> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://aftermath.site/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # I Sold $16K In Pokémon Cards And It Fucking Sucked - URL: https://aftermath.site/pokemon-card-selling/ - Published: 2026-10-26T14:52:07.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-26T15:38:32.000Z - Description: I can definitively say that this experience was not worth this, nor any, amount of money - Author: Lucas DeRuyter - Tags: pokemon, inside baseball week, Inside Baseball Week 2026, Freelance, pokemon cards, Feature “We shouldn’t have done this,” my partner lamented as the pizza I had brought home because we were both too busy to cook grew cold. “I never should have agreed to do this. These fucking cards are taking over our lives, and I just want to slow down again.” Three plastic storage tubs towered over our dinner table. Inside them were *Pokémon* branded yo-yos; several plastic figures of Ash, Pikachu, and friends; packs of the Pog-adjacent *Pokémon* Action Flips; and several dozen unopened Base Set, Base Set 2, Jungle, Mystery of the Fossil, and Rocket Gang *Pokémon TCG* packs valued between $16,000 and $20,000\. This conversation was in June of 2025, on the precipice of both of our busiest work weeks for the year, and came on the heels of a family member demanding for the third time in five months that we should have deposited a check from the sale of cards into my soon-to-be grandmother-in-law’s bank account by now. These cards – and all of the stress, frustration, and fighting that came with them – would continue to loom over our space and daily lives until October of that year. --- Unless you live under a boulder big enough to block out the sun, chances are you’ve heard of *Pokémon*. Originally a pair of turn-based role playing video games that released in 1996, the franchise is now a multimedia empire featuring several anime series, two dozen feature films, a decades-spanning manga adaptation, countless merchandise lines and partnerships, and is by some estimates the [highest grossing media franchise in the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%5Fof%5Fhighest-grossing%5Fmedia%5Ffranchises?ref=aftermath.site). Now, unless you live under just a slightly smaller boulder, chances are you’ve heard of the *Pokémon TCG*, a tie-in trading card game featuring monsters and iconography from the games and anime with a gameplay system that’s often described as a simplified version of *Magic: The Gathering*. Launching in Japan in 1996 with an English version distributed worldwide in 1999, the *Pokémon TCG* quickly proved to be as popular as the games and anime, and helped further cement the “Pokémania” that would prove culturally inescapable in the late 90s and early 2000s. If you were a child or had a child in elementary or middle school at any stretch during this window of time, chances are you read some kind of policy announcement from school labeling these branded pieces of cardstock a distraction and forbidding them from the school’s premises. In 2026, the 30th anniversary of the franchise, the *Pokémon TCG* endures as a monolithic competitive card game, but is more broadly known for the secondary collectors market that is feasting on this host body like a parasite. As [Nicole Carpenter wrote for Aftermath earlier this year](https://aftermath.site/nicole-gets-into-pokemon-card-trading/), collecting *Pokémon* cards can be a deeply rewarding hobby rife with community, connection, and even a kind of childhood whimsy. However, the resellers market where scalpers treat *Pokémon* cards like commodities to be haggled over, hoarded, and hawked replaces all of this joy with degenerate bag chasing. Not unlike how entrepreneurs with no sense of the social contract will buy up concert tickets for a popular artist or pallets of new video game consoles with the intent of selling them on secondary markets at an exorbitant markup, *Pokémon* card resellers aim to exploit people’s fondness for the brand and the collectable nature of these trading cards to make a quick buck. With the [value of these cards on the rise](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/commodities/articles/pok-mon-cards-15-900-113706019.html?ref=aftermath.site), [a sizable content creator community forming around the trade](https://fortune.com/2025/07/12/gen-z-millenial-men-addicted-to-pokemon-sports-trading-cards-outbeat-sp-500-resell-ebay-investment-move/?ref=aftermath.site), and [provocateur celebrities using the barely regulated trade to enrich themselves](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/16/americas/pokemon-card-logan-paul-record-auction-intl-hnk?ref=aftermath.site), it’s no wonder that headlines are starting to crop up denoting the [rise in crime related to what is literally a children’s card game](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/pokemon-cards-became-a-billion-dollar-industry-then-came-the-armed-robberies?ref=aftermath.site). Having been thrust into this world in order to help a soon-to-be relative, I would like to share the experiences and knowledge I gained in selling what amounted to roughly $16,000 in *Pokémon* cards. Through this process, my fiancé and I endured some of the hardest trials we’ve ever experienced in our relationship, regularly had to confront the most avaricious parts of the human condition, and were exposed to some of the sweatiest, most casually misogynistic dudes we’ve ever met. As a former *Pokémon* kid and current *Pokémon* adult, I went into this experience thinking that I could use my lifetime of experience with the franchise to help a loved one, and nearly had every iota of fondness I have for the series demolished. While I won’t begrudge anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation for trying to make the most of this kind of windfall, I hope my experiences read as a cautionary tale that demystifies readers curious about this trending cultural moment. