Interviews and Writings North-South
Editor|Sanjin Yege
Ten Point Character Original
160,000, a piece of paper.
You read that right, this is not a luxury store in a mall, but a few hundred people on a second-hand platform to mark the pony cards they want.
The price of the cards on the second-hand platform is marked, and more than 200 people point "want"
"My Little Pony", a cartoon produced by Hasbro United States and premiered in 1991, must not have expected its blessings to come. As the most popular fourth-generation "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" spin-off merchandise, the My Little Pony series of cards has become a new generation of consumer icons for elementary school students, and many adults are also addicted to it.
Cards with animated images are the collective memory of different generations, but there has never been a generation where cards have become as popular as they are today. Nowadays, cards have a more specialized name - trading cards, and children buy card packs (about 6 cards in a pack) for 5 to 10 yuan, and after opening the cards, they collect and exchange them according to their rarity. My Little Pony, Ultraman and other cartoon IPs are the most popular among them.
Card publisher Card Game Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Card Game) has increased its revenue year by year with IP such as My Little Pony and Ultraman, and cards are no longer just a "toy", but a real business under capital operation. CCTV's "Financial Survey" program found that the transaction amount of a single card has reached more than 200,000 yuan.
CCTV "Children Crazy Drawing Cards"
On the other side of the market, it is not uncommon for minors to be addicted to trading cards, buying sky-high cards privately, comparing with each other, and various problems follow.
In this card trading chain, the live broadcast room anchors, rating agencies, and distribution companies have targeted consumers' wallets through well-designed links, and countless children have entered this game called "card drawing" one after another, but behind this "children's carnival" is still a gamble for adults.
"Minors are not allowed to place orders"
I can't stop the children who want to gamble
"Congratulations to Baozi for getting out of the card, it has been installed for you, and I will send you a box of cards according to the rules, remember to note with customer service."
The anchor rang the bell, and the barrage scrolled with comments such as "take a breath of European air". Tens of thousands of viewers watched the anchor open the card late at night, which is the norm in my Pony's live broadcast room.
The camera focuses on the anchor's flying fingers, putting ten packs of cards together to cut open the package, pouring out the cards and starting to count the cards, the rhythm is fast, and the anchor's words and movements are so proficient that people feel like they are watching "God of Gamblers".
Here, 24-hour rolling live streaming is nothing new; has a high appearance, a sweet voice, and being able to say jokes is the basic operation of the anchor; The quick action to disassemble the neat is a plus; The popularity of the live broadcast room with good luck and high explosion rate will definitely not be low. Even Ding Zeren, a former idol trainee, has joined the "blue ocean" of my Little Pony's card splitting anchor.
After Ding Zeren "collapsed", he began to be a card dismantling anchor in the live broadcast room
The setup of these live broadcast rooms is roughly similar, with faceless or faceless anchors encouraging the audience to place orders, neatly unboxing, cutting bags, counting cards, and drawing rare cards and ringing the bell to "congratulate", a set of processes is very skillful. At the same time, in order to increase interest and drive card sales, the live broadcast room is studying new rules and gameplay every day to retain users.
In my Little Pony's card-opening live broadcast room, "counting ponies" and "avoiding mosquitoes" are two popular ways to play.
Introduction to the gameplay of counting ponies in the live broadcast room
"Counting ponies" means that after placing an order, the streamer opens a pack of cards, and determines the number and rarity of bonus cards according to the number of ponies in the bag of cards; "Mosquito dodging" is to randomly select two packs of cards to open at the same time after placing an order, if there is no "mosquito" in the two packs of cards (Pony Burritz form, because of the transparent pattern wings are called "mosquitoes" by the card circle), that is, according to the rules of the live broadcast room, a single rare card or a whole box of cards will be given.
Minors are the main viewers and buyers in the live broadcast room, but according to the relevant regulations of the card official, minors need parental consent to buy.
The live broadcast room has its own way to deal with it: before placing an order, the anchors will without exception let the audience post comments similar to "adult" in the comment area and take screenshots, and there are words such as "minors are prohibited from placing orders" and "no refund or exchange after placing an order" in a prominent position in the live broadcast room. In this way, the cards are naturally bought by "adults".
In the past summer vacation, children have a lot of time to stay in the live broadcast room, as long as they put on the vest of "adult" and spend a "ticket" with a unit price of about 15 yuan to enter the game.
The higher the level of the card,
The more the player has a say in the circle
If live streaming is a low-threshold onlooker, then the second-hand trading platform is the main battlefield for advanced players.
The seller, Tangyuan, is a 20-year-old college student seller. She was originally a fan of the "My Little Pony" series of animations, and three years ago, she was influenced by a friend to "get into the pit". Although playing cards was a bit naïve for high school juniors, it also adjusted the tense learning atmosphere at that time.
When Tangyuan entered the pit, rare cards were mainly concentrated in the hands of individual sellers, "unlike now, when there are hundreds of thousands". Later, live broadcast became the main way to collect cards, and merchants saw that primary school students had no concept of spending money, so they speculated on the price of some cards that were not expensive cards in the past, further creating rarity, and the price was even higher.
