Entertainment
McDonald’s Pokémon Happy Meals cards to be restricted in the UK to stop scalpers
No matter how many Happy Meals you buy, McDonald’s will only be handing out one Pokémon toy per transaction.
Remember those insanely popular Pokémon cards, that were exclusive to McDonald’s in the US, and scalpers were selling for hundreds on eBay? Well, those same Pokémon Happy Meals are set to arrive here in the UK, and it’s assumed that the cards will be distributed alongside them.
As part of the franchise’s 25th anniversary this year, unique cards that can also be used in the trading card game are being distributed with McDonald’s Happy Meals.
However, it sounds like those scalping incidents have prompted McDonald’s to try things differently in the UK. According to an internal memo seen by Nintendo Life, it will be restricting how many ‘toys’ can be obtained by a single person.
McDonald’s hasn’t stated what the accompanying toy is, but it seems pretty safe to assume that it will be the aforementioned cards, especially since staff have been told to expect the meals to be very popular and the chain no longer gives away plastic toys.
In the US, the problem was with individuals buying a bunch of Happy Meals in one go. And since each meal came with a pack of four cards, this meant someone could buy 100 Happy Meals and get 400 cards.
To prevent that happening in the UK, McDonald’s will only hand out one toy per transaction, regardless of how many meals are bought. While this will make it harder for collectors to acquire the full set of 50 cards (which consists of two variations of each of the 25 starter pokémon throughout the series, including Pikachu), it should prevent would-be scalpers from hoarding them.
Aside from angry fans and parents complaining about how they were completely unable to acquire any cards for themselves or their children, there were also claims that all the food was being completely wasted and ultimately just thrown out.
Back in February, one Twitch streamer, LumberJackFrost, announced on Twitter he would be holding a stream where he opened the card packs he obtained from McDonald’s, posting a picture of multiple Happy Meals he had bought.
He was met with non-stop criticism, described as ‘opportunistic’ and accused of hoarding the cards, stopping children from getting any, and wasting food.
The meals are expected to arrive in the UK from May 19.
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