There’s a brand new Pokémon TCG set on the way, and it’s a special one, celebrating the franchise’s 30th anniversary. So as you can imagine, everyone is being totally normal about this, and the process of purchasing some colorful cardboard used for a children’s game is very simple and smooth. Right? Right?
Yeah, no, it’s a mess. An even bigger one than usual.
Pre-orders opened this morning for the 30th Celebration set, a TCG expansion featuring favorites like Pikachu, Mew, Mewtwo, Eevee, Ditto, Lucario, and a number of others. It includes a lot of different products, including booster packs bundled with stickers or a binder or figurines, lots of special foil promo cards, a coveted Elite Trainer Box, and a bunch of other ways to buy cards from the set. And the set itself, in addition to focusing on classic favorite monsters, contains a whopping 30 different Pikachu variants.
Buying Pokémon cards is already an ordeal even if you just want a regular-ass pack of cards. Scalping is absolutely rampant everywhere, from online retailers to in-person stores, and The Pokémon Company seems totally uninterested in increasing production even as retailers start hiking prices to capitalize on the demand. It’s gotten bad enough that most stores are limiting purchases per customer, and some are even breaking seals at checkout to deter people from buying them just to resell. Really makes you feel bad for any kids who just happen to enjoy playing or collecting cards.
So of course, the 30th anniversary set is even worse. Right now, pre-orders are only available through the official Pokémon Center website. But to even look at what’s available, you have to sit in a lengthy digital queue first. My wait time, as I write this, is 20 minutes long, but that’s because I’m coming in at the end of the day when just about everything is sold out. I have a friend whose time showed at six whole hours at one point this morning. Those who tried to jump on the pre-orders when they first went live were met with a technical mess, with some people being booted back to the waiting screen, CAPTCHAs goofing up, rampant connection errors, and blank screens. As Polygon reports, some people who have repeated errors are getting flagged as bots for trying multiple times to get in, and are banned from buying cards entirely.
And none of this is really deterring scalpers. The Elite Trainer Box, easily the most in-demand item and costing $60 through The Pokémon Center website if you can secure a pre-order, is already sold out. It’s being listed on TCGPlayer for hundreds of dollars, though, and it’s almost certain that retailers will mark up their own limited inventory significantly when the time comes. As I write this, the only remaining available pre-orders are for a couple of bundles of booster packs; nothing fancy. I’m sure those will be gone in the next few hours, too. The set’s not out until September 16 (with some products arriving later), but I’m not optimistic that inventory will be able to meet demand. It certainly hasn’t for the last several sets, and this one’s got that shiny anniversary veneer to it.
Truly a very fun time to be into the Pokémon TCG!