How GameStop is Destroying the Pokémon Card Market

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Kyle, let me tell you something. My conspiracy today, I [clears throat] brought something for show and tell.

[00:00:05]>> I love show and tell. What do you got?

[00:00:06]>> So, my conspiracy today, let me introduce you to this trading card here.

[00:00:09]And let me introduce you all >> to a trading card out of my collection.

[00:00:13]Currently, this is the most valuable card I own by a very, very large margin.

[00:00:17]>> This is a PSA 10. And Kyle, take a look.

[00:00:20]A PSA 10 Gold Starun.

[00:00:23]So, a little bit background about this card. I got it effectively by gambling on the internet. I [clears throat] only paid about $1,000 for this card, which is an absurd price for a trading card to begin with. Kyle, do you know what this card is worth at the moment?

[00:00:43]>> $500.

[00:00:44]>> You think I lost money? You think I >> Wait, how much?

[00:00:47]>> I paid a,000.

[00:00:48]>> Oh, 1500.

[00:00:50]Let me tell you, Kyle, [clears throat] the most recent sale of this card in PSA 10 in English as of three days ago, and some of you who know about trading cards might not believe this because I almost didn't. Go look on the eBay sales history, was for $12,000 for this card right here. Now, I am here today to tell you all that that is not a real normal price on this card and that is not actually what this card is worth.

[00:01:14]That is a price that has been artificially engineered by two players in the trading card space. Primarily two players in the space, although I think there's a lot of other brands that are like doing this on a smaller scale.

[00:01:25]GameStop and PSA.

[00:01:27]Now, I need to explain what these brands are because, you know, you guys watching aren't into trading cards, you might not know about all this. PSA is the company that graded this card. They deemed this card in perfect condition. They're the leading grading company in the space.

[00:01:41]any trading cards, not just Pokemon, whether it's a old Babe Ruth card or a uh, you know, some sort of football card or basketball card or hog, any sport, any trading card, period. This is the primary way to get that card authenticated and graded to deem its condition. Collectors buy this type of card. Most collectors are not buying a a plain raw kind of card, true like, you know, top level enthusiast collectors who are spending hella money on it.

[00:02:07]They're buying these these graded cards.

[00:02:09]They call them slabs, right?

[00:02:11]Now, this card at the time when I got it was worth about five $5,000, >> which was already crazy. And the way I acquired this card was through a a little website called GameStop Power Packs.

[00:02:26]>> Now, GameStop has long been a dying company, as we all know. You know, video games are just physical games are not as popular anymore. Digital games have taken over, and GameStop uh has sunk pretty low. And recently they had a bit of a resurgence with their stock being manipulated and becoming kind of a meme stock. And they've also taken a dip into the trading card market because due to their stock pump, they have a bunch of cash on hand. Their financial reports prove it. However, what they don't have is a customer base anymore. They don't really sell anything. So, they have dove head first into trading cards. And one of the offerings they've created is something called power packs, which is effectively trading card gambling. You pay and get a mystery box that has one of these graded cards in it and you can turn, you know, for example, if you I open a $1,000 pack on a live stream of mine >> and you can get a card that's worth $4 to $500. That's losing big or you can get a card that's worth, you know, $4 to $5,000. That's winning big. But obviously the odds aren't the same for those two. They're they're very skewed.

[00:03:27]>> Now, my conspiracy isn't doesn't really have much to do with the gambling side of this because it's gambling. You're taking your chance. What's interesting is GameStop directly partnered with PSA to offer this power pack uh website, right? They're getting the cards directly from the grading company.

[00:03:45]GameStop has on record publicly said that they're buying tens of thousands of cards per month just to try to keep up with demand because these digital power packs regularly sell out. They don't have enough Chase cards. They specifically have a hard time getting enough of these high tier cards because historically, like for example, this card I'm holding right here, this $12,000 Sweetcoon, there's only a couple hundred of it in PSA 10, right? If GameStop is selling thousands of these packs per day, if they buy a hundred of this card, a the price is going to explode on the card, and B, the value of it is going to go way up, so they can then move it to a higher tier as a Chase card and charge more money for it. Yeah.

