You’re A Scalper, Aren’t You? is a collectible card shop management sim dedicated to punishing the terrible, awful, no-good people who buy up popular or hard-to-find cards, and sell them on at massively inflated prices. Certainly, it’s one of the more vengeful job sims I’ve encountered lately. Think Papers, Please, but instead of weaselling out subversives, you’re putting the squeeze on folks who are trying to make a killing from Pokémon’s Prismatic Evolution packs.
As store boss, you will monitor recent events and trends in the wider cardgame market, so as to interrogate any shifty individuals who rock up at the counter. It sounds like a lot of the background research will involve combing “WowTube” for hints that a particular card is about to go big. If you out somebody as a scalper through your forensic questioning, you can ban them… or do business with them regardless, because you might not be able to make ends meet, otherwise.
Hey, CCGs are big money, and card-trading is a cutthroat grift. There are no angels to be found browsing the shelves of Magic Madhouse. Forget it, Jake – it’s PikachuIllustratorTown. When not serving customers, you’ll haggle with wholesalers for cards you suspect are about to come into vogue. Rivals may buy up the juicy wares first, and some wholesalers may refuse to accept your custom, if your outlet has an evil reputation.
I don’t collect any cards myself, save for daft variations on Tarot, so this is my first exposure to a complex world. To circle back to my Papers, Please comparison, did you know that the Pokémon Company has considered introducing government ID checks to catch out the scalpers? Did you hear about the Florida chainsaw break-in?
I’d love it if there were an actual, functional CCG inside You’re A Scalper, Aren’t You?, and you had to understand its workings to rumble the scalpers. In practice, I think it could be more scripted than that. Read more on Steam. For a relatively celebratory take on scalping – a practice that transcends even Pokémon – wishlist Scalper’s Spoils.
