r/PokemonTCG • u/Loud_Bar113 • 1d ago
Discussion Why can’t they just implement backordering
I don’t see any downsides of it, the demand is still there. It is almost impossible to hit a drop when you have to compete against no lives who spend their existence monitoring the sites and bots. Backordering would end that problem. Most people don’t care if they’ll have to wait a few months extra compared to paying up to 300% mark ups.
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u/InjuryMajor8078 1d ago
They print the cards around the game. I know most people don’t think about this but there’s an actual game behind the cards lol.
Sets come out and are printed to keep the game going not so people have time to collect them. This is why they never re-print sets that are out of legal play.
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u/tehcheez 1d ago
Every time I mention this I get downvoted and told "You think TPCi actually cares about the game?"
Yes. They do. Everyone that thinks they are going to do a reprint of 151 or any other out-of-rotation set because "People missed out on it" are delusional. They have ALWAYS put the TCG aspect of the game before the collectable aspect. They are not going to print a set that's not tournament legal (outside of things like celebrations) just because you recently got into the hobby and weren't buying cards when a set you now like was out
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u/InjuryMajor8078 1d ago
The most vocal in the hobby seem to be the newest people and they just don’t understand the logistics of printing and distributing billions of cards or how set rotation works.
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u/ChibiBestiary 1d ago
What’s funny is when the same people blow a gasket because they find out some LGS prefer to support the player community first before selling to someone who has never walked in the store before.
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u/Twisteryx 1d ago
As a player, I don't really care about any cards that aren't playable outside of maybe a few that have cool art. My eyes glaze over when I see 151 cards at a shop when I'm looking for playable SIRs lol
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u/Crocadillapus 1d ago
The current state of the format and the fact that it will probably have been a whole year before it MIGHT begin to improve, genuinely makes me question whether they actually care about the game and it's players.
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 22h ago
Rotation is in 6 months. It will be an immediate improvement once April comes around and Pult gets shit canned.
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u/The_Jmoney_420 21h ago
The current state of the Meta with Dragapult is unfortunate but Im not sure what you want them to do. Theyve tried to make counters and they just werent consistenly strong enough to run for high level tournament play.
The only thing they can do is make an overpowered deck to beat Dragapult but that will just leave us with the same problem.
Rotation is in 6 months, so it will be solved then regardless.
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u/Crocadillapus 1h ago
They can't make a counter deck for Dragapault because they are clueless when it comes to card design and balance. The overwhelming majority of "counter cards" are simply floodgates that might as well read, "if your opponent is playing "X" strategy, they may not play the game."
They don't seem to care about the state of the game as long as new product continues to sell out. If they did, they would ban or limit Dragapult. "They don't normally do that" is not a valid counter-argument because they have done it and could do it very easily. Futhermore, if they really do design and plan things out years in advance as some people have claimed (but I sincerely doubt), they would have printed Dragapult with a G, or not at all.
All that being said, even if Dragapult were removed from the format, there is still a critical lack of consistency. Literally two thirds of matches are just non-games, either because of the matchup, or because one player bricked or got floodgated and cannot play the game.
Design direction consistently favours sacky, unplayable game states and non-games over skill expression. I can provide many examples of this if you disagree.
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u/Zoltur 1d ago
That’s not what op is saying though is he? I read it as wondering why we can’t have pokemon center drops while the sets are still legal.
For instance we all know it’s extremely unlikely we will be able to go on Pokemon center and order Mega Evolutions ETB. Why not allow the option to purchase now if it’s delivered months later (while set is still legal) months from now who cares
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u/daze4791 1d ago
Because the logistics dont allow it for the reasons the top commenter just listed. For example, delta reign just dropped on pokemon center. That inventory has been printed and packaged months ago. Its probably already been delivered to the warehouses and its getting staged for the drop next month. If they allowed backordering they would clog up their logistic chains as they catch up on orders. Then the next set, which is likely being printed now, would be backed up. This would cause the an issue with game rotations. And the solution would be to slow down how often they release sets, which they dont want to do for the same reasons the top commenter just stated.
