Had a yard sale recently. Household items were poor sellers. What did sell? Tools to older men. Collectibles, comics, vintage games to young men. Never seen that before.
Radio was talking about this being the age of "2nd hand shopping"...
At first I didn't get it, but then they explained the abundance or quality, durable items like tools and hardwood furniture that boomers were downsizing out of.
Like I don't need many tools most days, but a decent power saw/drill etc, at a good price?... I will find room.
Yup. Furnished a good chunk of our home and tools from estate sales. By me they’re huge year round. But not in some other areas I’ve been to for some reason.
So many wood working tools and the like. Like 1/3 homes near me seems to have a whole wood shop in their basements. Even down to drill press and all sorts of other things I can’t fathom needing often.
And the furniture is solid wood and we love all of it
Definitely agreed my GF and I are shopping at thrift stores and the flea market way more mostly because the gap between price and quality is just insane now for almost everything. I’d rather buy something slightly older and way more reliable for a fraction of the price
I'd love to see the buy nothing movement really take off (and it's clearly on the rise already). the rate at which we actually need to replace all the stuff in the world is way lower than the rate at which we are making new stuff. for example, there's already enough clothing in existence for everyone on earth, and while clothes don't last forever, we are certainly making them much faster than they wear out.
we probably don't need any more screwdrivers or hammers for a long time if we just connect the people that have them and don't need them with the people that need them and don't have them.
Yeah, we should stop making screwdrivers until the day comes you can't find yours. As long as there are multiple kinds of screws and screw heads in this world, we will always need more screwdrivers.
“Taken together, the picture isn’t of one generation choosing to stay young. It’s of a fault line running through the middle of it — one side accumulating wealth and square footage the way boomers once did, the other renting a childhood, a nostalgic movie ticket, or a Magic booster pack because it’s the only kind of ownership still within reach.”
Exactly. My husband has a group of friends he plays magic with every week, and all of them are multi millionaires. It's replaced poker for him, which I think is nice. He can play Magic with the kids too.
This is the truth. A way to be social with friends. Not drinking, not gambling, and somehow cheaper than my golf and cycling habits (IDK why I picked all the expensive hobbies).
There have always been grown people playing Magic. I started playing back in high school and the OGs at tournaments were often successful professionals whom enjoyed the game and had played since they were in school.
We had a friend that had stopped playing magic for about 15 years - then he was in the area just after Covid and did not want to go out to pubs drinking. So we introduced him to commander.
Now every time he is up in our area to visit his folks its catching a quick meal together and then all settling down to several games. Guy got pulled back hard into his cardboard Crack addiction.
Magic is only expensive if you go all unhinged and buy shit tons of it or try to be competitive. Most people just buy a starter pack and a precon and have fun with that. Costs about as much as a couple of nights out.
Even if you dump a stupid irresponsible amount into the hobby, say $5000, you are no where close to a down-payment on a house. This is avocado toast all over again.
Eh it’s kinda like a cigarette habit imho. You can control yourself, but hanging around other smokers encourages more smoking.
The inevitable cycle of my various Magic friends group was that someone would always end up doing the tourney thing, and then it would poison casual play since that dude would beat everyone due to having better cards.
It felt liberating to leave it behind a decade ago around Innistrad.
I mostly stopped going out to the bars as a gainfully employed adult. I then used this extra income to get really into Magic. It’s a super fun way to meet up with friends and do something besides drink.
I think the real story is the proliferation of high value collector boosters turning into another form of gambling.
No, the article has 0 data suggesting that poorer millennials are the ones buying card games and toys. The data it provides says young adults in general are doing this, then concluding it must be because of the wealth gap. There's no evidence of this.
Correct. It’s not proving anything, it’s interpreting data and suggesting a possible explanation, not a definitive one, hence the language in the article like - “the Magic boom looks less like arrested development and more like one half of that split cohort spending its way through a delayed adulthood it can’t otherwise afford to enter.”
It’s not the Magic boom “is” but that it’s “like.” He then proceeds to back up this interpretation with the other data in the article, specifically with the delayed adulthood and wealth gap measures.
So, once again. Referencing population samples to interpret data is astronomically less “dumb” than anecdotal evidence. Not only that, but if you were to use anecdotal evidence, walk into any game store and sample the players there. Your sample of 5 read like outliers. My sample of 15 fit into the article’s interpretation perfectly, yet that doesn’t mean the article is any more or less accurate than it is. They’re just data points from small samples, they provide even less proof or value than the article.
I’ve been card gaming for decades. There’s no sample of card gamers you could take that would support the authors explanation of the data set. Card gamers have always been on average upper middle class.
fwiw vested players often have collections 20+ years old and it's not like the cardboard ceases to function. My purchases of booster product have gone down greatly (I used to get a box of every set, I haven't done that in years now), but I buy singles from the local shops pretty consistently.
The nice thing about magic is that there are many ways to play and if you ever want to get out there is a whole market for people looking to buy and sell
It's definitely been struck with enshittification in various ways, but it's also one of the most widely played card games on the planet. It has some built in sustainability due to that market share
>fwiw vested players often have collections 20+ years old and it's not like the cardboard ceases to function
That's only partially true. I've got a Legacy deck that I spent years putting together starting back when I was still in school. While yes, the cardboard still exists one of the key cards of the deck has been banned and the overall archetype has been horrifically power crept thanks to non-standard sets. The only reason I haven't sold it off is cuz I don't have the heart to sell something I spent so long working on and have so many happy memories of
I have played a few commander nights and as long as it is with friends I know its fine but damn I don't like.
It's basically impossible to keep track of the board state. Triggers triggering triggers from 4 different players. Responses to responses, side negotiations. One game I had a player say "so I draw 9 and make 30 treasures" and I just did not have the energy to try and understand how that was happening so I just said "Ya sure. Why not?"
Price of product and price of singles are not the same thing. A lot of older “staples” are the same or lower priced due to power creep creating viable replacements
I have multiple complete sets of fetchlands from the Khans block. Each over $20 per card when I left. The local shop offered me less than half of what they were worth less than a year ago and they told me exactly that.
I didn't sell. And now I will never get into the game again. The people thinking it is an investment like gold are... Sorely mistaken.
At best a store will buy at 60%value. Usually it's cost to 40%. They gotta pay for staff, storage, shipping, etc so outside of extreme outliers where they can turn a profit quickly its just not feasible to offer more. If you want highest personal profit you have to do the selling yourself. Selling to the shop is for convenience
I mean sure but that seems like a tangential complaint about the quality of the gameplay (a conversation I'm invested in when it's on the magic subs, but perhaps not on the economics sub).
Financially speaking though, I suspect that even a powercrept archetype leaves you in a fine spot – the reserve list cards that dominate the price of a fresh have certainly held up just fine, and the other commenter's point that you can exit at the drop of a hat still stands.
> The nice thing about magic is that there are many ways to play and if you ever want to get out there is a whole market for people looking to buy and sell
This is what boomers thought about coin and stamp collecting.
Yeah if you look at some of the magic subs you can learn how to spot fakes based on some printing details. As for the second part theres nothing stopping them except for it devaluing their own brand which is definitely a debate these days with the amount of sets they are producing every year.
Coming from 40k where the community is 95% friendly to printed models, which as a significantly higher barrier to entry than printing proxy magic cards in sleeves, I wonder why so many people buy MTG cards instead of just proxying. If making a 3d printed model was was as easy running an inkjet printer I would near never buy a real GW plastic kit.
I don't really play MTG more than twice a year with friends but if I had to guess, sanctioned events don't allow it. Wizards of the Coast is not going to allow that kind of hit to their bottom line. And they've created a strong community around official events in partnerships with game stores. The game stores benefit from the foot traffic and card shopping.
Also, lots of folks with expensive real cards are leary of playing with folks who proxy everything. Anyone who's proxying everything is considered highly suspect.
I'm not being obtuse. Legitimately what would they be concerned with? My real plastic 40k kit doesn't change if someone has the same model printed in resin or filament. Edited text? Theft?
It's because of theft. Expensive deck in dragonshields, proxy deck in drsgonshields, and there goes your underground sea. Folks carelessly walk off with other people's cards all the time, but people with expensive cards tend to be more careful.
They can print the most powerful cards and annihilate everyone else.
In reality if you're playing Commander it's not an issue because there's generally a pregame chat about what power level people's decks are. I don't proxy but I have no problem with anyone that does once they're sticking to a certain bracket.
For me it is more fun to search for real cards. I like being limited to what i can find and somewhat to what isn't super expensive. The only cards worth more than about $10 or $15 in any of my decks are either cards i pulled from a pack, traded for, or bought before they spiked. It provides the additional challenge of building with what you have/can afford.
That said i play against proxy decks every week at the LGS and my weekly home game. Both places are super proxy friendly in casual games. It's a really cool way to play with expensive pieces you can't get or don't have. It's just less fun for me than either pulling from my bulk or going to dig at the lgs.
I completely understand this approach. I like deal hunting for models and have built whole armies from buying cheap used models and printing expensive or rare ones.
Been there since day one and the last 4 months have been nuts. I switched from baseball cards to lorcana because I wanted to get in on the ground floor of a TCG. Main driver was that TCG has utility and Baseball was revealing itself as a cash cow for Topps and money pit for anyone without self control. It's pure gambling and they exploit it. Now lorcana is seen as an "investment" because scalpers hoard product and artificially drive up prices. The entire asset class of collectibles has felt like a bubble since COVID.
Things like TCGs and Lego will hold some value though because their utility as entertainment through building decks and mocs will be more resilient han others while some will be a new version of beanie babies. At least with something like Lego my $0.06 piece from ten years ago works with my $0.10 from today and will continue to work with the $0.15 piece I'll buy in 10 years.
I am one of those 20+ year player and collectors. I started buying and playing in 1995. I've taken a few breaks since then. Longest being about 7 years but that's not a barrier to playing. While I don't own cards worth hundreds of thousands, my collection has grown in value slowly year after year. I recently jumped back in with my two teenagers a few months ago. Sold off about 3 dozen cards and purchased all kinds of newer sets, singles, draft nights, booster boxes, etc. I've managed to get both my boys actively collecting and playing now, which is fabulous for spending time together.
The main thing is it's free to play if you already have cards. If you don't you don't have to own millions in cards to play. You can simply spend 40 bucks, put together a deck or two and have a blast. It's cheap fun during a time when every-fucking-thing on the planet cost entirely too much.
Yep. My kid and some friends found magic on their own and started asking to go to fnm to draft, instead of movies. They started going to gps, winning and trading, got into legacy and old school through trades, and have built substantial collections over the years. It's definitely a hobby where if you are willing to play competitively, and challenge yourself to become a better player, the hobby can fund itself and even become lucrative.
I quit a number of years ago after an incident that resulted in some of my decks being lost. I didn’t want to pay to refill it all when even back then wallet warriors would do customs online for two turn kills. Nowadays it feels like a franchise cash grab with no real add to experience. Rather go back to my friends and I making fake cards after fandoms as unofficial
I find it enjoyable enough and you can play it for free. However because of how easy it is to make tier 1 decks the power level is much higher than kitchen table MTG. Moles and Kavaero mess with the meta way too much.
Arena is a lot of fun if you're not very competitive about it and you just want to play a game or two every once in a while. It doesn't take much just playing for free to be able to basically afford anything you want to craft, if you want to put some hours into it. I played for maybe 5-10 games a day for a few months a couple years ago, and the currency I made doing that has left me with basically enough to live off of forever
Arena is a lot of fun if you don't care about competitiveness. Then again, I'd generally say that competitive Magic in any format is a pretty miserable experience
I never cared about the competitiveness but winning once in a while without having a current meta deck is nice. I got really annoyed that, say, everyone I'd come up against was playing blue mill/counter decks this month because it's the current meta.
