GameStop Discontinues Pokemon TCG Preorders at Stores and Website!

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onFeb 21, 2025 at 8:35 PM · 34 Comments

In an internal e-mail sent to store employees today, GameStop announced it will no longer allow customers to preorder Pokemon TCG products from its website or from its stores.

Their statement reads, in part, “Moving forward, all Pokemon TCG products will be shipped directly to stores to encourage more foot traffic. We encourage you to use this opportunity to engage your community through in-store events and introduce them to our services.”

One longtime store manager I spoke to said, “No other TCG at GameStop has these restrictions. I’m just speculating, but I believe GameStop can’t get enough allocation of Pokemon TCG products right now. So their only solution is to limit products and capitalize on walk-ins.”

He went on to state, “After the holidays, GameStop limited all Pokemon TCG products to two per customer, except individual booster packs, which are now five per customer. They also charge above MSRP now because I believe they’re buying stock from other sources beyond Pokemon itself.”

“For example, Obsidian Flames ETBs are now $81.99. Crown Zenith ETBs are $104.99. And 151 bundles are $39.99. These are the official prices in-store.”

I previously reported hobby stores were seeing very low allocations for Prismatic Evolutions. Since then, we’ve learned allocations for March’s Journey Together are just as limited.

TPCi promised last month it will continue to print more product to meet the high demand.

View thread (34 replies)
koala cub said:
the worst part about this is that the pokémon company's intentional scarcity of printing + lack of punishments towards scalpers is profitable for the company.

in terms of demand, profit, and engagement, the morally bankrupt scalpers are ironically the best customers tpci could possibly ask for.

it's all about the money. it sucks.
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But we cannot know for sure, you don't really have proof. As if TPCi won't do anything that only helps their players, while the company itself doesn't gain anything.
...
Right?
 
Why would they take that gamble? From the previous article, it said TPCi distributors wants to satisfy demand from other retailers, say a furniture store, that does not focus on pokemon products and take away some products from stores dedicated to pokemon products to satisfy the furniture retailers. What do TPCi distributors hope to accomplish from that move?
 
koala cub said:
the worst part about this is that the pokémon company's intentional scarcity of printing + lack of punishments towards scalpers is profitable for the company.

in terms of demand, profit, and engagement, the morally bankrupt scalpers are ironically the best customers tpci could possibly ask for.

it's all about the money. it sucks.
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Pretty sure TPCi is printing as much product as possible, demand has just never been higher since Pocket launched
 
sonicjms said:
Pretty sure TPCi is printing as much product as possible, demand has just never been higher since Pocket launched
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They’ve already said they are. It’s worth keeping in mind they’re getting ready for Journey Together right now. I sincerely doubt TPC is purposefully trying to cater to scalpers right now.
How they haven’t found any sound solutions for any of this yet though is ridiculous, though.
 
Wow! Interesting move, I guess it makes sense. Will only drive more people to purchase from other big box stores that get the largest allocations. Truly the only way to consistently get release day product since surging sparks. Absolutely crazy the demand is quite literally the highest it has ever been. During covid TPCI rented an extra printing warehouse... maybe it's time to buy that one or build an additional one! Legends Z-A / pocket/ and the approaching new changes to the meta will only continue this trajectory IMO.
 
Stunky said:
They’ve already said they are. It’s worth keeping in mind they’re getting ready for Journey Together right now. I sincerely doubt TPC is purposefully trying to cater to scalpers right now.
How they haven’t found any sound solutions for any of this yet though is ridiculous, though.
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Its a logistics problem. Pokémon doesn't experience smooth demand, it varies a lot over the years. 2020 and 2021 were huge, but then there was a massive lul when Scarlet Violet came out. That stuff was plentiful and stores started having problems moving stock, so TPCi slowed down. Now we are in a new hot streak, and people want everything they can get their hands on. It is a very complicated problem to solve. Print orders are made months ahead of time if not a year or more, but demand is high now. Increasing print orders now means more supply in 6 months at the earliest realistically. Will the demand hold for that amount of time? If it does, how long and how much should they continue to order for?
 
SilverLuxray said:
I for one won't be renewing my pro this year. I only used it for the free pack once a month and its not like I can even find that now. Last nail in the coffin for me.
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Honestly I'm to a point where I think I'm going to use the last few months of my pro membership to send some of my more valuable cards to PSA so I can just sell them and dip out of the hobby.
 