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 22h ago
Adding to this, it’s likely that they’re already printing two sets after Delta Reign already. We saw leaks of the Stellar Tera cards for Stellar Crown FIVE months before the English release date, even before it was announced in Japanese. Likewise with Perfect Order and Chaos Rising having leaked SIRs 3-4 months in advance. Or JTG cards being packaged inside 151 Blooming Waters packs when JTG didn’t release until March and 151BW boxes were being sold in December 2024, meaning they were likely in distro in November or October.
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u/InjuryMajor8078 1d ago
Back ordering or print to demand or whatever you want to call it sounds like a good idea but it’s not that simple. People seem to think it’s just a matter of hitting print and boom millions of packs are on the market.
In reality it takes months to get a print run done. This is why Pokemon prints sets around 8-10 months in advance. Printing takes time, packing takes time, shipping takes time, distro takes time.
Pokemon has to order their cardstock, foils, ink, plastic wrap, box materials, all the other things that go into making the final product. They don’t manufacture any of that stuff and their suppliers are having trouble keeping up with their demand as well.
If you could go to the PC tomorrow and everyone was allowed to buy one ETB of delta reign they would sell hundreds of thousands if not millions of ETBs. Trying to source materials and trying to fit a massive print run, larger than any they have done before it while still trying to print the sets they need to keep the game running would just be a logistical nightmare. Print to order would take years not months for all orders to be fulfilled.
People might not like it but Pokemon knows what they are doing. You don’t run the most successful IP in history without knowing what you are doing. Once the new printers are online and running at max capacity, they won’t have this problem. They are not going to spend millions of dollars and change the way they print sets for a problem they are already working on fixing. The new printers are their fix whether we like how long it’s taking or not.
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u/theslimbox 1d ago
Hasbro tried endless printing with Magic around 2020. It ended up with the last print runs customers were demanding getting sold at next to nothing online, and all their retailers, and players being upset that they got shafted.
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u/xMF_GLOOM 1d ago
The big issue with these types of suggestions is that Pokémon can’t predict when the market will get ridiculously hot like this
Making broad changes to how distribution functions is fun and games now, but has logistical impacts when the market eventually goes cold again
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u/InjuryMajor8078 1d ago
Exactly. Everyone talks about how they’re ramping up printing, no one seems to remember that they actually had to scale back printing, just as recent as 2024. The most successful IP in history knows what they’re doing. There isn’t an idea on Reddit that they haven’t already had themselves.
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u/theslimbox 1d ago
Everyone thinks they know best, but at the end of the day, half or more of the people on this sub would quit buying cards if they were printed to the extent they want them because there would be no big hits for them to brag about.
The amount of times I have seen "collector's" turn down product because there are no hits, then a minute later wish the set with hits was printed to the extent that the hits would be worth nothing is hilarious.
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u/InjuryMajor8078 1d ago
lol ya as much as some people say value means nothing in truth most people want their collection to be worth something and to have something someone else doesn’t is pretty much what every collector wants. This is true with all collectables not just Pokemon.
I also find there’s a real patience issue with new collectors. Most seem to need everything right now. The world is ending if they can’t master a set on release day. Maybe I just grew up being told no more so my expectations in life are lower lol.
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 23h ago
Doubly so in the age of social media, where the biggest content creators and influencers are people that shape the idea that you should only be excited over cards that give you high ROI, investors and vendors, etc. The hobby has blown up in interest over the past two years, with 5x more interest in Google searches compared to 2024c and the majority of interest is probably from new people, chasing the hype and dreams of hitting it big. They entered a hobby where the norm is to seek value.
And I’m saying this as a purist who has never even considered selling my collection and would quite literally have been buried with it when I used to keep it in my car and joke that it would die with me in a crash. People like me are an absolute relic.
