A holographic Gengar from the Pokémon TCG set Skyridge just fetched over $30,000 at GameStop. The company is touting it as an “own” aimed at all the “trolls” who make fun of its infamously poor trade-in values. But the record-breaking deal is really a window into the meme stock retailer’s slimy new loot box idea: trading card Power Packs.
Pokémon cards are a giant cash cow. Scalpers raid GameStop stores multiple times a month to buy up all the new products that the Pokémon Company can’t print fast enough. But GameStop barely makes any profit off of those sales. It can’t just print its own Pokémon cards and start selling them either. So it’s done the next best thing: It’s started opening its own packs and reselling the rarest cards as part of Power Packs, which are effectively digital slot machines.
To participate, customers set up Stripe accounts (a payment processing platform), select the Power Pack they want, and then watch to see what card they get. The program is done in partnership with Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), so all of the cards are graded and slabbed. While the average value of a pack might be $100, most cards people get will be worth less than what they paid for the virtual blind box.
I was offered $30 for RDR2 8 days after it came out and my 100k reward points I had saved up for years were not restored when my auto renew membership was turned off from an update despite being a member for 15 years. Never forget https://t.co/Obq4ytTPu0
— Nathan 🗡️ (@DistantGalaxy96) December 2, 2025
GameStop promises to buy back any cards players don’t want at 90 percent of “fair market value” minus a 6 percent commission. That commission is essentially GameStop’s cut since PSA also runs its own 90 percent buyback program without the fee. Some folks think it’s a rip-off. Supporters who are still banking on “GameStop to the moon” think it’s genius.
This new system is how one Pokémon card collector found a PSA 10 Holo Gengar worth an estimated $33,883 in their Power Pack. They decided to sell it back to GameStop for $30,494.70. It’s still listed as a Power Pack high-value card for someone else to chase now.
From GameStop to “Cardstop”
GameStop gets to promote the exchange as “the most valuable single trade-in ever recorded in GameStop history,” even though the amount is contractually obligated through a completely separate program than the one people use to trade-in retro games, old controllers, and last year’s Madden for a fraction of their original sale value.
“I did get the chase card, I decided to sell it,” wrote user Fredflinstone00 on the Power Pack subreddit. “I purchased (2) of the $2,500 packs, I was able to sell my cards from each pack and pulled the Gengar on the 6th pack.” They said they’re getting about $28,000 after fees, which puts them up overall after being down $4,000 before the Gengar.
“I just sell the cards I don’t want and keep the ones I do want, I’ve had plenty shipped to me,” they told the community on Reddit. “With this card, the sales history is not the greatest, don’t want to risk a $10k move downwards, so I took the payout.”
That volatility is another one of the risks with Power Packs. The Gengar in question was only selling for around $5,000 as recently as 2023, and GameStop’s estimated market value matched the highest known sale of the card from back in October.
Others cash out the minute they get a chase card as well. A couple of weeks ago, Reddit user SnooPies662 snagged a PSA 10 Blaine’s Charizard worth $13,700. “Subsidized by my gf after losing 6k total on diamonds,” they wrote. “Safe to say I’m done forever now and achieved everything I could have possibly wanted from this.”
