Pokémon esports community calls for changes to Pokémon Center after some competitors fail to get a slot

The Pokémon World Championships‘ Pokémon Center slots are filled, leaving some competitors without a time to visit the store and get the exclusive merch.

With more attendees than ever, the Pokémon Center required fans to sign up for a day and time to get in and shop. Unfortunately for those who qualified for Worlds, they spend the majority of the weekend competing, giving them limited time to sign up for the Pokémon Center—and those slots filled up fast.

This caused a debate within the Pokémon esports community on whether competitors should be given priority at the Pokémon Center over content creators.

As the competitive side of Pokémon continues to grow, Worlds has been attempting to deal with the influx of attendees in a way that hasn’t sat right with the community.

Initially, fans were frustrated to see the new price of the Spectator Badge, which had skyrocketed up to $99 (~£76.50) despite being half the price last year. Some Pokémon veterans even remembered a time when the Spectator Badge was free.

At the time of the announcement, some wondered if this was a way to limit the amount of spectators that show up to the event, since some may just be scalpers looking to get access to the Pokémon Center.

Every year, Worlds’ Pokémon Center carries exclusive Worlds-themed items that are very tantalising to collectors. In the past, this has led to scalpers draining the store of certain products and then boosting the costs of the scarce item online.

To combat this, the Pokémon Center has implemented a sign-up of sorts that makes attendees pick certain time slots to show up. There are also limits on how many of each item shoppers can purchase, although this hasn’t stopped products from selling out in the past. This means players with later time slots could end up missing out since the community feels these limits are not often upheld.

One Worlds competitor and pro player ‘King Dre’ noted that this is a common occurrence for those in the tournament all weekend. Dre wrote on X: “Happy for all the creators to get invites! Just a reminder though that Competitors get shafted almost every year and deserve the priority access to the Worlds Pokémon Center.”

This caused a big debate within the Pokémon esports scene. Some felt that it made logical sense why Pokémon invited so many content creators to access the Pokémon Center, since they will likely be creating content about the experience and the products.

However, some pointed out that Worlds competitors spend a lot of money to compete in tournaments all year long in hopes of qualifying.

“Plenty of competitive players spend 10’s of thousands of dollars attempting to achieve a Worlds invite. To not get a spot at the Pokémon Center is kind of cringe,” noted SmartTC.

While some felt that it would be fair for competitors to have a dedicated slot of time to get into the Pokémon Center, others pointed out that this would take away slots from content creators. Dre responded: “I know there’s limited time. It sucks we can’t find a balance. I mean, maybe smaller Worlds means it’s a little more achievable but I’m just speaking up for the players.”

The Pokémon World Championships will commence August 15th to 17th, 2025, with the top players in the TCG, VGC, UNITE, and GO scenes hoping to become Pokémon masters after a year of grinding to qualify.