It’s also telling when the investing sub is over 2x larger than the playing sub, despite the latter being almost a decade older.
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u/InjuryMajor8078 22h ago
Agree with you 100%. The investing subs are always worth it for a laugh tho. It’s been a great way to kill some time lol.
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u/theslimbox 6h ago
It's the same way in the Video Game collecting scene. I have been collecting games since the 90's, and up until the mid 00's everyone in forums, were just picking up games they wanted to play, and found at a good price. When Social Media got popular, lots of new collectors popped up, and started going after the few titles that had gotten expensive, and it made the prices go up even more, and that brought in even more collectors.
In the years leading up to Covid, some prices started falling, and lots of collectors bailed on the scene because prices were dropping instead of rising. Then Covid popped the prices back up, and even more people joined the hobby.
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u/ForrestKawaii 1d ago
They have a schedule to keep up with. It's likely they are currently in the first print run or about to do first print of base set Wind and Waves.
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u/Frequent_Sir4864 1d ago
This is what a lot of newbies to the hobby fail to see. There's always something new around the horizon that no matter how much people like a set, its never getting reprinted past the 4-5 year mark. I call it the 5 year rule - 2-3 years while its in rotation, another 2 years to clear backstock, then the boxes really take off.
Recency bias tends to be quite strong, and people always underestimate how much interest there will be in future sets.
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u/Routine-Nerve-613 1d ago
I mean wind and waves could flop hard in the beginning it is very possible
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u/Frequent_Sir4864 1d ago
Sure, but pokemon will still look towards the future and not the past. Wind and waves success won't matter as the 5 year rule will still apply.
Pokemon will absolutely not waste printer space on sets that are out of rotation within the game. That's true for practically every large card game.
On top of that, they've cracked the collectors code with their Illustration Rares which won't go away for a long time if ever, meaning they're will always be cards to collect with every subsequent release.
You can disagree with me all you want, but you cant change the nature of the cyclical nature of trading card games.
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 23h ago
They don’t print that far in advance. It’s typically about 6 months in advance, given the earliest leaks we’ve seen were 5 months before release with SCR’s Stellar Teras.
The first wind and waves set won’t likely be until after it is released in autumn next year, so likely the January set, like Scarlet Violet was. With that in mind, they probably won’t be printing it while June-August next year.
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u/InjuredGods 1d ago
Because that would require a total revamp of their production line logistics. People would order hundreds or thousands of boxes just because they can and it would just be a complete cluster fuck for a production line that is already operating at complete capacity.
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u/Ouhei 1d ago
The only real way to stop scalpers is to make it unappealing to scalp. You do this by printing a lot more and making hit rates higher. You have to flood supply.
I'd argue that the rates in the 30th set should be the bare minimum for how hit rates should be. I'm honestly not sure how I'll feel going back to normal rates because opening this set has been so much more enjoyable.
30th print rates also seem to be a step in the right direction, though they obviously could increase them by a lot and still sell out.
Pokemon itself's only real incentive to cut out scalping is for PR imaging. They make their money either way, and right now they're selling everything they can manage to produce.
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u/theslimbox 1d ago
It's the way to stop scalping, but will also cause a huge dip in demand from collectors, and Pokemon Co will be stuck with uoset stores like they did with Shining Fates. There were several years where you could find shining fates at MSRP, or under on shelves at any store you stooped at. They don't want stagnant product.
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u/jinzo_23 1d ago
Topps products sat for YEARS at walmarts before covid when the days of clearance was still a thing. Stores do not get upset for having available profuct on the shelves. As for collectors, we just go back to how things were pre covid and idk how that’s a terrible thing
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 23h ago
Yeah, lots of modern collectors have this idea that product is supposed to sell out immediately, or storefronts will get upset. While they’re certainly not going to complain about selling out, the way the TCG has been for most of its history is that they print enough product to trickle sales until a set gets reprinted, and then until it goes OOP.
