Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering Risk Losing a Generation
▼ Summary
– Both Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering are experiencing unprecedented popularity, leading to routine sellouts and product scarcity in stores.
– Companies are intentionally encouraging scarcity with desirable, underproduced sets for short-term gains, rather than increasing production to meet demand.
– This scarcity primarily harms regular players who cannot obtain cards to build decks, potentially causing long-term damage to the player base.
– The focus on collectors is evident through ultra-rare cards and tie-in sets that attract scalpers and drive up secondary market prices.
– Both franchises risk alienating future generations of players, as current strategies prioritize immediate profits over sustainable community growth.
During the past year, two of the world’s most popular trading card games have experienced unprecedented demand, yet this surge in popularity has created a troubling paradox. Both Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering have become so difficult to purchase at retail that many regular players, especially younger ones, are being shut out entirely. While this scarcity drives short-term profits and collector frenzy, it threatens to alienate the very audience that ensures these games survive for another generation.
For collectors with deep pockets, these are golden times. Premium cards from Pokémon, such as stunning full-art editions, can resell for hundreds of dollars, while Magic’s crossover sets, featuring franchises like Final Fantasy, often vanish from shelves before the general public even knows they are available. But this booming secondary market offers little to those who actually want to play the games. Players need accessible cards to build decks and compete, not just rare collectibles to stash in binders.
Here in the UK, finding recently released Pokémon cards in stores has become nearly impossible. Unless you receive promotional copies directly from the company, your chances of buying packs from sets like Surging Sparks or newer releases are practically zero. Occasionally, older and less desirable sets like Temporal Forces might appear, but for anyone wanting to participate in live events using current decks, the only option is often to turn to online resellers and pay inflated prices.
The situation is no better for Magic: The Gathering. What began as occasional themed sets has exploded into a constant stream of crossover releases, many of which are immediately bought up by speculators. Recent tie-ins with Sonic the Hedgehog and The Lord of the Rings were almost impossible to find at launch, and upcoming collaborations with Spider-Man, Star Trek, and even The Office are likely to follow the same pattern. While these sets attract new collectors, they do little to support the players who form the core community.
This shift in focus has serious consequences. When children and casual players cannot find or afford cards, they simply stop playing. Both companies appear to be intensifying the problem rather than solving it. Pokémon’s latest set, Mega Evolution, includes ultra-rare cards found in just one of every 2,520 packs, a move that fuels hype but does nothing to improve availability. Repeated promises to increase production have not led to meaningful change. Similarly, Wizards of the Coast continues to release limited-run Secret Lair drops and an ever-growing number of specialty sets, many of which sell out almost instantly.
From a business perspective, it’s easy to see why these strategies continue. A sale is a sale, whether the buyer is a dedicated player or a speculative reseller. But there is a real risk here. Today’s adult collectors often started as kids who could easily buy and play with these cards. If the next generation is priced out or locked out, the player pipeline will eventually dry up. My friend Paul calls this “Funkopopping”, turning a participatory game into a purely collectible commodity, forgetting that the words on the cards are meant for playing, not just admiring.
Only time will tell if this short-term approach will pay off. Perhaps the current buzz will sustain these brands for years to come. But turning Pokémon into a scalper’s paradise and diluting Magic’s identity with endless pop-culture mash-ups feels like a gamble. In the end, the real loss is for those kids who find friendship and fun around a table, rolling dice and playing cards, the very people these games were originally made for.
(Source: Kotaku)