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-aa36248e-657d-46a9-904a-59339abc0073.png) Nintendo/Game Freak/ Creatures --- To begin, we should start with an overview of how the *Pokémon* card market works because, much to the surprise of my partner on the drive home from Thanksgiving 2024 when this process technically began, the best cards in the game are not the most valuable ones. In fact, the highest value items in this space are functionally unplayable in the *Pokémon TCG* today. To the Pokemon Company’s credit, newcomers interested in playing the game can create competitive decks for [between $25 and $36](https://www.tcgplayer.com/content/article/The-Best-Pok%C3%A9mon-TCG-Decks-Right-Now-September-2026/df18897b-3902-41b9-9eff-3b7fefd93820/?srsltid=AU7gw4Vj1msEfwpiIjanAhYJka0y3kGj1l4s28cDqs%5FN-sKJM38aASQx&ref=aftermath.site), and the game has been one of the most approachable competitive card games of its type since its inception. What’s driving up the price of old *Pokémon* cards and the booster packs they came in are scarcity and familiarity. Charitably, the *Pokémon TCG* collectors scene can be called a speculative commodities market. There are a finite number of *Pokémon* cards, especially old ones, and, as more people get into this space as traders, the value of these finite resources goes up. This is also why unopened packs of early *Pokémon* cards are valued so highly, because the *potential* of one containing a high value card like a Holofoil Charizard increases their speculative value. More cynically — and accurately — this practice could be described as an expression of [Greater Fool theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater%5Ffool%5Ftheory?ref=aftermath.site), and that someday someone will have bought every *Pokémon* card in existence only to find that their hoard is worthless as nobody has any interest in buying the otherwise valueless assets anymore. Though, before this bubble inevitably bursts, the high estimated value of some of these cards also makes them a great vector to commit money laundering and tax evasion, in a way that’s not dissimilar from how [pieces of art have been tied to financial fraud](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-freeports-operate-margins-global-art-market?ref=aftermath.site) for generations, or the [ongoing over-valuation of retro video games](https://kotaku.com/youtuber-accuses-million-dollar-retro-game-sales-of-bei-1847557296?ref=aftermath.site). Further driving up the price of these early booster packs to several hundreds of dollars is how rare it is to come across unopened packs 30 years after they were sealed. After all, these were super popular children’s toys, and the vast majority of them were torn open moments after purchase. So, how did my fiancé’s grandmother end up with enough unopened *Pokémon* card packs in her storage unit that they totaled out to tens of thousands of dollars? The short answer is that she’s a hoarder who likely forgot to give these packs to her grandkids after buying them, and they ended up in a storage unit as part of a compromise in one of the several clear-outs her kids did to her house. Without airing too much of my partner’s family drama, her grandmother is a textbook example of how a person develops hoarding tendencies, after enduring an early life marked by instability generated by social, familial, and, in one instance, volcanic circumstances. Once these cards were put in our care and we began researching how to best sell them, it became clear to me how American culture rewards and even valorizes this specific illness. With television programming like *Antiques Roadshow*, *American Pickers*, and *Pawn Stars* being ubiquitous to anyone who was an adult in the 2010s, our country has made a whole subculture out of people retaining junk and celebrating when a small part of their clutter proves valuable. As I walked between booths at *Pokémon* collectors events and into card shops looking for leads and estimates on how much our cards were worth, I couldn’t help but wonder if their cards were also sourced from the homes of people whose families discovered a medium-sized tree growing through the dining room floor of their childhood home. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-e80227b3-5252-4033-8058-101b603632a6.jpeg) Collect-A-Con Once the January 2025 wildfires had subsided and it was safe to move this tower of *Pokémon* merch into our apartment, our first big step in this process was getting estimates on what we had and sourcing potential buyers. One of the few compliments I will give this space is how many resources they’ve built up for both longtime scalpers and people who fell into this scene. The website [PriceCharting](https://www.pricecharting.com/game/pokemon-jungle/booster-pack?ref=aftermath.site) gave us a great sense of what various packs were selling for in the aggregate, and [TCGPlayer](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/138129/pokemon-jungle-jungle-booster-pack-unlimited-edition?Language=all&page=1&ref=aftermath.site) allowed us to get points of reference for current asking prices. While I