Dominic D’Aloia
ENG 1201
Prof. Hellmers
3/19/2021
Literature Review
Pokémon is an iconic franchise, considered by many to be an icon in the world of
entertainment. The company just recently held its 25th anniversary this year. It is a rare occasion
that you will meet someone who has not at least heard of Pokémon, be it through the games, Tv
show, or card game. Recently Pokémon has noticed a huge boom in sales of their trading card
game as well prices skyrocketing for cards. This has led to a question, “What has caused this
recent boom in price?” and “How did these cards ever reach this point?” These are questions that
appear all over the internet and many people wonder, including myself how did this happen and
is there a certain reason for all of this?
The very first Pokémon game released on the 26th of February 1996 in Japan. The games
Pokémon: Red and Green released for the Game Boy that went on to sell millions of copies.
They games performed so well that there were multiple special edition re-releases for the game
being Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow. The sequel games Pokémon Gold and Pokémon
Silver both were released in late 1999 for Japan. Gold and Silver introduced many new
mechanics as well as new Pokémon to the games further pushing the franchises popularity with
their sales. Pokémon has continued to release games and still is with a remake of the fourth-
generation games planning to be released later this year. Madnani writes an article over the
history of the Pokémon franchise and includes lots of helpful information to include to allow
readers to indulge themselves further into the world of Pokémon. However, the article is not up
to date with the current games or information about the franchise. The last update for the article
was in 2016 and still talks about older games as the newest. The article is good for information
about older games but would not be helpful for anything recent.
Pokémon also has their Tv show as well as many other forms of merchandise. Pokémon
alongside all their other products has their very own trading card game. The very first set of the
trading card game was released in America on January 9th, 1999. The trading card game is still
just as popular as the actual games are today with the latest set of cards Pokémon Sword and
Shield: Battle Styles being released on March 19th, 2021.
The Pokémon trading card game (TCG for short) has experienced a major boom in
popularity in the past year on top of how popular the TCG already was. With the striking of the
COVID-19 pandemic many people were stuck at home with nothing to do trying to find ways to
entertain themselves with all normalcy being gone in the world. Many people went to YouTube
to try and find ways to distract themselves watching whatever was trending or was being posted
by some of the most popular content creators on the platform, and in came Logan Paul. As
Asarch goes in detail to in his article “Pokémon card prices have skyrocketed by nearly 500%.
You can thank Logan Paul for that,” Logan Paul is a very popular content creator on the site
known for many things some more controversial than others. He released a video where he
opened the legendary “Pokémon TCG base set,” the very first Pokémon TCG set to have ever
released. The single box of packs ran Logan around 20,000 USD. Asarch goes into further detail
about how this single video led to price raising for cards and a sudden shortage of cards
available.
With this sudden shortage of cards, the prices went up for many products or even just
single cards. Many people saw this as a chance to earn a quick buck as well as find something to
enjoy during the lonely hours of quarantine. People were buying out packs in stores left and right
shelves were empty, and prices kept going up. A market for resellers quickly popped up with
people who would buy sealed packs from stores just to sell them online at a higher price. These
people are called scalpers in the community. The issue with scalpers is that it makes product
harder for many people to afford the product or find them. A second issue with scalpers is that
you can never trust whether the products have already been opened and resealed taking out any
cards of value. The Pokémon company themselves have recognized that scalpers is an issue
within the community. In an official statement by the Pokémon company it is said that they are
increasing print amounts for product to battle this issue.
Carina Assuncao’s paper “Pokémon is Evolving! An investigation into the development
of the Pokémon community and expectations for the future of the franchise.” She wrote a paper
over how Pokémon has grown and what has caused it to grow so well. The paper is a scholarly
paper and meets many of the criteria needed for a good source of information. She goes into
detail with many professional sources and explains thoroughly about what Pokémon is and how
it has grown the be the goliath in the entertainment world that it is today.
Pokémon cards both new and old can fetch high prices today. There is one Pokémon that
always seems to be on the cards that fetch a high price. No, it’s not Pikachu the most iconic
Pokémon that almost anyone can recognize, its Charizard. Charizard is one of the very first
Pokémon to be released in the first game. The very basic orange dragon with a flaming tail has
many different cards of itself all of which seem to fetch at least some sort of price no matter how
rare or common they may be. The legendary shadowless base set Charizard can be sold upwards
of 100,000 USD in many cases, even a recently printed shiny Charizard Vmax from the card set
Shinning Fates reaches prices of a couple hundred dollars. Charizard is a fan favorite and always
manages to find its way into a spot of value for Pokémon card fans.
Pokémon card prices have been going up this past year due to many people being stuck at
home and looking for something to do. That however is not the only reason internet pop culture
also has a huge part in what has been pushing the boom in popularity for the cards leading many
people to find lots of stored away money in the form of their old cards they collected as kids.
With many repercussions due to printing factories being shut down thanks to COVID and more
and more people jumping on the wave there is less product causing prices to go up with demand.
Works Cited
Asarch, Steven. Insider “Pokémon card prices have skyrocketed by nearly 500%. You can thank
Logan Paul for that.” Feb 25, 2021. https://www.insider.com/pokemon-card-opening-
day-celebration-video-logan-paul-elite-box-2021-2#:~:text=Pok%C3%A9mon%20is
%20celebrating%20its%2025th,recently%20rose%20466%25%20in%20value.
Carina Assunção, et al. “Pokémon Is Evolving! An Investigation into the Development of the
Pokémon Community and Expectations for the Future of the Franchise.” Press Start, vol.
4, no. 1, June https://press-start.gla.ac.uk/index.php/press-start/article/view/64/56
Hernandez, Patricia. Polygon. “Pokémon cards are hot again, now that Charizard can make you
rich.” Nov. 6, 2020. https://www.polygon.com/2020/11/6/21551503/pokemon-card-
charizard-appraisal-shadowless-collection-first-edition-prices
Madnani, Mikhail. Mint. “A brief history of Pokémon.” Jul. 25, 2016.
https://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/Z7zHxltyWtFNzcoXPZAbjI/A-brief-history-of-
Pokmon.html
“The Pokemon Company Will Print More TCG Cards To Battle Scalpers.” International
Business Times - US Ed, 12 Feb. 2021. https://support.pokemon.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360056644571-Update-on-Pok%C3%A9mon-Trading-Card-Game-Product-
Availability
