Sports Card Shop Simulator Preview

I got the chance to check out the Early Access for Sports Card Shop Simulator. This game is, of course, a sports card shop simulator (gee, what a surprise!). Developed by OverPowered Team and published by Ultimate Games S.A. and PlayWay S.A. (which I am slowly realising are doing a lot of these games), I only decided to check this title out because I love cards too much to ignore it. Plus, I think the World Cup or something is going on right now? I don’t know; I’m not a sports guy.

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OI OI OI!

Look, before I go into this, I am fully expecting it to be just like TCG Card Shop Simulator but with generic sports stars. I have no expectations, but these types of games have been a dime a dozen ever since the genre got popular. Still… I am prone to the pull of gacha, and I consider myself fairly lucky, so let’s start selling some soccer-based cardboard. No, wait, I meant football.

Let’s start off with the presentation. The graphics aren’t too special, since it’s not really the focus here. It’s a rather generic style that won’t offend anyone but the most snobbish of people who want every game to look as close to real life as possible, and probably take several terabytes of storage. It’s serviceable for what it is, but I’ve seen these types of models and textures before in other shop simulators, to the point where I’m pretty sure they share from a similar pool of assets.

No refunds.

That being said, the cards themselves can be quite cool to look at. Even though I have very limited experience with sports cards, they’re fairly well done and look like what you’d get from a real-life booster pack, but with some crazy animations for the rarer cards. However, that’s not everything when it comes to cards, as I noticed an odd little option I could select on the main menu: Card Creator.

Create your own players and sell their cards!

In Card Creator, you can make your own versions, creating players to add to the collections. It features a fairly detailed character creator, so you can make some good facsimiles of real players, you and your friends… or genetic freaks who look more suited for Dead by Daylight than football. It is actually really cool to be able to find your own cards in packs, and they’re all decently valuable. I could definitely see myself making a whole team of weirdos, copyrighted characters, and me, and hoping to pull them.

As for the audio, the music is weirdly quiet, at least for me. You might want to increase the volume in-game if you want to listen to some… unmemorable generic tunes. Or, better yet, listen to your own music either through your chosen music application or on your phone. That’s what I did the entire playthrough.

I know scalpers are a problem, but calm down!

But enough about that; let’s open up shop. Upon starting a new game, you spawn in front of your store with nothing but $1,000 (or the converted currency of your choice), some shelves, and a cash register. It’s small, but you’ll be able to slowly expand and decorate it however you like once the cash starts flowing in. However, in order to get money, you’ll need something for customers to buy.

There are a variety of card packs and boxes you can purchase to stock your shop with. Not only that, but you can also provide merchandise for sale like scarves, balls, banners, and vuvuzelas. Basically, anything a sports fan wants or needs, you can provide.

Oh, that feels good.

Most of the catalogue is locked either behind licensing (requiring a purchase before you’re able to buy the product), your current level (EXP is gained through sales and pulling cards), or both. Once you’ve bought all the product you want, all you need to do is put it onto shelves, set the price, then open up shop to serve customers. This is all fairly standard procedure, and there’s nothing wrong with it from what I can tell.

Of course, you can open packs yourself either to get a complete collection or to find some extremely rare cards, which can go for thousands… that is, if you don’t get them graded. If you have the Grading Table, you can grade them before you ship them off for an official look, allowing you to estimate their value. It’s useful because you need to pay a flat fee for each one, and only a couple of them can be submitted per day, so you better choose the best ones to send.

This is actually a really cool mechanic.

And that’s pretty much the entire game… and I hate to admit it, but it’s just as addictive when you’re opening packs and running the shop. It’s satisfying to make a profit and slowly upgrade and grow your store into the biggest card locale in the city. Also, the dopamine that hits after a good pull worth more than a hundred can’t really be beaten, no matter how many times it happens. And with the workers you’re eventually able to hire and assign tasks to, you can totally let the shop run itself while you’re in the corner ripping packs. Ah, to be able to just do that for your nine-to-five…

They just released a new update!

Sports Card Shop Simulator is shaping up to be a very good time waster in the future. It’s just as enjoyable as its contemporaries, it has some really cool features that make it stand out from the rest, and it's nowhere close to being finished yet. There's still so much more to come with an entire roadmap introducing features like card vending machines, being able to buy cards from customers, even stuff relating to the World Cup! It never felt so good to overcharge people for cardboard!