When Palworld developer Pocketpair announced an official trading card game, fans joked that the monster collecting game was officially coming after Pokémon‘s lunch. Now that the Palworld Official Card Game is actually out, the joke isn’t nearly as funny. Turns out, popular trading card games can be awful for anyone who genuinely wants to play or collect.
Yes, the Palworld TCG is already being overrun with scalpers looking to make a quick buck. Cards for monsters like Cattiva, Chillet, and Jormuntide are all selling on eBay for thousands of dollars each. The game has only been on the market for about a dat as of this writing, yet some cards are commanding prices comparable to modern Pokémon chase cards. Worse, many local card shops are sold out of the Palworld TCG. This is despite Pocketpair having sold 3.5 million packs by early July.
There are a few things worth considering here when it comes to Palworld‘s sudden price explosion. Everything hitting shelves right now consists of first-edition cards from the inaugural set. Whether buyers intend to hold on to the TCG products in the long term or to make a quick buck, such cards are of interest to both collectors and scalpers alike.
The weeks leading up to release, as well as the immediate period after a new set, tend to be a wonky time for trading card game prices. People are willing to pay extraordinary premiums to own the best cards in any given game before everyone else. Once a new set is available to the wider public, fear of missing out pushes people to spend more than they should on a card or sealed product.
It can take weeks for prices to stabilize. The Morpeko special illustration card in the Pokémon set that came out in July, for example, was selling for $200 before it hit retail stores. Now, a couple of weeks later, the card’s market price has dropped by about 35% to roughly $127.
This phenomenon is visible in the Palworld TCG as well. As noted by GamesRadar, the TCG’s Cattiva Gold Soul card sold for $4,000 prior to the game’s launch. That same card with perfect centering can now be purchased for $999. The price tag is still extraordinary, but a 75% drop is massive. At the same time, it’s ironic that a game with monster designs that some people feel are a “rip off” is selling just as well as Pokémon.
Palworld fans do have good reasons to feel wary at the moment. The consensus around the new trading card game has largely been positive, and Palworld itself has already proven to have long-term appeal. If demand for the game remains strong, a scalping crisis is inevitable. We’ve seen it happen with Lorcana and with One Piece. It could be that months from now, when you ask someone why they’re standing in line at Target, they’re going to say it’s not for Pokémon.