GameStop's Pokémon 30th anniversary price markup is ridiculous

Despite the retailer's reputation for high trading card prices, its listings for the 30th anniversary are shocking

Now that the full slate of Pokémon 30th anniversary products has been announced, GameStop has officially begun taking pre-orders for the new set. The video game retailer is already known as one of the most expensive places to buy Pokémon cards. Yet even with that reputation, GameStop's price for Pokémon's celebratory set is shocking fans and workers alike.

The Pokémon Company has not yet revealed how much the new set will cost. Based on the typical manufacturer's suggested retail pricing for TCG products, however, every single thing GameStop will sell on Sept. 16 is priced exorbitantly.

In particular, fans are taken aback by GameStop's price for the 30th anniversary Elite Trainer Box. Normally, ETBs are supposed to cost $49.99. GameStop's price is $129.99, for a markup of nearly 260%. Fans are preemptively wincing at whatever the retailer might charge for the Ultra Premium box, which typically has an MSRP of $129.99.

Prices aren't locked in, either. Anyone who pre-orders is guaranteed whatever price was advertised when the sale was made. GameStop can keep adjusting prices for everyone else — and has been known to do so for in-demand Pokémon products.

"Who needs scalpers when you have GameStop?" one Pokémon fan joked.

"This is just blatant greed," another fan opined.

Here is the icing on the cake: despite these exorbitant price tags, some Pokémon fans are pre-ordering anyway.

"I’m buying a bunch idc," one fan wrote on the subreddit for keeping track of Pokémon TCG deals.

"I ordered 8," another Pokémon fan wrote in the same thread.

Fans are justifying the pre-orders by suggesting that the market prices for these products will likely be high — potentially even more expensive than whatever GameStop is charging. Relying on other retail stores might mean waiting in long lines or losing out on purchasing anything at all. GameStop's prices might be ridiculous, but they're also a guaranteed purchase. And fans can always cancel their pre-orders if they change their mind.

"Let’s be real, scalpers ain’t gonna let us find this on the shelf no matter how hard PCI been printing," a Pokémon fan wrote in the comments of a YouTube video discussing the prices.

"Definitely preordered 2 ETB’s, that’s coming from someone who NEVER hits on PC or Target," another wrote. "And you want me to try to do that on arguably Pokémon’s biggest set ever. Nah I’ll fork over the premium lol."

GameStop workers say that the retailer is intentionally trying to trigger customer FOMO by imposing purchasing limits as well. Purchase restrictions make people feel like a product will sell out quickly. Demand might be high when a new set launches, but over time, workers say panic dies down and GameStop is left with ample reserves.

The Pokémon Company has also had a lot of time to plan and print this release. Sets leading up to the 30th anniversary have been strangely small. The upcoming Pitch Black set, for example, has 115 total cards. Set sizes have varied over the years, but many modern-era sets fall somewhere between 200 and 250 total cards. It's possible that, with smaller recent set sizes, TPC has been able to devote more resources to printing what may be the hottest set of 2026.

This is speculation, of course. But TPC has also spent the last year trying to find ways to combat Pokémon's scalping problem. These measures have included purchasing limits, ID requirements, and pushing people to actually play the game. Notably, the Pokémon Center drop from June 30 went down surprisingly well for average fans, many of whom have spent months unable to buy anything at MSRP. The company is undoubtedly thinking about how to mitigate the issue for such a high-profile release, and ample supply is a potential lever to pull.