That’s fair. You can also jump over to historic if you want to escape the meta a bit. Downside is you’ll find a fair number of people playing decks based around silly combos that cheat out 10 mana cards on turn 3, but honestly it’s not that bad. I only play my own janky decks there and I definitely win at least 50%
Print proxies and play your fav constructed with friends sounds like the way to go these days. Fuck Hasbro. I like the idea of block constructed. The fun of magic isn't improved by power creep and there are more than enough cards to entertain myself.
From Gemini: Because it contains no proprietary card artwork or trademarks out of the box—relying instead on users importing public data—Cockatrice operates in a unique space that has allowed it to survive and thrive as a community playtesting staple for over a decade.
Honestly my favorite days with the game were in high school. My friends and I would play casually before class started, on half days we would walk to this card shop nearby and browse the cheap (un)commons, the occasional odd booster going out somewhere.
I remember when I was like 15 and took my MtG cards to highschool to play with my friends. A girl that I liked back then saw me doing so and said that I was too old to be playing children games. I sold all my cards by the end of the week to impress her. She never even knew about it.
They started deluding the mtg world with marvel superhero shit. I wasn't into spiderman in the first place. Just not that interested in contributing to another cash grab that's enshittifying everything
This is a weird read of the data and the state of the hobby that collapses to something more like well-intentioned nerd shaming than informed analysis. I say well-intentioned because I agree with the author’s broad policy point, that the basics of “adult” life — house, car, daycare, college… — are increasingly unaffordable. Magic even illustrates part of the problem! But not in the way the author thinks.
What we actually see in Magic is a growing stratification — companies tiering their products through premium offerings designed to catch wealthy buyers (fewer customers, higher margins), rather than products priced and marketed for mass appeal (more customers, smaller margins). That’s a cross-economy trend we see in everything from air travel to LEGO, as they say. And it’s downstream of rampant inequality, which the author nods to. But it means the ones driving record Magic sales are the rich “whales” with strong incomes — not middle- to lower-income folks chasing a retro border foil over a down-payment.
TLDR: The folks who can’t afford houses aren’t the ones driving collectible mania. How could they be?
Some sorta street kid I knew heard someone making fun of mtg and was like “magic gave me everything I have”, probably his pivot to nerdom. Anyway, he’s one of the more successful rags to riches stories in my city and obv owns a house too
Apparently a Millennial at the very top end, who can still achieve the full-fledged traditional American dream and grow a ton of wealth like the Boomers did.
Enshitification, misinformation, class warfare, and pretty much seeing childhood memories turn to cash grabs and just no one happy… naw just keep us out of it.
Bro, who do you think is doing all the these things? Boomers, with a few exceptions, are at death door as far running businesses and commanding the economy are concerned. They aren't the current crop of CEOs and oligarchs. What generation do you think Bezos, Theil, and Musk are? Arguably, Gen X is the cause of this entire mess, either through their voting record, leadership of these companies, or how "well" they've raised Gen Z.
The dirty little secret is it's not one generations fault - "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times,...." and all that jazz.
Bezos, Thiel, Musk and Trump are all spoiled little children with egos the size of Trumps fat ass and the first to throw others under the bus for their own mistakes - textbook definitions of weak men. Not to mention Elon's lil emerald mine and all the fucking handouts Trump has gotten to get to the where the fuck he is.
But go ahead - keep blaming each other - that's what spoiled children are best at doing, causing infighting.
Okay I’d like to add to this, please keep us out of this, but also to my fellow Gen-X’ers… we’re still voting progressive to help these kids out, right? We can be left alone, but let’s not be exactly like the fucking boomers. Captain Planet taught us better than that.
Shame on our Gen then. We should know better. ET taught us empathy, John Waters taught us to accept LGBTQ+, Bush Jr and Michael Moore should have taught us to hate war and corrupt capitalism, and Captain Planet it should have taught us to take care of the planet.
You're not wrong, but I have only gotten more radically left as I get older. And I was born the first year of Gen X. So yes I am an exception and this fucked up world is not my fault.
I am at the tail end of X but I have only become more and more progressive with age. I'll come out of my trauma-hole to help with the fight against fascists anytime.
Well have you seen how much our childhood trading cards are worth!? Could've had a whole down payment if it weren't for one bad trade when I was like 11.
This is so silly. I’m a younger millennial who enjoys playing magic, but it’s far from my core hobby. I spend maybe 2-3k per year on it and it’s a blast playing with some of my friends once per month.
I also have 6x my income saved for my retirement, take 6+ vacations per year, and go out on weekends with friends. It’s not an either or… we’re in our mid 30s to 40s which is the highest earning years of our lives. It’s not surprising we can own houses, have expensive hobbies, and live a very good life. Most of my friends are in the same boat (most are not magic players, but the ones that are do things like I do).
Not to mention people that play magic are typically “nerds” which are usually in tech or tech adjacent careers which are high paying.
I have 3 kids, i make good money. I have a retirement, paid off cars, I own a house. I golf weekly at a country club I belong to. I also play magic with my friends on Monday nights (online) and Friday nights (at a local bar). I can’t imagine putting people who enjoy this hobby in a weird box like the quoted excerpt does.
It's typical opinion writer BS. They're so focused on coming to a grand conclusion about the topic that the actual evidence barely matters. "Millenials are playing Magic instead of buying homes" is the same nonsense as avocado toast but it barely matters. The people who agree with that conclusion will continue to agree because it reinforces their preconceived biases.
The plural of anecdote is not data. The nerds you're exposed to might be in high paying tech jobs, but there are plenty who aren't. Many are too damn autistic to hold down any job (or to get a job they can hold down).
This is how i feel. Local cafe that sell $7 lattes and $6 croissants (canadian $) are jammed pack because that is the few small luxuries ppl can still afford even though they are not the best deals
This is a brutal read. It makes sense though, so many are just priced out and don’t have the means to get where they need to be and are well into their adulthoods and feel hopeless.
Hijacking top-thread to post the no-paywall link, because its actually a good article about how millenials are being blocked from the usual adult milestones and how thats affecting other parts of the economy, not how they're wasting house money on avocado toast:
"
For two decades, the U.S. homeownership rate has functioned as a scoreboard of generational progress. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that scoreboard was miscounting the game entirely.
Economist Erik Hembre and colleagues built a new measure — the homeowners-to-population ratio, or HPOP — that counts individual adults rather than housing units, and found the real national homeownership rate is closer to 53%, not the widely cited 65%.
For adults under 35, the gap is far more severe: the standard rate claims 37% owned their home in 2024, but HPOP puts the true figure at just 22%, because the old measure only counts household heads — about a third of all adults in that age bracket.
“More than one in 10 U.S. adults live in owner-occupied homes without actually being owners themselves,” Hembre and co-authors Benjamin Horowitz and Maxine Xu found, pegging that figure at 13.9% nationally. Nine percent of all U.S. adults 18 and older live in an owner-occupied home as the child of the owner — a number that surprised even Hembre. “To me, that’s a big number, and I didn’t know it was that large beforehand,” he told Fortune last week."
Here's with no paywall, for everyone ragging on it without reading:
https://archive.is/0WCQQ
Its actually a pretty good article. Its not dumping on millenials for buying avocado toast instead of houses, its laying out how starkly they're being blocked from the major markers of adulthood -- home ownership, stable career, children -- and how the money they do have is being re-diverted instead, and the corresponding drop in other purchases, like children's toys.
Yes, you're right, but as usual it is a one-sided article with a thesis statement and it kind of ignores what's been going on with the supply side of the markets
I was just talking to my mom about this. I'm a millennial and have been a tcg player on and off my whole life and I have a lot to say about the recent tcg boom. I'm working retail right now but I'd say I'm better off than most people my age because of my mom's generosity and wealth.
I can't read the article but one really sad thing I noticed is that some of the poorest people are trying to gamble / "invest" in tcgs as a side hustle and I always want to tell them it's not like houses or anything, the value for most cards is determined by the company because they can always reprint just about anything if they want to or are desperate enough. There is also powercreep etc and lots of weird backroom stuff like weighing packs etc.
Of course not everyone is getting into tcgs out of financial desperation but when you are on food stamps I feel like it's a huge gamble to try scalping etc. Just talking about something really sad I've been seeing.
You need Capital and Connections for scalping and you need Capital and Patience for collecting. Connections to help buyout local supply before regulars can buy. Patience for collectors because the best margin comes in waiting on some cards becoming 'antique/vintage' (ie original printings are worth more).
Poor people will generally lack all three of these things (patience due to a financial insecurity)
You are overthinking it. When these people come in to my discount store they are not pro scalpers or side hustle scalpers, they come in for other stuff then buy cards along with the stuff they get with food stamps and no they don't even have kids most of the time. Really sad stuff.
My store will sell stuff like Pokemon etbs every once in awhile and boom some people will go and gamble on those even though they can't afford groceries.
And my point is you can't really turn a profit on these things unless you escalate to the pro level which the poor can't do.
Side-Hustle people are what actual scalpers (and more asshole vendors) call suckers
If you are talking about people buying those packs to play than even the poor are entitled to some sort of entertainment. Better than all the drug addicts on food stamps at least.
Oh yeah true that's what I meant. Yeah people are entitled to entertainment but I don't mean those people, I mean people who are only "investing" but are just getting scammed and gambling.
>Better than all the drug addicts on food stamps at least.
Ask yourself why you don't use drugs. It's the same answer I and every other non-user gives: They are bad for me. It's never that they are illegal or expensive. Drug addiction can't be addressed by demonizing users or having laws that ensure the only way to fund that addiction is through criminal activity then throwing people in prison when they do exactly what we designed the system to encourage them to do. If it could be solved that way, it would have been solved a century ago. Yet, we still keep attempting to solve it that way.
His point is they are not buying them to play. They are buying them thinking they will find a rare card somehow then sell it, and they are to dumb to know they can’t easily turn a profit but they think if they hit a rare card they will make bank. Even though they can’t even afford food.
The people who thought that investing in recent TCG sets can be some kind of get-rich-scheme are hilarious to me. You're not going to find some kind of $10,000 card in a recently released TCG set. And even just the high-value cards that are several dozen or several hundred bucks are also probably not gonna net you a profit in the long run with how much money you'll statistically have to spend to open them in the first place.
Though I'm pretty sure a lot of these people at this point are just straight up scalping the products without even opening them in the first place.
Idk, I think each generation has their own random collectable / hobbyist things they spend money on that would appear irrational to everyone not into it. I don't think its anything to do with wanting to "stay young," it was just a thing that was popular when they were kids that stuck with them. You could probably point to a lot of things older people did when they were in their 30s that we could view as "for old people" just because they continue to do it now as older people, or was viewed as childish by an even older generation. The stats themselves about inequality and future generations earning and having less than previous are revealing.
I know many will disagree, but look at sports. Older people didn’t have toys and Magic cards, but they might have played sports. Decades after no longer being able to play, they may still watch it. There’s nothing inherently adult about sports; they’re games that were invented to pass the time and have now progressed far beyond the original intention. People in their 30s and 40s just have way more fun options from their childhood that still exist for them as adults.
My parents' generation, but especially my grandparents' generation, played a huge amount of cards. Bridge, Canasta, Spades, Hearts, Euchre, Poker (mostly just the men, though) etc. They had weekly (later monthly) games into their 80's.
My siblings and I all played when we were kids, but then there was D&D and other roleplaying games and then board games, and we liked these better.
Nostalgia marketing is like a continuous, long term subgenre of marketing. It feels out of control now because a lot of companies are so all in on profit maximizing that they've become risk averse toward new products. It's easier to endlessly remake something you KNOW people like than it is to take a swing and possibly come up empty handed.
But make no mistake basically every modern nostalgia market right now has an analogue that existed decades ago. For every pokemon card craze there was a baseball card collection craze. For every labubu there was a beanie baby. For every B2K reunion tour, someone's mom is getting dolled up to see Boyz 2 Men and their grandma danced her heart out at the Temptations reunion tour in the 80s. For every "we love pop punk" night there was a "we love the 80s" night and before those it was we love the 50s/60s/70s nights.
