Why Does Reselling Spark Backlash? Lessons From the Switch 2 and McDonald's Happy Set

The hotter the passion behind oshi-katsu, the fiercer the scramble for limited tickets and bonus goods. But when the system does a poor job of getting items to the people who actually want them, resale, bulk buying and hours of waiting follow, and they wear down the very love that started it all.

Ticket scalping can happen at any scale and in any genre. Japan's law banning unauthorized ticket resale, in force since 2019, targets the repeated selling of tickets above face value without the organizer's consent.

What fans want to check before a sale opens is more than whether it's first-come or a lottery. If the application window, ID checks, companion changes and the procedure for when you can't attend are all laid out in one notice, fans can judge whether the way of taking part fits their own lives. Reducing the feeling that you're at a disadvantage unless you use several devices or several names is also a precondition for trusting the official channel and being willing to wait.

Organizers shouldn't treat a sell-out as the finish line. They need to look back at access surges, duplicate applications and the types of inquiries they received. Separating whether people missed out because of overwhelming demand or because of unclear explanations and a hard-to-use screen makes the next improvement concrete. Feeding the questions received after a sale back into the guidance makes the system less confusing, without pushing the burden onto fans to become more skilled.

The same thing happens every time a limited item goes on sale because this structure hasn't changed. It isn't a problem with any single project.

Problems that keep repeating usually have their cause in the system. If you get the same result every time, it isn't an accident. It's the design.

For example, if crowding on the sale day is the problem, staggering store visit times is one approach; if bulk buying is the problem, reviewing purchase limits and the sales method comes to mind. Even under the same label of “anti-resale measures,” the response needed differs depending on where people are struggling. The starting point is to separate the manners asked of buyers from the conditions the seller can change.

Laws draw a minimum line, but they don't automatically create an experience fans can buy in with peace of mind. ID verification, official resale, purchase limits and a transparent lottery all need to be combined.

Even where an authorized resale channel exists, some people will still drift to the unofficial market if they aren't convinced by the fees or the purchase method. Safety and ease of use have to be designed together.

Someone who can't go because of a sudden job or illness and passes on a ticket within the deadline at a price based on face value is different from someone listing tickets for profit. If both seller and buyer can see the acceptance period and the refund terms, fans find it easier to avoid the risks of unofficial private deals.

The word “limited” isn't bad in itself. Scarcity does make something special, and that's true.

The experience of not being able to buy stays with you longer than you might think. It isn't about the money. It becomes the memory of chasing something hard and still not being able to reach it.

When that happens over and over, people give up from the start. People who learn that trying is pointless stop looking at the next announcement. Sales fall after that.

In food campaigns that come with a purchase bonus, some people buy in bulk only for the bonus and leave the food behind. The design has to cover not just how attractive the bonus is but also how the product itself is handled.

Purchase limits, the way items are collected and the policy on redistribution should be announced before the sale, anticipating lopsided demand and bulk buying by hopping between several stores. They are preventive measures to protect the food and the venue, not a fix after a backlash.

Fans can also decide whether to buy by checking whether it's an amount they can finish, whether there's a way to pick only the bonus later, and whether additional sales are planned. When trading or buying together, choosing a form that doesn't strain the storage and handover of the food is what protects the culture.

The time spent queuing for merchandise at a venue contains exactly the same problem. Some people can stand in line for hours and others can't. Time, too, is a price being paid.

Mail order and after-the-fact sales narrow that gap. Don't make being physically there a condition of buying is the design that's called for.

First-come, first-served favors people confident in their speed, and a lottery brings the anxiety of waiting for the result. The point isn't which one to adopt but to communicate fairness including the application window, how results are explained and how cancellations are handled.

Complaints about random goods have the same structure. If you keep the fun of opening while offering a standard version that people can choose and buy, you separate the gambling element from peace of mind.

What organizers should compare isn't just sales right after launch but the time spent on trading, where duplicates end up and how inquiries increase. If a random version and a choose-your-own version are sold side by side, with stock and restock plans announced for each, fans can choose between play and certainty. Watching for crowding at trading spots and trouble in private deals also shows whether a product-spec problem has moved into venue operations.

What official resale and choice-based sales have in common is that they don't force people who enjoy chance and people who want to receive something for certain into the same method. If the price difference and the application window are set so that neither choice feels like a disadvantage, the resolution isn't left wholly to negotiation between fans.

The reason resale doesn't go away is simple: it makes money. As long as there's a big gap between face value and actual demand, someone will always appear to fill that gap.

So the heart of the countermeasure is not enforcement but shrinking the gap. The closer we get to a state where people who want something can buy it at face value, the more the profit in resale disappears. That's why made-to-order and reprints work.

On the other hand, simply producing more of everything isn't the answer either. Some people find value in an item being limited, and the burden of carrying unsold stock is real.

A realistic landing point is to combine limited runs with reprints: start with a small quantity, watch the response, then take orders. You don't need to reach everyone the first time. It's enough if people know there will be a second.

Scarcity is a powerful switch that moves fans, but relying on it alone breeds distrust among those who couldn't buy and a market for high-priced resale. Clearly showing other ways to take part, such as later orders, reprints and streaming, keeps the passion from ending all at once.

Stores and organizers need to count on-site safety as an outcome as well as sales. Recording the length of queues, staff load, the amount discarded and the content of inquiries makes the next design concrete.

Even just softening the message that “once you miss it, it's over” and laying out the schedule for orders, reprints and streaming in chronological order makes it easier to choose between buying now and waiting. Being able to decide how deeply you take part also means not pushing people who keep their spending down out of the fandom.

For companies, too, resale is a loss. Even when items trade at a high price, not a single yen of the difference comes back to them. The amount actually paid and the amount received drift apart.

The reason first-come sales continue anyway is that changing them takes effort. Lotteries and ID checks reliably add to the operational burden. It comes down to deciding whether to take that burden on.

On the fan side, choosing not to take part in deals above face value or in bulk buying is an action that protects the culture. It's also the organizer's job to prepare a channel for telling the official side what to improve, rather than treating the frustration of not getting an item as an individual's fault.

To keep oshi-katsu going for a long time, it needs room not only for the satisfaction of those who got the item but for those who couldn't take part to come back next time. It's time to shift the view from designs that stoke passion to designs that protect it.

Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same result. It means knowing the terms for applications, resale, orders and reprints, and being able to choose for yourself. Even when the excitement of a limited item is kept, distribution that doesn't shift the burden onto food, venues or people who lost the lottery, and that can explain itself through to the next opportunity, leaves trust behind even after a sell-out.

Designing distribution is unglamorous work, but it directly affects the fan experience. Whether you were able to buy changes your mood that day a great deal.

The more oshi-katsu has become part of someone's daily life, the bigger that effect. How things are sold bears on whether people can keep supporting.