A collaboration between The Pokémon Company and McDonald’s has ended early due to scalping and food waste.
An exclusive Pikachu trading card was available as part of a Happy Meal promotion, from 9th August until 11th August. However, this ended after less than a day of availability “due to sales exceeding expectations”, according to a statement from McDonald’s. “We sincerely apologise for not being able to meet the expectations of our customers who have been looking forward to it due to the early end of distribution.”
However, as reported by Poké Beach, the promotion resulted in chaos – long queues, card scalping, and food waste. Images show uneaten food left on the streets to rot as customers seek only the special card.
There are plenty of posts on social media sharing shock at the amount of food waste left by Pokémon fans.
As Nintendo Soup reported (thanks IGN), police were even called in to stop fighting among customers.
Meanwhile on eBay, the Pikachu promo card is being sold for around £25 each, while the full set of six cards is double that. There are also reports of McDonald’s employees illegally selling boxes of the cards.
The promotion follows last year’s chaos at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where an exclusive Pikachu trading card was available among other merchandise and was quickly snapped up by scalpers to be sold for inflated prices.
Four employees at the museum were suspended for misconduct. The Pokémon Company later apologised to fans. So far, a statement has not been made with regards to this McDonald’s promotion.