Marcus Aureleus, a Stoic, would have advised people to be above the dark pleasures of schadenfreude, but darn it if it doesn’t feel good to watch scalpers suffer. Suffering is currently the state for the predatory resellers who thought they were going to get rich quick by flooding local Targets and Costcos and Barnes & Nobles and so on in a maniacal quest to purchase every speck of Pokémon 30th Celebration TCG merchandise that they could. The footage, including some of these people getting into fights with one another, has gone viral on numerous social media platforms, but more amusing are the countless crash outs coming from scalpers who are finding that these Pokémon 30 cards might have been fools gold.
Here’s one such person:
And another:
The short of it is that The Pokémon Company International printed a ton of this set in order to satisfy fans, which means they’re not all that scarce. Thus, there’s too much supply and not enough demand, which is driving prices down. Scalpers who were hoping to double, triple, quadruple, and who knows what else, the MSRP of the merchandise aren’t getting anywhere near that in many cases. What’s more, the rate of pulling very good cards is also high, so it’s making the cards themselves similarly devalued.
And, of course, the complaints by the scalpers are completely asinine, if not outright childish. Honestly, ever since The Dark Knight used the term RICO, everyone suddenly became an armchair attorney…
This is delightful news for fans who are sick. And. Tired. Of scalpers preying upon hobbies like Pokémon and ruining them with their predatory, opportunistic behavior. The Pokémon Company and Nintendo can be commended for trying to satiate fan desire with this particular expansion, but it’s an ongoing problem that hasn’t been properly addressed here in the West. Until it is, collecting Pokémon TCG has become something of a slog, and it’s cutting into the childhood engagement that has been so critical to keeping the brand alive for three decades.
Ah, well. For now, at least we can point and laugh at those who maxed out credit cards for so much cardboard and cellophane.
Source: Kotaku