Pokemon Scalpers Swamp Van Gogh Museum, Forcing Changes to Museum’s Purchase Policy

[Water Pokémon Master]

The Pokemon and Van Gogh museum collaboration opened yesterday in Amsterdam.
But according to multiple fans on social media, the museum’s gift shop was overrun by scalpers buying up hoards of the museum’s exclusive Pokemon merchandise.
One attendee, Nathan Whincup, summed up the sentiments of many other visitors, stating, “The @vangoghmuseum Pokemon exhibit is lovely. Unfortunately it’s marred by scalpers hoarding multiple promo cards and picking the gift shop clean, and poor management of all of the above.”
Video circulating on social media depicts a chaotic scene as people scramble to grab merchandise from the gift shop:

A quick perusal of auction websites shows the museum’s Pokemon merchandise with outrageous markups. The “Pikachu...

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[Yaginku]

Who could have predicted this?
It genuinely sounds like wilful ignorance - I'm pretty sure anyone even mildly interested in Pokemon product could have told them this is going to happen. A cynical part inside me (yet, there's an even more cynical one) wants to me think TPC actually craves to see scenes like this posted on social media to "boost their brand".

 

[The Binder Guy]

If I had a nickel for every time a promotional Pokemon card gets swamped with scalpers I’d ha-no wait that analogy doesn’t work here.

But seriously, this is getting out of hand. The policy at the museum should’ve been one-card-per-transaction-per-day rather than their disastrous one-card-per-item policy. The same can be said for the Pokémon Center’s handling of their merch+promo drop too, just cancel every single order and redo it with that policy in place.

Or you know, just permanently retire these kinds of promos (or overprint them to heck and back) until investors fluff off to “greener” pastures.

Who could have predicted this?
It genuinely sounds like wilful ignorance - I'm pretty sure anyone even mildly interested in Pokemon product could have told them this is going to happen. A cynical part inside me (yet, there's an even more cynical one) wants to me think TPC actually craves to see scenes like this posted on social media to "boost their brand".

The only way we’ll ever see TPCi reverse course on this is if multiple people get critically injured, if not die outright, during these scalper storms.

And yes, I’m 100% serious on this.

 

[Frost]

Yeah scalpers suck but at this point I'm even more fed up with those in charge of the TCG for their total inability to read the room for the last four years. How many new sets or promos have to come out to a disastrous release before they realize nobody's happy?

 

[Tomasko26]

This is a really sad thing to see, that video is jaw dropping for me. I don't know if anyone else experienced issues with the Pokemon Center's website earlier today but it seems they released the Van Gogh products and within minutes the site had crashed and seemingly all the product is now sold out. Very sad as I was unable to even peruse the offerings and pick something up for myself and my niece and nephew. :/

 

[Chicken008]

Wow! That video is depressing.

 

[FireLizard]

People are really doing this for some fancy cards inspired by a game about colored animals with superpowers?

 

[Nirvanna21]

Disgusting.

 

[TandemTCG]

I would easily be banned on all social media platforms if I said what I truly feel about these assholes (the scalpers).

 

[The Binder Guy]

How many new sets or promos have to come out to a disastrous release before they realize nobody's happy?

I kinda with @Yaginku on TPCi liking the publicity, regardless of it being positive or negative, these kinds of events tend to generate. It almost feels like whoever manages the TCG’s marketing and promotions used to work for companies like EA or Activision.

But like I mentioned earlier the only thing that’ll make a shift is some form of serious event. Heck, even an IRL protest at TPCi’s HQ with hundreds of people could do it.

But I doubt that’ll happen, we’ve reached a point in Pokemon’s history where a majority of the “uberfans” that have any sway are more like Disney Adults.

 

[Fawnlily]

1890: Van Gogh ends his own life, having suffered a lifetime of poverty during which he only sold a single painting out of the 2100 artworks he produced

2023: Grown adults trample each other to get cardboard pictures of a rodent wearing his hat

 

[MarlinRimes]

If you put a Black Friday crowd and the vid it would be the same

 

[Clear]

undo the pauldening. arrest patient zero of scams, and scalping culture for his (actual) crimes.
only then will the calm come.

 

[PaisleyParks]

This is like actual cartoon villain stuff, plotting to take large amounts of cardboard from a children's museum exhibit and resell it at 300x its value
Though as obviously in the wrong as these people are, this sort of thing has happened multiple times in recent memory and at no point has anyone higher up thought that maybe there should be safeguards to prevent people from doing it until it's already happened (obviously to a lesser extent with the Clay Burst thing, but I remember there being crowds of people actively fighting over the exclusive Pikachu plushies at London Worlds as well)

 

[gemjadem]

oh yeah tpci absolutely wants this to happen lol. they directly encourage this kind of scrambling for product, scalping, hoarding, and reselling - it’s the entire point of having such a high price point on so many event exclusive, short-printed, limited time only products. between FOMO and the idea that “all press is good press” they set this up to happen again and again because they know it will make them boatloads of money, and that will always be the only thing the highest-selling media franchise in the world will ever truly care about.

 

[chris.n7]

So sad what this hobby has become. People just in it for the money. All I want is cool stuff for my collection.

 

[Snowy Lilacs]

People are really doing this for some fancy cards inspired by a game about colored animals with superpowers?

you forget people have killed eachother over wash clothes on sale for Black Friday's in the past, so Yes they are

 

[SenorChinocano]

At the same time, I commend the Van Gogh Museum for acting quickly, revamping their policies locally and on the website to quickly deal with the situation. It took them less than 1 day to completely set-up a new system to stop this horror. Should they have known better? Maybe. Did they act, they sure did. Swiftly. And now there's still copies available for real museum patrons all the way up to the close of the exhibit in January, so good for them!

 

[RueSando]

oh yeah tpci absolutely wants this to happen lol. they directly encourage this kind of scrambling for product, scalping, hoarding, and reselling - it’s the entire point of having such a high price point on so many event exclusive, short-printed, limited time only products. between FOMO and the idea that “all press is good press” they set this up to happen again and again because they know it will make them boatloads of money, and that will always be the only thing the highest-selling media franchise in the world will ever truly care about.

It's crazy to see how different TPCi and TPC-JPN are at handling this situation.
I consulted on an exhibition at a major gallery planned for next year in collaboration with TPC JPN. The team had loads of cool ideas for promos and merch but ultimately were told we couldn't have the promo due to "Resale, Robbery and other Public Conditions".

It was annoying to see the Van Gogh promo produced despite our efforts but at the same time, looks like we've dodged a major bullet here.

When I see the PCGClassic being retailed at 2x what it was in Japan while also being of inferior quality, it's hard to disagree with you on what TPCi's motives look like.

 

[Prof. Lev]

I'm shaking my head, but I'd milk the milkman for a Psyduck Skrik so...

Hype be hype. They're the highest grossing media franchise of all time now. If they don't act accordingly, it's gonna happen