Nostalgia is like THE easiest thing on earth to market because it's already proven that you like the thing. The only thing really that's changed is that companies have stopped taking risks and rely on it almost exclusively.
Did the future always feel so bleak? I really did not feel this as someone growing up in the late 2000s and 2010s. It seemed like society, however slowly, was progressing towards acceptance towards all kinds of folks. We were recovering from the Great Recession, and it seemed like we wouldn't making the same mistakes in the 2000s.
Even after Trump's first election, I felt the same way. He didn't even win the popular vote, young people overwhelmingly didn't vote for him, and there seemed to be a mass protest and social movement against him. And of course was voted out first chance in 2020.
2020s though have been absolute dogshit. The new wars, the reaction to COVID and Trump's second election have 100% destroyed my faith in the future.
Let me tell you about the 1980s. I drew pictures of spaceships that my family could ride on to escape nuclear war. We had a hole in the ozone layer. The murder rate was double today's. We faced the perpetual concern over WWIII in Europe vs. the Soviets. Wars all over the place. The personal computer was going to put millions of people out of work. Mortgage rates were (at the beginning of the decade) scraping above 15%. Japan was going to destroy American manufacturing. Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire was a #1 hit, if that gives you some sense of the vibes.
But, things turned out pretty great! Incomes rose vs. inflation, education rates rose dramatically, crime dropped, we got the good parts (along with the bad) of the internet, eastern Europe was largely freed from authoritarian regimes. Food security for hundreds of millions of people improved.
Now older and wiser (a little bit), I realize that every generation has a mix of legitimate and less-legitimate fears about the future. But the general trendline is positive when looked at over a lifetime. Focus more on places where there is the possibility of significant upside. Right now, there are huge developments in medicine. Once we get our power grid to a more sustainable place, there is huge upside potential in AI. Freedom of expression through substacks, blogs, streaming, short form video is well beyond what any previous generation could imagine.
lol it is definitely true, especially in the 90s for which I was around and experienced.
It’s tempting to allow nostalgia to dust off the past to make it seem like a shiny golden age. I have no doubt in 30 years kids like you will be looking back on the 2020s talking about the good old days, remarking how taxes were lower, houses were cheaper, and politicians always told the truth.
We did the same thing in the 90s to be frank. Idolizing the 60s and 70s as some sort of golden age.
Yeah, people keep listening to music they liked when they were teenagers too. It is not because they want to stay kids. We simply form tastes and preferences when we are young a many of those stick frequently enough.
I’ve gone to San Diego Comic-Con on and off for the last decade. I’m 40 for context.
I know that a lot of the art of the convention is in the panels with artists and writers. But the floor of the convention center has increasingly become just a giant gambling floor. Nearly every booth had some of exclusive comic-con art. However, more and more booths had “mystery packs and boxes” that were basically just gambling for fans to buy with the hope of something valuable coming from them.
Obviously the ever increasing monetization in all aspects of life isn’t unique to really anything. But what I found so off about comic-con was the manufactured scarcity. Rare comics used to be rare because of their age and condition. Now anything can be rare if they only made 150 of them and they’re only available at comic-con and they’re only available in a box that has unpublished odds of getting one.
I spent about $150 on a shirt, new dice set for D&D, and a signed Invincible comic. My wife and I are trying to save to buy some land with a cabin and I couldn’t really justify buying anything else. My friends on the other hand had multiple full bags of merch and “loot” every night they’d go through. It isn’t any passing judgement, but this article is so poignant for me right now having directly witnessing all of this in real life.
"what Ty's Beanie Babies' record year reveals about America's stalled adulthood economy"
While there's definitely something to be said about delayed checkpoints in life for millinieal/zoomers and their penchant for games, the article takes some seriously great pains to avoid mentioning anything about speculative purchase and holding going on with these markets.
I was just thinking along the same vein. Magic has been plagued by scalpers crossing over from over cardboard collectibles; at a rate increasing year over year for the UB products. This speculative market has been a big driver of Hasbro’s MTG revenue increases. It’s not indicative of overall millennial/zoomer consumer patterns.
It is also strange that they are ignoring the fact that Hasbro announced years ago that they were going push for higher revenue and profits mainly by going hard with MTG and its Universes Beyond sets which are the very things that are scalped so much.
Hobbies means you need to grow up guys. If you’re not spending every second of your day buying houses and paying for healthcare insurance, you’re a child
When you’re done with your silly cards, come join the adults on polymarket. We’re betting on mutually assured destruction & nuclear winter. Adult stuff.
If you’re “hobbying” instead of saving for retirement and building a comfortable life, that’s certainly your choice. But the consequences end up being everyone’s.
As a financial planner I am continually amazed at the priorities people place on where they spend their money. Retirement seems to be an afterthought for many or, as the article suggests, an impossibility to be dealt with later or maybe never.
MtG is but one example. My kids see “exclusive collabs” all over social media. As others have mentioned, manufactured scarcity exacerbates the problem. Look at street fashion and location based exclusives for example. The Stussy T-shirt from Hong Kong or the Lululemon shorts from Maui. The onitsuka shoes from Tokyo, etc etc. entire brands, websites and businesses exist to suck the money from anyone with two nickels to rub together. That’s not new. In my view, early education of personal finance starting in middle school or high school at the latest. Would benefit society massively. /rant
Agreed! Personal finance is 90% discipline and 10% knowledge. Index funds are the path to freedom, but they require delayed gratification and that's just not as fun as the alternative.
Can't read because of paywall, but this seems like some avocado-toast-type bullshit. Millennials' economic struggles have very little to do with the fact some of them enjoy playing card games.
It’s the level of proportionate spending that’s relevant.
A very financially successful cohort may spend a lot on a mortgage and a lot on hobbies.
A somewhat financially successful group may spend a lot on a mortgage and may cut back on hobbies:
They’re house poor but willing to cut back on hobbies now for the sake of huge returns and stability later. This is a good place to be.
A less financially successful cohort may spend less than a mortgage on rent but may spend a lot on hobbies:
They could never afford the mortgage, but they can afford rent and some fun. You only life once. This is a worse place to be financially than being house poor, but it could be worse.
A financially unsuccessful cohort will spend all of their money on rent and have nothing left over for hobbies:
They can’t afford a mortgage OR hobbies. They’re totally and completely hopeless.
The spending on hobbies being at highs suggests that part of this cohort is struggling to reach traditional financial milestones of success, or they would be putting their money into housing as an investment instead.
In this case they are devoting even more resources to hobbies when they can't afford the big purchases. People can usually afford 'PART' of the big money sinks (like a mortgage or having children) and that is being diverted to hobbies.
Low literacy comment, as expected for someone with this take.
Yes, there is correlation, and the PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS in the article have suggested the likely causation behind the correlation is THE OPPOSITE of what you’re implying here.
Ah I see. I still think the argument is wrong on the data — it’s tough for me to see middle- to lower-income millennials being the drivers of collectible mania, rather than wealthy or DINK millennials — but I definitely misread you. Sorry about that.
Ah, All is forgiven - Thank you for the apology, that’s a rarity online these days and I appreciate it!
Still, I think collectibles might have a disproportionate share of lower income spend compared to the general rule right now of 50% of spend being from the top 10% of earners.
90% of the population is a lot of bodies and these are small pleasures that are within their financial reach. I don’t think it’s fair fetched.
Further, consider that even that top 10% of earners are concentrated in VHCOL areas where many still won’t be able to afford homes.
In Firefox, hover your mouse over the blurry section and right click then select 'Inspect'.
It should bring you to a section of the code that says article class=article-content max-md:[&_p]:text-lg and to the left of it is a little drop down arrow, it if it collapsed click on the arrow to show what is below it and look for something that says class="paywall paywallActive", click on it and delete it by pressing the Delete button on your keyboard, you can also right click on it and select Delete Node.
You can do the same with the big SUBSCRIBE bar on the bottom of the screen, right click it and scroll up a little looking for
paywallax-ii-selector z-9999 m-auto w-full fixed top-[100dvh] right-0 left-0 animate-slide-up. Delete that and it should show you everything in a readable fashion.
Or you can use a website like RemovePaywalls which is far easier but it is still fun to poke around sometimes to do that to the html.
Growing up the shit my my boomer parents and my friends parents bought
Those fucking nascar dinner plates
Massive record collection
Ugly ass porceline cats
Boats
Jet skis
Those stupid three wheeler things
Baseball cards, signed baseballs, bats, signed baseball hats.
Humans collect trinkets and baubles since time immemorial.
God forbid I spend I spend 100 on commander deck, while my das has an entire floor of his house as a railroad(big basement). Oh no we are the ones who are childish
Yes I know. My point was people are going to buy these trinkets whether they are rich or not.
They doesn’t understand why magic har a good year. It’s because they increased their release cycle and added some very popular UB that pulled in a bunch of non magic players.
I cannot read the article, but I have seen this within my friend group. My friends without any kids spend way more money on their hobbies. I cannot say my personal experience translates into the broader statistic though.
I like Lego a lot, but most the sets coming out are kind of depressing given how adult focused they are... typewriters or old game consoles that do nothing.
I can't read the article because of the paywall, but I am willing to put my money on it they didn't do any rigorous data collection, analysis, and modeling.
America housing crisis is re-shaping the consumer behaviour and as homeownership becomes less easy to attain many young adults are delaying traditional life milestones redirecting spending toward the hobbies and some collectibles instead of homes for example
The reason is because there is "value" in CTGs right now with Magic, Pokemon, and now even Yugioh entering the market of super rare collectables that people are trying to snag to resell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Scalping is at an all time high in MTG where people are buying up the collector booster boxes as soon as they get released and are pushing up the prices to the point the actual players can't afford to even buy the products at x2 MSRP or more. People are trying to get a quick buck.
I'm not sure there's a relationship between sleeving and lack of money. I sleeve despite being able to replace any game at any time with no impact on my financial well-being. Except in the case of particularly valuable cards, I think sleeving is mostly a personality thing driven by a certain obsessiveness.
I sleeve my deck because there are multiple $300+ (each) cards from the 90's in there. Once you sleeve one, you sleeve all (that's the rule).
If I were to play with all cards printed in 2026, sure, no sleeve is fine.
I'm also balls deep into chips/tech stocks so on paper multi millionaire. So there's zero relationship between sleeving and money.
There will always be people who are mad that young people aren't throwing money into a home several times their net worth (banks, boomers, economists?) while being in debt for 30 years. Article is just the latest iteration of that.
Just say you are out of touch and live a barren life. I wonder also if they slot football and golf in there too. You know, literal games that children play.
As a Magic player this article is very out of touch. Yes, adults nowadays have hobbies and like gaming, it's not just kids. It's not that complicated. That doesn't have some kind of dramatic meaning about the economy. If anything it's a privilege that younger people have that they have the time and cash for hobbies like this. The recent growth of MTG has been a lot due to the new sets that use other IPs as a way to get new people to play Magic. It's been controversial with more established players who don't like that Magic no longer has its own character but is becoming a mishmash or random IPs. You know, like my Gandalf blocking your Spider-Man.
I don't play Magic (not a fan of the direction it or D&D has gone with all the weird crossover stuff), but I do play a lot of video games, used to run a D&D game, and play a bit of warhammer with a friend every now and then. Some people might see that as childish, to which I would point out that I have a degree, I'm married, I'm planning to have a kid, I own a house, and I work a full time (and then some) job where I'm entrusted with medical tests that determine whether people live or die.
I admit that I might occasionally judge another person's hobbies as childish, but usually that's more to do with the way the person approaches them than the hobby itelf. Nothing about my own childish hobbies has stalled my adulthood any more than somebody reliving their youth by watching college kids play football.
