Epiphany or Breakdown?

[mattbcl]

It might disturb you all to learn that there are those amongst you whom I would consider to be the most level-headed, rational, and objective people I know. But I feel I'm in need of advice and feedback on something that happened today.

A friend of mine abruptly decided to give away his entire collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. While I realize this is probably something that will make most of you snicker, the fact is that he's spent quite a bit of money on this collection, enough that it could possibly pay for a semester or two at the local community college (books and all).

I was dropping him off from work today and he asked me to stick around for a minute while he retrieved "something". The next thing I know, he's loading my passenger seat with an athletic bag full-to-bursting with cards and accessories, and he off-handedly says to me, "I'm quitting Yu-Gi-Oh!, so all these are for you." I was dumbstruck, and asked if he was absolutely positive. He said yes, that he'd been wasting far too much money on the stuff, and he just needed to get it out of his life. So he entrusted them all to me. No negotiation, no payment, nothing, just gave them all to me and brushed his hands off.

I brought them home and told my girlfriend about the incident. Her reaction was pretty much identical to mine. We surveyed the cards and had a fangasm over all the goodies, but the more we looked at them, the less comfortable we were with the entire business... we can't figure why he wouldn't at least try to sell them before just flatly getting rid of them. We're actually feeling somewhat worried about him now, and we're not sure if this is all the result of an epiphany (he's never been wise about spending his money and maybe he's finally trying to do something about it), or some sort of breakdown (it could be he's trying to burn a bridge just for the sake of watching it burn).

We've thought about trying to sell the ones we don't want and cutting him in on the resulting money, or hanging on to them for a certain period of time (say perhaps a month) before doing anything at all with them, just in case he reneges on the whole thing.

While I understand this is very limited information, does anyone here have advice for this situation? (Alternatively, is there more info I can provide to help your perspective?)

[Perfect Chaos]

Sounds like he's trying to do it cold turkey, like how someone tries to quit smoking.

I'd probably go ahead and hold on to them for about a month before making any decisions. However, if your friend does come over often to your place, make sure he doesn't seem the outside, or else he could probably "relapse" and want to start playing the game over again.

Wait out the month and check on your friend and see how well he's doing and if he's found something else more productive to fill-in the gap that used to be filled with YGO before you do anything. Chances are, you'll be better off in the long run.

P.S. Mind tossing a few holos my way, was thinking of maybe restarting up again :lookout: :heh:

[Heald]

It might be nothing. He could be wanting to quit because he feels it is not healthy to continue to have such an obsession and in entering a process of buying and selling he would be prolonging the wait to be rid of his obsession. Much easier to just quit cold turkey and not look back.

However, if he is also giving away other things for free, or most of his possessions, that might be an indication to start being alarmed.

[DivineAll]

As a fan of the franchise, let me give my own perspective.

I'm guessing your friend is tired of the metagame and all of the serious players that have popped up over the years. Let's face it, many hardcore fanatics of the game have gone out of their way to buy their ultimate tournament tier deck for around $100+ on the Internet and use said deck to beat a handful of hardcore players and, if not all, casual players. Yes, there may still be some trading involved in the trading card game, but it's probably not too much of it.

There's also the fact that a lot of decks out now are similar and lacking creativity. I mean, I can barely remember the last time I actually saw a legitimate LV Deck in both casual and hardcore play and many decks seems to use a lot of the same cards regardless of theme in order to help it flow better, like Starlight Road for almost every deck out there ever.

Another factor is one that's very simple: there's WAY too many cards to keep track of anymore and know which cards are going to still be useful in future and which ones are going to be left behind.

I say it was a good idea for your friend to stop buying the cards; I myself have stopped buying them sometime during the 5Ds era. However, if your friend ever wants to get back into the franchise I recommend letting him play YGOPro Online or any other video game-like Yu-Gi-Oh! duel network: that way he can probably reinvest himself into the franchise without buying anymore into it. Either that, or let him watch the entire classic Yu-Gi-Oh! series then watch the two-parter The King Of The Copycats from GX to discover why he got into it in the first place and why it's still worth his time. Or if he just wants a cheap laugh against the series, there's always Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged.

[mattbcl]

PC - Well, let's finish out the waiting period, and if you really are interested, I might be willing to make a deal for you.

Heald - I've got my eye out for that. Nothing else seems to have been affected. It could be not just the money, but also the points that DivineAll just made... gameplay is far more serious now than it used to be, and it's been a very long time since I've seen this friend really have any fun playing the game.