[00:04:24]>> Now, interestingly, who was the highest sale of this card from? Who is the $12,000 sale from a couple days ago? Well, the vendor was PSA. PSA offers a service called uh PSA Vault, where when you get a card, whether I have it in person, I want to ship it to them or I pull it from GameStop's website. It's already in their vault. They only do cards that are in their vault, right? That's like every card you pull on this GameStop website is from the PSA vault directly from them, nowhere else. Right?

[00:04:53]I believe that GameStop is buying the PSA listing specifically for record-breaking prices so they can inflate the value of the card to then charge more money for it while at the same time keeping the money in their ecosystem because the buy money is going directly to their partner PSA who is then able to fund grading more cards to inject into the ecosystem. They've created a perfect loop where they're single-handedly able to pump the value of the trading cards by buying them up themselves and increasing the price. And they've created this almost like feeding frenzy, like a like a pool of piranhas, right? Where there's been a bunch of these smaller websites that have spawned to compete with power packs to do the same thing. They're buying graded cards and they're shipping them to people in like mystery boxes, right? And it's not it's a digital thing. It's not like a physical mystery box, but they ship the card to your door after you pull it digitally, right? The cards are like backed by a real physical card. And all these websites are following in GameStop's footsteps. And GameStop knows that and wants that because it drives the value of the cards up artificially.

[00:05:52]And recently, GameStop made a real swing for the fences to uh take full control of the card market because remember, they have control of the the front-end vending.

[00:06:04]They're they're a certified Pokemon distributor, which means they get cards at MSRP from Pokemon. They get them cheaper than that. And although they're supposed to be selling them at MSRP, they typically sell it for about triple.

[00:06:14]So, if there's a box that's supposed to be $40 from Pokemon, GameStop will have it for $120, they routinely charge double to triple MSRP on basically every product they have. Right.

[00:06:24]>> Now, GameStop has control of the front-end distribution. They have control of the online gambling of the cards where the prizes are valued at prices that GameStop has a pretty significant influence in, right? And PSA, their direct partner, has a very significant influence in. Mhm.

[00:06:40]>> And on top of that, they recently submitted a bid to buy eBay.

[00:06:45]>> GameStop is trying to acquire eBay.

[00:06:47]>> Half cash, half stock, >> which doesn't make much sense on service level if you don't know much about trading cards. It's [clears throat] like, why the [ __ ] would GameStop buy eBay? They don't even have anything to sell. Half the stores have been Funko Pops for the past decade, you know?

[00:07:01]>> Well, eBay is the number one third party marketplace for trading cards. They do millions of dollars in volume in trading cards. It is the place to go online and get these trading cards. And on PSA with their PSA vault service I was telling you about earlier, who is their partner with selling those cards? What is the only website where you can list a card if you're co-signing with them?

[00:07:25]>> You can only list on eBay. They won't co-sign on any other platform. They don't have their own marketplace. They list everything on eBay. So, GameStop effectively made a a lastditch effort to acquire the final piece of the puzzle in vertical integration into the trading card market. If they got eBay, they literally own every single step of the way. They distribute the cards themselves. They grade them. They and they don't own PSA, but they're very close with them. Some might be wondering how close. It's not just the partnership on Power Packs. The CEO of PSA is a sitting member of GameStop's board.

[00:07:56]>> Ah, >> it is not just he has a proven financial interest in GameStop. It is not just like, oh, they partnered up and they're doing well. No, they're very close actually as as companies, right?

[00:08:06]>> They're tied up financially.

