The Pokemon franchise is as popular and healthy as it has ever been but there’s a severe issue when it comes to the Pokemon Trading Card Game with people buying new cards in bulk and reselling them on online auction sites for a hefty sum of money. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa is fully aware of the issue and has said that The Pokemon Company is taking “various measures” to stamp this practice out. Here’s what he said:
In the Pokémon Trading Card Game, there have been cases of bulk purchasing and high-priced reselling. In terms of creating an environment where consumers can purchase and enjoy the products with peace of mind, how does Nintendo view this issue, and is Nintendo working with The Pokémon Company to address it?
“With respect to the Pokémon Trading Card Game offered by The Pokémon Company, which is an equity-method subsidiary of Nintendo, we are aware of instances where limited-quantity cards are purchased in large volume, leading to high-priced reselling in the market. In response, The Pokémon Company is taking various measures, including made-to-order sales and agreements with marketplace operators. For online priority drawings for certain products, I understand that The Pokémon Company also plans to use an account verification method that utilizes My Number Cards [Japan’s official government-issued ID cards]. Nintendo also communicates with The Pokémon Company as needed to discuss appropriate ways to deliver products to consumers. We believe that The Pokémon Company will continue to take measures to respond to this issue.”
Once again, the solution is simple: Don’t buy the product. If people are willing to buy markup stuff from scalpers, then scalpers can’t make money and stop scalping. Don’t let them prey on your FOMO.
These people don’t care about paying an astronomical amount of it means they can get their hands on these cards, the same thing happened with people paying extra for PS5s. I can understand if they are outta print or been outta print.
That’s being short-sighted though. If you pay the scalper prices, it just perpetuates the cycle. Sacrifice not having some cards so you can freely buy them in the future. Again, scalping immediately stops being a viable business if everyone collectively agrees not to do business with them (or at least not pay more than MSRP).
Exactly I’ve quit almost completely I still pick up Jap for MSRP and recently Chinese simplified. I have however been pulling gamestop power packs as compared to pie and scalper prices, it’s a really good return on investment.Do I always get the money back that I put in it?No, but very rarely do you in pokemon.Anyway, so looking at an ROI standpoint and the availability to have fun.It’s much better
And what about error code 9900? I wasn’t hacking pokemon but I got locked out of pokemon home when I transferred my Cresselia from legends arceus to shining pearl. I tried to send it back but that lousy error code message 9900 keeps showing up completely blocking me from using pokemon home. When will Nintendo release a patch to fix this? I’ve even reached out to support but they’re doing nothing to get my game fixed.
If Pokemon didn’t make it almost impossible to complete the set by making the chase cards almost impossible to find we wouldn’t be facing this problem it’s like 1 of 1000 pack to get lucky, that makes eBay is the last resort to complete the you gotta catch them all .
The problem is, there are always people who will buy from scalpers. I’ve stopped buying Pokémon TCG as I refuse to line those sob’s pockets.
You look on ebay and see people selling Pokémon Center ETB’s and they have like 10. Theres only 1 way to get that many….
They need to address GAME STOP and how the company itself is the biggest scalper of all!
100% GameStop…
Yes they need to address gamestop and all the other card shops that have the distribution rights, every single one of them are doing it.
End it all. Start reprinting older sets. Then people hording packs playing the long game after printing ends will have no reason to hold packs. Dont necessarily reprint every old set at once but announce you are going to be doing it. People will scramble to unload what they have not knowing how soon it will be before the sets they are holding will be readily available again. Take a few year break releasing new sets and reprint older sets during this time. Then actively keep some of the sets coming out randomly. Knowing all sets will be available for printing in the near future. Should help with scalping and bring down the ridiculous asking prices some while maintaining value by not releasing everything in a crazy amount. Then implement the ID requirements and other measures people have mentioned. Make it to were if you’re caught scalping or rigging the market somewhere in a greedy fashion you’re blacklisted by Pokemon company and people can readily look up the list to see. For instance if it’s a store or store associate, let’s say a specific dollar general in a specific town, or a Walmart, or an online seller, people will know not to buy or sell from those sources and they won’t be able to easily obtain product.