The war on Pokemon scalpers now includes facial recognition checks in some stores in Japan

The Pokemon Company will begin using facial recognition at official Pokemon Card Stores in Japan in an effort to discourage scalpers. The publisher already announced this summer that it would use standardized, but not mandatory, Japanese ID called My Number Cards to verify some transactions made through the official Japanese Pokemon TCG website. The company explains its intentions to use facial recognition in a post on its Japanese website (h/t IGN) revealing the start of Pokemon Card Stores, which will be dedicated to selling Pokemon Trading Card Game packs and related merch, as well as hosting free classes to learn the ways of Pokemon TCG. Earlier this year, an unofficial store in New York was even robbed at gunpoint of $100,000 worth of merchandise.