2020 was just a big year for Pokémon TCG. Collectors have accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars by auctioning off their childhood jewelry and reselling current products, such as Elite Trainer Boxes and boosters.
Unsurprisingly, when McDonald’s announced it would include a special 25th anniversary Pokémon card pack with every Happy Meal purchase, fans have already started preparing to secure their lot. Unfortunately, like many “scarce” resources that generate profit, a frenzy to get as many cards as possible occurred on the release date.
While there are a lot of collectors who just want to take all 50 cards, most are money changers looking to replicate the success of the 2002 Happy Meal Pokémon card series launched in Japan. The whole idea of sharing Pokémon joy with children it was distorted with adults abusing it totally and playing with the promotion, buying boxes at a time. The current market price is now $ 1,100 for a box of 150 packs or you can buy them individually for a price of $ 10 dollars per pack. Some people are even ordering 10 Happy Meals at a time just to get the cards, wasting their food in the process.
This situation is not pleasing to parents and genuine Pokémon fans, with many accessing Twitter to express their frustration at McDonald’s. Check out the tweets below. What do you think? Should McDonald’s limit this promotion to one package per customer?
@McDonalds @Pokemon I hope you do some kind of inventory control for your promotional Pokémon cards, as part of your inventory is being sold in sealed boxes, which means they won’t even reach your stores. Although the same thing happened with Tim Hortons Hockey as well. Retail $ 1.99? pic.twitter.com/kX8qZyRX2V
– redphoenixsportscards (@redphoenixcards) February 9, 2021
@McDonalds @Pokemon @eBay this is not cool, your employees scalp it while my kids can’t do it with a paid meal pic.twitter.com/P2KXYV0otR
– Jimmy Bond (@ jimmybond613) February 9, 2021
I am so disappointed. I asked McDonald’s if they had Pokémon kids’ meals, they said yes, I paid for my food and I was dizzy to open TWO packages of these toys, get home and BAM are hasbro toys. As if you lied to me you wouldn’t make me a happy customer
-? Maggie? (@Magskcrp) February 8, 2021
@McDonalds stop allowing people to buy the Pokémon’s happy meal in large quantities. No one has more than 5 children. Let the general public have a chance.
– Jay Rech (@ JoeZ10ARG) February 9, 2021
Two days ago, members were told to go to McDonalds to buy full boxes of Pokémon 25th Anniversary toys
$ 250 retail ➡️ $ 1,100 resale
How many cases did you get? ? pic.twitter.com/uZWakbOa8J
– BANDAR (@BandarsBounties) February 9, 2021
In other TCG news, the 2021 Pokémon World Championship has been canceled.