It's the offshoot of the "everything bubble" during the pandemic, lots of people buying up things that in hindsight were collectible / scarce / worth a lot of money; Pokemon cards and boosters ended up being worth hundreds of thousands, same with sneakers, lego sets, etc.

The market has of course adjusted, lego's bread and butter seems to be high cost items marketed as collector's items. I mean at the same time I'm confident all of these companies are themselves filling up warehouses with the intent of drip-feeding these into the market for low volume, high revenue sales, whilst keeping the actual production run volume of these a closely guarded secret.

It's interesting, I remember comic collecting got really hot in the 90s (after 50s - 70s kids grew up in the silver age of comics). Wonder if every generation's favorite childhood nerd collectibles just hits a point where the generation has real purchasing power, decides to buy that Charizard card they always wanted as a kid, and a bubble develops.

Oh this is a long game? I thought there was an immediate trade/return/game involved. I didn't realize Pokemon had legs like these... so out of the (game) loop.