[00:08:08]>> Now, uh the other thing here is uh PSA, especially recently, has been regularly accused of gatekeeping PSA 10 grades on vintage cards, right? So cards like this for example uh that on other services for example uh I recently had seen this like comparison. There's other grading services called Becket. There's another one called CGC. There's a smaller one that's like SGC or something like that.

[00:08:36]Um, and people are sending these cards into other services and they're getting perfect 10s and they crack it and send it to PSA and it's a card that if in a PSA 10 would be worth thousands of dollars and it gets a nine >> regularly because the theory is they're trying to gate keep the, you know, vintage cards and keep their value high so GameStop can keep pumping them, dangle the prizes into the packs and it doesn't devalue the cards overall. They want to keep the money in the ecosystem, right? you know, and the market c I mean, dude, I don't I'm Listen, I have a decent card collection >> and the value of my card collection has nearly doubled in the past six months.

[00:09:12]>> Dang.

[00:09:13]>> I have done nothing. I haven't traded anything. I haven't done any like, oh, I'm going to invest in this. No, I literally >> most of my card collection is from doing the videos where I was gambling on GameStop's website, right? And the reason I'm making this is because that content was never sponsored. I really spent my money on this [ __ ] So, I have a negative opinion about this as a consumer. I really did this [ __ ] None of this was sponsored. I made back all that gambling money that I lost because I was down overall just in the cards getting pumped by this little scheme.

[00:09:44]>> Now, what's really scary about this is in theory, if GameStop succeeds and they end up acquiring eBay one day, what happens when that company fails? The trading card market will die.

[00:09:57]>> Yeah.

[00:09:57]>> It will single-handedly die. an entire the biggest piece of the pie will have died. The biggest third party marketplace, the biggest grading company there. Imagine that. What even happens?

[00:10:08]Everyone's [ __ ] You know, >> Amazon will take over.

[00:10:12]>> And on one hand, that would maybe be a good thing because maybe, you know, people who just enjoy the trading cards would be able to go to the store and buy them off the shelf normally again because right now you can't do that. And stuff like this is playing a major part in why you can't do that, >> right? you know, this artificial inflation of the market, this artificial limiting on how many cards there are. If you think Pokemon isn't printing millions upon millions of cards per year, enough for everyone to get the box they want, you're smoking dick. You know, the these distributors, these vendors are playing a key role in inflating this market artificially, and it's [ __ ] up. So, that is my conspiracy for today. GameStop and PSA are in cahoots and artificially inflating the value of our cars to [ __ ] us all. Yeah. And bigger picture, what is their incentive to do this? This is how they save GameStop.

[00:10:56]>> Mhm.

[00:10:56]>> This is also right now GameStop doesn't have enough money to even come close to buying eBay. eBay rejected their offer, calling it basically hilarious, right?

[00:11:05]>> How do they inflate the value of their company? Sell more power packs. How do you sell more power packs? Inflate the value of the cards in them.

[00:11:12]>> Well, I saw the CEO pretty uh method.

[00:11:14]>> GameStop got banned from eBay as well for >> I saw that as well. Yeah, they're not having a [ __ ] selling dirty socks for like $7,000.

[00:11:23]>> They were not having it, dude.

[00:11:25]>> And then [laughter] he made a whole like thing about like sell on eBay to pay for eBay.

[00:11:30]>> Yeah.

[00:11:30]>> Yeah. And I I I'm a guy where like, dude, I've been opening Pokemon cards since I was a kid. I remember having a little binder since I was a kid. I wish I still had it. My parents threw it away. I [ __ ] And then in 2020, I sold the rest of my cards I still had for, you know, frog money. But I mean, it's it's just sad cuz like my whole life, I've always been able to just go to Walmart or Target and like grab a pack of cards off the shelf and just open them and like collect. And now it's like, dude, if I want a pack of cards, I either have to go to a third party store and pay like double or triple the market MSRP, you know, or I have to go on like eBay and get it shipped to my house and still pay double or triple MSRP. And if I want to go to a store and get something, I have to line up with a [ __ ] camping chair 3 hours before they open and like probably fight some fat unemployed guy who like needs the cards to feed his eight kids, right?

