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It is exhausting seeing how many aspects of the Pokémon experience people try to exploit as part of some money-making scheme. The cards are obviously the most prominent example of this, as scalpers and the content creation mill have turned the act of buying and selling packs into a lucrative business at the expense of players being able to derive any joy from the hobby. But people selling Pokémon-related stuff for a profit isn’t limited to physical goods. Nowadays, you can find someone asking for real-world cash for a Shiny Pokémon in games like Legends: Z-A.
Despite how much easier Legends: Z-A makes it to find the rare, alternate-colored ‘mons in Lumiose City, some folks would rather just fork over some of their hard-earned money to save themselves a few hours of grinding to make one of them spawn. At least, that’s what some sellers on places like eBay are banking on. If you search for Shiny Pokémon on the site, you’ll find dozens of listings, some selling specific creatures and others letting people specify the Shiny they’re seeking. One of the most expensive offerings includes a full “Living Dex” of every Shiny Pokémon in Legends: Z-A for $300. There’s also a cheaper (but still very expensive) $80 listing for every Shiny Mega Evolution Pokémon in the game thus far. That’s more than it costs to buy the game itself.
I understand that for a lot of people, the joy of shinies is not in the exhausting hunt and they just want to put these rare creatures in their party or in a box so they can say they have them. But man, I can’t imagine being that devoted to Shiny Pokémon that you’d be willing to fork over real-world money for one, especially when they aren’t limited-time offerings. I wasn’t surprised when scalpers were selling free Shiny Miraidon and Koraidon codes because GameStop had made that an issue of false scarcity. But people are often willing to spend money to save themselves time. So I guess this isn’t that different from spending money on microtransactions to skip through a waiting period in an app. But at least with those, you don’t have to haggle and negotiate on something that was never meant to have a real-world monetary value. Go with Arceus, friends. Make responsible decisions.
