Opinion: By Definition, Pokémon TCG Is No Longer A Hobby

A couple of months ago, I opened a pack of Pokémon cards and pulled the super-rare 'Secret Illustration Rare' (SIR) Charizard card.

There’s even a video someone gave me of them rushing up to the commotion. “The $600 Charizard!” you can hear me yelling in the footage. My friends were cheering. It was awesome.

But there’s a big problem with this amazing memory — and it’s twofold.

First off, and embarrassingly, I probably spent a little over $600 chasing this card (even though I didn’t buy anywhere near as many packs as $600 sounds like it should be). Yikes.

But here’s the worst part: I’m still up big.

How is that possible? Traditionally, trading cards are worth oodles on their release day, then drop in value like a brick in just days, if not hours, later. But lately, Pokémon cards have simply cut to the chase when it comes to their long-term values.

It’s wise to not read editorials for up-to-the-minute card prices, but as of this writing, which is only a short few months after this card’s release, this Charizard has a market value of a bit under $900 according to websites that track stuff like that. (That’s somehow already $300 higher than when I pulled it.)

Not only that, but if I were to have the card graded by the most famous trading card authentication and grading service, this Charizard in a 'gem mint' condition is currently fetching barely under $2,500!

So why do I consider that “the worst part”?

Well, because it’s not healthy for so many brand new, non-serialised cards like this Charizard to be worth thousands of dollars, is why. The ramifications for the product are damning.

Even compared to the infamous pandemic years, Pokémon fans can totally forget about finding cards in stores these days; adults are brawling in the aisles of stores, all while bots scrape the internet before you can buy cards online. Meanwhile, entire cottage industries have risen around ripping packs, mystery repackages, and famous (and infamous) card streamers.

Heard of the term 'recession indicator'? If ever there was one, the Pokémon TCG is it. Pokémon TCG should no longer be considered merely a fun hobby people like; it’s firmly a critical part of the world economy. And it’s acting like it.

By the Numbers

While it feels like Pokémon TCG has been non-stop booming for decades now, if you haven’t been paying attention over the past year and a half especially, the overall trading card market is now on a new level. It’s an unprecedented economic level, in fact.

This figure has been oft-reported recently but bears repeating: according to an index by Collectors (the parent company of professional grading company PSA), Pokémon card values collectively rose 282% between the years of 2004-2020, with most of that rise happening near the end, around the pandemic.

CNBC reports that the same index shows an out-of-this-galaxy 1,350% increase between 2020’s high and today.

Here’s a good way to visualise that increase. Below is a screenshot of TCGPlayer.com’s “Top 10 most expensive Pokémon cards” end-of-year recap from 2023, a snapshot in time well into Pokémon’s post-COVID renaissance. (Note: TCG Player is the de facto trading card marketplace, whose data is what much of the world derives a card’s market value from.)

In 2023, the top card pullable from a regular pack ended the year averaging resales around $115. Almost every single top chase of 2023 was reselling for no more than double digits.

Now here’s their same list recapping the end of 2025:

By 2025, top chases sat comfortably at hundreds, not dozens. The most expensive card, the Umbreon SIR, ended the year averaging over $1,000 resale (it’s way higher today). And indicative of this being a trend versus a handful of outliers, many sets released that year featured several cards worth hundreds, not just one or two.

Roughly one out of ten Pokémon cards that have ever existed was printed in 2025.

All the while, countless chases from years previous didn’t just rise, but compounded in value. In one high-profile example, the fan-dubbed 'Bubble Mew' card from 2024 spent a year comfortably at around $80 resale, yet today is reselling at ~$850.

Also, as you can see, that Charizard from the top of the article has nearly doubled in value already, and cards like the popular 'Eeeveelution' variants are similarly bonkers. And do you even want to know what the top cards released in 2026 are doing?

Well, too bad, because a Pokémon card value article wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that, as of this writing, the straight-out-of-the-pack resale prices of 2026’s 'Pikachu EX' and 'Mega Gengar EX' SIRs are both well over $1,350. And there are way too many cards to list from 2026 that are worth hundreds apiece, too.

If I may speak directly to you here, just for a moment: chat, we’re cooked.

What does this mean for The Hobby™?

It’s not really breaking news to sit here and report, “Number Big!” I get it. We are all numb to reading things like this.

Instead, what I wish to put out into the universe is not that this fervour should be thought of as some kind of moral failing, nor merely to say that long-time, empty-handed fans deserve better than this. (They do, by the way.)

“Recently I started speaking up online about how difficult it’s becoming for younger collectors and families to get Pokémon products because of scalping, products selling out instantly, and release systems that many kids simply can’t access,” says Oscar, a 12-year-old fan who wrote to Nintendo Life about his experience as a young collector.

“As someone who is autistic, this hobby helped me make friends, build confidence and feel accepted…I’ve seen videos of people arguing and fighting over Pokémon cards outside toy shops…I don’t think that’s the environment kids should have to be around just to enjoy a hobby.”

Agreed, but sadly I think it’s time that we all stop thinking of the Pokémon TCG as just a hobby. Because regardless of how we wish to engage with it, by definition, it really isn’t anymore.

