GameStop Will Reportedly Begin Buying and Selling Single Pokémon and Other TCG Cards [IGN]

U.S. video game retail chain GameStop will reportedly begin buying and selling single Pokémon and other trading cards this week as it looks to capitalize on the flourishing collectibles market.

According to PokéBeach, select stores will begin buying graded cards to be sold on the GameStop website, though plans are in place to bring the trade in process to all locations. Just as customers can already trade in video games for cash or store credit, the same system will be available to those trading in Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic: The Gathering, and other trading card game cards.

The key word here is “graded”, of course, meaning lapsed players or collectors can’t just bring in a box of their old cards to be cashed in. Grading is a process which determines the exact condition of the card and essentially verifies it as being genuine (and valuable).

It’s unclear how GameStop will value the cards being traded in. and it will only accept those graded by the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), at least at the beginning of the program. It also won’t accept cards valued at more than $500.

“GameStop’s leaders believe this is the obvious next step for the company,” said one store manager who’s tested this program for GameStop. “Physical media is waning, especially for video games. It was time for the company to branch out to trading cards. They are the future.”

Pokémon will seemingly be the chain’s focus, as single holographic and reverse holographic cards from the Pokémon TCG will be sold in store too at $1 each.

The card collecting market is growing more and more popular, helped in part due to high profile cases of cards being sold for millions of dollars. The perpetually popular Pokémon sits at the top of the list in terms of value (its most expensive card is valued at $5.275 million) but a special Lord of the Rings Magic: The Gathering card was bought by rapper Post Malone for $2 million in 2023, and that record was soon broken as another card sold for $3 million just months later.

The popularity of Pokémon cards is otherwise evidenced by the number of people trying to steal them. Tokyo police reported an unprecedented number of trading card thefts in the latter half of 2022, while an independent gaming store in Minnesota reportedly had around $250,000 worth of Pokémon merchandise stolen in February of that year. One month later, again in Tokyo, a man was arrested for allegedly launching a literal heist in order to steal the treasured cards.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.