I'm not trying to come off as defensive. It's just a weird term. Like, what are the acceptable "adult" hobbies that don't indicate a stalled adulthood? Crosswords?
Corporations are mad that people have hobbies that are non-consumerist. Once you buy a deck of cards, you don’t need another deck unless you damage or lose your cards, or the game itself (you just lost) advances and older cards become obsolete. They’re mad about gaming too, which is one of the more cost effective entertainment methods. That’s going away though as physical games (transferable/sharable games) disappear.
I expect eBay to go away in the next two years too.
I actually think that we are going to see a resale boom as the economy worsens. Why should I buy my daughter a new Toy Story figure when I can get several gently used ones for the same price and not feel so bad about the environment while doing it? We're seeing a huge push for virtual content, but as consumers find their dollar stretching less, used physical items are becoming more appealing. I do suspect that Amazon is going to take a hit soon though, and that's why they are focusing so much on AWS.
I agree in principle but I am afraid that eBay will be bought by investors who want to expand their margins which means higher prices and less utilization by the public. The GameStop CEO is not taking No for an answer, and he feels like a Musk-type character.
I was playing MTG (computer version as it's far cheaper) for some time. I stopped as I did not like direction of that game went and the way Hasbro and WotC tried to milk me more and more. They're very good at milking that game.
"Magic: The Gathering's record year" - IIRC Magic the gathering has been pumping out sets at a pace that players don't like, just revving that capitalism machine. It's "record year" is more of a reflection of that than some weird construed piece about adult economics.
They literally doubled the amount of yearly releases, and many of the releases are abnormally large!
Someone with an economics background and an actual interest in the subject could probably get some pretty interesting conclusions out of this, shame that isn't this article!
People are reselling these cards. It isn’t solely an issue of arrested adulthood. I am sure many of these people are looking to prepare items to be resold at a later time. It is unfortunate for articles to have this tone.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think Generation X, Millennial Generation and Generation Z exists, rather it’s simply: Boomers -> Xennials -> Zillennials -> Gen Alpha. The “official” generation map doesn’t accurately describe those cohorts appropriately much like how the article describes older millennials are able to get a financial footing.
This is a weird article. Are we all supposed to spend our free time reviewing our 401ks and insurance premiums? I am an adult, I don't need to mime an adult.
With dwindling third spaces and the cost of everything rising, MtG is how many of my friends do things together and make new friends. I can’t fault people for finding what joy they can and trying to make the best of things
There are no rules to how we age. I know plenty of Magic players who own homes, have families, and are holding down real jobs. Getting old is dumb; we shouldn't be resigned to shopping at Home Depot all the time, just because that is what the economy expects.
Magic player here: something that seems missing is that MtG cards are game pieces. I buy the cards to play the game, I don't really care if they appreciate in value. Getting a rare card is neat, but there's always a cheaper version that is identical for gameplay purposes.
This reads like someone saw two dots (doll sales and magic sales) and decided to try and spin an article out of that by inflating the wordcont with platitudes instead of doing actual, you know, analysis. Like a child's essay instead of an adult's.
Magic actually does have some interesting things leading to this spike, from an economics perspective (the increased print rate, the crossovers, them dredging up every checkov's gun they can) but apparently you need to know more about Magic than "It's a TCG" to tell people about those. I wonder if there's any way for journalists to learn things!
Universes Beyond is SUCH a cancer. FUCK THE soulless Fortnite/Funko model. With Funkos, now you can see all those shelves full of figures in shops like dead corpses from other past. Mtg was such a great game. They destroyed it "just" for money. The game is so dead for me and for so many. They destroyed so many great communities of players with it. So sad. Disgusting people from Wizards and Hasbro.
This article is written by somebody with a decent understanding of economics but very little knowledge about Magic: The Gathering. It's easy to see the huge surge in profitability in the brand and think it's a sign of the times, but in reality, in recent years, the parent company that owns Magic: The Gathering (NASDAQ: HAS) has been cracking the whip on the game's makers to force them to do unprecedented things that will surge up the stock price in the short term at the expense of long-term viability, as a way to offset losses in their other properties. If you had done that exact same thing 5 years ago, or 10, you would have seen a similar bump regardless of the state of the economy or the nostalgia element.
There may be some truth to the broader theme, as we do see some similar patterns in other areas (like reboots of shows from the current working generation's childhoods and the surge in collectability in Pokemon TCG cards), but Magic: The Gathering has way too many confounding variables right now to be relied on for supporting this theory in any way. That game is basically in "maximum quick cash grab" mode right now, so it's not surprising to see some quick jumps in profitability year-over-year.
Rather just put your money into an S&P500 index fund.
If we have a generation that reaches retirement age with a bunch of MtG cards instead of a high-growth retirement account, they have noone to blame but themselves.
I am worried about the psychic damage, down the line, who instead of choosing a meaningful career or a family actively devoted the rest of their lives to consumerism.
Please don’t call children offspring, it’s dehumanizing. Children are the most precious class of people on earth and we shouldn’t talk about them like they’re liabilities
Playing video games until you’re 80 doesn’t really feel like much of a life but we’re going to start getting there with a lot of people. My comment about meaningful career was about using all your money to have a sick Lego collection—or watch TV which is what most Americans do—rather than devoting your time to more “fulfilling” endeavors.
Oh joy, more doomer slop from people who get all of their political and economic information from social media
Reminder than Millenials are vastly more wealthy than boomers were at the same point in their careers. The only thing that is less affordable is housing, and a large part of that is a choice by Millenials themselves
Millenials support rent control, which is the single most destructive policy for housing affordability. They also generally support other destructive policies like community review and SFH zoning
You're confusing education for smugness, because you are largely uneducated. Most cities have rent control through IZ. SF is the other city that is very big on rent control, which your assigned reading shows you
No, it's definitely smugness, as evidenced by the presumptuousness of the following little dig. The world is a much bigger place than the US, and these pressures are being felt throughout the rest of the world, regardless of rent control policies. Assigned reading indeed. Arrogant wanker.
SCNewsFan | a day ago
Had a yard sale recently. Household items were poor sellers. What did sell? Tools to older men. Collectibles, comics, vintage games to young men. Never seen that before.
IssaScott | 22 hours ago
Radio was talking about this being the age of "2nd hand shopping"... At first I didn't get it, but then they explained the abundance or quality, durable items like tools and hardwood furniture that boomers were downsizing out of.
Like I don't need many tools most days, but a decent power saw/drill etc, at a good price?... I will find room.
Levitlame | 15 hours ago
Yup. Furnished a good chunk of our home and tools from estate sales. By me they’re huge year round. But not in some other areas I’ve been to for some reason.
So many wood working tools and the like. Like 1/3 homes near me seems to have a whole wood shop in their basements. Even down to drill press and all sorts of other things I can’t fathom needing often.
And the furniture is solid wood and we love all of it
ejfuentes | 10 hours ago
Definitely agreed my GF and I are shopping at thrift stores and the flea market way more mostly because the gap between price and quality is just insane now for almost everything. I’d rather buy something slightly older and way more reliable for a fraction of the price
RockDoveEnthusiast | 8 hours ago
I'd love to see the buy nothing movement really take off (and it's clearly on the rise already). the rate at which we actually need to replace all the stuff in the world is way lower than the rate at which we are making new stuff. for example, there's already enough clothing in existence for everyone on earth, and while clothes don't last forever, we are certainly making them much faster than they wear out.
we probably don't need any more screwdrivers or hammers for a long time if we just connect the people that have them and don't need them with the people that need them and don't have them.
SaveLansingParks | 3 hours ago
Yeah, we should stop making screwdrivers until the day comes you can't find yours. As long as there are multiple kinds of screws and screw heads in this world, we will always need more screwdrivers.
[OP] ouluuuuu | a day ago
“Taken together, the picture isn’t of one generation choosing to stay young. It’s of a fault line running through the middle of it — one side accumulating wealth and square footage the way boomers once did, the other renting a childhood, a nostalgic movie ticket, or a Magic booster pack because it’s the only kind of ownership still within reach.”
Icy_Information_6563 | 23 hours ago
I have 5 friends who play magic. One is broke. The others own multiple homes. This is dumb.
CallMePyro | 22 hours ago
Exactly. My husband has a group of friends he plays magic with every week, and all of them are multi millionaires. It's replaced poker for him, which I think is nice. He can play Magic with the kids too.
_Bank_On_It_ | 13 hours ago
This is the truth. A way to be social with friends. Not drinking, not gambling, and somehow cheaper than my golf and cycling habits (IDK why I picked all the expensive hobbies).
There have always been grown people playing Magic. I started playing back in high school and the OGs at tournaments were often successful professionals whom enjoyed the game and had played since they were in school.
SpinachnPotatoes | 11 hours ago
We had a friend that had stopped playing magic for about 15 years - then he was in the area just after Covid and did not want to go out to pubs drinking. So we introduced him to commander.
Now every time he is up in our area to visit his folks its catching a quick meal together and then all settling down to several games. Guy got pulled back hard into his cardboard Crack addiction.
Porkenstein | 17 hours ago
Magic is only expensive if you go all unhinged and buy shit tons of it or try to be competitive. Most people just buy a starter pack and a precon and have fun with that. Costs about as much as a couple of nights out.
Rodot | 6 hours ago
Even if you dump a stupid irresponsible amount into the hobby, say $5000, you are no where close to a down-payment on a house. This is avocado toast all over again.
NCBaddict | 2 hours ago
Eh it’s kinda like a cigarette habit imho. You can control yourself, but hanging around other smokers encourages more smoking.
The inevitable cycle of my various Magic friends group was that someone would always end up doing the tourney thing, and then it would poison casual play since that dude would beat everyone due to having better cards.
It felt liberating to leave it behind a decade ago around Innistrad.
taseru2 | 9 hours ago
I mostly stopped going out to the bars as a gainfully employed adult. I then used this extra income to get really into Magic. It’s a super fun way to meet up with friends and do something besides drink.
I think the real story is the proliferation of high value collector boosters turning into another form of gambling.
Uname08 | 5 hours ago
Lmao … the article is referencing population samples and you’re using anecdotal evidence. One is definitely dumb for broad interpretations.
Icy_Information_6563 | 5 hours ago
No, the article has 0 data suggesting that poorer millennials are the ones buying card games and toys. The data it provides says young adults in general are doing this, then concluding it must be because of the wealth gap. There's no evidence of this.
Uname08 | 4 hours ago
Correct. It’s not proving anything, it’s interpreting data and suggesting a possible explanation, not a definitive one, hence the language in the article like - “the Magic boom looks less like arrested development and more like one half of that split cohort spending its way through a delayed adulthood it can’t otherwise afford to enter.”
It’s not the Magic boom “is” but that it’s “like.” He then proceeds to back up this interpretation with the other data in the article, specifically with the delayed adulthood and wealth gap measures.
So, once again. Referencing population samples to interpret data is astronomically less “dumb” than anecdotal evidence. Not only that, but if you were to use anecdotal evidence, walk into any game store and sample the players there. Your sample of 5 read like outliers. My sample of 15 fit into the article’s interpretation perfectly, yet that doesn’t mean the article is any more or less accurate than it is. They’re just data points from small samples, they provide even less proof or value than the article.
southpaytechie | 3 hours ago
I’ve been card gaming for decades. There’s no sample of card gamers you could take that would support the authors explanation of the data set. Card gamers have always been on average upper middle class.
Icy_Information_6563 | an hour ago
Thanks for the stats lesson. Might as well blame global warming too.
southpaytechie | 3 hours ago
They act like boomers didn’t have expensive hobbies. It’s a crazy braindead take.
eightdx | a day ago
fwiw vested players often have collections 20+ years old and it's not like the cardboard ceases to function. My purchases of booster product have gone down greatly (I used to get a box of every set, I haven't done that in years now), but I buy singles from the local shops pretty consistently.
