Pokémon has faced a popularity boom during the pandemic that was impossible to predict, with an explosive card market and an oncoming 25th anniversary on Feb 27.
The rapper Logic spent more than $250,000 on an original 1999 shadowless holographic Charizard card. YouTube star Logan Paul gained similar attention with the hundreds of thousands of dollars he’s spent opening boxes on his YouTube channel.
For most fans, Pokémon isn’t about the money. Leonardo Furtado, a third-year St. Thomas University student, was raised on the Pokémon franchise.
“My friend’s little brother has a gigantic folder with all his cards and I told him Psyduck was my favourite card. He literally looked until he found a Psyduck and gave it to me. So this is my favourite card, it’s sentimental,” said Furtado.
When Furtado checks his phone, a flash of blue and yellow pops up behind his transparent phone case. Slipped in there is the Psyduck card.
Since the pandemic began, fans on Reddit have speculated about the rising price of cards. The main theory is that the pandemic stimulus checks gave fans the opportunity to invest more money into their hobbies, as well as the time to do it, which gave Pokémon a breath of fresh air following the controversy with the recent game, Pokémon Sword and Shield.
After the release of the games, fans accused Game Freak of releasing an unfinished and unpolished game in an attempt to have it ready for Christmas sales. The hashtag #gamefreaklied began trending following the release, leading to a divided online community.
The issue arose over two points, which were the pay-to-play sections of the game that the company released following the main game and the fact that not all of the Pokémon from older games could be transferred to the new games.
“I feel like I had so many expectations, but the moment that it was released and I had to buy new stuff to literally finish the game, it was a little bit too much,” said Furtado, who has kept up with the game series.
Both of these problems were new to Pokémon and accusations of money-grabbing lost the game many long-time fans. But Benjamin Beveridge, a University of New Brunswick student, said he thinks that the issue people have is that the company is making new games for children instead of pandering to nostalgia from adults.
“I just say that they’re getting to be less appealing to people who played Pokémon like 20 years ago because they’re trying to keep up with society now,” said Beveridge. “They’re adding new things in. I think it’s kind of cool, it’s like each game kind of has their own twist.”
Beveridge’s childhood was also highly influenced by Pokémon. In school, the boys in his class would give Pokémon cards to the girls they liked, making sure the cards suited them.
“I remember my buddy, Cory, gave a girl a Luvdisc, somebody gave a Nidoqueen and there was a Beautifly,” said Beveridge.
From the slow transition to 3D-animation styles to the roster that has now reached a whopping 839 Pokémon, and the way new words like “Dynamax,” “Mega Evolution,” and “Z-Moves” dominate the landscape, it’s a hard adjustment.
Since the heat following this has died down, the Pokémon Company has been generating new content for the older fans.
It’s not yet clear what else is in store for the anniversary year but it certainly won’t stop here.
“It’s still a game that I really enjoy, so I’m probably gonna keep purchasing, no matter what they put in. They could put in Bernie Sanders sitting on a chair and call it a Pokémon, and I’d still play,” said Beveridge.
