OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

[allstarsplus]

You have to wonder what effect this could have on Upper Deck:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/hitting_the_deck_tEGWRrnsRaeT64DijxTQXK

[TriplexXxSports]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

OUCH! That is a hell of a chunk of change......

[dcrules01]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

Greed Greed Greed ...

[joelsabi]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

You have to wonder what effect this could have on Upper Deck:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...RaeT64DijxTQXK

why would such a big company expose themselves to making fake cards?

[bigtruck260]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

why would such a big company expose themselves to making fake cards?

Losing money will do horrible things to honest people - and even worse things to those on the fringe. I am thinking that something in the way of finances started the whole thing....

D

[ivo610]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

Yeah it sounds like they are done. Bad economy plus owing hundreds of millions will cripple most companies. I wonder if they will auction off all their memorabilia?

Bigger question is if the greed made them do this, then what else have they been doing?

small side question, guess its just another endorsement tiger lost...

[joelsabi]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

Losing money will do horrible things to honest people - and even worse things to those on the fringe. I am thinking that something in the way of finances started the whole thing....

D

i remember maybe a year ago they started laying off people at their plant. so maybe this was added financial pressure with court procedural costs. i have not read the book about upper deck yet but just may buy it now. was the stash of griffey rc in ud executive suitcases a fact or myth?

[David]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

I had heard the 89UD extra printing stories before, but don't know if they are true.

Doing nefarious secret printings can ruin a card company, as the customers will lose confidence in the their product. If a company says the printed 5,000 of a card, they customers want to have confidence in this number.

[David]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

I should add that with a different company, I did calculations on a insert set and realized the the advertised card population versus insert rate was mathematically impossible. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, though, and figured they did some rounding of numbers.

[suicide_squeeze]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

I'm going to share an unpopular opinion..............but what else is new, right?


What we are seeing is just another latest example of the younger generation of "executives" driving a once great company nose first into the ground.

I do NOT want to turn this into a political debate, but this is a picture perfect case of the mentality into today's business world, and more in general in the world overall.

How can such a successful company be faced with such a disastrous situation? Because an IDIOT made a fatal decision in regards to the operations, and it is due to the pressure we are all under in todays socio-economic make-up.

Employees salaries are generally huge these days, and are without question the largest portion of the overhead of any companies balance sheet. Therefore, every company is under constant pressure to "perform" to make ends meet.

We as a society simply refuse to "tighten the belt" and do what is necessary to stay in the black. Since everything is falling into the read because of this mindset (like our Government spending, state and local too), some people who are afraid to be viewed as "failures" because they can't do it the right way, turn to choices that are brutally wrong.

Like doing something illegal which they ignorantly felt they may be able to avoid being caught doing.

What an IDIOT these guys who were responsible for making these decisions at Upper Deck were. It's just another example of our "global economy" at work. Our manufacturing industry is a ghost town. We can't compete with .40 cents-an-hour labor. We can't impose our strick building materials laws on items manufactured overseas that we import. We therefore will be adding to our bankrupted health care problems due to the fact our cancer rates will increase because of the items made in China with lead, mercury, poisonous plastics, paints, the ongoing deterioration of our ozone layer......

New bulletin folks: Our parents and grandparents lived through the greatest years. We're here to deal with problems that I'm not sure we're up to the task in taking them on. There is a methodically slow deterioration of everything good going on right before our eyes. Ideologies, leadership breakdowns, morals, integrity. Day by day, month by month, another one pops up. And in our bankrupt country, we still are looked at to be the first and largest "aid" to anyone in the world who needs help.

God bless those poor unfortunate people in Haiti and what they are suffering through right now. And kiss more of our taxpaying money good bye as we send it to them, while we let our own ailments here sink further into trouble we will struggle for decades to get out of. But last I knew, wasn't Haiti in a French controled territory? Where are they in this mess?

Where does it all end? Why is it always America?

I bring all this up because we don't see the pressures of "making it" that we are jamming down the throats of our own people....our own existence.

And hense, we end up with pressues that lead to the iconic decisions to print forgeries of little Japanese cartoon characters so we can continue the farce of being successful.

It's all slowly, ending badly right before our eyes.

Sorry for the rediculous rambling. But obviously, I feel strongly about it. I think we are all under too much pressure. But that's just me.

[David]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

I agree with much of what you said.

When I see wealthy people acting unethically just to gain more wealth, I often say "There are worse things than being poor."

p.s., I'm not suggesting or insinuating or implying that wealthy people, or bank executives etc, in general are less ethical than the rest of the population, or that being wealthy equates with being unethical.

[TNTtoys]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

But last I knew, wasn't Haiti in a French controled territory? Where are they in this mess?

Where does it all end? Why is it always America?

It's truly amazing how the USA is always at the forefront of any global humanitarian / relief effort, tirelessly giving our money, our time, our resources, our people, our troops, etc. to helping others who have far greater needs than we could imagine. But to me, that is what it means to be an American, and (apart from the financial realities of it all) it's something I am proud of.

And then I spend 5 years of my life living abroad only to see how much Anti-Americanism there is throughout the world. Kind of makes your stomach turn...

So, on this topic, I agree with Steve... but I'll get off of the soapbox. This is a game-used forum.

[allstarsplus]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

I agree with much of what you said.

When I see wealthy people acting unethically just to gain more wealth, I often say "There are worse things than being poor."

p.s., I'm not suggesting or insinuating or implying that wealthy people, or bank executives etc, in general are less ethical than the rest of the population, or that being wealthy equates with being unethical.

We talked about Upper Deck before and the "game used" card pieces and what a joke those are.

On the UDA side of the hall, they continue to put out some of the finest pieces and announced today for the big dealers a Jack Nicklaus program. I was thinking maybe that is to fill the void for Tiger Woods. They did something similar when they lost Kobe Bryant they brought in Dwayne Wade.

Upper Deck on a whole has so many challenges and the card side with this Yu-Gi-Oh thing is obviously got its work cut out for them.

I can't imagine that there are too many of us on here that are better off today (financially) then we were 5 years ago.

The true fabric of one's makeup is how we deal with the myriad of choices we have in front of us. Upper Deck isn't the 1st company to face financial hardships. You can choose to sell fakes and frauds as so many have or you can persevere along the right paths.

The last 7 years in this industry have been so difficult for dealers because like never before we have had to adapt to the mine field of which athletes are going to morally blow up in our faces. Here's my personal quick list that have turned my stomach and hit my wallet: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, and Tiger Woods just to name a few.

Sometimes we are the innocent 3rd parties of these athletes issues and the Barry Bonds problem creeped up while the economy was booming so I don't think the 2 are certainly mutually exclusive and more a coincidence of timing.

[bigtruck260]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

Sorry for the rediculous rambling. But obviously, I feel strongly about it. I think we are all under too much pressure. But that's just me.

Steve - I don't agree with everything you say in other posts...but thanks for taking the time to sum up my feelings on the matter...

[ivo610]

Re: OT: Upper Deck and Yu-Gi-Oh

I really want to respond to a couple post before me for even bringing up Hati and what has happened there but I will just let it go. But really? Connecting what happened in Hati to some illegal printings of some asian cards? I want to get political (and the god bless comment) on this but I will hold my tongue as this is not the place.