The nice thing about magic is that there are many ways to play and if you ever want to get out there is a whole market for people looking to buy and sell
It's definitely been struck with enshittification in various ways, but it's also one of the most widely played card games on the planet. It has some built in sustainability due to that market share
weealex | 23 hours ago
>fwiw vested players often have collections 20+ years old and it's not like the cardboard ceases to function
That's only partially true. I've got a Legacy deck that I spent years putting together starting back when I was still in school. While yes, the cardboard still exists one of the key cards of the deck has been banned and the overall archetype has been horrifically power crept thanks to non-standard sets. The only reason I haven't sold it off is cuz I don't have the heart to sell something I spent so long working on and have so many happy memories of
JediFed | 22 hours ago
I sold because no one plays anything but commander. Glad I got out before the advent of UB.
RudeAndInsensitive | 17 hours ago
I have played a few commander nights and as long as it is with friends I know its fine but damn I don't like.
It's basically impossible to keep track of the board state. Triggers triggering triggers from 4 different players. Responses to responses, side negotiations. One game I had a player say "so I draw 9 and make 30 treasures" and I just did not have the energy to try and understand how that was happening so I just said "Ya sure. Why not?"
Not the way I want to play the game.
JediFed | 16 hours ago
I don't mind that. We use to play 20 man free for all back in the day. The problem is that none of my decks work.
RudeAndInsensitive | 8 hours ago
Do you run enough lands?
Do you have an actual curve?
Is your deck all gas and no interaction?
Is your deck focused on its theme?
Commander players love to just stuff their decks with all their favorite cards and pray
JediFed | 7 hours ago
They were designed for 60 not commander.
Cak8908 | 21 hours ago
So you sold before the current boom and you’re glad? 😂 You likely lost a good 30-40% as prices have nearly doubled in the past 12 months for product
JediFed | 19 hours ago
Sadly most of my good stuff was stolen over a decade ago. This was just the leftovers.
XruinsskashowsX | 19 hours ago
Price of product and price of singles are not the same thing. A lot of older “staples” are the same or lower priced due to power creep creating viable replacements
velvetacidchrist | 19 hours ago
I have multiple complete sets of fetchlands from the Khans block. Each over $20 per card when I left. The local shop offered me less than half of what they were worth less than a year ago and they told me exactly that.
I didn't sell. And now I will never get into the game again. The people thinking it is an investment like gold are... Sorely mistaken.
weealex | 15 hours ago
At best a store will buy at 60%value. Usually it's cost to 40%. They gotta pay for staff, storage, shipping, etc so outside of extreme outliers where they can turn a profit quickly its just not feasible to offer more. If you want highest personal profit you have to do the selling yourself. Selling to the shop is for convenience
ary31415 | 15 hours ago
I mean sure but that seems like a tangential complaint about the quality of the gameplay (a conversation I'm invested in when it's on the magic subs, but perhaps not on the economics sub).
Financially speaking though, I suspect that even a powercrept archetype leaves you in a fine spot – the reserve list cards that dominate the price of a fresh have certainly held up just fine, and the other commenter's point that you can exit at the drop of a hat still stands.
slippery | 23 hours ago
> The nice thing about magic is that there are many ways to play and if you ever want to get out there is a whole market for people looking to buy and sell
This is what boomers thought about coin and stamp collecting.
eightdx | 22 hours ago
So? The size of the TCG collecting/trading probably dwarfs those hobbies -- and even they aren't free from whales and chase rares.
I also think the distinction of "these are both collectables and tangible game pieces" is worth differentiating. The cards actually do something.
MelissaMiranti | 19 hours ago
What game can you play with a coin collection? A stamp collection?
Rockitttla | 6 hours ago
Coin and stamp collecting hasn't been a thing for a hundred years.
slippery | 19 hours ago
Quarters. Coin flip to start a football game. Coin flip to make a decision.
Not sure about stamps.
Masqerade | 11 hours ago
Coins and stamps aren't game pieces for the largest card game in the world
slippery | 6 hours ago
Could you tell a forged piece of cardboard from an authentic one? What stops wotc from printing a million of the same rare card? Just curious.
makotako12 | 6 hours ago
Yeah if you look at some of the magic subs you can learn how to spot fakes based on some printing details. As for the second part theres nothing stopping them except for it devaluing their own brand which is definitely a debate these days with the amount of sets they are producing every year.
Masqerade | 5 hours ago
Yeah it's rather easy w a lupe, not especially difficult without one either honestly
slippery | 3 hours ago
Ah, yes. The same lupes used when grading coins.
Ill_Clue1068 | 16 hours ago
Absolutely that’s a great point
JediFed | 22 hours ago
Yep. Time to sell was quite awhile ago. Get out while it's high.
Business-Drag52 | 18 hours ago
If your money was all in Tarmagoyf then sure. Reserved List is still on the rise
JediFed | 17 hours ago
My old stuff, yeah. But what I sold, not really.
MrGulio | 18 hours ago
Coming from 40k where the community is 95% friendly to printed models, which as a significantly higher barrier to entry than printing proxy magic cards in sleeves, I wonder why so many people buy MTG cards instead of just proxying. If making a 3d printed model was was as easy running an inkjet printer I would near never buy a real GW plastic kit.
skratchx | 13 hours ago
I don't really play MTG more than twice a year with friends but if I had to guess, sanctioned events don't allow it. Wizards of the Coast is not going to allow that kind of hit to their bottom line. And they've created a strong community around official events in partnerships with game stores. The game stores benefit from the foot traffic and card shopping.
Rockitttla | 5 hours ago
Also, lots of folks with expensive real cards are leary of playing with folks who proxy everything. Anyone who's proxying everything is considered highly suspect.
skratchx | 5 hours ago
Highly suspect of what...?
Rockitttla | 5 hours ago
If they have decks with cards worth thousands of dollars, what do you think they are worried about. No need to feign being obtuse.
MrGulio | 4 hours ago
I'm not being obtuse. Legitimately what would they be concerned with? My real plastic 40k kit doesn't change if someone has the same model printed in resin or filament. Edited text? Theft?
Rockitttla | 3 hours ago
It's because of theft. Expensive deck in dragonshields, proxy deck in drsgonshields, and there goes your underground sea. Folks carelessly walk off with other people's cards all the time, but people with expensive cards tend to be more careful.
AbominablePloughman | 4 hours ago
They can print the most powerful cards and annihilate everyone else.
In reality if you're playing Commander it's not an issue because there's generally a pregame chat about what power level people's decks are. I don't proxy but I have no problem with anyone that does once they're sticking to a certain bracket.
bossmonkey88 | 6 hours ago
For me it is more fun to search for real cards. I like being limited to what i can find and somewhat to what isn't super expensive. The only cards worth more than about $10 or $15 in any of my decks are either cards i pulled from a pack, traded for, or bought before they spiked. It provides the additional challenge of building with what you have/can afford.
That said i play against proxy decks every week at the LGS and my weekly home game. Both places are super proxy friendly in casual games. It's a really cool way to play with expensive pieces you can't get or don't have. It's just less fun for me than either pulling from my bulk or going to dig at the lgs.
MrGulio | 6 hours ago
I completely understand this approach. I like deal hunting for models and have built whole armies from buying cheap used models and printing expensive or rare ones.
BenjaminHamnett | a day ago
I saw they have ninja turtles now! And tryna get my girls into Lorcana
Active_Dissent | 20 hours ago
Been there since day one and the last 4 months have been nuts. I switched from baseball cards to lorcana because I wanted to get in on the ground floor of a TCG. Main driver was that TCG has utility and Baseball was revealing itself as a cash cow for Topps and money pit for anyone without self control. It's pure gambling and they exploit it. Now lorcana is seen as an "investment" because scalpers hoard product and artificially drive up prices. The entire asset class of collectibles has felt like a bubble since COVID.
Things like TCGs and Lego will hold some value though because their utility as entertainment through building decks and mocs will be more resilient han others while some will be a new version of beanie babies. At least with something like Lego my $0.06 piece from ten years ago works with my $0.10 from today and will continue to work with the $0.15 piece I'll buy in 10 years.
BenjaminHamnett | 20 hours ago
I went through the same thing 30 years ago when I was 12
47_for_18_USC_2381 | 16 hours ago
I am one of those 20+ year player and collectors. I started buying and playing in 1995. I've taken a few breaks since then. Longest being about 7 years but that's not a barrier to playing. While I don't own cards worth hundreds of thousands, my collection has grown in value slowly year after year. I recently jumped back in with my two teenagers a few months ago. Sold off about 3 dozen cards and purchased all kinds of newer sets, singles, draft nights, booster boxes, etc. I've managed to get both my boys actively collecting and playing now, which is fabulous for spending time together.
The main thing is it's free to play if you already have cards. If you don't you don't have to own millions in cards to play. You can simply spend 40 bucks, put together a deck or two and have a blast. It's cheap fun during a time when every-fucking-thing on the planet cost entirely too much.
Rockitttla | 5 hours ago
Yep. My kid and some friends found magic on their own and started asking to go to fnm to draft, instead of movies. They started going to gps, winning and trading, got into legacy and old school through trades, and have built substantial collections over the years. It's definitely a hobby where if you are willing to play competitively, and challenge yourself to become a better player, the hobby can fund itself and even become lucrative.
JediFed | 22 hours ago
This is just like the hockey card boom of the 80s. Overprinting leads to vast amount of declining value.
CatLord8 | a day ago
I quit a number of years ago after an incident that resulted in some of my decks being lost. I didn’t want to pay to refill it all when even back then wallet warriors would do customs online for two turn kills. Nowadays it feels like a franchise cash grab with no real add to experience. Rather go back to my friends and I making fake cards after fandoms as unofficial
SethLight | a day ago
I much rather play Arena, which is way way cheaper. But you're not wrong. The best decks are turn 4 wins and it's terrible.
CatLord8 | a day ago
Arena just felt like gacha hell when I tried it but I might be convinced to try again.
SethLight | a day ago
I find it enjoyable enough and you can play it for free. However because of how easy it is to make tier 1 decks the power level is much higher than kitchen table MTG. Moles and Kavaero mess with the meta way too much.
jollyllama | a day ago
Arena is a lot of fun if you're not very competitive about it and you just want to play a game or two every once in a while. It doesn't take much just playing for free to be able to basically afford anything you want to craft, if you want to put some hours into it. I played for maybe 5-10 games a day for a few months a couple years ago, and the currency I made doing that has left me with basically enough to live off of forever
NoHorseNoMustache | a day ago
I liked Arena at the beginning but then it quickly devolved into the usual 'Play the latest meta or you get stomped' and I hate that shit.
jollyllama | a day ago
Arena is a lot of fun if you don't care about competitiveness. Then again, I'd generally say that competitive Magic in any format is a pretty miserable experience
NoHorseNoMustache | a day ago
I never cared about the competitiveness but winning once in a while without having a current meta deck is nice. I got really annoyed that, say, everyone I'd come up against was playing blue mill/counter decks this month because it's the current meta.
jollyllama | 23 hours ago
That’s fair. You can also jump over to historic if you want to escape the meta a bit. Downside is you’ll find a fair number of people playing decks based around silly combos that cheat out 10 mana cards on turn 3, but honestly it’s not that bad. I only play my own janky decks there and I definitely win at least 50%
NoHorseNoMustache | 23 hours ago
Man it’s been out long enough to have a historic mode wow! Maybe I’ll jump in and build a silly ass 100 card deck for old times sake.
jollyllama | 22 hours ago
I think the history collection goes back to the early 2010’s or so, it definitely predates Arena
NoHorseNoMustache | 21 hours ago
Interesting
Lust4Me | a day ago
Print proxies and play your fav constructed with friends sounds like the way to go these days. Fuck Hasbro. I like the idea of block constructed. The fun of magic isn't improved by power creep and there are more than enough cards to entertain myself.
