It has come to my attention that many people are excited about this reprint of Vocaloid items on TM. In order to fully answer all the comments that were sent to me, I have decided to write another article to address the impact this reprint has brought upon the trading market. This is certainly a very interesting and unique case worth studying.
First of all, I might have to explain what this monkey business is all about. The Vocaloid items are brought to you by Crapton Crypton Future Media, as a collaboration. What it essentially mean is that CFM licenses TM to use Vocaloid Persona, in return TM becomes an advertisement platform for CFM. Typical win-win situation. But then there was this earthquack earthquake in Japan which caused this event to end prematurely. That is, up to this Friday, when the reprints are issued.
So let us take a step back to before the reprints were issued and take a closer look at the market. Since the closure of Vocaloid Persona, the supply was shut off. Those who purchased the Vocaloid Items from the original gacha were divided into twomajor groups: Those are treating it as an investment (traders), and those who are collecting these items for the sake of their own enjoyment (collectors). Until now, all the Vocaloid items circulating on the trading market come from those traders, who bought these items as investment. The collectors, on the other hand, have to choice but to purchase them from the traders at an outrageously high price. Assuming that these items are conserved between all trades (i.e. no items were lost), the starting amount of items will gradually decrease, as the collectors are unlikely to resell them back to the market. Consequentially, the scarcity of Vocaloid Persona drives its market value higher and higher. This is the primary source of profit for Vocaloid traders. The longer you hold on to your Vocaloid items, the more valuable it will become.
However, the reprint of Vocaloid Persona items turned the whole market upside-down. The gacha was reopened, causing not only the source of supply to be reopened as well, but the overall scarcity to be drastically reduced. As the first law of a collectible market states: The value of any collectible item corresponds to its rarity, the Vocaloid items will be depriciated. Instead of having to find the limited amount of these items on the market and overpaying for them, the reprint offers a much cheaper alternative for collectors. The traders, however, suffered great losses as the value of their old Vocaloid items drops greatly. One might think people are excited about the reprint, as the evidence in trade rooms point out that the trade for Vocaloid items are more frequent than ever. In reality, what really is going on is that the previous traders who were holding on to their Vocaloid items as investment are trying to sell them as fast as possible, before all is lost. The few of these traders who did not get their items through the original gachas, but through buying it at a relatively high price from another traders, were the ones who were hit the hardest. They paid a very high offer for their items, only to find out that the reprint has reduced the price of their items down to nothing. As this selling frenzy continue, the original Vocaloid items will depreciate quickly, as the collectors will not buy anything from the traders anymore but to resort to the reprints. the traders will likely to lose faith too, and underprice their items in a desperate attempt to sell them.
The more they sell, the less valuable their items will become. However, since the market can never be truly saturated, the bottom of how low the value can end up will be somewhere above 75 G-coins, the original price tag that comes with the gacha. In comparison to real life investment, the fate of Vocaloid Persona will be somewhat similar. In the end, the traders lose, because their investments are reduced to dirt. The collectors also lose in this case, as they overpaid for the original Vocaloid, only to find out that they can simply buy a reprint at 75 G-coins.
Who exactly is responsible for this disaster? I think we all know the answer. The TM “government”. While they jump on every cash-earning opportunity like a starved squirrel on the last peanut on Earth, the users were the ones ultimately being taken advantage of.
P.S.
I have talked to one of my professors (Dr. Svetlana Petrovsky) who is also highly knowledgable on this kind of market, and she mentioned some of the mistakes I have made in writing this article. First, I assumed every single TM player is an expert trader from Wall Street, complete with their market analysts. Which obviously isn’t the case. When we plot the demograhics on TM, most of them are impulsive teenager girls who knows nothing about market economy. Second, the other assumption I have made is that everyone had unhindered access to G-coins, that is, if they have money, they can buy it freely. Third, I assumed the traders and the collectors were two completely seperate groups with zero overlap in between. In reality, these two groups will have some overlap, as some collectors might decide to sell their Vocaloid items should they lose interest, and some traders might keep their items for dressing up.
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