| ▲ | tracerbulletx 9 hours ago |
| Maybe things go a little faster now, but doesn't seem too different from Pogs, or Beanie Babies or any other trend in a long line of them. |
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| ▲ | m0llusk 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Labubus got extra kick from being gambling also. Many were sold in boxes without labels or with minimal labels that listed possible contents. That makes the actual product into more of a loot box kind of thing. That might have contributed to the speed of the trend passing. |
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| ▲ | somnic 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think I heard it was a bit more than that - you'd buy them online direct, blind, and be informed immediately after purchase what it was you'd actually bought, so bringing in the immediacy and "convenience" of online gambling/gacha/etc. too, compared to ordering a mystery box and opening it when it was delivered, or buying foil packs of trading cards where you need to actually be present at a particular location. | |
| ▲ | firecall 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I recently learned that many collectables are sold this way! Labubus just happened to get a wide appeal and had a moment in the US for some reason.. | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | "Gatcha", from Japanese "gatchapon"; there's little dispenser machines which sell plastic eggs containing a random collectible from a set. There are thousands of different product lines. Basically game lootboxes, but IRL. People like gambling, it seems. | |
| ▲ | nsonha 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | are they regulated under gambling laws? Sounds like fraud to me. | |
| ▲ | tourmalinetaco 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They are and I hate it. It‘s bad enough with trading cards, but now every single collectible is employing gacha mechanics and it’s frustrating. | | |
| ▲ | parl_match 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't get it. It's a "collectable". Your "hobby" is "collecting". You put your "collection" on a shelf and look at it. That's not a hobby to me. It's just consuming for consumption's sake. | | |
| ▲ | PunchyHamster 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, they took that formula and made it worse because now you can't just buy it, you have to roll a dice or get a second hand. Also nothing wrong with just having a shelf with things you like to look at. | | |
| ▲ | megablast 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Perfect then, don't buy it. > Also nothing wrong with just having a shelf with things you like to look at. I completely disagree. |
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| ▲ | eru 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For eg Magic cards, a secondary market formed very quickly where you could buy exactly what you wanted. | |
| ▲ | throwaway48476 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Everything is gambling now" | | |
| ▲ | georgefrowny an hour ago | parent [-] | | Protip: If you call it an investment, it becomes not only respectable but it is in fact the responsible thing to do for your customer's financial security. |
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| ▲ | georgefrowny an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Pogs, Tazos, Pokémon cards (all cards actually), Happy Meals, Knuckleheads/Gogos were/are still all sold lootbox style. I think a Labubu novelty was lots of direct sales and a deliberately(?) flaky website that had people frantically strategising for secret methods to get an order placed successfully. When you did, they told you what you got without having to wait for it to arrive for an instant dopamine payout. I suspect if the website worked very predicably and you could easily and calmly reserve what you wanted, even with the gacha mechanism, it would not have been such a frenzy. | |
| ▲ | wahnfrieden 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | So were pogs |
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| ▲ | yieldcrv 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| beanie babies were rational, there was a supply constriction that seemed permanent, the founder resolved it and flooded the market, leaving bagholders and decades of mockery but I would content it was not an example of irrational exuberance labubu’s are part of a flooded market as well, but there was never anything to suggest it wouldnt be flooded only an expectation for demand to keep up longer than just half of this year |
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| ▲ | bluefirebrand 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Beanie Babies were irrational because it is irrational to go into a collector craze over stuffed animals | | |
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