now know far more about vintage *Pokémon* cards than what will ever prove useful to me again, like the difference between Shadowless and Unlimited base set cards, this research process proved surprisingly streamlined, and the next step was to source the contact info of potential buyers. At the time, we thought it fortuitous when Los Angeles’ Collect-A-Con was coming up, but it would instead prove cringe inducing and nostalgia crushing. Taking up about two-thirds of the main events venue of the Los Angeles Convention Center, the 2025 Los Angeles Collect-A-Con immediately felt uncanny to me. I’m used to events at this venue being a driving force of their given industry, like Anime Expo is to the anime community or E3 was to gaming. Collect-A-Con, with its wealth of empty space that could have been used as communal areas for people who actually wanted to play the TCGs present, immediately felt like it was fronting. It was as though the event itself was trying to justify its existence and insist on its importance by taking place in a venue far bigger than it merited. Vendors lined their *Pokémon* card display cases with hundred dollar bills, some attendees wore their most valuable cards as accessories a la Logan Paul, and I couldn’t walk more than 20 feet without someone livestreaming themselves or Google image searching displayed merchandise to see if they could flip it for a higher price. For as much as Collect-a-Con had the trimmings of a fan event, with a smattering of giant *Pokémon* inflatables and voice actor autograph booths, it was clear after 15 minutes on the show floor that this space was an effigy to hustle culture more so than any kind of appreciation for the art and media that brought these people together. Despite the English opening theme to the original anime playing in the background of this event, it quickly became clear that I couldn’t talk to people about what this media meant to them as a child or ruminate together about what elements unique to the franchise make it such a lasting success. In contrast to most other flea markets or resale gatherings that I’ve attended, most vendors didn’t care to share what brought them there, how they acquired their wares, or educate me on the intricacies of this space until I mentioned that I had a bunch of vintage packs I was looking to sell. Just like the cardsleeves housing different runs of Ampharos, Ho-Oh, Snorlax, Espeon, and some of my other favorite freaky critters, people didn’t seem interested in talking to me unless the metaphorical price sticker affixed to me was to their liking. But I, like seemingly everyone else at this event, wasn’t there to make friends. I was attending this exercise in last-stage capitalism so I could connect with potential buyers. After an hour and a half of waiting in lines and explaining my circumstances to vendors, I had the business cards of eight potential buyers and now followed half as many beyond that on Instagram where I was assured I could reach them. My spirits were high as I left the Los Angeles Convention Center, partially because I witnessed a young child display the only bit of genuine joy I experienced that afternoon when they enthusiastically shouted “It’s Pikachu!” at an inflatable of the mascot near the convention hall’s entrance. The hard part was over. I was now connected to a dozen people who had made *Pokémon* cards their entire world. Surely now all my partner and I would need to do is reach out to these people with an overview of our stock and an asking price that was respectful of their margins as resellers, and this would be over and done with in short order. I left Los Angeles Collect-A-Con on March 1st, 2025 and the last of these cards would not be sold until October 25th, 2025, eight grueling months later. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-3d0b4d6d-d6bd-4018-abc5-06f210ec720a.png) Lucas DeRuyter My first real piece of evidence that things wouldn’t go to plan was the absolute radio silence my partner and I received when we started emailing Collect-A-Con vendors. Looking back on the experience, I realize that this tracks with how the vast majority of these resellers operate. They’re essentially day traders but, instead of playing in the more regulated stock market, they’re flipping cardboard. Any liquid cash they have on hand that’s not actively invested in an appreciating asset is technically money that’s going to waste from their perspective. Unless a seller is willing to part with their *Pokémon* card stock for 65% of market value or below, there’s not actually a great way to instantly turn a stack of them into cash. This, of course, flies in the face of the “get rich quick” community that resellers claim this space can be and the culturally pervasive idea that garage junk might contain an immediate fortune. While my partner and I discussed lowering our asking prices on these packs to offload all of them more quickly, we ultimately decided against this, as her family had tasked us with this responsibility in part because her grandmother had previously sold some packs to dudes posted up at a local collectables market, who only gave the elderly woman a few hundred dollars for packs that we estimate were worth at least a grand. We were essentially acting as brokers for her, so we were obligated to sell these cards for as close to market price as possible, while also providing documentation to her and her family that she wasn’t getting ripped off again. Spring began to crest into summer as we cold called anyone we could find with