Do we really need to continue with the Photo Variations?

This might turn into a rant but has anyone had enough of these yet? Maybe it's just me but I really don't look forward to these the last few years. All three main companies; Topps, Upper Deck and Panini have had these in at least one or more products this year. Topps being the most across all lines that have included these into their products. Of course it is mainly the lower end products that have these but we have seen a couple of mid-range products with these variations included.

One of the hardest things with these is knowing which is which. You need to do a little research in order to figure out if you have one or not. Sometimes there might be 3 or 4 different variations of the same player too, Andrew Luck in 2012 Topps is a perfect example.

I personally am not a fan of them, I wish they would put more into harder to pull inserts or subsets to draw interest. I understand that this has been done in the past and the photo variations have done very well for the companies. I just would hope from a collectors point of view they would stop the photo variations. I just have no interest in trying to find or paying big money for a different photo of a player on a base card.

I think one of the worst two sets that were out this year that included the Photo variations were Topps Baseball Series 1 & 2 and Panini Score Football. These sets had a large number of base cards to start and to include photo variations of anywhere from 20-50 different cards with variations. Doesn't make it too fun to sort through each of these cards to ensure you don't have a variations or if you do in order to not trade or sell away the wrong one. I have also heard of 2012 Topps Update running with Photo variations as well, but hopefully not too many.

Hopefully the run of photo variations will end at some point (sooner rather than later). Of course the next new variation or gimmick that is put into the future products could be worse, but hopefully they will be a better idea or concept to run with to please all collectors.