By Jordon Pfeiffer
This year marks Pokémon’s 30th anniversary and fans worldwide are celebrating. Originally released in 1996 in Japan as a small role-playing game, the global franchise has since transcended its original video game format, having expanded into manga, anime, mobile phone apps and a trading card game.
The physical trading card aspect of the franchise has led to many card shops opening and finding purchase within their local communities.
Fourteen currently operate in St. Petersburg, Florida, with triple that including the entirety of Tampa Bay.
Professor David Rosengrant of the University of South Florida’s STEM education program is a lifelong gamer and an expert in the ability games have to foster connection and cultivate community.
“Card shops serve as a hub to bring people together with those similar interests,” Rosengrant said. “To have these conversations, to play the games, to do the trades, to do whatever it is they want to do. But they’re doing it in that spot as a group. By having that community, you have that network of people, you have those friendships. It’s a support network.”
Located off of 1st Ave. S., Coastal Cards DTSP is just one of those local card shops.
Coastal Cards DTSP employee Justine Jenkins is excited for this year’s celebration of Pokémon’s 30th anniversary. She is proud to be a part of the collector community.
“As a newer collector, introduced to it about three years ago now, Pokémon has meant so much to me,” Jenkins said. “And the community it has allowed me to be a part of has been a huge benefit to my overall life satisfaction.”
According to her, Coastal Cards has big plans for celebrating the anniversary and connecting with the local community. The store hosted a trading card game trade show on April 11.
“We’re really excited to provide this free event to the community and we’ll have 90 plus vendors there to help us celebrate,” Jenkins said. “In addition to this trade show at our shop, Coastal will also start hosting weekly Pokémon tournaments very soon.”
Rosengrant shared the importance of these events, explaining how trading card shows, comic conventions and tournaments help strengthen the community they represent.
“You have all these different con events and some of them are very broad and you have some that are very specific,” Rosengrant said. “And all of these different aspects build up the community too. When one aspect grows, all the other parts of it grow as well.”
Another local card shop, United Collectibles, off of 62nd Ave. N., specializes in a handful of different trading card games. Most notable are their cases of valuable Pokémon cards, selling at a variety of prices.
Owner and long-time collector, Devon Zang, has a lot of ideas for his shop’s anniversary celebrations.
“We’re thinking of a Pokémon Go event in Fossil Park,” Zang said. “Kind of like a scavenger hunt where we hide things. We have these little golden tickets and each one has a different Pokémon on it which will represent a different prize.”
Pokémon Go is a mobile game adaptation of the original handheld console-based version, where gamers walk around and interact with places in the real world in order to catch the Pokémon of their choosing.
“Pokémon Go is getting you up, getting you outside to do things that are in a virtual environment, but in the real world outside,” Rosengrant said. “It gets you moving and you realize you can do things beyond just sitting in front of the screen. And that’s a community itself too. You can connect with people in the game and then in real life too.”
While still a work-in-progress, Zang and his employees hope to get the event up and running by the end of April, calling it an anniversary and Easter celebration all wrapped up into one activity.
Being a newer local card shop, Zang described the importance of building relationships and familiarity within the card-collecting community.
“Collectors find a community with new friends, from playing to just seeing people here all the time,” Zang said. “And we build our own community of people that are loyal to us and expect us to take care of them, rather than buying online and having to trust a stranger for every transaction or trade.”
Jenkins and Zang share similar sentiments regarding their adoration for the trading card game. Both expressed respect for the franchise’s longevity and the ability to stay relevant.
“No pun intended, but Pokémon is constantly evolving,” Jenkins said. “The evolution and vastness of it provide the opportunity for more interest among a diverse group overall. You have some who love the vintage cards and others who love modern. There are literally 30 years of different sets and cards for people to choose from.”
Rosengrant noted that for a franchise so worldwide with such a broadly supported anniversary, the ability to build up and hearten individuals within their own local communities is a powerful feat.
“It’s that community, it’s that common experience that it provides to so many individuals,” Rosengrant said. “It’s more than just a game. You have encyclopedias about all the different characters. You have histories, you have stories. There is that little bit of extended disbelief that I know it’s not real, but there’s a lot of things that I can see with it that makes it real tme, and that’s what the game does.”
