Price, scarcity concerns drive a growing bootleg Amiibo scene

- A Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild speedrunner who goes by Orcastraw, speaking to Kotaku about why they use bootleg Amiibo.

Nintendo seems to be shipping a lot less Amiibo than it used to.

That's something to keep in mind when reading an interesting Kotaku article on the bootleg Amiibo scene, which is reportedly booming.

What's of particular interest here is that people say they aren't just buying bootlegs for their personal enjoyment -- some speedrunners are relying on them to try and speedrun games in the most effective way. 

Since the NFC chips inside Amiibo can unlock meaningful bonuses in some games, a speedrunner who wants to take advantage of a certain number or type of Amiibo to achieve a new record might use bootlegs to do it.

One such speedrunner, who goes by the moniker Orcastraw, said they rely on some rewriteable Animal Crossing Amiibo cards to speedrun Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild since the game is built to bestow in-game benfits from a given Amiibo only once per day.

"My speedruns spawn about 8 Epona and 32 boxes [from the Guardian Amiibo]," Orcastraw told Kotaku. "So using cards helps save costs."

You can read more about how they do it, and what's driving the bootleg Amiibo scene (mostly price and scarcity -- "paying $60 for a SSB Link is just a little stupid," said one source) in the full Kotaku feature.