BenjaminHamnett | a day ago
I miss apprentice. Software where you have all the cards (from before 2000, we’d meet up and play online. I even briefly ran a league)
Last I saw like 10-15 years ago, it still came with some drawgo deck of mine that hosed sligh(won a big online tournament)
bearrobot | a day ago
Cockatrice sounds like Apprentice.
BenjaminHamnett | 20 hours ago
Sounds cool
From Gemini: Because it contains no proprietary card artwork or trademarks out of the box—relying instead on users importing public data—Cockatrice operates in a unique space that has allowed it to survive and thrive as a community playtesting staple for over a decade.
CatLord8 | a day ago
Honestly my favorite days with the game were in high school. My friends and I would play casually before class started, on half days we would walk to this card shop nearby and browse the cheap (un)commons, the occasional odd booster going out somewhere.
Melkor15 | a day ago
I like to get bulk cards and build something fun. It’s cheap and the cards aren’t that bad.
jostler57 | a day ago
This is the way.
I happened to have an extremely nice collection since childhood in the 90's when the covid price spike came along.
Sold the biggies for about $12,000, and then got a ton of proxies for expensive stuff, and got into Alpha 40 format with a fraction of that cash.
Been fun, and love that I can use proxies in my webcam league!
chewie_33 | 19 hours ago
I remember when I was like 15 and took my MtG cards to highschool to play with my friends. A girl that I liked back then saw me doing so and said that I was too old to be playing children games. I sold all my cards by the end of the week to impress her. She never even knew about it.
CatLord8 | 19 hours ago
I’m sorry friend. Hopefully you found someone who likes you without compromising your hobbies
CapitalElk1169 | 23 hours ago
I have a six figure collection and have been playing for 30 years and tell everyone including my playgroup to proxy as much as possible.
Hell, I use a lot of proxies myself so I don't have to switch cards from deck to deck.
Buying duals/cradles/etc is dumb unless you already have a maxed out retirement fund.
SwirlySauce | 22 hours ago
Do you buy proxies online or just print them?
CapitalElk1169 | 21 hours ago
Both!
ThatCakeIsDone | a day ago
They started deluding the mtg world with marvel superhero shit. I wasn't into spiderman in the first place. Just not that interested in contributing to another cash grab that's enshittifying everything
AmesCG | 20 hours ago
This is a weird read of the data and the state of the hobby that collapses to something more like well-intentioned nerd shaming than informed analysis. I say well-intentioned because I agree with the author’s broad policy point, that the basics of “adult” life — house, car, daycare, college… — are increasingly unaffordable. Magic even illustrates part of the problem! But not in the way the author thinks.
What we actually see in Magic is a growing stratification — companies tiering their products through premium offerings designed to catch wealthy buyers (fewer customers, higher margins), rather than products priced and marketed for mass appeal (more customers, smaller margins). That’s a cross-economy trend we see in everything from air travel to LEGO, as they say. And it’s downstream of rampant inequality, which the author nods to. But it means the ones driving record Magic sales are the rich “whales” with strong incomes — not middle- to lower-income folks chasing a retro border foil over a down-payment.
TLDR: The folks who can’t afford houses aren’t the ones driving collectible mania. How could they be?
GLGarou | 4 hours ago
The so-called K-shaped economy in action again. Even though some on this forum are trying to downplay for some strange reason.
AmesCG | 3 hours ago
Exactly.
Clear-Inevitable-414 | a day ago
I think the boomer millennial are also the ones playing Magic. Have you seen how expensive this stuff has gotten?
Muroid | a day ago
The biggest Magic player I know is also the first one of my friends to have bought a house.
BenjaminHamnett | a day ago
Some sorta street kid I knew heard someone making fun of mtg and was like “magic gave me everything I have”, probably his pivot to nerdom. Anyway, he’s one of the more successful rags to riches stories in my city and obv owns a house too
Meret123 | a day ago
They need a place to store all their cards.
23rdCenturySouth | a day ago
Watching my Magic cards appreciate definitely influenced my interest in saving and investing in real assets, too.
HaloFever117 | a day ago
What is a boomer millennial?
Financial-Sweet-4648 | a day ago
Apparently a Millennial at the very top end, who can still achieve the full-fledged traditional American dream and grow a ton of wealth like the Boomers did.
morty_morty | a day ago
Once again, Gen X doesn't even exist.
NetZeroSun | a day ago
Shhhhh
Gen X rather stay out of this whole mess.
Enshitification, misinformation, class warfare, and pretty much seeing childhood memories turn to cash grabs and just no one happy… naw just keep us out of it.
makemeking706 | a day ago
Bro, who do you think is doing all the these things? Boomers, with a few exceptions, are at death door as far running businesses and commanding the economy are concerned. They aren't the current crop of CEOs and oligarchs. What generation do you think Bezos, Theil, and Musk are? Arguably, Gen X is the cause of this entire mess, either through their voting record, leadership of these companies, or how "well" they've raised Gen Z.
Wingzerofyf | 19 hours ago
The dirty little secret is it's not one generations fault - "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times,...." and all that jazz.
Bezos, Thiel, Musk and Trump are all spoiled little children with egos the size of Trumps fat ass and the first to throw others under the bus for their own mistakes - textbook definitions of weak men. Not to mention Elon's lil emerald mine and all the fucking handouts Trump has gotten to get to the where the fuck he is.
But go ahead - keep blaming each other - that's what spoiled children are best at doing, causing infighting.
KAM7 | a day ago
Okay I’d like to add to this, please keep us out of this, but also to my fellow Gen-X’ers… we’re still voting progressive to help these kids out, right? We can be left alone, but let’s not be exactly like the fucking boomers. Captain Planet taught us better than that.
thewimsey | 22 hours ago
> but also to my fellow Gen-X’ers… we’re still voting progressive to help these kids out, right?
GenX is the most Trump supporting generation. Boomers voted a lot close to Millennials.
KAM7 | 22 hours ago
Shame on our Gen then. We should know better. ET taught us empathy, John Waters taught us to accept LGBTQ+, Bush Jr and Michael Moore should have taught us to hate war and corrupt capitalism, and Captain Planet it should have taught us to take care of the planet.
It worked on some of us at least.
hippydipster | 23 hours ago
My experience as a gen-xer is that my cohort drifted hard right as they got older.
However, it has little to do with me personally, as this generalization is little better than generalizing on sex or skin color.
SaxRohmer | 23 hours ago
gen x is the most conservative generation now
KAM7 | 22 hours ago
I think we watched too many Rambo movies as kids.
Ruh_Roh- | 18 hours ago
You're not wrong, but I have only gotten more radically left as I get older. And I was born the first year of Gen X. So yes I am an exception and this fucked up world is not my fault.
morty_morty | 13 hours ago
I am at the tail end of X but I have only become more and more progressive with age. I'll come out of my trauma-hole to help with the fight against fascists anytime.
Mikestopheles | a day ago
It's your version of the Chinese blessing
Financial-Sweet-4648 | a day ago
You guys love to be able to whine about being forgotten. It’s part of your core shared identity. Be grateful.
23rdCenturySouth | a day ago
Well have you seen how much our childhood trading cards are worth!? Could've had a whole down payment if it weren't for one bad trade when I was like 11.
saml01 | 18 hours ago
We prefer elder millennial.
HaloFever117 | a day ago
As Gen-X, even I can’t do that. So how are the Millenials going to?
Financial-Sweet-4648 | a day ago
They’re going to be born into extreme wealth advantage or get lucky.
thewimsey | 23 hours ago
60% of Millennials own their own homes, and Millennials are wealthier than Boomers were at their age.
Wake up. It's not 2011.
Lumen-_ | 22 hours ago
Lol exactly, almost all my cohort owns a home.
Begging_Murphy | a day ago
Nothing. The term is Xennial
bg370 | a day ago
That’s GenX -Millennial
Begging_Murphy | a day ago
Not a thing. Xennial as a term has been around for decades.
Clear-Inevitable-414 | a day ago
Idk. It was quoted there first. "Accumulating wealth and square footage the way boomers once did"
HaloFever117 | a day ago
Boomers didn’t do anything. They had higher wages compared to home prices. It’s been diminishing returns ever since.
Clear-Inevitable-414 | a day ago
This is about the millennials that have higher wages compared to home prices.
Emeraldw | a day ago
I print proxies and just play what I want. No one has ever called me out at local commander nights.
Just don't try to play in tournies with them.
WishieWashie12 | a day ago
No, they are buying to scalp and hold for future investments. Stored right next to their beanie babies and tickle me elmos.
AblePerfectionist | a day ago
Magic Cards dew bee hella cheap dough.
callmesnake13 | 20 hours ago
Nobody ever played cards as adults until millennials
SpinachnPotatoes | 11 hours ago
Broke players proxy their cards.
petdoc1991 | a day ago
Oh that’s a bit depressing.
ImReallyProud | a day ago
This is so silly. I’m a younger millennial who enjoys playing magic, but it’s far from my core hobby. I spend maybe 2-3k per year on it and it’s a blast playing with some of my friends once per month.
I also have 6x my income saved for my retirement, take 6+ vacations per year, and go out on weekends with friends. It’s not an either or… we’re in our mid 30s to 40s which is the highest earning years of our lives. It’s not surprising we can own houses, have expensive hobbies, and live a very good life. Most of my friends are in the same boat (most are not magic players, but the ones that are do things like I do).
Not to mention people that play magic are typically “nerds” which are usually in tech or tech adjacent careers which are high paying.
Liftinginapolo | a day ago
I have 3 kids, i make good money. I have a retirement, paid off cars, I own a house. I golf weekly at a country club I belong to. I also play magic with my friends on Monday nights (online) and Friday nights (at a local bar). I can’t imagine putting people who enjoy this hobby in a weird box like the quoted excerpt does.
PrimemevalTitan | a day ago
It's typical opinion writer BS. They're so focused on coming to a grand conclusion about the topic that the actual evidence barely matters. "Millenials are playing Magic instead of buying homes" is the same nonsense as avocado toast but it barely matters. The people who agree with that conclusion will continue to agree because it reinforces their preconceived biases.
EidolonLives | 17 hours ago
The plural of anecdote is not data. The nerds you're exposed to might be in high paying tech jobs, but there are plenty who aren't. Many are too damn autistic to hold down any job (or to get a job they can hold down).
IvoryTowerResident | 23 hours ago
This is how i feel. Local cafe that sell $7 lattes and $6 croissants (canadian $) are jammed pack because that is the few small luxuries ppl can still afford even though they are not the best deals
St00p_kiddd | 20 hours ago
What if I own a house and buy a ton of magic 👀
JoeJoeJoeJoeThrow | 10 hours ago
Shit, this is me with Lego. I decided a few years back that if I couldn’t afford a house, at least I could afford a Lego one.
summon_pot_of_greed | 3 hours ago
As someone with a house, job, savings, and children who just played at a competitive event last week- this is a stupid article.
DoubleFamous5751 | 23 hours ago
This is a brutal read. It makes sense though, so many are just priced out and don’t have the means to get where they need to be and are well into their adulthoods and feel hopeless.
MassiveBoner911_3 | 23 hours ago
Capitalism has entered the chat….
shiva14b | 23 hours ago
Hijacking top-thread to post the no-paywall link, because its actually a good article about how millenials are being blocked from the usual adult milestones and how thats affecting other parts of the economy, not how they're wasting house money on avocado toast:
https://archive.is/0WCQQ
thewimsey | 22 hours ago
No, it's a bullshit article that just wants to doom.
55% of Millennials own homes. They aren't being "blocked from the usual adult milestones".
