), that was then improved upon(Which you can find here), but I think we can go one step further. To illustrate my point, I will be incorporating pictures to enthrall you with the potential that my unbelievably new incredibly refined idea will bring.

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Dear members of Teamliquid,

I've never really explained how this would work or why it would work... But given that people seem to think that I was entirely full of shit when I originally introduced the possibility of it, I will go into the math in scary, painful, and incredibly deniable detail.

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A shiny Abra appeared!

When I was 14, I had already been a Pokemon collector for many years, my dad would bring me to conventions at which we would get to see basically every Pokemon that is out there. It's really around this time where I had collected so much that I had reached perhaps 5000+ duplicates if I may say so myself. These duplicate Pokemon served me no good whatsoever, and it is at this point which my dad proposed that I begin to sell them at Pokemon tournaments as part of a shitty business. So, I was like.. Sounds cool. I'll give that a try. My dad fronted about $700 to get a more inclusive inventory and I worked many hours at sorting these ~~words~~ out.

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I sold my Pokemon to people like this.

Now, in the end, the Pokemon I bought for sale outnumbered the Pokemon which I already had... It was a lot of Pokemon. All in all, I went to 2 different events, 2 or 3 times each and sold the product which I had accumulated. Given my methods of purchase and hours of sorting, I was able to offer a much more affordable price than most sellers.

Tournaments With Revenue:

Pokemon World Tournament
$1700
$1200
$800

TCG Battle Road Tournament
$1200
$700

Anyway, while the overall revenue is decreasing with every year, it is still all formidable amounts. It is difficult to say what was the problem that caused a decrease, it could have been financial instability due to recession or a simple matter of the same teams being at each event every year with a few offsets. In the end, we're looking more short term so that really doesn't matter. After all, most people have this kind of mentality:

Now, obviously looking at the big numbers doesn't really prove fruitful to most people, so I've looked more into detail. Given an initial purchase of $700 along with $400 at the convention I had bought from as a follow up and the $160 per year to keep up the current Pokemon set ($80 on the last given only one event)... That gives us a total cost of $1500 for all of these events with an additional half of the purchased Pokemon still sitting in inventory (given that I haven't done anything with them since Eywa went off to evolve into a magikarp).

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Eywa evolved!

The above numbers bring us to about a 6:1 profit:cost ratio. This is by no means evenly distributed among the selection, for current Pokemon you'll get roughly 1.5-2x ratio, for sets you may get 2-4x depending on the set, for older packs you can get up to a 10x ratio, however, these are fairly rare and they usually sit around 7x and for team packs (custom made) you can get up to 10x as well, more consistently so than the old packs described above. These numbers evidentially change all the time due ever changing prices, however, the basic math remains the same.

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Blah blah blah, you know the math. You just want this Pokemon right????

For the team packs, if you're prudent with your searching on The Battle Frontier and what not, you can generally find lots of 5000-10000 Pokemon for $30-$50 (total after shipping). Thus, depending on how lucky you are with your capturing, the Pokemon can come at anywhere between 1c per Pokemon to 0.3c per Pokemon. Team packs are generally composed of 20 Pokemon, thus making the total cost of one pack a maximum of 25c per pack (given the flashy Pokemon you'll place on either side facing out). This sorting option provides you with very inexpensive packs of what is basically the best selling. People love it when the Pokemon are sorted by their team only. These packs are always the most popular and sell very well at $2 per pack giving a minimum of 8:1 profit:cost ratio.

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Rare children's card games!

Next we look at pre-sealed packs, these generally sell of $1 and cost more on average than the above mentioned team packs. Now, these will come in boxes of 24-36 packs depending on what year and what brand. Your cost for these can vary anywhere from 11c to 50c per pack again depending on the year, brand and sale which is caught. These packs are generally slow moving.

Team sets aren't a very interesting sale because you know what you're going to get from the moment you pick it up. You still however need to keep them for those enthusiast collectors and the kids who want to say that they have a big fucking box of Pokemon. These are normally only purchased at conventions because you can get them for $5-$10 which is cheaper than anything else you can buy. Generally, you only get about 600 Pokemon for this amount, so it's not entirely recommended that they be used to make team packs, however, it is a solid possibility if stock runs low. The sets will sell from $20-$30 generally depending on the size of the box (or flashiness).

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Still gotta brag about having the original Alakazam man

New packs aren't really worth discussing, primarily they are there because you don't want customers to walk away thinking that you're only selling shit. If they buy a new pack, they'll likely also buy something that makes more money.

Now that we've been over how it's worth while... Let's look at how long it would take us to raise up $38k.

Taking into account it is first year sales, we'll be looking at first and second year average... $1200, to be modest, let's say $1000 (because overshooting is better than under). 6:1 profit range, that gives us $857 per event.

$38k / $857 = 44 Events. (VERY Feasible)...

So, what do we need to accomplish 44 events? We either need Kantonians to give up 44 weekends or we can look outside the box for alternatives. Excluding the obvious dispatching players to raise funds at various events, we have two options to look at...

We can look to our senior citizens? This may sound odd... What senior citizen would want to participate in a Pokemon fundraiser for Brood War? Well, look at it this way... The Kantonian government used to give out grants for organizations who included seniors in their fundraising activities. It's basically just an opportunity for them to get out and socialise... Think of it this way, senior citizens dealing with kids for a few hours (rotating shifts from the local senior home) - They'd love it regardless of the cause. It's a solid plan, however, there is risk that this may not work (given that it is untested and really not the conventional way of thinking - Though, Brood War is an old game, if we relied on conventional methods, there's no money coming in).

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A gathering of both young and old Pokemon trainers!

The second alternative is to have the tournament run it itself, this however, would require a split in funds between the tournament and the manufacturer (us). Assume an ideal scenario, we're splitting 50/50 (and this may or may not be feasible) which brings us up to a minimum of 88 events. This method is kind of messy and can end up being half-assed.

Potential: Let's say 7 months (Standard Pokemon Season), 4-5 weekends per month, 2 events per weekend - We can be chalking up $48k per year as a conservative estimate.

The distribution has always been the issue, and though I had someone ready to do a lot of production, there's no point unless the distributing line is functioning. We didn't have anyone comfortable enough to make the calls to the end points and sell them on the idea, we didn't have the people making the calls to the tournaments to transmit the request to sell the Pokemon.

Feasible? Yes

Is it a lot of work? Yes

Is Brood War worth it? Not for me, perhaps for someone else though.

tl;dr: Hockey cards suck and we should be selling Pokemon to 7 year olds for money.

The Math Behind The Pokemon

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