Many students may remember playing with Pokémon cards or watching the television show as kids, but a recent resurgence in the franchise’s popularity has led to a shift in the way the community interacts with Pokémon. Junior Cody Soo has developed a newfound interest in the hobby.
Junior Cody Soo first started collecting and playing the Pokémon trading card game as a young child, but lost interest after he was around ten years old, he said. He recently restarted the trading card collection hobby, and has seen several trends that led to the rise in popularity, he said.
“The Pokémon company, this year, started to release a lot more different sets,” Soo said. “They increased their prices by triple or quadruple the value of the cards. They also made their cards in different languages, which allowed other countries to also sell it. This got a lot of players interested in it (Pokémon), and that’s why they got into it.”
The physical card collection hobby also developed further as people turned to gain more than just nostalgia from the hobby, he said.
“Since the cards got a lot more expensive, a lot of people found out that they could possibly ‘gamble’ with this and buy packs to resell,” he said.
Freshman Gaia Tanzarella also interacts with the franchise by playing the digital card game on her phone, she said.
“It’s basically just a digital version of the physical card game,” Tanzarella said. “Most people can just save money if they have a gambling addiction; they could just play the digital game instead. So they don’t have to spend money on this (Pokemon) addiction.”
The digital version is not without its other differences and similarities compared to the regular physical cards, Soo said.
“Obviously, you have to pay for the real physical cards, and both of them are based on luck,” Soo said. “Trading, you can trade online and in person. But battling is the same;, basically online is kind of the same as in real life, but you just don’t have to pay money for it.”
The resale market has taken a large jump in recent times, Soo said.
“When cards start to increase in value, a lot of people start to buy them,” he said. “And obviously, with an increase in popularity and production, then Pokémon decided to take advantage of this and print more cards, make new cards, new versions of the cards, and this got more people interested and making them want to collect more of it.”
Soo has had below-average luck with his trading card pulls, he said.
“I think this year, I’d say I spent around $400 to $500 on cards,” Soo said. “Not the best luck, but I was able to resell it for a few hundred, but I still lost money in the process.”