I have to disagree with this one…
Pokémon TCG, as Magic, where card games made to play.
At the beginning, few people were collecting. I remember, as a child, playing hard in my school’s playground without sleeves… I bought cards to have as many decks as possible and all my friends did the same.
We were all in love with the medal system and the shop tournaments!
And it is thanks to this, that Pokémon TCG has an organic collectability. Without it, old cards will probably have no such value.
Now it is mostly a collectible TCG, with many fewer players than collectors. But that has been a natural evolution.
I’m preparing a complete article about organic collectability. I hope to have it finished in less than 2 weeks.
Although I think we talked about it in the comments of my first article: Stages in a Collectible’s Lifetime and in which can we place Pokemon TCG
On the other hand, I agree with the fact that Pokémon TCG is not just a TCG game… There’s a whole franchise behind it that has been pushing and that has given Pokémon TCG an incredible advantage over the rest.