a public facing email who collected and sold *Pokémon* goods. Beyond being a slow process, this also meant that we were spending a lot of our free time watching content from YouTubers and Twitch streamers who provided no entertainment value to us personally and, in many cases, were actively frustrating for us to watch, as many would profess their interest and ability to buy cards, only to leave us on read when we reached out to them with an opportunity to do just that. However, April through September would not only be defined by this Sisyphean task. During this stretch we would experience personal tragedies like our cat and my partner’s godmother passing away, I would experience my busiest two months of work in the year in the lead-up to and follow-up after Anime Expo during Independence Day weekend, and my partner would reckon with her career prospects as it became growingly clear that the entertainment industry was not going to recover from the COVID pandemic and the subsequent union strikes. During what I hope turns out to be the hardest six months that my now fiancé and I endure together, these *Pokémon* cards became an albatross. Every day we were not actively chipping away at selling these toys felt like a day that was partially wasted. Good days were diminished by the nagging feeling that we should have used the time we spent having fun together to have instead made progress on this task, and seeing this tower of totes immediately upon coming home on a bad day was downright demoralizing. This whole endeavor was supposed to be fun and an excuse to revisit a part of our childhoods, but had rapidly become one more thing we were failing at during an incredibly challenging part of our lives. We would have given up and returned these cards to my partner’s grandmother if not for the lifetime of internal shame we would carry with us as a result of quitting here. Come late September, though, our fortunes felt like they were changing when an LA-based *Pokémon* scalper and streamer responded to our outreach and said he could meet up to check out what we had. Elated at the prospect of this casual torture nearing any kind of conclusion, we quickly organized a time for the streamer to swing by our apartment, though he would quickly prove to be less of a savior and more of a devil looking to cut a deal. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-31d8dab9-bc9c-40a3-8896-d11822864022.jpeg) Lucas DeRuyter This YouTuber slouched into our apartment on an October Thursday morning 45 minutes late, clearly hung over, wearing Meta’s pervert glasses and, as my partner would inform me later, apparently had a picture of his hand wrapped around a (consenting at least) woman’s throat as the lock screen on his phone. For two hours he took over our living room to weigh each unopened *Pokémon* card pack — the materials originally used to make the more valuable holographic cards makes them heavier, and thus slightly weightier packs are more valuable — even though my partner and I had provided this information in the spreadsheet we sent him detailing every item in our lot. Despite how apparently vital this process was to him and his business, he did not bring an electronic scale and had to instead commandeer my partner’s jewelry scale for the entirety of that time. This person was actively disinterested in having a conversation with us, so we awkwardly went about our mornings with him taking up space and time in our home because he did not trust us to be either honest or accurate in the weight of these foil-sealed trading cards. Between this insulting experience and the absolutely rancid vibes of Collect-A-Con, it dawned on me how much cynicism is baked into this community. People looking to make money in the *Pokémon* card collectors scene on some level know that their primary motivation is to rip others off, either by underpaying for new inventory or convincing buyers to overpay for their current inventory, so they can only assume everyone else in this space is trying to do the same to them. I was only wading in these waters for about ten months and my soul still feels stained from dealing with this level of ambient distrust, so I can only imagine how psychologically damaging it is to be someone whose livelihood is tied up in this hustle. As lunch time rolled around, he had apparently gathered enough information to verify that we weren’t trying to scam him and, after some brief negotiations, we sold him the entire lot for about 17 grand, or 20 percent under the estimated market value. Beyond our desire to be done with this endeavor, this was an amount of money that we were enthusiastic about, as there was no way we were going to find a reseller willing to dig further into their margin without having to move items piecemeal, which would have been far more time and effort than we had in us. After the signing of a quick and dirty contract at my partner’s insistence and a couple of bank transfers, the tower of totes that had been looming over our lives for the past several months was gone. Once the bank transfers cleared, we could deposit the money into my grandmother-in-law’s savings account, message my partner’s extended family, and finally put this entire process behind us. We rode this high all weekend and, even though we didn’t do anything particularly extravagant, I remember it being the first weekend in a long time when we could be truly present for each other without the nagging guilt that we should be making progress on this task instead. This clarity lasted for all of 72 hours before our stress returned ten-fold when this dude tried to ratfuck us on Monday. