Pokémon fans got a major TCG price drop after brutal GameStop disaster

Prices for products like the 30th anniversary ETB and UPC are still high, but not comically so

A week after announcing its exorbitant prices for the upcoming Pokémon 30th anniversary trading card game set — and days after raising those prices even further — video game retailer GameStop once again has workers printing out new tags. This time, however, GameStop is actually pricing its Pokémon card products reasonably. Kinda?

To recap: At the start of July, GameStop announced that it would be selling all of its Pokémon 30th anniversary products at a substantial markup. Products like the Elite Trainer Box, which had a manufacturer's retail price of $49.99, were instead listed for $129.99. A couple of days later, GameStop tweaked the ETB price to be $169.99, or 340% of MSRP. With such bold pricing, GameStop accidentally defined the floor for 30th anniversary Pokémon products. Soon, TCG marketplaces were listing similar items for an even larger markup.

At the time, GameStop workers said that the extraordinary prices weren't enough to stop people from pre-ordering. But for undisclosed reasons, employees were still given new pricing guidance for the celebratory Pokémon set on July 10. Astonishingly, GameStop has significantly reduced its prices.

Fliers shared by several GameStop employees from different locations show that the retailer is slashing prices across the board, for both the 30th anniversary set and the July TCG release, Pitch Black. The ETB has gone from $169.99 to a slightly more reasonable $99.99. The Ultra Premium Collection box, which was previously $600, will now be sold for $399.99. Both products are still expensive — the ETB has a markup of about 100% — but they're also more in line with typical market prices for popular Pokémon products. A Chaos Rising ETB, for example, currently has a market price of $79.99.

Why the switch-up? Some employees speculate that the pre-order volumes weren't matching what corporate had hoped. Though GameStop has not made an official announcement, its international branches have. EB Games, which is owned by GameStop, tried to frame the price decreases as some kind of master plan with multiple phases.

"We wanted genuine Pokémon fans to have the best possible opportunity to secure these once in a generation products while making life as difficult as possible for scalpers," an Instagram post reads. "Setting what many considered an outrageous preorder price was a part of that strategy. Scalpers don't build communities, fans do."

OK, sure. Whatever really motivated it, it's a welcome change that will likely inspire more people to pre-order. While the prices are high at GameStop, they're also a guaranteed way to secure products for anxious fans. Right now, retailers like Amazon are starting to sell pre-orders for the 30th anniversary set as well, and they're going out of stock within seconds.

Employees say that anyone who pre-ordered with older prices can either get their money back or redirect the difference to another GameStop product. Stores are still observing a strict limit of two pre-orders per item.