I had a feeling this would eventually become a real thing. I don't drive and used their in-store pickup to be able to guarantee cards when I got there. I had tried for the last several releases to order, but all it said was they were "Coming Soon". Then as soon as they opened most items said the store had sold out. This stinks for people like me. There's no way I can spend the $22 round trip on a taxi just to not have anything to buy. Hopefully the supposed printing of more product will help this.
 
Stunky said:
They’ve already said they are. It’s worth keeping in mind they’re getting ready for Journey Together right now. I sincerely doubt TPC is purposefully trying to cater to scalpers right now.
How they haven’t found any sound solutions for any of this yet though is ridiculous, though.
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tbh I've been thinking for a while that it would be better, at least for us, I don't know about Pokémon, if they sold the individual cards on their website like TCGPlayer does.

They could just list each individual card and print them based on demand, so everyone can get their special Charizard or whatever. They could also put the price they want for each card. If someone's gonna pay $80 for a card, at least that money would go directly to Pokémon and not a random scalper. Or they could increase it as the cards get restocked (that's what they do with the sitting cuties).

It would destroy the whole experience of buying a pack not knowing what it has, but the experience is already destroyed for most of us who can't even get their hands on any products anymore. (I can't even buy from TCGPlayer anymore because they stopped accepting my Mexican credit card).

It probably would reduce their revenue compared to selling millions of boxes to scalpers, but at least the vast majority of the fandom would be happy. Not to mention, most of their product, the common cards, ends up in the trash anyways. As a brand, I think allowing that is just wrong, the morally correct thing to do would be to stop the scalpers' business and taking control of it themselves.

They could still sell boxes through physical retail, but having that option of ordering individual cards online would surely reduce their value, so scalpers wouldn't have a reason to buy boxes like crazy.

My point is, this whole thing has gone out of control, and if they really aren't catering to scalpers, then they should be willing to change their whole business model to please the majority of fans, otherwise the message they keep giving is that they're ok with this situation.
 
Between Scalpors and distributors, I think that Pokémon needs to step in and restructure how they handle distribution and prioritize hobby shops.

At this time, I am not looking forward to the next 30-36 months as Pokémon approaches its 30th Anniversary. If Prismatic Evolution is any indication of how the 30th Anniversary will go...
 
I think there are a lot of levels to this issue. But a lot of it could be solved imo if Pokemon were to look at pull rates and their rarity tier. As well as what Pokemon cards are to people. As someone that has enjoyed it for a long time I look at wotc and earlier sets of Pokemon. The artwork was all very unique and interesting. It had a lot of variety for each set. The sets were also smaller than now. There were common, uncommon, rare, and holo rare. With the added ultra rare ex card in newer sets. You could usually complete the majority of the set with 1 or 2 booster boxes. Now there are so many rarities, so many cards to collect and even then as commented above people just toss the commons. It’s a waste.

I feel like if Pokemon took a step back and focused on what people wanted out of sets and really honed it, things could be better. I realize this is a lot of personal opinion but people clearly like the art rares. I realize that demand is also higher than it was during wotc, e-reader, ruby and sapphire, etc. But if you create a quality product people are always going to be interested. If you simplify what you are going for in each expansion you may not sell as much product because you can find things easier but at least people would be interested. Like I said there are a lot of issues present with the tcg. 151 was a good example, people appreciated the artwork for each of the cards and it was definitely a hit of nostalgia. There were more rarity levels, and would take a lot more to complete a set but I feel like if every set was treated the same things could get better.

This may not apply to the current situation as much, and may just be my own rant about the situation, but I feel like it could help. Smaller sets, more availability, pull rates better maybe could help slow scalping just because it more available. I could be completely wrong.
 
Other than prerelease, I’m skipping Journey Together anyway. Especially since the allocation numbers are low.
The shop closest to me that does prerelease only recently announced the dates for it. I hope scalpers don’t try to come to it just for packs.
At this rate I don’t know when I’ll be able to get sealed product, and the singles market is going crazy too. It’s getting hard to have hope and patience for the end of all this when there feels like there’s no end in sight.
 
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