[00:12:20]>> You know, cuz like god forbid the scalpers get jobs, right? You [laughter] know, [ __ ] >> dude, trading car market's [ __ ] right now. That honestly that was less of a conspiracy and more of a venting session.

[00:12:30]>> I've like seen that happening. Like I've seen the the >> Oh, there's clips of it all over the internet. Yeah. like the car like they'll literally be stocking the shelves and they're like ripping them off the shelves as they hit.

[00:12:42]>> Yeah.

[00:12:42]>> Yeah. They they literally like there's vending machines that they have, right?

[00:12:47]And people the scalpers will wait by the vending machine because the vending machines apparently like have facial recognition in them where like they wait for someone new to come up and they like will unlock something in the vending machine for that person to fight scalpers. Well, the scalpers are literally waiting by the vending machines and waiting for like a kid to walk up and basically shoving them out of the way and just buying the thing that popped up, like sticking their card in and grabbing it and being like, "Nope, that's mine. I was waiting here."

[00:13:12]You know, and like these there's like all these grocery stores it's happening at. There's actually a Vans not far from us right now that has this vending machine where a clip went viral of someone at that exact store doing that.

[00:13:22]Like there was a physical fight. These guys were like shoulder checking each other like that's my [ __ ] box, bro.

[00:13:26]And it's over a box that like if they sold it on eBay, they would make $50.

[00:13:30]>> Yeah.

[00:13:31]>> Like [laughter] these guys are phys. We're in California, bro. You go flip patties in and out for two hours and make fat.

[00:13:36]Yeah. Like like you don't need to camp the [ __ ] vending machine all day, >> you know?

[00:13:42]>> Yeah.

[00:13:42]>> But they do anyways.

[00:13:43]>> It's crazy. And then when they get the box, it looks like it's the best day of their life.

[00:13:48]>> Yeah.

[00:13:48]>> You know, like they're they're celebrating with the box.

[00:13:51]>> It sucks so bad, bro. I just want to open cards. I just want to like collect Pokemon cards normally. I don't want to do all this scalper [ __ ] and all that.

[00:13:57]>> Yeah, >> it's very sad, you know. And I feel like scalper culture has like I I call me crazy. I feel like it started with sneakers when we were in high school.

[00:14:07]>> Oh, it's very possible.

[00:14:09]>> Hypebeast culture really kicked off all the scalper [ __ ] >> Bless you. Cuz after sup like I feel like after Jordan's and Supreme and like Yeezys all kind of died. Supreme is bro, flipping Supreme was huge. [laughter] >> That's probably where it started. I think after all that [ __ ] died out, like they all these guys moved on to trading cards.

[00:14:28]>> Yeah.

[00:14:29]>> And other [ __ ] >> I mean, when you think about it, the other kind of darker side of it is like this is a perfect market for money laundering.

[00:14:37]>> Yeah.

[00:14:38]>> There are no regulations. This is a great way like if you have a bunch of drug money, right?

[00:14:42]>> You can go to a there's Pokemon events every week in every state where these vendors will have cards that are worth 50,000, 100,000. You're some drug dealer who's got like 50 racks you need to go launder. Go to a [ __ ] card show, buy a bunch of Pokemon cards, all cash, walk out of that [ __ ] sit on them for like a year or two, and go flip them in another card show and you've now got clean money.

[00:15:01]>> Yeah.

[00:15:02]>> You know, like that's you could even sell them on eBay. I mean, that's a way where like you can get the money into your account even like you can actually that's you can literally clean your own money at home right now with trading cards.

[00:15:12]>> It's a very good point, Mr. Ozark. It's, bro. It's [laughter] I'm telling you, dude. It's It's a crazy market, man. It's >> a crazy market.