Haha what would Pokémon have to do to convince you it's more than a fad? It's already the world's biggest IP, it's been around for 30 years...
The prices are completely driven by artificial scarcity - obviously they could easily print any card in unlimited numbers, but they intentionally print some cards in limited quantities that can only be obtained by getting lucky with a random pack.
Most buyers don’t even play the card game.
In February Paul resold the card for $16 million. [1]
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/16/americas/pokemon-card-log...
the cards have been popular for significantly longer than 5 years.
my kid's entire class (the entire school, really) brought their binders of pokemon cards to school every day in ~2002 until the school banned pokemon cards on premise because they were such a distraction and causing issues (kids crying about unfair trades, etc.)
Perhaps "boom" is a better word for it than "fad". But my point is just that this demand seems to be largely driven by artifical scarcity, speculation, influencers - similar to Labubu.
And eventually prices will hit a peak and I expect we will see demand fall off rapidly.
[1] https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/pokemon-tcg-sold-3-7-billi...
[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...
Look I agree with you, kids find YouTube videos about really compelling IP really compelling! But that is the story, with Pokémon cards and Labubu. Artificial scarcity, which a bajillion games try to do, most of them failing, doesn't alone move the needle on appeal. It's basically meaningless as a design choice. That's what you mean by artificial, the perception of scarcity, maybe, which everything collectible tries to do, and to me, is not really why kids find it appealing or care of whatever.
It's just the part of the product that you understand. That is what I am trying to say. You don't know why they find Pokémon appealing. You have no idea. You understand the gacha part but it doesn't really matter. It's easier to see this when you try playing really popular Roblox games, it really hits you how poorly you understand appeal.
All the local stores that sell random packs of Pokemon cards are sold out. So is Amazon, etc. If I wanted to buy some right now, the only way I could do it is through scalpers. So yes - they are scarce.
I think The Pokemon Company is very intentional about how many cards they print. As many as possible without saturating the market. I'm sure they employ people with degrees in business and economics whose job it is to figure that out.
> You don't know why they find Pokémon appealing.
That's not true. I like Pokemon. I have a Pokemon sticker on my laptop. I understand that there is intrinsic value to a Pokemon game, figurine, and even a cool holographic trading card. But the reason people are buying random packs from scalpers which usually just contain worthless junk cards is the hope of scoring a rare card. It's the scarcity.
That's also the reason they are sold that way instead of just selling you the cards you want as singles. If I could just go out and buy any special art card for $100 direct from The Pokemon Company (a huge margin for them), it would completely tank prices and ultimately demand.
Okay, see, so you don't know what the appeal is. You wouldn't know where to begin creating your own Pokémon. You would be like, well let's make some monsters. You wouldn't get it. If you did know how, you would be a billionaire. Do you get it now? It isn't enough to just make gacha mechanics.
The "special art rare" ones are admittedly pretty cool, and those do get taken out and looked at from time to time. Usually when friends come over.
Magic the Gathering was always both though, you collected good/rare cards & played the game with them!
The takeaway was that this was yet another move by rich assholes designed to siphon money from the pockets of small time gamblers just so that the rich could get richer. They did it to Pokemon cards, destroying the experience of playing the actual game, and they tried to do it to Manga (although they hopefully won't succeed there).
Objectively untrue boomer take. Pokemon cards have been popular & have been traded since I was in middle school and I'm 40 now lol. Even without ever collecting them I know how cool having a Holo Charizard was.
Before 2019 they printed fewer than 2 billion cards per year [1]. Since 2021 they are printing 9 billion cards per year, and 12 billion in 2024 since they released the app. And release 7 new sets a year. And they are still selling out as soon as they hit store shelves [2].
The popularity you experienced in grade school is nothing like the revenous demand today. I suspect you might be the one who has fallen behind the times.
[1] https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/pokemon-tcg-sold-3-7-billi...
[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...
There are fad diets that have been around for 50 years after all...
Based on the references and speech patterns I've seen on HN, I think the average HNers is at least a decade older than Pokemon. The first Pokemon videogame only came out in 1996.
Y'all are boomers - nothing wrong with that, but HN has become an older monoculture.
Obviously not. HN is an anonymous forum that doesn't collect that kind of data. But given the fact that a large portion of childhood and early 20s references on HN tend to discuss life in the 1980s-2000s and don't reference the Great Recession highlights a large portion of HNers would have been born in the late 70s to at most early 90s.
i am! but i see a fair amount of people just starting their careers, students, etc. as well. and, based on some of the comments ive seen, i think there is a lot of young folk. most of my students are active, or at least browse, HN. they are mostly 18-20.
i took a wild guess that ~30 would be the average. maybe 35-40 is closer. either way, i think my point stands: 30 years seems too long to be classified as a fad.
Yep! Completely agree! I'm not that much older than Pokemon, and most of my peers have been influenced by it heavily and their kids will be influenced by it as well. If Pokemon is a fad, so are smartphones.
In classic HN fashion, I decided to kvetch about something completely irrelevant to the larger convo ;)
In that case, I'll kvetch about the "boomer" term (Baby Boomers are ~61+ years old), as I think you're conflating it with Generation X (45 - 61 years old)
Even the youngest boomers are near retirement age now.