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I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after Logan Paul paid $5 million for a rare card in 2021. The prices are completely drive

I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after Logan Paul paid $5 million for a rare card in 2021. 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-logan-paul-record-auction-intl-hnk https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/16/americas/pokemon-card-log...

buildbot 4mo ago
This was true over 20 years ago when I was in elementary school - I don’t know anyone who really played the game, most people just collected the cards. Magic the Gathering was always both though, you collected good/rare cards & played the game with them!
- resonious 4mo ago
  Yes I remember having a hard time finding other kids who wanted to actually play the pokemon card game. And even when I could find someone, they didn't care about the rules/energy costs. This was in elementary school though to be fair.
dvt 4mo ago
> I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after some YouTuber paid millions for a rare card 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.
- freetime2 4mo ago
  If you look at Google Trends you can see that interest in Pokemon Cards was mostly flat until 2021 when Logan Paul made headlines for spending $5m on a card. It spiked again in late 2024 and has remained high when they released an app for trading cards digitally. 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-billion-cards-during-pandemic https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/pokemon-tcg-sold-3-7-billi... [2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-printed-last-year-and-it-still-wasnt-enough-to-stop-shortages-and-scalping https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...
john_strinlai 4mo ago
>I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after Logan Paul paid $5 million for a rare card in 2021. 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.)
- Veserv 4mo ago
  Their popularity is a fad. You are talking about their popularity when they first released in the US. They faded significantly for at least a decade if not two until seeing a recent resurgence so massive even random corner stores carry pokemon card packs these days.
  - Gigachad 4mo ago
    What gets me is that no one actually plays the game or cares about the cards. They buy them purely to resell them to someone else later for more. It's just like crypto in physical form.
    - freetime2 4mo ago
      When my kids open a pack they usually don't even look at what cards they get. They spread them out just enough to see the border - which is enough to tell whether you've gotten a rare card or not. I'm sure they've thrown plenty of cards in the junk bin without ever once looking at them. 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.
- freetime2 4mo ago
  They have long been popular, but the popularity has increased more than 5x since the pandemic. They were printing less than 2 billion a year before then [1], and are now selling more than 10 billion a year despite shortages, scalping, etc [2]. 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-billion-cards-during-pandemic https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/pokemon-tcg-sold-3-7-billi... [2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-printed-last-year-and-it-still-wasnt-enough-to-stop-shortages-and-scalping https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...
cptroot 4mo ago
I recently watched an excellent video about that incident. [1] 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). [1] https://youtu.be/W2x-UQpiARc?si=eVwXhHAtD0keH2ON https://youtu.be/W2x-UQpiARc?si=eVwXhHAtD0keH2ON

buildbot 4mo ago

This was true over 20 years ago when I was in elementary school - I don’t know anyone who really played the game, most people just collected the cards. Magic the Gathering was always both though, you collected good/rare cards & played the game with them!

resonious 4mo ago
Yes I remember having a hard time finding other kids who wanted to actually play the pokemon card game. And even when I could find someone, they didn't care about the rules/energy costs. This was in elementary school though to be fair.

dvt 4mo ago

> I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after some YouTuber paid millions for a rare card 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.

freetime2 4mo ago
If you look at Google Trends you can see that interest in Pokemon Cards was mostly flat until 2021 when Logan Paul made headlines for spending $5m on a card. It spiked again in late 2024 and has remained high when they released an app for trading cards digitally. 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-billion-cards-during-pandemic https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/pokemon-tcg-sold-3-7-billi... [2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-printed-last-year-and-it-still-wasnt-enough-to-stop-shortages-and-scalping https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...

john_strinlai 4mo ago

>I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after Logan Paul paid $5 million for a rare card in 2021. 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.)

Veserv 4mo ago
Their popularity is a fad. You are talking about their popularity when they first released in the US. They faded significantly for at least a decade if not two until seeing a recent resurgence so massive even random corner stores carry pokemon card packs these days.
- Gigachad 4mo ago
  What gets me is that no one actually plays the game or cares about the cards. They buy them purely to resell them to someone else later for more. It's just like crypto in physical form.
  - freetime2 4mo ago
    When my kids open a pack they usually don't even look at what cards they get. They spread them out just enough to see the border - which is enough to tell whether you've gotten a rare card or not. I'm sure they've thrown plenty of cards in the junk bin without ever once looking at them. 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.
freetime2 4mo ago
They have long been popular, but the popularity has increased more than 5x since the pandemic. They were printing less than 2 billion a year before then [1], and are now selling more than 10 billion a year despite shortages, scalping, etc [2]. 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-billion-cards-during-pandemic https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/pokemon-tcg-sold-3-7-billi... [2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-printed-last-year-and-it-still-wasnt-enough-to-stop-shortages-and-scalping https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...

cptroot 4mo ago

I recently watched an excellent video about that incident. [1] 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). [1] https://youtu.be/W2x-UQpiARc?si=eVwXhHAtD0keH2ON https://youtu.be/W2x-UQpiARc?si=eVwXhHAtD0keH2ON