Gunpla Owners Club

I, like many of you, have often wondered what these little tickets are for.

Well as it turns out... there aren't for anything. Yes that's right. They are apparently... USELESS. So I'm going to save you the trouble of reading through this. Don't bother with these tickets because you don't really get anything for them especially if you don't live in Japan. You don't even have the option of accessing the website.

If you want to know more then by all means continue. If that's enough info for you than stop here.

***

Sucker for punishment eh? Alright.

First if you go to the website on the ticket, it will take you here. Assuming you can access it.

OK you have to make in account... Do that and then you get to this page.

Here you have the option to make a 'list' of the models that you own. You can choose from PG, MG, HGUC, HG, BB Senshi and Other.

After you make your list you can... look at a low quality image of the box art and model and read a write up about it. >_>

The other options are to change your personal information and receive information about upcoming products, specials. I guess. That's what it seems like. There are also options for common questions (nothing relating to this issue that I could see.)

Anyways... it seems largely pointless. I just decided to click at the top to input my number since that's why I came to begin with. Do that and you get here. Why didn't they just put this address on the ticket in the first place?! Login and all that crap again.

Do that and you get here where it displays your points information. How many you've accumulated and used and so on.
This begs an important question.

There is a counter for points that you've USED. So what can you use them on?! ZERO information on that anywhere that I could see. If there is it isn't in an obvious spot which just makes me think the whole thing is a scam. If you want people to collect points you'd put the prize(s) in a obvious spot as enticement right? No. Not in this case.

Moving on.

There's also a bunch of other redundant options like taking you to other useless pages or pages that you've already come from and so on. All we want to do is input our number right? And maybe after that we can find out what they actually do?! Alright, click on the option in the green box below.

Now here is the point where I felt that I got a nice kick in the pants. I put in my number and it said that it was INVALID and that I should put in a VALID number. Tried it again with other tickets and got the same result. I wondered why and then I realized that the last sequence of digits must contain 5 numbers but most normal models only have 4. You only get 5 from 'clear parts campaign' models apparently.

Props to ASM for doing the research on this. I couldn't verify this myself because I haven't purchased a clear parts model to know for sure. Can anyone verify this? To be fair, in the fine print on this site it says that only clear parts campaign numbers will be accepted.

But wait it gets even WORSE.

If you read the fine print on the ticket it says that it was a EXPIRATION DATE but it doesn't tell you when it actually expires! They can shut it down at any time! Which they have done apparently. From what I can tell they'll accept these points until the end of the year (fine print at the bottom) of this page.

No, I'm not done yet! You can see there are some 'medals' that you can get but they actually have no point that I can see. It's just to compare with your friends it seems! You don't actually get anything!

This service means nothing if you're not in Japan and even if you are it means next to nothing.

Here's the best part. In order to be eligible for the trip to the factory you need at least 40 points. You get one point per model. So in order to become eligible for the tour of the factory you need to buy at least 40 models. If you buy the cheapest clear parts model, that being MG Ball for 2000 yen, you going to have to spend 80 000 yen to get 40 points. And you'll get 40 MG balls in the process and a possible tour of the factory. Great.

Even better considering that they often give away free tours of the factory. I looked into it.

Call me jaded but for some reason... I'm not surprised by any of this. At all.

If you think I'm mistaken about any of this I ENCOURAGE you to prove me wrong. PLEASE DO. I would like nothing more than to hear that I'm actually wrong about this stuff and there actually IS something all of us can get from our devotion to this hobby of ours. The fact that you can spend accumulated points has me a bit perplexed... and that's this final part of this puzzle that's missing for me. Either way... I definitely don't support this system. Thumbs down.

I just don't get why they'd even go through all of the trouble, to finance and develop this system. To print up thousands and thousands of tickets, all this website development just to make a system that serves no other purpose than to basically be an overgrown pissing contest. Blah. At least THAT mystery is solved. Kinda. Right now I just want nothing to do with it all. I feel cheated in a way.

Still though... You never know... maybe next year they'll change the system and our points will actually be worth something. I'm not willing to throw them away just yet but... I'm certainly not getting my hopes up.

Maybe you have a sour taste in your mouth like I do now. Here is something to cheer us up.