If you’re a fan of Pokemon and you’ve not paid a visit to Ombak KLCC and the Pokemon Centre Pop-Up Store there, you really should. While it will still be around for just under two more months, it will close once the year is out. Obviously, fans want a permanent one to call our own within Malaysia. For now, The Pokemon Company has not said anything about such a thing, but a local trading card game (TCG) convention organiser has set up a petition for just that.
The organisation in question is TCGKL, a locally based TCG convention organiser, founded by Hajoon Capital Sdn Bhd back in 2023. While it’s a game-agnostic organisation, it has put up a petition called “A Pokemon Centre to call our own”. At the time of writing, it has 574 verified signatures, with a goal of hitting 25,000 throughout the country. The petition page also has a map of where the signatures originate from, with Selangor and Kuala Lumpur unsurprisingly being the vast majority.
Also on the page are two reasons for the petition. One of them, as mentioned, is the Pop-Up Store closing once 2027 rolls in. The other is the presence of two other permanent stores nearby. The nearest of the two is Singapore, with the other being in Taipei, Taiwan. The latter is not exactly near, even if it’s within Asia. As for the one in Singapore, it’s doubtful that fans want to make frequent trips there solely for the sake of the Pokemon Centre.
As is commonly the case with petitions, even if the number of signatures sought is met or even exceeded, there’s no guarantee that The Pokemon Company sees it as a sign that Malaysia is a market worth setting up in. Especially in the videogames space, you’re probably already numb to the number of Change.org petitions that have sprouted, only for all of them to not even move the needle.
For what it’s worth, TCGKL says that it will send the verified total number of signatures by state to The Pokemon Company, which will hopefully be a metric that can be taken into account. You can check it out for yourself by hitting the link to the petition below.
(Source: TCGKL)
