[freetime2]

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-log...

[john_strinlai]

>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.)

[freetime2]

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-billi...

[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...

[doctorpangloss]

Can you really say they're scarce if they're printing 5x as many, by your own words?

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.

[freetime2]

> Can you really say they're scarce if they're printing 5x as many, by your own words?

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.

[doctorpangloss]

> That's not true. I like Pokemon. I understand that there is intrinsic value to a Pokemon game, figurine, and even a cool holographic trading card.

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.

[ses1984]

Only billionaires get Pokémon?

[Veserv]

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]

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]

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.

[buildbot]

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]

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.

[cptroot]

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

[dvt]

> 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]

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-billi...

[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/10-billion-pokemon-cards-were-p...