Millions of Pokémon TCG fans were caught in a digital queue on the official Pokémon Center website, hoping to snag the delayed Phantasmal Flames set as soon as pre-orders opened - only to discover that it still wasn't on sale. Why the Pokémon Company turned on queue management when there was no big product launch is one question - why Pokémon fans were willing to wait for hours despite no formal announcement of the product being available is another.
Anyone attempting to access the Pokémon Center website from around 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST on Monday found themselves added to a virtual queue, unable to get in until those in front of them had finished their business. A digital queue is a standard traffic management tool that websites use to stop high demand from crashing their servers, which would typically be activated for a big product launch - and every Pokémon TCG product launch is a big product launch.
It's not surprising that fans saw this as a sign that the newest Pokémon set, Phantasmal Flames, was going up for pre-order the same day. The set was originally expected to launch at the end of last week but missed that window - an updated launch date has not been announced.
Fans in the substantial r/PKMNTCGDeals subreddit and Discord reported the queue soon after it appeared, and commenters began chronicling their tedious journeys. Commenters reported that they were number four million or five million in the queue. The highest estimate we've heard of came from a friend of the team, who found themselves around six millionth place.
Strictly speaking, this number represents the number of individual computer IP addresses that contacted the website, which will be higher than the number of humans. Still, it seems likely that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, attempted to get into the site.
As people finally made it to the front of the queue after long waits, they had a painful discovery: the only new things on sale were some plushies and puzzles that had dropped that morning. And while there are some very dedicated plushy collectors out there who want cuddly versions of all the cutest Pokémon, we think most of the millions who joined the queue were hoping to pre-order the hotly anticipated set.
It's likely that the Pokémon Company was just testing the queue system to check that it works ahead of Phantasmal Flames' actual release. There's evidence that the launch was delayed because scalpers found an exploit in the Pokémon Center website that allowed them to order stock before it was available to the public, causing the Pokémon Company to stop the launch to root out the scalper orders. If true, that's a strong incentive to test the website is watertight before resuming the sale - but perhaps the number of people in the queue reflects an enormous fleet of bot accounts probing the website for vulnerabilities.
Despite growing up during the original '90s Pokémania, the unrelenting demand for Pokémon cards today unnerves me. I remember when sales rushes for kids' toys only happened in the pre-Christmas rush, when parents fist-fought in Toys 'R Us to secure a Furby, Buzz Lightyear, or Tickle Me Elmo. Today, all Pokémon sets are liable to sell out on the day they launch, and the only way to get the best Pokémon packs at their retail price is to be ready and waiting for them like a deerstalker.
Whether you're a collector or a player, come and say hello in the Pokémon channel of Wargamer's community Discord. People are always sharing cool pack pulls, as well as swapping friendly advice about playing the TCG. And as soon as we hear about Phantasmal Flames going on sale, we'll let you know.