There’s hardly anything more imperious than someone bringing dictionary definitions to a debate, but I worry Pokémon fans have been like frogs on a stove for so long that we’ve lost the plot. Thus, it’s actually worth mentioning how Merriam-Webster defines 'hobby': “a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in, especially for relaxation.” The Cambridge dictionary defines it as: “an activity that you do for pleasure when you are not working”.

Pokémon TCG can be pleasurable and exciting, but playing, buying — heck, even absorbing Pokémon TCG from a distance — is hardly passive anymore. It frequently requires job-like dedication at all levels, casual to professional. (The high amount of children who can rattle off up-to-the-minute market values is at least a little disturbing.)

Those circus clips of adults fighting may have overwritten our memories, but remember that even as recently as just over a year ago, the average person could walk into a store and still find something related to the Pokémon TCG, or at least they might in due time. Cards were expensive, but they weren’t expensive. Graded cards, both modern and vintage alike, were worth hundreds.

Yet today, no non-distributor can consistently get cards, because in mint condition, many brand new (not decades old) chases are worth down-payments on cars and houses. 'Hobby' is now a misnomer.

But it’s just a bubble, right?

Is this the new normal? The word 'bubble' gets thrown around a lot, but the problem with that theory is that this isn’t just happening with Pokémon.

Pokémon TCG is now in a symbiotic and inexorable relationship with the aftermarket

'Luxury collectables', which used to logically mean things like turn-of-the-century comics and cards, movie memorabilia, etc., are all on the rise, despite a general economic downturn globally. Even stuff like brand new trading cards from the anime One Piece have skyrocketed, and are competing against Pokémon’s market share, originating cards worth thousands out of those packs, too.

And of course, sports cards remain a massive force, which is no surprise, especially as sports gambling has become shockingly common, a money-milking practice now officially endorsed by various professional sports leagues around the world.

All of this has roughly coincided with, let’s just call it, the recent events of a year and a half ago. Laws on American markets have become deregulated, all while people continue to lose jobs to AI, wealth inequality remains swollen, cryptocurrencies are exploding in value, the world is still grappling with the after-effects of inflation, gas prices make no sense, and on and on and on.

In other words, 'uncertainty'.

But Pokémon? Well, that’s at least one small thing in this crazy world that the market can still feel certain about. So here we are.

Because, unlike in the late '90s, when fads like Beanie Babies, Pogs, and yes, Pokémon cards ruled the world, especially before the internet, there wasn’t such an overeliance on after-markets for the livelihoods of so, so many people. Many streamers, resellers, expos, websites, pseudo-celebrities, actual celebrities, and others now often rely on collectables — especially Pokémon cards — to literally make a living.

And crucially, Pokémon TCG is now in a symbiotic and inexorable relationship with the aftermarket. It benefits heavily from the free exposure, the goliath grading industry, the endless market watching apps and online videos, and the tango between distributors and resellers, all of which help keep the fire burning. Nothing grows a crowd like a crowd.

While people used to openly celebrate whenever someone could quit their job to continue doing a YouTube channel or to run a card shop full-time, it feels a little dystopian to realise that, for many, Pokémon cards are genuinely the best (or only) economic choice right now.

Uh… so now what?

If all this sounds like stress, a bummer, hard work, and like it requires your full attention just to keep up with it…well, it does.

You know, unlike a hobby.

And don’t parse this too closely. Of course you can still enjoy and even love Pokémon in a similar way as anything that’s been consumed by money; hunting for singles and packs, or watching people rip packs on YouTube for free is fun. I still do it. The chase is exciting.

But it’s the constant handwringing about scalpers and the bemoaning of supply and demand on Reddit that suggests fans are still stuck in 2015. All those things suck, but unfortunately, it’s not going back to the way it was; Pokémon is the most popular IP in the world.

Loving Pokémon is like loving caviar. If you’re someone like me who wants to buy packs every now and again, or god forbid, play the damn game, you’d be far more well-adjusted if you accepted this is now a Herculean undertaking. And god help you if you’re attempting to masterset any of the increasingly bigger and bigger sets The Pokémon Company has been putting out to capitalise on all this.

Yet if you still think this is going to go back to the old days eventually, here’s one final, sobering way to contextualise what’s likely to come next: The Pokémon Company reportedly printed 10 billion cards in 2025 alone. (Yes, with a “b”.) And they’ve printed 42 billion since 2022. But before 2022, the number of Pokémon cards that had ever been printed was 43 billion.

That means that in just four short years, they’ve nearly matched the amount of cards made during the first 25 years combined, and that still hasn’t been nearly enough to keep up with the demand. Roughly one out of ten Pokémon cards that have ever existed was printed in 2025.

I once incorrectly wrote that there was “no demographic for $20 packs.” I was completely wrong. It turns out, based on the normalisation of these sustained 5-to-10x prices for well over a year now, anyone who’s ever bought a pack before the last couple of years might not have represented the norm, judging the market by total volume of sales.

Freakishly, as the majority of lifetime sales have occurred only in the last few years, typical Pokémon fans could be considered 'early adopters' to the collectables market, which now is among the most reliable global markets in the face of economic uncertainty everywhere else. Pikachu? That’s the name of our new speculative currency.

So, in light of all of this skyrocketing growth, you may be wondering what I’m going to do with my four-digit Charizard card. Will I sell it and make a big profit, or will I keep it as a point of pride?

Reader, I think all of us are wondering the same exact thing.