The Pokemon Trading Card Game has always been relatively popular, but that popularity has exploded recently. More specifically, the cards themselves rather than the actual game. Even those who likely have little to no interest with the franchise have been eagerly trying to snap up Pokemon trading cards, and other collectible cards in general, in the hopes of being able to sell them for a significant profit. It's reached a point where they will stampede through a Walmart to grab as many as possible before anyone else.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in scalpers managing to hoard Pokemon trading cards so that they can sell them for obscene prices to desperate collectors and parents looking to get them for their children. The website eBay, in particular, is a popular place for cards to be sold and, as such, the site is updating its bidding policy specifically for trading cards. It doesn't prevent scalpers from selling them in the first place but instead will prevent users from retracting their bids.

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In a letter sent to eBay sellers and reported on by GameSpot, the website states that the new policy will go into effect from June 30th. The only way buyers will be able to retract their bid is if they receive permission from the seller. While the letter doesn't appear to provide an exact reason for the change, it's probably because people have been returning cards they've bought once their value dips or artificially driving up the value of cards through bidding and then retracting their bid before the auction ends.

What sort of effect this will have remains to be seen, but some don't seem to be confident that this will fix anything. In a Reddit thread, one user fears that the system is still open to abuse from eBay scalpers who could still use bots to inflate their own prices. Another suggests that, rather than enforcing the new policy, eBay should include it as an optional feature for sellers.

It isn't just eBay that has taken new steps to deal with the rise of card sales. The scalping problem has become so bad that Target no longer sells any sort of trading cards because it was concerned for the safety of staff and customers. While an understandable decision, it ultimately makes it harder to regular fans to collect cards themselves.

The Pokemon Company likely isn't complaining about all this, though. The rise in card sales has no doubt contributed to its most profitable year yet. In 2020, it made more than $1.1 billion. Other contributing factors include the increase in spending for Pokemon GO and the release of Pokemon Sword and Shield's DLC expansions.

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Source: GameSpot