Stop pretending its eternal 2011.
shiva14b | 22 hours ago
" For two decades, the U.S. homeownership rate has functioned as a scoreboard of generational progress. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that scoreboard was miscounting the game entirely. Economist Erik Hembre and colleagues built a new measure — the homeowners-to-population ratio, or HPOP — that counts individual adults rather than housing units, and found the real national homeownership rate is closer to 53%, not the widely cited 65%. For adults under 35, the gap is far more severe: the standard rate claims 37% owned their home in 2024, but HPOP puts the true figure at just 22%, because the old measure only counts household heads — about a third of all adults in that age bracket. “More than one in 10 U.S. adults live in owner-occupied homes without actually being owners themselves,” Hembre and co-authors Benjamin Horowitz and Maxine Xu found, pegging that figure at 13.9% nationally. Nine percent of all U.S. adults 18 and older live in an owner-occupied home as the child of the owner — a number that surprised even Hembre. “To me, that’s a big number, and I didn’t know it was that large beforehand,” he told Fortune last week."
shiva14b | 23 hours ago
Here's with no paywall, for everyone ragging on it without reading:
https://archive.is/0WCQQ
Its actually a pretty good article. Its not dumping on millenials for buying avocado toast instead of houses, its laying out how starkly they're being blocked from the major markers of adulthood -- home ownership, stable career, children -- and how the money they do have is being re-diverted instead, and the corresponding drop in other purchases, like children's toys.
railbeast | 18 hours ago
Yes, you're right, but as usual it is a one-sided article with a thesis statement and it kind of ignores what's been going on with the supply side of the markets
AlternativeFactor | a day ago
I was just talking to my mom about this. I'm a millennial and have been a tcg player on and off my whole life and I have a lot to say about the recent tcg boom. I'm working retail right now but I'd say I'm better off than most people my age because of my mom's generosity and wealth.
I can't read the article but one really sad thing I noticed is that some of the poorest people are trying to gamble / "invest" in tcgs as a side hustle and I always want to tell them it's not like houses or anything, the value for most cards is determined by the company because they can always reprint just about anything if they want to or are desperate enough. There is also powercreep etc and lots of weird backroom stuff like weighing packs etc.
Of course not everyone is getting into tcgs out of financial desperation but when you are on food stamps I feel like it's a huge gamble to try scalping etc. Just talking about something really sad I've been seeing.
BriefingScree | 20 hours ago
You need Capital and Connections for scalping and you need Capital and Patience for collecting. Connections to help buyout local supply before regulars can buy. Patience for collectors because the best margin comes in waiting on some cards becoming 'antique/vintage' (ie original printings are worth more).
Poor people will generally lack all three of these things (patience due to a financial insecurity)
AlternativeFactor | 20 hours ago
You are overthinking it. When these people come in to my discount store they are not pro scalpers or side hustle scalpers, they come in for other stuff then buy cards along with the stuff they get with food stamps and no they don't even have kids most of the time. Really sad stuff. My store will sell stuff like Pokemon etbs every once in awhile and boom some people will go and gamble on those even though they can't afford groceries.
BriefingScree | 19 hours ago
And my point is you can't really turn a profit on these things unless you escalate to the pro level which the poor can't do.
Side-Hustle people are what actual scalpers (and more asshole vendors) call suckers
If you are talking about people buying those packs to play than even the poor are entitled to some sort of entertainment. Better than all the drug addicts on food stamps at least.
AlternativeFactor | 19 hours ago
Oh yeah true that's what I meant. Yeah people are entitled to entertainment but I don't mean those people, I mean people who are only "investing" but are just getting scammed and gambling.
OddlyFactual1512 | 17 hours ago
>Better than all the drug addicts on food stamps at least.
Ask yourself why you don't use drugs. It's the same answer I and every other non-user gives: They are bad for me. It's never that they are illegal or expensive. Drug addiction can't be addressed by demonizing users or having laws that ensure the only way to fund that addiction is through criminal activity then throwing people in prison when they do exactly what we designed the system to encourage them to do. If it could be solved that way, it would have been solved a century ago. Yet, we still keep attempting to solve it that way.
BriefingScree | 9 hours ago
I meant it is a better habit to be spending your money on than drugs because it is much less self destructive
vintagestyles | 9 hours ago
His point is they are not buying them to play. They are buying them thinking they will find a rare card somehow then sell it, and they are to dumb to know they can’t easily turn a profit but they think if they hit a rare card they will make bank. Even though they can’t even afford food.
They are essentially just gambling.
AlwaysTired97 | 15 hours ago
The people who thought that investing in recent TCG sets can be some kind of get-rich-scheme are hilarious to me. You're not going to find some kind of $10,000 card in a recently released TCG set. And even just the high-value cards that are several dozen or several hundred bucks are also probably not gonna net you a profit in the long run with how much money you'll statistically have to spend to open them in the first place.
Though I'm pretty sure a lot of these people at this point are just straight up scalping the products without even opening them in the first place.
Illustrious-Lime-878 | a day ago
Idk, I think each generation has their own random collectable / hobbyist things they spend money on that would appear irrational to everyone not into it. I don't think its anything to do with wanting to "stay young," it was just a thing that was popular when they were kids that stuck with them. You could probably point to a lot of things older people did when they were in their 30s that we could view as "for old people" just because they continue to do it now as older people, or was viewed as childish by an even older generation. The stats themselves about inequality and future generations earning and having less than previous are revealing.
RicFlairsLiver | a day ago
I know many will disagree, but look at sports. Older people didn’t have toys and Magic cards, but they might have played sports. Decades after no longer being able to play, they may still watch it. There’s nothing inherently adult about sports; they’re games that were invented to pass the time and have now progressed far beyond the original intention. People in their 30s and 40s just have way more fun options from their childhood that still exist for them as adults.
thewimsey | 22 hours ago
My parents' generation, but especially my grandparents' generation, played a huge amount of cards. Bridge, Canasta, Spades, Hearts, Euchre, Poker (mostly just the men, though) etc. They had weekly (later monthly) games into their 80's.
My siblings and I all played when we were kids, but then there was D&D and other roleplaying games and then board games, and we liked these better.
makemeking706 | a day ago
Nostalgia marketing is huge right now, perhaps because the future feels so bleak.
Noblesseux | 22 hours ago
Nostalgia marketing is like a continuous, long term subgenre of marketing. It feels out of control now because a lot of companies are so all in on profit maximizing that they've become risk averse toward new products. It's easier to endlessly remake something you KNOW people like than it is to take a swing and possibly come up empty handed.
But make no mistake basically every modern nostalgia market right now has an analogue that existed decades ago. For every pokemon card craze there was a baseball card collection craze. For every labubu there was a beanie baby. For every B2K reunion tour, someone's mom is getting dolled up to see Boyz 2 Men and their grandma danced her heart out at the Temptations reunion tour in the 80s. For every "we love pop punk" night there was a "we love the 80s" night and before those it was we love the 50s/60s/70s nights.
Nostalgia is like THE easiest thing on earth to market because it's already proven that you like the thing. The only thing really that's changed is that companies have stopped taking risks and rely on it almost exclusively.
Scooter_McAwesome | a day ago
It’s always been popular is the point. The future has always felt so bleak too.
Global_Channel1511 | 23 hours ago
Did the future always feel so bleak? I really did not feel this as someone growing up in the late 2000s and 2010s. It seemed like society, however slowly, was progressing towards acceptance towards all kinds of folks. We were recovering from the Great Recession, and it seemed like we wouldn't making the same mistakes in the 2000s.
Even after Trump's first election, I felt the same way. He didn't even win the popular vote, young people overwhelmingly didn't vote for him, and there seemed to be a mass protest and social movement against him. And of course was voted out first chance in 2020.
2020s though have been absolute dogshit. The new wars, the reaction to COVID and Trump's second election have 100% destroyed my faith in the future.
Joltizer | 18 hours ago
It feels bleak because you spend way too much time on social media + we have a horrible president
mcsul | 7 hours ago
Let me tell you about the 1980s. I drew pictures of spaceships that my family could ride on to escape nuclear war. We had a hole in the ozone layer. The murder rate was double today's. We faced the perpetual concern over WWIII in Europe vs. the Soviets. Wars all over the place. The personal computer was going to put millions of people out of work. Mortgage rates were (at the beginning of the decade) scraping above 15%. Japan was going to destroy American manufacturing. Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire was a #1 hit, if that gives you some sense of the vibes.
But, things turned out pretty great! Incomes rose vs. inflation, education rates rose dramatically, crime dropped, we got the good parts (along with the bad) of the internet, eastern Europe was largely freed from authoritarian regimes. Food security for hundreds of millions of people improved.
Now older and wiser (a little bit), I realize that every generation has a mix of legitimate and less-legitimate fears about the future. But the general trendline is positive when looked at over a lifetime. Focus more on places where there is the possibility of significant upside. Right now, there are huge developments in medicine. Once we get our power grid to a more sustainable place, there is huge upside potential in AI. Freedom of expression through substacks, blogs, streaming, short form video is well beyond what any previous generation could imagine.
IGargleGarlic | 19 hours ago
The future feels more bleak now than it ever has before in my over 30 years of life.
Scooter_McAwesome | 3 hours ago
So says every person when they reach their 30s…
railbeast | 18 hours ago
How old are you? This definitely isn't true. 90's everything was looking up except for the US crime rate lol.
Scooter_McAwesome | 3 hours ago
lol it is definitely true, especially in the 90s for which I was around and experienced.
It’s tempting to allow nostalgia to dust off the past to make it seem like a shiny golden age. I have no doubt in 30 years kids like you will be looking back on the 2020s talking about the good old days, remarking how taxes were lower, houses were cheaper, and politicians always told the truth.
We did the same thing in the 90s to be frank. Idolizing the 60s and 70s as some sort of golden age.
ShallazarTheWizard | a day ago
This...
Jerome_Eugene_Morrow | a day ago
Let me tell you about baseball cards…
unsafeideas | 23 hours ago
Yeah, people keep listening to music they liked when they were teenagers too. It is not because they want to stay kids. We simply form tastes and preferences when we are young a many of those stick frequently enough.
It is just one aspect of being a human.
boringexplanation | 23 hours ago
Harleys were big in the 90s and 00s and despite no one young wanting one.
gwarster | 23 hours ago
It’s kind of insane.
I’ve gone to San Diego Comic-Con on and off for the last decade. I’m 40 for context.
I know that a lot of the art of the convention is in the panels with artists and writers. But the floor of the convention center has increasingly become just a giant gambling floor. Nearly every booth had some of exclusive comic-con art. However, more and more booths had “mystery packs and boxes” that were basically just gambling for fans to buy with the hope of something valuable coming from them.
Obviously the ever increasing monetization in all aspects of life isn’t unique to really anything. But what I found so off about comic-con was the manufactured scarcity. Rare comics used to be rare because of their age and condition. Now anything can be rare if they only made 150 of them and they’re only available at comic-con and they’re only available in a box that has unpublished odds of getting one.
I spent about $150 on a shirt, new dice set for D&D, and a signed Invincible comic. My wife and I are trying to save to buy some land with a cabin and I couldn’t really justify buying anything else. My friends on the other hand had multiple full bags of merch and “loot” every night they’d go through. It isn’t any passing judgement, but this article is so poignant for me right now having directly witnessing all of this in real life.
IAmNotMoki | a day ago
"what Ty's Beanie Babies' record year reveals about America's stalled adulthood economy"
While there's definitely something to be said about delayed checkpoints in life for millinieal/zoomers and their penchant for games, the article takes some seriously great pains to avoid mentioning anything about speculative purchase and holding going on with these markets.
Abbaticus13 | a day ago
I was just thinking along the same vein. Magic has been plagued by scalpers crossing over from over cardboard collectibles; at a rate increasing year over year for the UB products. This speculative market has been a big driver of Hasbro’s MTG revenue increases. It’s not indicative of overall millennial/zoomer consumer patterns.
insideyelling | 22 hours ago
It is also strange that they are ignoring the fact that Hasbro announced years ago that they were going push for higher revenue and profits mainly by going hard with MTG and its Universes Beyond sets which are the very things that are scalped so much.
https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-announces-plan-grow-profit-50-over-next-three-years
This article feels like they are trying to explain a correlation after the fact without much knowledge of what has been going on with the topic.