Cards have a special rating agency that determines the price. At present, the most recognized ones are CCG and PGS (Card Rating Agency), and card holders can choose different price packages to determine the rating, and they send the cards to the card and get a report from the rating agency as the pricing standard.
CCG Mini Program Home
At present, the most expensive of the Pony cards is SGR Ziyue 007, because it was only sold offline a few years ago, and the explosion rate is extremely low, so it is very expensive. Tangyuan also has this card, but the price is "close to the people", as long as 7,000. There was a junior high school girl who bought this card here in Tangyuan, but later proposed to return it, and Tangyuan learned that the girl wanted to use this card to score, but the final score was not good.
Even if it is already the most expensive card, it will still be divided into three, six, nine and so on according to many factors such as fineness and wear and tear, and the level of the card determines the right of card players to speak in the circle to a certain extent.
In the past few years, Tangyuan has watched the market environment of cards getting worse and worse, "Now the cards are concentrated in the hands of big anchors, and individual sellers can only continue to increase the price in order not to let themselves lose money, so the price will collapse sooner or later, and it is not interesting to continue to stay."
After deciding to quit the pit, Tangyuan sold his cards on second-hand platforms. The basic people who come to Tangyuan to buy a card are minors, and Tangyuan has a set of methodologies for identifying whether the buyer is an adult - to see how outrageous the other party is.
For example, "A 100 yuan card only costs 10 yuan, and it must be a primary school student every day." But Tangyuan has also encountered some buyers who speak normally and give money cheerfully. Even if it is a minor, she is willing to sell the card to the other party.
Although the transaction prices of some cards are staggering, coupled with the buyer's status as a minor, it is inevitable that people will think that the seller is a profiteer. But in essence, this is still a transaction with a clear price, and Tangyuan will never feel guilty for selling "expensive cards" to elementary school students.
But in the actual situation, Tang Yuan heard that there are still a lot of troubles with his peers. After all, most buyers are still financially independent minors, once their parents find out that they buy cards without authorization, especially when the transaction amount is not low, the first reaction of parents is to come to the seller to return the goods, if the seller is unwilling, there are many parents who call the police to deal with it, and the children are often invisible in this process.
Rare Cards,
The face and hard currency of the campus social circle
This summer, a third-grade student from a county in Hunan Province was sent to her aunt's house in Shenzhen by her parents, hoping that her aunt, who had always been strict, would be able to control her "addiction" to buying Pony cards.
But even under the strict supervision of his aunt, Diandian would take advantage of his aunt's lunch break every day to go to the store downstairs to buy two packs of cards to try his luck. Although they are basically "waste cards" (ordinary card faces), they have not extinguished her enthusiasm. Less than a month after coming to Shenzhen, she has spent hundreds of yuan to buy a card, which is the pocket money given to her by her parents before leaving her hometown.
Diandian said that he started playing my Little Pony cards because the girls in the class were all playing and felt that he had to be together, otherwise there would be no common topic and he was afraid of being isolated.
"I didn't actually buy a lot, I bought the kind of 5 yuan at the school gate, but I was more lucky, and once I drew SR, only that time, everyone came to me after class."
After drawing the SR (abbreviation for Super Rare, referring to the card "very rare") card, the class Xiao Transparent Dotted became the "European Emperor" in the eyes of her classmates (a player with good luck and can open rare cards), many students entrusted her to open the card, but there were also some students who blamed Dian for not being able to draw the card they wanted, which made her very aggrieved.
In order to get this card, some classmates proposed to exchange five ordinary cards plus a week of duty, Coco agreed, and it didn't take long to regret it, "Five ordinary cards have no value, and a week's duty is just to collect homework and wipe the blackboard, I didn't take advantage", Coco proposed the condition of being on duty for two weeks, and the two couldn't get along, and finally broke off the relationship, and never spoke again.
The condition for primary school students to change their cards is generally to help with duty or borrow homework. Diandian doesn't have a mobile phone, so she can't watch the live broadcast to open the card, and she heard that some senior students spent a lot of money watching the live broadcast to buy a card.
There are no good bans for cards, classes and schools. Teacher Wang, the head teacher of Diandian, said, "We told the children that they could not bring them to school, but this was also unrealistic, and a card could not be searched at all. And as a person who has come over, although the gameplay is different, I also played cards when I was a child, so I usually turn a blind eye and don't go too far. ”
During the home visit, Ms. Wang found that many parents do not spend much time with their children when they go out to work, and many parents use cards as prizes to motivate their children to study hard, and grandparents even give their grandchildren five yuan and ten yuan of pocket money every day. As for what to buy, the old man doesn't have the energy to ask, "As long as you don't buy things that are not good for your health."
Matsuko was also a member of the card army when he was about to go to high school in elementary school, and three or four years ago, the cards were popular with Ultraman and the glory of kings, and the reason for Matsuko's entry into the pit is similar to that of Diandian, "Draw rare cards to show off, and everyone will come to slap you." And "every time you open a card is a bit like gambling, it feels cool to not know what card to come out."
Beside Songzi, many business-minded classmates gained the "first pot of gold" because of trading cards.