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-4aa1c0b6-cd9b-4bcd-8965-be2de018de68.png) Nintendo/ Game Freak/ Creatures --- The next Monday afternoon the buyer texted my partner to share that he now felt like he overpaid for the cards he purchased from us and wanted some of his money back. To be clear, he didn’t want to return some of the packs to us in exchange for us returning what he spent on them, he wanted us to give him money back because he now felt like he spent more than he should have, despite him being the one to propose the $17k price tag. What had happened was that he assumed that the Base Set packs we had for sale were the rarer “Shadowless” variety instead of the more common “Unlimited” print run, despite us never claiming this and being transparent about our limited knowledge. We said that we had no intention of misleading him and did not want him to walk away from this deal feeling cheated, so we offered to buy the packs back from him for what he paid for them. But he didn’t want to reverse this transaction; he wanted to keep the cards and for us to give him money that was currently sitting in our bank account. This was an issue because a quick internet search revealed that the amount he was asking for back would have put our profits at a number significantly less than what we could have sold these “Unlimited” packs for. In essence, he wanted the money *and* the cards. He attempted to bully, berate, and insult my partner into giving him what he wanted. With his arguments rooted in belittling my partner’s intelligence and insisting that he was actually a “good guy” and “trying to protect her reputation,” I quickly stepped in to take over these communications. The messages he sent to my partner were some of the most misogynistic screeds I’ve ever read, and his continued attempts to bully me into giving him everything he wanted were some of the most pathetic messages I’ve ever received. To put it in the most plain terms possible, he had fucked up in his evaluation of these cards, and we were offering to let hit the undo button on this exchange. Either out of his inability to admit to his mistake or seeing an opportunity for a greater payday, he refused our offer and insisted that we just give him money at our own detriment. But he had no leverage over us, and we technically didn’t even need to offer to buy the cards back from him for what he paid. This is when the entitlement and mean-spiritedness of this space was really laid bare to me. An adult just a little younger than me was throwing a tantrum because he couldn’t maximally benefit from this situation and didn’t even have the awareness to realize we were being charitable by giving him a way out of his mistake. After he had exhausted himself, he agreed to our buy back offer on the specific packs that he felt he overpaid for. Not wanting my fiancé anywhere near a dude who had stopped just shy of threatening her over the phone, later that week I drove to the other side of Los Angeles during the middle of what should have been my workday with an envelope filled with three and a half grand in cash to get the cards back from him. Acutely aware of how dumb it would be if I got jumped in the parking lot he selected as a meet-up spot after I’ve experienced nothing but successful drug deals in college and my early twenties, the trade was surprisingly easy, and he even recommend a friend of his I could hit up if I wanted to try to get tickets for the World Series games held at Dodger Stadium. Looking back, my partner and I should have utilized my privilege as a tall, straight-presenting man more in this process, but hindsight is 20/20\. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-c8429515-5d71-40a8-a685-d83b13ea443b.jpeg) Lucas DeRuyter More depleted by this experience than ever now that we had a high to fall from, we decided to cut our losses and sell the packs we just bought back in a cards and collectables shop that had opened up a few neighborhoods over during the summer. We had gotten estimates on what this shop would potentially buy the cards for previously, but had decided to keep looking for individual buyers as their quotes were usually between 70 and 75 percent of market value. However, as this shop’s quote was now higher than what we would have made if we had purely given the YouTuber money back like he had demanded, we accepted the shop’s estimate as a win. The next Saturday, after the morning run I desperately needed to maintain my sanity, I drove to the shop with the remaining packs in hand. Waking into the shop, the first thing I noticed was the abundance of television screens displaying sports games, as well as the prominence of DraftKings promotional materials. The second thing I noticed was the security guard with a gun at the door, to apparently demotivate anyone from acting up around these shiny pieces of paper. While there were some fun elements to this space — here I learned that early baseball cards were closer to the size of stamps than playing cards — the sight of grown men walking around with miniature safes handcuffed to their wrists and adults older than me loudly arguing about the value of a trading cards made every moment there a slog. After 45 minutes of killing time, my number came up and I approached the counter to speak to a *Pokémon* card “expert” and have them make an offer on our packs. After a bit of awkward small talk and some polite haggling, I accepted an offer in