The Worst Product in the Hobby Game Industry
A product so bad the seller has to offer concessions just to get you to take it
I have been looking for a while for the right angle to teach the reality of the worst product in the hobby/comic/video/game industry. Recently I had a bit of a mental light bulb go on as I was studying the mechanics of subprime finance in order to prepare to apply for an interesting administrative role. And if I can explain this right, you’ll be so astounded at just how bad the worst product in our industry is, that it will change your outlook on everyone who has ever offered it, future or past.
The key that unlocked this understanding was a very, very humble little car called the Mitsubishi Mirage. And the breakthrough was understanding that the Mirage is not the product. It’s the concession.
The Mirage is one of the only subcompact cars still being sold new in the North American market. No longer can you get a new-built Chevy Spark, Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, Volkswagen New Beetle, Fiat 500 (unless you want the new electric version), or Hyundai Excel, to say nothing of long-gone minicars like the Dodge Neon or the Geo Metro. Nope, today it’s just the Mirage, the Nissan Versa, the Fiat 500ev, the Kia Rio, and the Mini Cooper. That’s it. And I am going to couch this as opinion because I don’t need a libel suit, but the Mirage is probably the worst of those five.
(Incidentally, this article is not here just to be a bash session against Mitsubishi Motors. They have other serviceable vehicles available that are better than the Mirage, and their performance car history is strong.)
But yeah, the Mirage. Sparse. Confining. Feature-light. Horsepower like a lawnmower. High-mileage at 36mpg, but that’s worse than some larger cars, like eco-trim Corollas or Accords.
So why would anyone buy such a car? Well, in a way, they don’t.
I don’t mean they don’t get Mirages. I mean they don’t buy a Mirage in the way that we think of getting ourselves a new car — where we pick the one we like the most for whatever combination of reasons, and whatever it costs is whatever it costs. The car is the product we are buying. When someone gets a new Mirage, the Mirage is not the product they are buying.
The real product, the actual product that the seller is concerned with transacting unto you, is a subprime, high-interest collateralized auto finance loan targeted at people who need a car and have tight cash positions.
And that product, that finance agreement, is so bad, that the lender has to give you a new car so you’ll take it.
Now I know what you’re thinking, that seems like something of a handstand, and why would they even do that? An important part of the equation is that the Mirage is actually a new car, and its MSRP is, by current standards, about as low as they get, about $16,500 base, and discounts are absolutely available. You still get hit with sales tax and fees, of course, but bottom line: It’s an honestly cheap car.
Importantly, new cars can be financed somewhat differently than used cars. New car loans can qualify for manufacturer subsidy, which makes it part of a package deal that, in its totality, a used car seller either can’t meet, or meets in a much worse way. “Buy here, pay here” with the maximum legal APR is an offering that has limitations. Aside from the financing being worse, the vehicles themselves are often sketchy. The 2024 Mirage, though, has a full factory warranty. Banks like that, and buyers like that.
So for the buyer who needs a personal car, lives or works where walking, biking, or transit are non-starters, is probably younger and has mediocre or poor credit, has little or no spare cash on hand, and needs a few years assured of not having to pay for most types of major car repair, Mitsubishi Motors and its associated finance partners have a solution for you. The solution isn’t great — far from it. It’s a loan you’ll hate every time you submit a payment for it. But if you take them up on that offer, they’ll provide you with an actual new car. And that’s not nothing. But compared to other ways to approach that need in the marketplace, it’s pretty bad. A buyer doesn’t have to stretch much further to get a meaningfully better entry-level new car or a certified-used offering, and that’s assuming they can’t scrape together the modicum of cash to get a 12-year-old Corolla or Civic with 160k miles on it.
I should be extremely fair here and say that the Nissan Versa can be viewed the same as the Mirage in that it’s a sparse new car primarily used to collateralize high-APR low-credit finance products. It’s cheap, too, barely a grand more than the Mirage, and significantly less than the Fiat 500ev and the Mini Cooper. Nissan as a company is an odd duck these days. They have this amazing automotive history, they’ve built pretty decent vehicles for decades, and at the same time now the Altima is the flagbearer car for divorced moms who drive their tires bald and don’t know what an oil change is, they’re charging a king’s ransom for the new Z, and they stopped making the popular Titan truck so the only full-size pickup options in North America now are Ford, Chevy, Dodge/Ram, and Toyota. I don’t know what the endpoint is that Nissan is progressing toward, but I certainly admire their diligence at it.
But back on topic. What is our industry’s analogue to the subprime new car loan?
First, three runners-up for worst.
I had a strong case that stores streaming TCG tournaments might be the worst, but event streaming is not a product in and of itself, really. It’s more of a promotional function, and it’s a terrible one for LGSes. Obviously, everyone realizes younger gamers are watching streams far more than they are watching scripted shows in many cases. It’s natural for an LGS to want to get into that equation somehow. We see it and we’re like, “That’s the cutting edge. I need my brand to be in that space.” But it’s bad. Paper TCGs on stream are close to unwatchable due to the realities of how information is communicated off the physical cards and between the players; it’s not nearly as elegant and functional as video game streams. And the LGS is undermining themselves by incentivizing players not to come in, but to sit at home and watch streamed events instead. An LGS should always be looking for ways to generate arrivals, not the opposite! The extent of live event streaming that seems worth it for an LGS to do, is to broadcast major regional or national events they may be hosting. There is an authentic audience for that content that won’t encounter that LGS any other way. And even still the brand benefit is soft.
There was also a case to call NFT-based products the worst product in our industry. We saw a bunch of this crop up circa 2021-2022. But it’s already dead. And what’s more, the worst an NFT (Non-Fungible Token, a digital good transacted via the Ethereum blockchain) can do is go to zero value. The most money it can lose you is however much you paid for it. That’s not bad enough. The worst product in our industry is so bad that it can lose you an uncapped amount of money.
Finally, third-party tournament series that tour and/or get “sponsored” by multiple stores around town are pretty bad. If you’re one of the better stores, you are letting inferior competitors coattail off your voltage, the marketing strength of your brand that you paid for and developed your store in order to accrue. If you’re one of the lesser stores, you’re giving all the town mercenaries an update on how far behind the top stores you are and how much you suck. Event integrity concerns can tarnish every participating store even if yours had nothing to do with whatever problem came up. And since traveling mercenary players don’t tend to be spenders, you’re bricking your store for up to an entire day from ordinary event and sales activities. The only winners are the independent third-party organizers who get to do their social media monetization or take their percentage (local laws notwithstanding) or just get their jollies from getting to decide who plays cards on their turf and when. Stay away. Don’t touch it with a ten-foot Planeswalker Fork. But it’s not the worst product in our industry.
So if the worst product isn’t paper TCG streaming, it’s not NFTs, and it’s not third-party organized play series, what is it?
Read on below the paywall if you’re a paid subscriber. For everyone else, have a great week!