No not Transformers- real bots. Software bots to be precise, and how they are effecting gaming and either are already or soon will have a similar impact on TF collecting.
Like a lot of TF collectors I am also a big fan of video games. Except right now it is super crappy to be a video game fan trying to get an Xbox Series X, or worse still a PS5, or worst of all a PC video card.
Without one of those 3 you are a generation behind.
So just be smart, keep checking amazon, stocktracker, best buy and computer shop sites, and pounce on one as soon as stock comes in. Early bird / most frequent checker / fastest clicker gets the worm right?
Well, no. Because bots get 99% of it faster than you or I ever could. The instant there is stock the bot knows and buys as much as possible. Limit 1 per buyer? No problem as they can have 500 bots each with different names and credit cards.
That said, most stores rarely impose limits on how many any one person (or bot) can buy.
So PS5s, Xboxes, and video cards vanish in seconds. Doesn't matter if you hunt and check or anything - you can't be as fast as bots, especially a swarm of them.
What % of PS5s have sold to scalpers vs people who will actually own and play it? Gotta be at least 75% to bots and scalpers to date.
Video cards are worse because they want them for digital currency mining. Only a handful even make it on the scalper market, at 3-4 times retail price.
So how does this relate to TF collecting? Well we keep getting limited stock / exclusives released to us... actually a majority of retail bots are rare these days it seems.
Are we already seeing bots hit TF collecting? Figures can be gone in a heartbeat these days. Pre-ordering helps but the bots can get all the pre-orders too.
It's yet another thing that pushes almost all my TF purchases to the smaler retailers now, like Toy Snowman and A3U. It was great how ToySnowman put a 1 per buyer cap on the seeker set but even aside from that often small sites simply aren't big bot targets. Yet.
I'm not trying to start yet another argument about the morality of scalping here because we've been through those a dozen times already. What I want to do with this thread is to see if anyone knows:
- How prevelent the bots buying everything actually is
- Are bots indeed hitting TF collecting now (or are we blaming normal selling out on invisible evil bots)?
- Is there anything we can do (like get our own bots to buy us one of a scarce thing)?
- Is there anything retailers can do or are doing now? Their only motivation would be to reduce the amount the rest of us b**ch at them for not having stock, as financially selling out to bots or individuals is the same money...