Counterfeit Pokémon games can be bought in a dying mall's vending machine


counterfeit pokemon games dying mall vending machine
Credit: The Pokémon Company

A sketchy mall is selling hundreds of counterfeit Pokémon games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance. With the skyrocketing popularity of classic Pokémon games amid collectors and fans, many are excited, and confused, by this bizarre pop-up shop.

Fans on ResetEra shared their discovery of a vending machine in a dying mall selling a bunch of these games. Pretty much every Game Boy and Game Boy Advance game is here for $15 a cart, from classics like Red and Blue to their GBA remakes FireRed and LeafGreen. Hilariously, there’s also a copy of the original Pokémon Green version, which never made it to the US.

Seeing these fake copies of Pokémon games out and about is definitely strange, though one can’t help but feel nostalgic. We’re never going to see Game Boy games displayed openly like this ever again so it’s kind of fun witnessing this. Plus, seeing all of the Game Boy games organized like that feels cozy.

It doesn’t help that fans don’t have many options to play these classic games. Unless they still have physical copies or downloaded them on the 3DS eShop before it closed, official options are bare. “Official” options, of course, as there are other ways to play these games and we won’t mention what those ways are (but you all know them).

We haven’t seen any responses from The Pokémon Company and it's doubtful anything will come from this. After all, this is a mall that’s going out of business soon and someone decided not to care anymore. These aren’t even original or stolen so there’s nothing worth getting angry about here.

Read More: OG Pokémon art finally discovered showing the beauty of Sugimori’s designs

For now, fans will have to settle with the Nintendo Switch and its mixed bag of Pokémon games, though we think they’re of quality. Sword and Shield are solid enough JRPGs, even if they were a bit uninspired when compared to their 3DS counterparts. Meanwhile, Scarlet and Violet are some of the most ambitious titles in the franchise, albeit, with numerous technical issues and poor framerate.

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