DA - You make a very good point, he and I are both sick and tired of the meta. We have several acquaintances at a local tournament and one of them gets very butthurt when he doesn't win every time, possibly because he's sunk every last cent he has into the deck he's using. We love casual play but there seems to be no such thing anymore. It's not fun, and we don't play with other people who are there to have fun.

[Blademaster]

Yu-Gi-Oh! stopped being worth the time of any fan of the show years and years ago. But let's not be hypocritical - the metagame isn't just NOW bad. All this new Inzektor and Six Samurai and Xyz or whatever is big nowadays might be new issues, but the issue of 'Get all the broken cards ASAP and use them to wreck kiddies until they inevitably get banned and reset the process.' has been around since... shit, I can't even remember. Probably since even before Jinzo came out in the fourth set and made most of the early fans ragequit.

Give him some time to mull it over; if his decision is final, do with the cards what you'd like.

What's his rarest card, anyway? Mine is probably an IOC holographic Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning. Still got it in a box in my closet, I do. :lemoncool:

[Asilynne]

Is he suicidal, could he be? A friend of my roommate once came to her one day and gave her a bunch of stuff out of nowhere, before trying to kill herself later that month, she even had notes written up for everyone. There is a long story behind that but fortunately she didn't manage to kill herself, still the warning signs were there when she started giving things away.

I don't know your friend at all but try and see if you can find out if anything is bothering him or if he may be suicidal and you just don't know. Some people are really good at hiding it...

[DarkestLight]

Eh. Could be a purge. Happens. I did it twice, once with all my Turtles stuff and again with all my semi valuable comic books. It's kind of a reset for me, I just get tired of collecting something, and I just give it all away, and move on to something else. He still partakes in other things, so I don't think he's suicidal or something to that degree-he just wants a kick start into something else.

I agree, hold onto them for a while, see if he comes back shivering like an addict. >0 If not, TIME TO MAKE SOME MONEY!!!!

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Yu-Gi-Oh's still standing, unless it's just that Finland is only backwater. A boy in the library car declared to his friends who were dissing the franchise:

Yu-Gi-Oh's on hyvä, lukekaa sitä tai näivettykää tylsyyteen!
Yu-Gi-Oh's good, read it or wither into boredom!

It was so well said that I was about to open my mouth and agree with him but I didn't because I'm already weirding out everybody in my job when I act like 'grown-ups shouldn't act'.

I'm afraid I can't give you any new advice other that what everybody else just said but judging from what's been said here he's not suicidal.

[mattbcl]

If it provides any reassurance, the two of us work together, so I see and carpool with him daily. I'll approach the subject cautiously, ask him if everything's all right. He really doesn't strike me as the suicidal sort. He's also part of my D&D group, and he just started running a campaign of his own - and DM's are sorely unappreciated in our group - so it might be that while he's focusing so intently on this, he decided now would be a perfect time to get rid of something that has been costing him way too much for too little emotional reward. (Rather like a relationship gone horribly sour.)

Blade - amongst the rarities are a pair of Shooting Quasar Dragons, an ultimate rare Neo Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon, an Ultimate Axon Kicker, the entire array of Scrap monsters, and pretty much every XYZ monster you can imagine... that's just off the top of my head and I haven't even come close to examining the whole batch. He's got basically everything from every Hidden Arsenal pack, and tons more. TBH, I don't know where I'm going to find the room to store this stuff so that he won't see it. I think he collected most of this stuff based on the premise that if he played the metagame like all the other srs-bzns players, he might have fun and be able to win at the same time. But come to think of it, I can't remember the last time either he or I had fun playing.

[Asilynne]

Ok that's good to hear. I thought maybe I'd throw out that possibility because when I read the first post that's the first thing that jumped out at me from my own experiences with someone who was suicidal. I'm glad to hear that's an unlikely reason for your friend :)

[Drago]

Frankly, I think you would know better than anyone else if something is up, but at a glance, I'd say that this is nothing. As an avid gamer (to a fault) for so many years, I've seen my fair share of obsessive collection and attention to detail. Christ, I'm still just as obsessive to this very day, look no further than the efforts I take to raise Pokemon and grind for gear in WoW.

But now and then, I look at these things in relation to real life, and I think to myself... well shit, all that time and energy I spent there didn't make my life any better, now did it? I have a whole tub of old toys I'm working my way through getting rid of, but the hoarder inside of me slows the whole process down.

I've never regretted anything I've ever given away. I doubt I ever will.