Tokyo Store Creates Pokémon Quiz to Sell Cards as Anti-Resale Measure

If there is one thing many people deeply hate, it is scalpers who buy up entire stocks of a product and resell them at abusive prices. Take for example what happened YESTERDAY (at the time of this post).

Yesterday, Steam launched its new controller priced at around 90 dollars, and within 30 minutes it was sold out. Guess what happened next? The controller is already being resold for up to 200 dollars. Pokémon cards face this issue all the time as well.

Tokyo Store Creates Pokémon Quiz to Sell Cards as Anti-Resale Measure

So a Tokyo store created a Pokémon quiz to sell cards as a way to ensure that only real fans can purchase them. Every time a new card expansion is released, scalpers appear like insects and grab everything in sight just to resell it for triple the price.

To prevent this issue, the store now requires customers to correctly answer a quiz about different Pokémon species. Only those who demonstrate basic knowledge of the franchise are allowed to complete the purchase, helping separate fans from resellers.

In addition to the quiz, other rules were introduced. Buyers must have a store points card or the official app installed, allowing the system to track repeated bulk purchases. There is also a strict limit of just one box per customer.

This measure is part of a broader effort to combat scalpers in Pokémon card sales, as the collectibles market has been heavily affected by speculation. Many items end up being resold online at much higher prices than originally intended. Imagine buying 40 Pokémon cards for something like 600 reais—completely absurd.

The store also made it clear that resale is strictly prohibited and reserves the right to refuse sales if suspicious behavior is detected. As an additional measure, packaging is damaged at the time of purchase to reduce resale value.

And although this news is from Japan, last month I covered a case in the United States where two adult men fought over Pokémon cards and one of them was shot because of it.

via Kuma Kuma