Pokémon Center's 30th anniversary TCG pre-orders are a disaster

Fans hopeful for ETBs and UPCs are instead encountering errors, crashes, and freezes

The Pokémon Center's pre-order reservations for the upcoming 30th anniversary Trading Card Game collection are officially live, but good luck trying to score anything. As is the case for any drop, The Pokémon Center's website is buckling under the load — except this time, the demand is even higher than usual.

The upcoming set, which hits shelves on Sept. 16, is the most highly anticipated Pokémon TCG drop of the year. Not long after its announcement, retailers like GameStop immediately began listing products at up to a 500% markup. Somehow, this was cheaper than the prices listed by resellers. The Ultra Premium Collection, a product that typically costs $129.99, currently has a market price of $783. There are two versions of the UPC, in addition to the many other available products, such as the Knock Out Collection and Tech Sticker Collection.

The Pokémon Center is one of the few places you can get a Pokémon TCG product at the manufacturer's suggested retail price. Between resellers who are hoping for a payday, and regular fans who don't want to fork over the equivalent of a house down payment, TPC's website is getting slammed.

The first hurdle is loading the website at all. Often, fans are met with a connection error rather than a timer. Should the website load, users still have to complete a Captcha that can freeze after confirmation. If users get through all of that, then they have to wait in a queue up to seven hours.

Fans report that their wait times aren't moving, or are continually getting longer. Sometimes the pages will turn white, with nothing to click on. Pokémon fans who survive all of these issues can get to the end of the queue only to find another error while navigating the site. Products don't always load, and checking out is a disaster. Some people have managed to purchase items, but most fans are stuck in a frustrating loop of crashes. Users who make the mistake of reloading too many times are also getting flagged as bots and banned, unfortunately.

Beyond lower prices, fans have good reason to exercise patience. During the last drop for the Pitch Black set, folks joining the queue hours after it went live still managed to buy all the available products. According to leaks, TPC has also been printing the set well in advance of the release, in anticipation of high demand. The 30th-anniversary set comes with a wide range of products as well, so it'll take longer for any given item to sell out. Some users are only adding a few products and checking out immediately, as attempting large purchases increases the chances of encountering issues. The constant crashes also potentially mean that waiting users could be pushed up the line sooner than they think.

The hardest item to source will undoubtedly be the Elite Trainer Box, which, unlike ETBs sold elsewhere, comes with extra packs and an additional promo card. As long as you're on a stable internet connection and not using a VPN or bot, your chances of buying the 30th anniversary set at MSRP may be higher than you think.