The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questions are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
To me it is based on the intent when purchasing it. A kid game is going to be something immediate while an adult hobby is going to be something that is planned across a longer time period. But i guess thats for collecting since its also very adult if you are trying to flip cards for profit. I suppose if that is what you are doing it becomes more of an adult interaction if you are including all costs and not only focused on the immediate value received.
When it goes from trading and sharing $1-20 cards in the schoolyard with your friends to fighting over who has the most inches of signed NDA’s, mystery boxes, grading standards, MJ holding delivery schedules, consignment rates, shadow businesses, pseudo-legal gambling vehicles and elaborate pyramid schemes over $1.000.000-1.000.000.000’s worth of cardstock representing an array of tortured childhood memories turned business empire.
I used to play Pokemon as a kids game, purely because I was a child. This involved having fun and not much of an idea what to do. My pokemon games consisted of catching everything and literally just spamming the highest DPS I could find. When I was in my teens learning about IVs and EVs changed this as well as shiny hunting.
For card collecting as a child it was buy packs, play with them, reorgainse binders and have zero consideration for condition whilst having fun. Then again, in my teens I was more considerate about not wasting money gambling on cards I didn’t want. I put more money into singles and taking much better care of them.
Educating myself and absorbing as much information as I could going deeper into the rabbit holes from both aspects of the games and cards helped shape it from just a kids game to a much more in depth and mature hobby.
I think from a collector perspective where money is involved it seems like an adult thing. However, every aspect of Pokemon can be enjoyed by adults as much as by kids. Pokemon still heavily markets the games for kids so if that changes, then maybe it will move towards a more adults only hobby.
I would have to agree with when its about money. The little Pokémon collectors in my life do not care about financial aspects, they just collect what they like, and enjoy the surprise of opening packs. The only exception is when they ask for “Umbreon playing with the moon” and I say nope, too expensive
When they start buying for nostalgia because last I checked kid nostalgia would be “man I remember the good old days where swsh was in rotation” ya that’s because that was a couple years ago
I never played/watched Pokemon as a kid So it’s always been an adult hobby for me lol. I’d say it has a lot to do with age, because as you mature you have more money to spend on your hobbies and time to plan ahead, make spreadsheets as others said, dive into the deep ends of niche or unique cards, etc.
Hopefully Pokemon as a company doesn’t stop marketing to kids though. I think that’ll really shift the vibes of the playing/collection space, probably for the worse.
I stopped calling it a “children’s card game” in 2020, and I don’t think that’s a true statement anymore. At every level, Pokemon is dominated by adults. Adults are the main consumers, and while I believe it’s extremely important for pokemon to maintain its family friendliness and appeal to children, children are no longer the majority demographic for this franchise in any category.
The maturity level of those adults is another topic.
The first time I saw this image was when I would run home to catch Boomerang rerunning Indigo League, and now I run team builders and speed calculations for Drayano romhacks. Is that adult, or is it autism, who can say?
So it’s always been an adult hobby for me lol. I’d say it has a lot to do with age, because as you mature you have more money to spend on your hobbies and time to plan ahead, make spreadsheets as others said, dive into the deep ends of niche or unique cards, etc.