The rules of the transaction are generally capped at 500, plus a week's worth of homework, so the top students often have a higher say in the transaction. As long as the shared assignment has a high accuracy rate, you can even get a discount. This kind of trading is especially hot in the senior years.
When the enthusiasm for buying cards began to subside, Diandian recently had a new hobby - buying a good-looking water-based pen. She said that this pen is beautiful and durable, and it is very popular among her classmates.
"Now that I've bought two boxes, my aunt promised me that I could buy two more boxes after I finish my summer homework, and a few more boxes when school starts, so that I can collect the series." In fact, these pens are still the products of Kagame.
No My Little Pony,
There will also be other blind box products
Card games, which are equipped with ace IP products such as My Little Pony and Ultraman, submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with an annual income of more than 4 billion yuan, which attracted much attention in the industry. Among them, the revenue of trading cards in the past three years has firmly occupied the top spot of card game companies, accounting for more than 85% of the overall revenue.
In addition to cards, according to Caixin's survey, in the boom of opening blind boxes in the live broadcast room, almost everything can be removed: stationery, nail art, coffee, tea bags, paper towels, plastic toys, refrigerator magnets, keychains, etc., are all sold in the form of blind boxes.
Among them, the live broadcast room of the dismantling of the colored plastic turtle is the most popular, and it has an exclusive noun - turtle pair collision, and even the Olympic champion Quan Hongchan is also its senior player.
Why is blind box gameplay always addictive? Why do trading cards stand out as the hottest items in so many categories? What are the hidden dangers of card consumption by minors?
We interviewed Yang Binyan, an associate researcher at the Institute of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and executive editor of the Blue Book for Teenagers: A Report on the Internet Use of Minors in China, and Liu Xiaochun, director of the Internet Rule of Law Research Center at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an associate professor at the School of Law.
The following text is based on the conversation.
Ten Point Portrait: Nowadays, minors are very addicted to "card drawing", why is this kind of gameplay and mechanism so attractive?
Yang Binyan: The reason for the card draw is similar to the past academic discussion on the mechanism of "blind box addiction". In fact, whether it is a game, a blind box, or a card draw now, there is no difference in essence, it is the existence of different material forms of spiritual culture.
Today's cards present a more complete and mature closed-loop and ecosystem of commercial capital, which is backed by the continuous research of a strong professional team. They gain insight into children's consumption habits and psychology through IP, circles, and psychological marketing. For example, cartoons are naturally attractive to children, coupled with the monetization of live broadcasts, not to mention children, adults will also be addicted, and it is indeed difficult to resist.
Ten Point Portrait: When we communicate with children, we find that cards have become a kind of "social currency" for them, why is this phenomenon formed?
Yang Binyan: The social needs of minors are higher than those of adults to a certain extent, especially in a relatively single environment such as school, where minors' social behavior has the need to communicate and share with peers. Cards are the most popular, and naturally they have become their "social currency".
On the other hand, minors are basically controlled by their families and schools, but it cannot be ignored that they also have a desire to control things. In the card drawing, they are the rule-makers and enjoyers, the new type of entertainment also makes the children gain a sense of control, the joy brought by the card drawing, but also provides the children with a vacuum environment to decompress and escape from reality.
Ten Point Portrait: There are some regulations on the sale of blind boxes, stipulating that minors can only buy cards with the consent of their guardians, but there are still many minors who buy cards, what do you think of this problem?
Liu Xiaochun: The State Administration for Market Regulation has issued a document on the "Guidelines for the Code of Conduct for Blind Box Operations", which is still a guiding document and is not mandatory for the time being. Minors under the age of eight are generally considered to be incapacitated for civil conduct. From this point of view, they need parental consent to engage in the act of purchasing, which can be used as a legal basis.
Article 23 of the Guidelines for the Code of Conduct for Blind Box Operations
Ten points of character: Many live broadcast rooms will say "minors are prohibited from buying", but in fact, as long as you enter the live broadcast room, you can find that children are actually buying and watching, what are the hidden dangers of this model that you can buy as long as you send a barrage and say that you are "an adult"?
Liu Xiaochun: If the anchor in the live broadcast room knows that he is a minor, of course, he cannot sell the product, but now the problem is that due to the anonymity of the network, the anchor cannot clearly know the identity of the buyer in the online transaction. This does make it easier for minors to make purchases. It can be said that the live broadcast room has taken advantage of this loophole and has this sales model.
There are many gacha live broadcast rooms marked with "minors are prohibited from buying, and they will not be returned after selling". This kind of advance notification is necessary, but this cannot be a reason for the live broadcast room to refuse a refund, if the buyer has other evidence to prove that the anchor knows that the seller is a minor, or there is sufficient evidence to prove that it was a minor, it can still claim a refund. At present, most online platforms generally have a post-event refund model, which can actively require the platform to intervene, and the platform is also obliged to assist in properly resolving the issue.
At the same time, with regard to the phenomenon of selling sky-high cards on second-hand platforms, although the transaction pricing of second-hand cards is essentially a value trade-off between buyers and sellers, because minors' consumption judgments are often irrational and their minds are often not mature enough, high consumption may pose a risk of infringing on their parents' property without the right to dispose of them.