Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, scalping in general shot up to new heights with people hoarding essentials like hand sanitizer, and we all remember the nonsensical toilet paper fiasco. It hit gaming, too, starting with Switch consoles back in February and March when the first round of lockdown happened in many places worldwide and has only escalated since then. Even McDonald's Happy Meals aren't safe, thanks to people coveting the Pokémon promo cards that come with them.

If you aren't aware of what scalping is, it's when a person or people pre-order, purchase or steal a large number of products, usually ones that are collectible or in demand, and resell them at high mark-ups. It's nothing new. Scalping is an issue for many hobbies and anything collectible. People have scalped consoles and other collectibles in the past, but it's gotten to the point where products are entirely unavailable for months at a time. There are even scalpers who try to swindle each other out of stock to hoard more in hopes of a larger profit.

RELATED: Eville Makes Among Us Into a Multiplayer Roleplaying Game

On the surface, it seems like this affects actual buyers the most, since those who actually want the products don't have access to them, forcing them to wait and 'get lucky,' or go through scalpers and pay three times the price or more. Thankfully most don't support scalping, but even so, it's become a monster this past year.

It started with the Nintendo Switch in early lockdown days with people looking to casually get into gaming while stuck at home and scalpers picking up on it and trying to make a profit. This resulted in the tumultuous launch of Ring Fit Adventure, which was nearly impossible to get a hold of for months, with the $79 USD/$99 CAD retail price skyrocketing to $200 or more. The Ring Fit was the first in gaming products to really see prices soar, and the stock would sell out in just a few hours the second more would come in. The Switch shortage went well into 2020, with Nintendo trying to keep up with demand while seemingly doing little to deter scalpers.

The next major items to be hit were Nvidia's RTX 30 series graphics cards, whose pre-orders were being scalped and sold a full month before its actual release. That's right -- people were selling pre-orders for $1000 or more above their actual retail price when they didn't even have the product on-hand. Nvidia tried to intervene but to little avail. Even now, five months after the card's release, they're still incredibly difficult to get. The same is now happening with AMD's new graphics cards.

RELATED: How a Left 4 Dead Remaster Could Revive the Zombie Shooter Genre

The next-gen consoles also got hit hard. Although it's gradually getting better, scalpers are still buying up or stealing PS5s and Xbox Series X consoles. Over the holidays, of those who actually got confirmed pre-orders, many ended up never receiving them due to theft. Not just by standard Amazon package thieves either, but delivery people and other shipping employees. While some have stolen them for themselves or family, many ended up reselling them online, trying to make a profit.

The most recent victim of scalping has been promotional Pokémon trading cards found in McDonald's Happy Meals. Most kids who want the Pokémon cards are now unlikely to get them, as adult collectors and scalpers have been buying several Happy Meals at a time. There have even been reports of McDonald's locations being robbed and employees stealing whole boxes just to sell them.

RELATED: Video Games Take Longer Than Ever to Make Now - Here's Why

This is where it's really starting to get out of hand and hurts more than just buyers. Manufacturers will always produce more stock, although buying it up in large amounts means using more energy and creating more pollution to appease demand. However, it happens in the background, and many are unlikely to pay attention to it. Finding a garbage bin full of discarded, uneaten food is an obvious and wasteful act. There are reports of people buying upwards of 20 or more Happy Meals in one trip; while some have actually donated the food, most are simply discarding it and only concerning themselves with the cards. This is all in the name of potential profit -- not a guaranteed one.

After all this, it's easy to say scalpers are awful and ruin things for everyone, but they also hurt themselves. Just because you have the products doesn't mean they'll sell, as is often the case. Sure, an item may be more difficult to come by, but the actual retailer will restock, and people are unlikely to pay the absurd prices. Many think it will be easy to sell those 10 PS5s at $1000, but the reality is that they'll likely only sell a couple and not recover the cost of buying the rest of them. On top of that, scalpers will prey on each other, trying to scam others out of their products to try and amass more profit. The entire ecosystem of scalping is good to no one.

KEEP READING: What to Know About Humble Choice's February Games and Charity