TOPPS, the company best known for its line of baseball trading cards, is expanding its product line into the world of digital collectibles via their new Facebook application, “Wacky Digibles”. The application, which reminds me of the old Garbage Pail Kids, uses top commercial artists to create collectible virtual goods that you can share with your friends. As was the case with TOPPS baseball cards, these new digibles are not free.
Facebook users will have to spend 100 credits ($1) in order to purchase a digible and send them to friends. When you purchase one for your friend, you also get a copy to keep for yourself. It’s not surprising that TOPPS would be entering this space, however I think it will be difficult for the company to gain widespread distribution via this individual application. In order to purchase the digibles, users need to pay through PayPal or through the TOPPS digibles website. Eventually I’d expect TOPPS to integrate with Facebook Credits, but virtual goods of this quality should probably find their way into the official Facebook gift shop.
As I mentioned earlier, the illustrations remind me of Garbage Pail Kids and MAD magazine, two items which were popular at the end of the 80s/early 90s. I can remember purchasing baseball cards and then going to the Beckett magazine to check out the value of each card. Flipping baseball cards was a big business, however it will be more difficult to generate the same sort of value through virtual gifts as they can be easily copy and pasted. Then again, the bumper stickers application has generated a ton of interest from users despite it being a collection of digital images.
The virtual goods industry is a rapidly growing market, and any serious player in the collectibles industry should be taking note. In Asia, virtual goods have become as big, if not larger than, trading cards. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a similar trend take place here in the United States. If you want to get your own TOPPS virtual goods, go check out the TOPPS Wacky digibles application. Also, if you’d like to get paid for designing Digibles, TOPPS will pay you $50 per design.