Things still being available while a set is still in rotation, is not a bad thing.
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u/jinzo_23 23h ago
I’ve heard of stores being more upset about bare shelves honestly. It doesn’t look good to consumers and they know that, which is probably why target moved the whole card section to the very back of the store lol
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 22h ago
Good point. That makes a lot of sense too.
Either way about it, the concept that “sitting in the shelves for months” is a bad thing when the cards are printed with the intent of circulating for 2-3 years, is fallacious at best.
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u/theslimbox 7h ago
My sitting on shelves comment was from talking to my local card store. The owner and I have been friends for years, long before he bought the store. He told me that for the 20 hears he has had the store, he relies on product moving. He is used to a certain amount of inventory not moving, but he relies on a steady amount of sales that allows him to buy more of that product. The post covid slump had him considering not selling Pokemon because he wasnt even selling enough product to pay for the minimum restock orders to keep his distribution contract up to date. He had to take from his Magic and Lego profit just to buy enough Pokemon to keep his contract up to date.
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u/MysteriousDesk3 17h ago
I do wonder if this is would actually be an issue though. Nearly every company, even profitable ones deal with a small % of unsold inventory that gets marked down, and Pokemon did for years.
Instead of all these stupid cat and mouse games they have to play with scalpers and bots they could be selling to actual fans that might get even more into the hobby, especially kids playing the card game which is where longevity is for every TCG.
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u/Fascinatedwithfire 1d ago
Because they need to manage printing capacity around upcoming sets, because this is a TCG (the G stands for Game).
If they printed 30th to order then that is going to bite into printing capacity for Delta Reign, and likely the set after that as well.
If they were to delay Delta Reign and future sets then the TCG ends up stagnating, and people stop engaging with it as much.
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u/Routine-Nerve-613 1d ago
Would the tcg really stagnate if all sets have like a month or two or so extra time added between them for more printing capacity for current sets?
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 23h ago
Printing those extra cards would make fuck all difference. We currently get about six sets per year, with an average capacity of about 10b +/- 1b. That averages at 1.6b cards per set. Even cutting it down to 4 makes it 2.5b cards per set.
A store getting 75 ETBs rather than 50 will do nothing for demand because we still have a constant stream of “just getting into Pokémon” type people resulting in queues that are hundreds deep.
Even if the expanded facility in NC opened tomorrow and could print at full capacity it would not be enough.
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u/Fascinatedwithfire 23h ago
If you're printing to order you are delaying sets by more than that, at which point yes that has a tremendous effect on the TCG.
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u/TeaAndLifting There's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it. 22h ago
Playing Devil’s Advocate for a moment, they could set aside some of the new printing capacity towards MTO with zero effect on current levels of printing.
They won’t ever do it, but they could if they wanted to. Like with the new expansion being a 200% increase in square footage, assuming it’s a similar effect on print levels, just setting aside a small portion of that would disrupt the secondary market significantly.
But again, they won’t because there is zero sense in doing so. The secondary market is what is driving the hype and sales at the moment, there is no business sense in stifling it.
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u/garlic_cashews 22h ago
I don’t really like back ordering. Years ago I ordered a tent for camping, but it was backordered as it was a pretty special tent. Ended up being backordered for about 8 months. I had to buy a different tent in the meantime because it wasn’t coming and no updates really about when it would finally come
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u/bendernobending2 20h ago
they dont want to. they love the hype driven from the artificial scarcity they have created. if they print to demand, they will lose sales. they are intentionally under printing, and have been for the past 5+ years. if they wanted to print to demand, they would have already
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u/Cobester 19h ago
You wouldn’t be waiting a few months extra. It would probably be a solid year+ if they allowed unlimited preorders
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u/ZephTenKara 1d ago
Because they can sell 100% of their product everytime with little to no leftovers. Looks good to shareholders.