line with the shop’s initial estimate and waited for them to cut me a check as they pulled the cards behind the counter and scanned my ID for their records, not trusting that these cards were mine to sell and needing information to elevate in case cops showed up investigating stolen property. After half an hour, the owner, a dude wearing a hawaiian shirt who looked like he had only ever worn hawaiian shirts, stepped out from the back and handed me a check. NOW we were done! This hellish process was finally over, and my partner and I could get on with our lives. This could finally just be a story we tell our friends and a shared memory that comes up at family get-togethers. All I had to do was drive down a couple of blocks to a Chase bank to deposit this check and- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-d341819d-5a24-446d-bcab-fe7246d33172-1.jpeg) Lucas DeRuyter They misspelled my name on the check. The hour it took to return to the shop and get a new one printed out felt just as long as the entire preceding ten-month process, and the lack of any kind of real apology for the error only exacerbated my dissociative spiral as I waited in this glorified pawn shop again, but at last, we were free... --- The idea that it's every man for themselves and that you should steal as much as you can from others before they can steal from you has long persisted in our society, as more and more people feel like they can no longer build a better life for themselves by doing anything wholly within their own power. While the current [Trump administration’s all but tacit approval of white collar crime](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/21/trump-white-collar-criminals?ref=aftermath.site) has definitely accelerated the effects of this mentality, it's long been exemplified by the *Pokémon* card resellers scene. Even as we walked away from this affair with my partner having a month of rent covered and a little old lady who’s lived through more hardship than I’ll ever know being extra comfortable in her retirement, I can definitively say that this experience was not worth this, nor any, amount of money. The only bit of optimism I have coming out of this endeavor is that I feel more certain than ever that the *Pokémon* card scalpers scene cannot last, nor can the ideologies motivating the space continue indefinitely. This “community,” such as it is, doesn’t actually have the features or infrastructure to sustain itself, and the people involved in it are actively motivated to prioritize themselves over their collective good. A space that’s based on a grift like this cannot endure, and once a better get-rich-quick scheme comes along, the speculative market side of the *Pokémon TCG* will go the way of Beanie Babies or NFTs. Hell, bad actors are already starting to [kick up this grift in other slices of nerd media like manga](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/logan-paul-500k-one-piece-100631884.html?guccounter=1&ref=aftermath.site), which [is not going to work for a variety of communal and material reasons](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/this-week-in-anime/2026-05-07/.237114?ref=aftermath.site). For as much as this endeavor soured my opinion of the *Pokémon* franchise in 2025, by making it feel as though this malignant blot was the entirety of the community and property, early in 2026 I had the opportunity to [review the Switch port of *Pokémon FireRed*](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/game/nintendo-switch-2/pokemon-firered/.236192?ref=aftermath.site). While this game certainly has its blemishes, its effortless world building and clever iterations on longstanding RPG game design immediately reminded me of why I fell in love with these games and how they’re one of the few pieces of widely popular media deserving of their tremendous success when viewed through a critical lens. While I hope to never interact with *Pokémon TCG* hucksters ever again, I’m thrilled that they didn’t manage to totally pollute my love for the media that deeply informs who I am today. As ironic as it is for me to arrive at this conclusion after writing five thousand plus words about what it’s like to make a bunch of money from selling *Pokémon* cards, I think the best thing any of us can do to personally or institutionally minimize this space’s undue social impact is to stop sensationalizing it. Much like new gambling platforms like Kalshi or Polymarket, these speculative markets need outside attention and the legitimacy more established institutions can provide to fester. The sooner we all start treating the *Pokémon* scalpers scene as the overt scam that it is, and the people perpetuating it as cartoonish villains who are nearly literally trying to steal candy (cards) from babies (young people or ignorant, elderly adults), the quicker we can address the societal discontent that’s given rise to the mentalities driving these exploitative exploits. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-22-145651.png)](https://aftermath.site/tag/inside-baseball-week-2026/) ****Welcome to Inside Baseball Week for 2026,** our annual excuse to explore topics so niche and weeds-y that no other video game website would touch them: deep dives into the industry’s least-plumbed depths, detailed breakdowns of minute decisions like when to delay a game or lay people off, transparent and sometimes unflattering examinations of games journalism, and this time around, poop. [Read More ](https://aftermath.site/tag/inside-baseball-week-2026/)