Online Gaming Marketplace Shakeups

 I caught wind of recent news regarding TCGPlayer and BGG Geek Marketplace and wanted to share some thoughts.

First, eBay has announced their plans to buy TCGPlayer. This transaction makes sense as TCGPlayer has really become an eBay-a-like for trading card games.  This news would have been filed away in mind as a blip, but then I saw the amount that eBay spent: $295 Million.  Holy cheese balls!  

I had a short stint as a volunteer writer for TCGPlayer posting articles about the World of Warcraft TCG.  At the time it was very much a fan run site for fans of TCGs.  I did not get the vibe of "we are a future multi-million dollar corporation".  Feels like I missed an opportunity here had I stuck with the freelance writing for TCGPlayer.... giving me vibes of the time I missed out on contributing to WoWHead before it got gobbled up for a million dollars... which makes me lament my younger days and not having the chance to become a streamer (I was an early adopter of Google Video before Google had Youtube).  Apparently my destiny is to always be early to the party!

The next news item to cover is Board Game Geek's (BGG) sudden announcement they were shutting down Geek Market.  This came as a surprise as BGG was in progress testing an updated version of Geek Market so to go from beta testing a new version to shutting down the entire thing (including the original Geek Market) caught the BGG community by surprise.  Since that announcement and uproar from the community the folks at BGG have opted to establish a new classified-style market.  

I don't really have any commentary; just found the news interesting.

More can be read in these three posts at BGG (in chronological order)

1. Announcement: Classic & Beta GeekMarket Shutting Down | BoardGameGeek
2. GeekMarket changes update: Classifieds coming | BoardGameGeek
3. Launching New GeekMarket Next Week | BoardGameGeek
   

What Happened to eBay?

I was a big fan of eBay six years ago. I enjoyed selling and buying used items, from skateboards to video games. Rarely did a search return with dozens of "NEW" results. There were very few items with a buyout of $0.99 and a shipping total of $19.99. Back in the day, eBay was actually a virtual Auction House.

Currently, eBay is nothing more than a glorified and unfriendly Amazon.com. It amazes me that eBay is still actually in business. Most items are sold for dirt cheap buyouts with an insanely high shipping cost. And if I understand it correctly, eBay makes nothing from the shipping cost. A while ago, eBay posted saying they were going to remove auctions with over-inflated shipping costs, but any search on eBay will tell you a different story.

Another annoying trend is the auction listings themselves. Once upon a time, the listings actually described the item that was up for auction. Now a days, the listings are templated, automated, and filled with garbage. There is two lines mirroring the auctions title, a stolen image from Google, and then two pages of nonsensical legalese stating that God himself has jurisdiction over Canada. Is it too much to ask for eBay to police listings so they actually LIST something about the item being sold?

Honestly, I wish eBay would split the auctions into two categories:

Category 1: Hey, I am too lazy to get a real job, so here is a bunch of garbage I bought on clearance you can bid on. Oh, and I get great deals from my distributer, so I will sell this crap well below retail while fucking the brick and mortar stores of the world. BTW, shipping starts at $19.99.

Category 2: Hey, I have this great item that I have no use for any longer. If it something useful to you, then please feel free to bid and pay a reasonable shipping cost based on it's weight.

In the bid to become the best auction site on the Internet, they have simply become the most bloated.