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Gen Z and Millennial collectors are driving a Pokemon card resurgence, with sold-out anniversary packs reselling at mark-ups as high as 230 per cent and eBay searches up 34 per cent this year.
Pokemon cards are drawing a new generation of collectors, with eBay searches for the franchise up 34 per cent this year and anniversary packs reselling at mark-ups as high as 230 per cent.
Fans queued for hours in the hope of snagging the brand's anniversary pack, which promptly sold out and reappeared on resale platforms like eBay. For 19-year-old Kathy Nguyen, Pokemon and its motley crew of monsters has been a fixture of her life since she first spotted them on the franchise's 1990s television series. I just fell in love with it.
Pokemon Cards Drive New Generation Collectors
And I think it really heightened when I started making friends because of that shared interest, says the commerce and law university student from Sydney. Nguyen used to beg her parents for Pokemon cards to trade with classmates when she was younger. The idea of having these creatures with all these different designs, they kind of just follow you. It is the same idea as having a pet, she says.
Like other collectors, Nguyen displays her favourite cards in a binder as a way of honouring the art. Pokemon employs illustrators, whose names are signed on each card. That is so important now because AI is becoming more normalised in creative mediums. So having this strong appreciation for real artists and their work is really nice to see, she says.
Nguyen was not alive when Pokemon was first dreamt up by Japanese video game designer Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. She is part of a new generation finding fun, friendship and, for some, fortune in the Millennial hobby. The Kiwi-born, Brisbane-based entrepreneur behind trading-card marketplace Fetch believes COVID and the rise of cryptocurrency helped create the perfect storm for the craze. Many people got crypto-wealthy in our demographic and started to invest in what they liked, says Arunthavasothy.
Nostalgia Drives Millennials Into Pokemon Investing
Compared with investing in the sharemarket, collectables like Pokemon cards carry potent cultural currency. It is like owning a piece of your memory. Millennials are suffering from nostalgia, he says. Arunthavasothy turned this passion into a business, launching online trading-card marketplace Fetch in 2023.
The platform also features intellectual property such as the Japanese manga series One Piece. The founder of trading-card event CardCon, Jose Caballero, 22, thinks social media and celebrities are helping amplify the hype and inflate value. Unboxing videos of users displaying their card collections are a major part of the trend. Justin Bieber, Spanish footballer Lamine Yamal and Kim Kardashian are also collectors, according to the report.
It tells the world, hey, wait a minute, Pokemon is a hobby but there is serious money to be made, says Caballero. I know people who have been able to find a house deposit in their parents' attic because they found their binder from when they were a kid and sold it at CardCon, he says. Rachel Schmid, senior manager of collectables at eBay Australia, says Pokemon is a multigenerational fandom.
Millennials grew up with Pokemon in the 1990s and a lot of them regret giving away their collections. But they have kids now and are bringing their family into it, too, she says. Overall Pokemon searches on eBay Australia surged 34 per cent this year. The market has also attracted scalpers and bots creating artificial scarcity, while a sneaker resale bubble burst amid rising inflation and tariffs.
Arunthavasothy has introduced measures like mobile number verification on Fetch to try to ward off bots. Meanwhile, Nguyen took time away from the hobby in 2023 because of surging costs. People I was talking to were very centred on profit. It really takes away from the enjoyment, she says.
Pokemon Card Competition Builds Strategic Communities
Pokemon was a childhood obsession for Jacob Sulte, 16. But as peers grew out of the hobby, Sulte's passion only grew. The Melbourne high schooler has been playing Pokemon competitively for the past few years. It has taken him to tournaments across the country and included a narrow miss at a shot at the World Championships.
The game, Sulte explains, is about strategy and luck. Each card is printed with manoeuvres like attack and special abilities to guide players. One example reads: Pikachu that can generate powerful electricity have cheek sacs that are extra soft and super squishy. Like Nguyen's, his love of Pokemon is not about investment but about the skill and higher-level thinking involved in the game.
Players do not require rare or expensive cards. I think overall competitions are a bit healthier than collecting. People have built up these strong communities and it is all family-friendly as well, he says. The competition helped Sulte forge close friendships, though he admits it gets pretty competitive.
There is a heap of pressure, there are so many people who tune in to these Pokemon livestreams now, hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions around the world, he says. Sulte is in year 10 and his favourite subjects are biology, PE and English.
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theage:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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