Pokemon TCGcollectors never fail to take things too far. Whether it’s invading McDonalds en masse for Happy Meal cards or buying out entire stocks of novelty packs intended for little kids on Halloween, if there’s a chance people can inhale obscene quantities of Pokemon cards, someone, somewhere is going to ruin it for everyone.
This weekend, it wasa collaboration between Pokemon and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. What was supposed to be a neat way to culturally enrich fans and celebrate both Pokemon and one of the Netherlands’ most famous artists became an overwhelming horde of people scalping, scamming, and even outright stealing to get their hands on a silly Pikachu card.
Running until January 7, the exhibition showcases Pokemon in the style of Vincent Van Gogh. When you first enter the museum, you’re given a Pokemon Adventure booklet, full of activities and questions you’ll uncover as you explore the exhibition. Hand it in at the end, and you’re supposed to get a limited-edition Pikachu With A Grey Felt Hat card. It’s a lovely tie-in, with Sunfloras replacing Van Gogh’s famous sunflowers, and Snorlax and Munchlax hanging out in the artist’s bedroom.
Except the Van Gogh Museum was unlucky enough to mention the words ‘exclusive card’ within earshot of the utterly unhinged Pokemon community. Within hours, throngs of people had descended upon the museum, hoping to get their hands on the card.
Some would at least pay to get into the museum and speedrun an activity booklet designed for six year olds, but others would simply head straight to the museum store and buy out any bit of merchandise they could get their hands on. Worse still, there are reports of people resorting to stealing the cards from those who had gone through the exhibition, snatching their cards seconds after they were given them.
Things weren’t much better online, as qualifying orders would also receive their own felt hat Pikachu. It was meant to be a way for people to get the card without having to go to the Netherlands, but those sold out within seconds too.
It feels almost pointless to note the reason behind this nonsense, but the Pikachu cards arenow selling on Ebay for about $300 each. Even the non-card merchandise from the exhibition is online, with scalpers grabbing anything they could and hoping to profit. Postcards, prints, magnets, even novelty pens are all up for exorbitant prices. It’s pathetic, and it’s something both the Pokemon Company and the community needs to check itself on.
The Pokemon Company knows this is going to happen. It courts this hype cycle, even if it then has to put out statements saying it couldn’t possibly have predicted such a response. It ruined Pokemon 151’s launch, Crown Zenith, Celebrations, the Charizard Ultra-Premium Collection, and it was a particular scourge on the McDonalds tie-in. TPC knows how frantic Pokemon fans get over this stuff, but hype is good for the brand and so it’s unlikely to pack it in any time soon.
Putting the onus on the community is nigh-on impossible, because you’ll always get those that say it wasn’t them instead of undergoing the slightest amount of introspection into how they contributed to where we are now.Those scalpers aren’t therealPokemon fans, they’re scalpers, they’re not us. We’re different, we’re reasonable, we just want to collect it.
This isn’t remotely true: the Pokemon TCG community is more about consumption and collection than it is actually playing. Just take a look over on Reddit; the mainPokemon TCG subreddithas virtually no mention of the game itself and instead has people flaunting their pulls and showing off their hoards of sealed product. You have to go toa smaller, quieter subredditto find talk about the game without seeing the same picture of an Evolving Skies Umbreon for the fifth time that day.
It’s telling that you may pick up multiple top-tier Pokemon decks for the same price as one of these Pikachus. The game isn’t the game as far as most people care, the game is just having the cards and collecting them by any means necessary.
Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering don’t have this problem. They have their collectors and their financial types debating the value of sets or theorising which singles will spike this month that makes me want to die of boredom, but I’ve never seen either game’s communities collectively lose their minds over a card the way Pokemon TCG collectors do. There’s a special brand of Pokemon TCG nonsense, and it’s embarrassing to watch.
Scalpers will only continue as long as there’s a market for it. This card is cute, but it isn’t a crucial one to own. It’s not going to pay off your mortgage or become a top-tier tournament piece, and once the hype has died down anyone who spent $300 on it is going to feel severely ripped off. Let’s just skip all of that and get to a place where promo cards can just be nice to have without it involving the ransacking of a children’s museum exhibit.
