A store in Japan is now requiring an ID from customers who want to buy Pokemon cards. The popular new Snow Hazard and Clay Burst Pokemon TCG packs have been quickly selling out all across the country.Recently, the country of Japan completely ran out of Pokemon cards prompting The Pokemon Company to make an official announcement that there was no stock remaining but that it had intentions of meeting demand as quickly as possible. The reason for this shortage stems from the new Pokemon TCG booster packs Snow Hazard and Clay Burst, which have turned out to be gold mines for resellers due to a number of valuable pieces being up for grabs. The shortage forced some stores to find ways to keep these cards out of the hands of resellers and put them back into the hands of fans.The store is Hareruya 2 in Tokyo's electronics-driven Akihabara district, and it may have just set a precedent that more stores may proceed to follow moving forward. The official Twitter account for the store noted that this ban on adults buying these cards only extends to half of their TCG stock, which will specifically be allocated for customers of junior-high age or younger. An auto-translation of a tweet from the store reads, "We are selling packs only for customers under junior high school students on the 1st floor. Sales will end as soon as each pack runs out for the day. Up to a total of 10 packs per person per day. Staff may ask you to confirm your age." The problem has gotten so bad that some Pokemon cards are stolen before they reach the stores.
Resellers and scalpers have been a major problem for the Pokemon TCG scene in recent years. That makes this a decent policy that does ensure better access for the younger generation who just wants to enjoy Pokemon without all of the fuss that comes with the potential value inside each Scarlet and Violet booster pack. This policy from Hareruya 2 isn't foolproof, though, as there still isn't anything preventing an adult from simply waiting outside the store and paying off some passing kids to go inside and buy the packs for them.
In fact, scalpers have been a major problem across the entire gaming industry in general over the past few years. Sony and Microsoft have just finally managed to move past the era where the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were nearly inaccessible to average consumers due to resellers cornering most of the limited stock. Solutions like lotteries and bot-checking software have been tested, but nothing has proven itself to be the new standard as of yet.