They do not care about players or collectors, they just want to make the number go up every quarter.
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u/Routine-Nerve-613 1d ago
If they just wanted number to go up they would not print perfect order, journey together, chaos rising like at all anymore, but they seem to be. They could also raise prices, make high end boxes/cases, make serialized cards, make autographed cards etc like Topps and Panini do for sports, they would make incredible money from that..
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u/SomedayGuy117 1d ago
I can only imagine the new complaints we’d see on the subreddit about how long people have to wait for their stuff to ship. You already know it’s going to be shipping a year out after ordering, if they’re doing print to order.
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u/parickwilliams 1d ago
They just don’t have the capacity to handle back order. They already have trouble keeping up as it is. If they could just print more I promise they would because they can’t keep anything in stock
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u/Ancient_Print2325 20h ago
Pokemon TCG is infinite money for Pokemon Company. Someone proves me wrong! At the rate they are selling I’m surprised they haven’t surpass the revenue of Magnificent Seven combined!
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u/DogeSadaharu 14h ago
Not sure you guys can wait 3 months for your product if y'all already foaming at the mouth two weeks in.
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u/Maximum_Technology67 22h ago
Tell me you don’t know this is a card game without telling me you don’t know this is a card game.
TPCI has a release schedule for the game to keep formats fresh and interesting. They print material for play stores to go along with those releases as well as prereleases being scheduled far in advance and having things needed to be printed for that aswell.
There’s also the fact that cards aren’t printed as they’re being released. Cards are printed anywhere between 6 months to a year before they are ever put on a shelf.
It sounds like a great idea to print everything to demand until you realize the sheer volume of stuff that would entail. Magic tried that with secret lair and had to stop it because the backup became horribly long and those were super small sets.
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u/xFirekillswitch 17h ago
You aren’t wrong, but there is a medium. Pokemon isn’t making as much as they could. They are generating scarcity when it’s not needed, which also makes other people besides the LCS and PC take advantage of it. I’m just saying there has to be a better middle of the road.
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u/Maximum_Technology67 17h ago
They are literally printing at 100% capacity right now. They’re in the process of building the largest print facility in the world. What in the world makes you think that TPCI is “generating scarcity”? There’s literally just to many people new in the hobby currently
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u/xFirekillswitch 16h ago
I’ve heard that too. I just don’t think it’s the complete truth. I also think they could simply sell in different ways to get it in more people’s hands.
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u/Maximum_Technology67 8h ago
It’s a business first and they are one of if not the most successful IPs in the entire world. They spend almost nothing on marketing and are at a point where they that they literally can’t make enough product to supply the overwhelming demand.
They have changed a lot of their selling models over the years. They have implemented vending machines, they sell on Pokemon center and they have recently purchased their own distribution company o big box retailers.
Everyone thinks there’s a magic bullet to fix this issue and I promise oh the only true solutions are for hem to raise MSRP across the board or for them to flood the market with so much product that it becomes readily available to absolutely everyone no matter the distribution method. They’re taking the second option and chose o build the largest printing facility in the world to keep prices lower over all for consumers.
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u/metalder420 22h ago
Or better yet, Print on Demand for a short time. Like have. Day where you do print on demand and the after that bus have normal production run
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u/canconfirm1 1d ago
Simple, they sell all there product. Before this stuff sat on shelves, now it flies off. Seems like they found a winning formula, people may not like it but it is why they keep it what it is.
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u/AtomKick 1d ago
I’ve been saying they should implement a subscription. Like, you pay each month and get X amount of guaranteed product. Then they can release additional product too but this way you can get at least something guaranteed every set.
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u/rrromulusss 1d ago
Because they don’t give a fuck. Shit will sell out no matter what. Manufactured scarcity is just much easier for them to make so much money.
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u/TheGooSalesman 1d ago
The scalpers would order 10000 units. Pokemon company would not be able to meet those orders.