Let me sound like an previous for a second.
I keep in mind within the late ’90s and early ’00s, amassing Pokemon playing cards was an off-the-cuff interest. You’d go to your native brick-and-mortar retailer with the cash you made out of mowing the garden or no matter, drop possibly $10 on a few packs, rip them open, then go to your center college to commerce playing cards with your folks. Nobody knew how one can truly play the sport; the playing cards simply regarded cool, and everybody needed one thing. Me? I needed a holographic Charizard, and I’d’ve traded actually something to get my arms on such a rarity.
It was so low-key again within the day. Saying that grosses me out, as I sound like a Boomer or Gen Xer, however it’s true: Amassing Pokemon playing cards wasn’t that severe, and we did not put a lot inventory within the playing cards, stuffing them in baggage or pockets and watching them flip up in washing machines.
Now? Issues are completely totally different. You may’t simply gather Pokemon playing cards as a hobbyist anymore. You have to struggle with scalpers trying to make a fast buck off nostalgia, in addition to the youngsters who’re both entering into the TCG for the primary time or hoping to get one thing tradeable for his or her pals. (I do not decry the youngsters. They are not at fault.)
There have been loads of incidents involving card amassing and violence currently. Robbers stole over $100,000 in uncommon playing cards from a California retailer in December 2025. A special set of robbers made off with practically $120,000 in uncommon playing cards at gunpoint in New York in January 2026. Police broke up a chaotic Costco scene over Prismatic Evolutions in April 2026. And extra just lately, a Connecticut man was arrested for assaulting somebody in a Goal after being confronted for exceeding the shop’s restrict for Pokemon card packs, whereas a 72-year-old Ohio man pleaded responsible to utilizing a GPS tracker to stalk a lady stocking Pokemon playing cards.
I get it–and I do not. The playing cards look cool, with fabulous designs on weighty cardstock. Generally there are alternate variations of the identical card which have a fuller design, like a tiny piece of art work, as a substitute of simply an illustration of the Pokemon that takes up a tiny rectangle. Amassing them for that reason, them being tiny items of art work, is smart.
I additionally perceive the worth of the playing cards, with lots of them going for hundreds–if not thousands–of {dollars} on resale websites like eBay. It is a good way to make some cash on this economic system, particularly in case you have classic playing cards that are not being pressed and printed anymore.
However turning towards violence since you “gotta gather ’em all” or no matter is foolish at greatest and petulant at worst. It is a youngsters’s interest. That is what all of my pals did in center college (though we had been all a fan of Yu-Gi-Oh). I get that Pokemon is celebrating 30 years this 12 months, however there’s completely no cause to resort to violence–like capturing someone–over some illustrated cardstock. In addition to, do these individuals even know how one can play the Pokemon TCG? I did not (nonetheless do not), and neither did my pals rising up.
That is maybe my predominant takeaway from all of those chaotic and violent incidents. Nobody even is aware of how one can play the sport, so why are we taking amassing so severely? The reply is obvious–money–but what we’re robbing is youngsters’ enjoyment of a interest we barely understood ourselves. When you’ll be able to solely take one, you must solely take one. Go away the remaining on your son or daughter. They could be attempting to commerce their pals for that one card to finish their assortment, and that is the actual pleasure.