The Pokémon Company has canceled thousands of pre-orders for the highly anticipated 30th Celebration set of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, a move widely believed to be an effort to combat scalper bots. The set is scheduled to release on September 16.
Reports from various Pokémon TCG communities and social media indicate a significant wave of cancellations for orders placed through the official Pokémon Center website. While The Pokémon Company has not issued an official statement, the cancellations are thought to primarily affect orders placed by automated bots, a practice Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa previously stated the company would address. "The Pokémon Company will continue to take measures to respond to this issue," Furukawa remarked in July.
However, the crackdown appears to have ensnared some legitimate purchases. Multiple collectors who claim to have waited in virtual queues for hours have reported that their 30th Celebration orders were also canceled. Some users on platforms like Reddit's r/PokemonTCG subreddit expressed frustration, questioning how their manual purchases could be mistaken for bot activity. Theories suggest that links shared through Pokémon TCG Discord alert servers might have been flagged, or that the Pokémon Center may have oversold its available stock.
This situation is particularly problematic for collectors aiming to acquire exclusive promo cards associated with the Pokémon Center's Elite Trainer Boxes. These cards are typically only available through direct purchase from the Pokémon Center website, and with many legitimate orders canceled, scalpers are already listing the sought-after boxes on platforms like eBay for considerably higher prices.