It’s no secret that collecting the Pokemon Trading Card Game can be a bit of a headache sometimes. Resellers have a bad tendency to scoop up TCG products before fans can, both in person and online. While the Pokemon Center website is a great resource for fans that want to buy directly from The Pokemon Company, a lot of products tend to sell out quickly, which is something we recently saw with the release of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – Prismatic Evolutions. It appears The Pokemon Company is making some effort to improve things though, starting with a new queue system on the Pokemon Center website.
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According to a report from PokeBeach, the queue system made its debut last week, when certain Pokemon TCG products came back into stock. The queue system will apparently be used during times when high traffic is anticipated, forcing users to wait in a virtual line. If the visitor attempts to leave the page or refresh, they’ll lose their spot. While The Pokemon Company has not specifically stated that this is an attempt to prevent resellers from scooping everything up, the intention is pretty clear! This isn’t the only way the company is trying to fix this problem; The Pokemon Company claims that it’s currently working at “maximum capacity” to make enough cards to meet the current level of demand.
Obviously, this does nothing to stop people from fighting in Costco locations over Pokemon cards, or buying up all the stock from retailers like Target and Walmart. Those retailers are going to have to implement changes on their own to make any kind of difference in physical store locations. We have seen that in the past; in 2021, some Walmart and Target stores actually removed Pokemon products entirely from their shelves in reaction to bad customer behavior. That was a pretty drastic measure though, and probably something The Pokemon Company would like to see avoided this time around.
It’s hard to say why there’s so much excitement surrounding the Pokemon TCG at the moment. In the case of Prismatic Evolutions, there was a lot more retailer demand than there was supply, and the popularity of Pokemon TCG Pocket likely played some kind of role. It’s possible we could see things start to calm down a bit, just as we’ve seen with previous ebbs and flows of the game.
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Hopefully the measures The Pokemon Company is taking will make things a bit easier on fans when the next Pokemon TCG set launches next month. Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – Journey Together will be released on March 28th in North America, translating more than 180 cards into English for the first time. The set will likely hold a lot of appeal for both newcomers and longtime fans, as it will mark the return of Trainer’s Pokemon to the game.
Have you been having issues getting Pokemon cards? Do you think this is a step in the right direction? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
