Robert Conway
Robert Conway is millennial who grew up with gaming. When he's not gaming he's either working, at the gym, playing music, or reading comic books. Robert prefers to play games on Xbox but will always have a soft spot for Nintendo's consoles.
It would certainly seem that Amiibos have become quite popular among gamers and Nintendo fans. With any kind of collectibles it would seem that some enterprising individuals have taken advantage of the demand. A youtuber who goes by “Mariotehplumber” (no spaces) posted this video and not everyone is happy about it.
There are those who have nothing but praise for what the scalper is doing. Now typically I wouldn’t even call this situation news worthy, but seeing that someone went as far as starting a change.org petition to end Amiibo scalping I think we’ve got something to talk about
The petition was created on January 10 and was written by a guy named Javier Zavala. The petition reads as follows.
Hello, my name is Javier and I want to tell you about an injustice to Nintendo fans everywhere. Amiibo, a promotional campaign from Nintendo to sell figurines of famous Nintendo video game characters to be used with various Wii U games to trigger: different gameplay, in-game gifts, and unlockable content. Many people such as myself collect, trade, or share these great figurines to friends and family, that is, if there was enough to go around.
Scalpers, someone who purchases large quantities of goods (usually tickets) early with the sole intention of re-selling them at a higher price at a later date (closer to the event). And yes scalpers exist for Amiibo’s, people who buy in bulk, hundreds of Amiibo to sell in online auction, for obscene prices of up to 10x the retail price of $12.99, many people who have hopes of obtaining their favorite characters are left with disappointment from official retailers telling them that they’re “sold out”, even weeks before they hit the shelves due to “pre-orders”.
My proposition and and main draw of this petition is stop scalpers from hindering the transaction of Amiibo by becoming the middle man, and a way we can do that is to limit the amount a single person can buy/pre-order Amiibo to (preferably) 1 to 3. If you’re a parent who has been trying to get your child his favorite character Amiibo only to be lead on a goose chase through store after store, or an aspiring collector who can’t get the Amiibo’s he/she wants, or just an average person who wants to play with and enjoy Amiibo without paying hundreds of dollars, then this petition is for you. The video shown here is a particular Amiibo scalper to prove that this is indeed an issue to Nintendo fans everywhere.
While I can sympathize with Javier on why he would start this petition, I would like to point out a couple of flaws in his solution. In the video where Mariotehplumber discussed his method for purchasing large quantities of Amiibos, he wasn’t necessarily going store to store. If anything he was ordering online and having the figures shipped out to the homes of friends and family. For brick and mortar stores such as Target, Best Buy and Gamestop, putting limits on the quantity of how much a person can buy isn’t anything new so it’s not clear to how more limits would be effective. Pre-ordering would seem like a safe bet except for the fact that many retailers have cancelled pre-orders.
The Rosalina Amiibo, which is expected to sell out.
It addition to the petition it looks like Destructiod (archived link) has accused Mariotehplumber of hate-buying the Rosalina Amiibo just make it more scarce. This accusation comes from an interview from a website called Nintendo Nuggets. Suspiciously enough Nintendo Nuggets took down the interview, making it difficult to verify Destructiod’s claim.
I have reached out to Mariotehplumber for a statement regarding his video, the petition and the Destructiod article. No response has been given at this time. However a video with a response to the criticism has been posted. I wouldn’t really call it a response considering Mariotehplumber is basically ranting about being sent Rosalina hentai. It would seem Mariotehplumber’s motivation has to do with his discontent with the direction Nintendo is headed.
Marth, The Villager and the WiiFit Trainer are sold out at most retailers.
The next wave of Amiibos is scheduled to hit store shelves next month. The wave includes: Bowser, Ike, King Dedede, Lucario (only at Toys “R” Us), Mega Man, Meta Knight (Only at Best Buy), Rosalina (Only at Target), Sheik, Shulk (Only at Gamestop), Sonic, and Toon Link. Some figures from the first and second waves are already sold out. So if you missed out on characters like Marth or the Villager you are out of luck. I would suggest anyone looking to purachase certain Amiibos to prioritize the b-list characters and store exclusives. It would seem that Nintendo is keeping a large stock of the more iconic characters like Mario and Pikachu.
Some of our own writers have given their own thoughts on Amiibos. Both articles are worth a read, especially Chris Bechtloff’s article. It will be interesting to see what Nintendo has in store for the Amiibos considering they’re popular enough to scalp.
Read Next: A Look At The World Of Nintendo Amiibos