Old_Charity4206 | a day ago
Hobbies means you need to grow up guys. If you’re not spending every second of your day buying houses and paying for healthcare insurance, you’re a child
Sad-Excitement9295 | 21 hours ago
Because socializing and personal expression is for children, grown adults rip off the stock market and play with real collectible stuff like crypto.
Old_Charity4206 | 20 hours ago
If you don’t have a politician on payroll are you even done with puberty?
Apprehensive-Book723 | 7 hours ago
When you’re done with your silly cards, come join the adults on polymarket. We’re betting on mutually assured destruction & nuclear winter. Adult stuff.
Illustrious-Lime-878 | 20 hours ago
It is funny because houses can definitely be hobbies, and healthcare too with all the pseudo health trends going around.
brosjd | 18 hours ago
Yeah you're supposed to always CONSUME
^^but ^^not ^^like that
^^^that's weird
EdLesliesBarber | 9 hours ago
If you’re “hobbying” instead of saving for retirement and building a comfortable life, that’s certainly your choice. But the consequences end up being everyone’s.
Old_Charity4206 | 5 hours ago
This guy adults
Emotional-Yam4486 | 22 hours ago
As a financial planner I am continually amazed at the priorities people place on where they spend their money. Retirement seems to be an afterthought for many or, as the article suggests, an impossibility to be dealt with later or maybe never.
MtG is but one example. My kids see “exclusive collabs” all over social media. As others have mentioned, manufactured scarcity exacerbates the problem. Look at street fashion and location based exclusives for example. The Stussy T-shirt from Hong Kong or the Lululemon shorts from Maui. The onitsuka shoes from Tokyo, etc etc. entire brands, websites and businesses exist to suck the money from anyone with two nickels to rub together. That’s not new. In my view, early education of personal finance starting in middle school or high school at the latest. Would benefit society massively. /rant
Prestigious_Load1699 | 11 hours ago
There’s nothing sexy about putting your extra money into a low-cost index fund starting in your 20s, but it is the best long-term play.
$100 a month into a 401k is, simply put, a better long-term investment than Magic cards.
okay-trev | 5 hours ago
Agreed! Personal finance is 90% discipline and 10% knowledge. Index funds are the path to freedom, but they require delayed gratification and that's just not as fun as the alternative.
cal405 | a day ago
Can't read because of paywall, but this seems like some avocado-toast-type bullshit. Millennials' economic struggles have very little to do with the fact some of them enjoy playing card games.
EnjoysYelling | a day ago
The conclusion of the article is the opposite:
Millennials are spending on hobbies because they can’t afford to spend on larger purchases
unsafeideas | 23 hours ago
But, people with houses have hobbies. Past generations had hobbies too.
EnjoysYelling | 21 hours ago
It’s the level of proportionate spending that’s relevant.
A very financially successful cohort may spend a lot on a mortgage and a lot on hobbies.
A somewhat financially successful group may spend a lot on a mortgage and may cut back on hobbies:
They’re house poor but willing to cut back on hobbies now for the sake of huge returns and stability later. This is a good place to be.
A less financially successful cohort may spend less than a mortgage on rent but may spend a lot on hobbies:
They could never afford the mortgage, but they can afford rent and some fun. You only life once. This is a worse place to be financially than being house poor, but it could be worse.
A financially unsuccessful cohort will spend all of their money on rent and have nothing left over for hobbies:
They can’t afford a mortgage OR hobbies. They’re totally and completely hopeless.
The spending on hobbies being at highs suggests that part of this cohort is struggling to reach traditional financial milestones of success, or they would be putting their money into housing as an investment instead.
NatureStoof | 17 hours ago
This is what 90% of the posters missed
thewimsey | 22 hours ago
Yeah; they're just different hobbies.
BriefingScree | 20 hours ago
In this case they are devoting even more resources to hobbies when they can't afford the big purchases. People can usually afford 'PART' of the big money sinks (like a mortgage or having children) and that is being diverted to hobbies.
MarkCuckerberg69420 | 23 hours ago
Perhaps there’s a correlation…
EnjoysYelling | 23 hours ago
Low literacy comment, as expected for someone with this take.
Yes, there is correlation, and the PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS in the article have suggested the likely causation behind the correlation is THE OPPOSITE of what you’re implying here.
Take your L
MarkCuckerberg69420 | 23 hours ago
Kudos to finding a relevant username
EnjoysYelling | 22 hours ago
And to you as well
thewimsey | 22 hours ago
> PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS
Wow, PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS
I guess we have to believe everything an economist says?
EnjoysYelling | 22 hours ago
Sir, this is an economics subreddit.
We generally take economists more seriously than some random guys opinion …
… which I’ll remind you, in this case, is some random guys generational resentments with no numbers or research whatsoever attached.
So are you here to defend his “point” or just to pointlessly debate the authority of economists in general - in a thread about something else?
AmesCG | 20 hours ago
That’s exactly the old bullshit avocado toast argument
EnjoysYelling | 20 hours ago
Nope, it’s the exact inverse of it
You just read my comment wrong
Try again
AmesCG | 19 hours ago
Ah I see. I still think the argument is wrong on the data — it’s tough for me to see middle- to lower-income millennials being the drivers of collectible mania, rather than wealthy or DINK millennials — but I definitely misread you. Sorry about that.
EnjoysYelling | 19 hours ago
Ah, All is forgiven - Thank you for the apology, that’s a rarity online these days and I appreciate it!
Still, I think collectibles might have a disproportionate share of lower income spend compared to the general rule right now of 50% of spend being from the top 10% of earners.
90% of the population is a lot of bodies and these are small pleasures that are within their financial reach. I don’t think it’s fair fetched.
Further, consider that even that top 10% of earners are concentrated in VHCOL areas where many still won’t be able to afford homes.
[OP] ouluuuuu | a day ago
Turn on reader mode in the article and you can read it
insideyelling | 23 hours ago
In Firefox, hover your mouse over the blurry section and right click then select 'Inspect'.
It should bring you to a section of the code that says article class=article-content max-md:[&_p]:text-lg and to the left of it is a little drop down arrow, it if it collapsed click on the arrow to show what is below it and look for something that says class="paywall paywallActive", click on it and delete it by pressing the Delete button on your keyboard, you can also right click on it and select Delete Node.
You can do the same with the big SUBSCRIBE bar on the bottom of the screen, right click it and scroll up a little looking for
paywallax-ii-selector z-9999 m-auto w-full fixed top-[100dvh] right-0 left-0 animate-slide-up. Delete that and it should show you everything in a readable fashion.
Or you can use a website like RemovePaywalls which is far easier but it is still fun to poke around sometimes to do that to the html.
WesternIron | a day ago
This is so fucking stupid.
Growing up the shit my my boomer parents and my friends parents bought
Those fucking nascar dinner plates
Massive record collection
Ugly ass porceline cats
Boats
Jet skis
Those stupid three wheeler things
Baseball cards, signed baseballs, bats, signed baseball hats.
Humans collect trinkets and baubles since time immemorial.
God forbid I spend I spend 100 on commander deck, while my das has an entire floor of his house as a railroad(big basement). Oh no we are the ones who are childish
Oh I also own a home lol this article is trash
EmeraldMan25 | 23 hours ago
Article is about how there is increased spending on these trinkets because larger purchases feel increasingly out of reach
WesternIron | 23 hours ago
Yes I know. My point was people are going to buy these trinkets whether they are rich or not.
They doesn’t understand why magic har a good year. It’s because they increased their release cycle and added some very popular UB that pulled in a bunch of non magic players.
BBQpirate | 23 hours ago
I cannot read the article, but I have seen this within my friend group. My friends without any kids spend way more money on their hobbies. I cannot say my personal experience translates into the broader statistic though.
Battle2Intense | 18 hours ago
I like Lego a lot, but most the sets coming out are kind of depressing given how adult focused they are... typewriters or old game consoles that do nothing.
Specialist_Sea8711 | 18 hours ago
Two questions: what does the article say? It’s behind a paywall. Question 2 why are there no magic cards in the illustration for the article?
Rhamnos | 18 hours ago
I can't read the article because of the paywall, but I am willing to put my money on it they didn't do any rigorous data collection, analysis, and modeling.
Low_Ability4450 | 16 hours ago
America housing crisis is re-shaping the consumer behaviour and as homeownership becomes less easy to attain many young adults are delaying traditional life milestones redirecting spending toward the hobbies and some collectibles instead of homes for example
BarretOblivion | 3 hours ago
The reason is because there is "value" in CTGs right now with Magic, Pokemon, and now even Yugioh entering the market of super rare collectables that people are trying to snag to resell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Scalping is at an all time high in MTG where people are buying up the collector booster boxes as soon as they get released and are pushing up the prices to the point the actual players can't afford to even buy the products at x2 MSRP or more. People are trying to get a quick buck.
NiceShotRudyWaltz | a day ago
I kind of do see this reflected. Been playing mtg for many years (am 38, 2 kids, halfway through our mortgage).
In my current play group of 7 or 8 guys (all same age range), only one other guy has kids. He is also the only other homeowner.
He is also the only other guy that doesn’t sleeve his cards and treat them overly precious.
Just a personal anecdote.
sailing_by_the_lee | 23 hours ago
I'm not sure there's a relationship between sleeving and lack of money. I sleeve despite being able to replace any game at any time with no impact on my financial well-being. Except in the case of particularly valuable cards, I think sleeving is mostly a personality thing driven by a certain obsessiveness.
basalty_monolith | 7 hours ago
I sleeve my deck because there are multiple $300+ (each) cards from the 90's in there. Once you sleeve one, you sleeve all (that's the rule).
If I were to play with all cards printed in 2026, sure, no sleeve is fine.
I'm also balls deep into chips/tech stocks so on paper multi millionaire. So there's zero relationship between sleeving and money.
There will always be people who are mad that young people aren't throwing money into a home several times their net worth (banks, boomers, economists?) while being in debt for 30 years. Article is just the latest iteration of that.
Zef-Daytrade | 22 hours ago
I like to sleeve being its easier to shuffle, and I can play on dirty tables which wont make my cards sticky.
But yea once you get into the double/triple sleeves..................
NoPerformance5952 | 22 hours ago
Just say you are out of touch and live a barren life. I wonder also if they slot football and golf in there too. You know, literal games that children play.
shumpitostick | 23 hours ago
As a Magic player this article is very out of touch. Yes, adults nowadays have hobbies and like gaming, it's not just kids. It's not that complicated. That doesn't have some kind of dramatic meaning about the economy. If anything it's a privilege that younger people have that they have the time and cash for hobbies like this. The recent growth of MTG has been a lot due to the new sets that use other IPs as a way to get new people to play Magic. It's been controversial with more established players who don't like that Magic no longer has its own character but is becoming a mishmash or random IPs. You know, like my Gandalf blocking your Spider-Man.
pyronius | 20 hours ago
"stalled adulthood economy"
You mean hobbies?
I don't play Magic (not a fan of the direction it or D&D has gone with all the weird crossover stuff), but I do play a lot of video games, used to run a D&D game, and play a bit of warhammer with a friend every now and then. Some people might see that as childish, to which I would point out that I have a degree, I'm married, I'm planning to have a kid, I own a house, and I work a full time (and then some) job where I'm entrusted with medical tests that determine whether people live or die.
I admit that I might occasionally judge another person's hobbies as childish, but usually that's more to do with the way the person approaches them than the hobby itelf. Nothing about my own childish hobbies has stalled my adulthood any more than somebody reliving their youth by watching college kids play football.
I'm not trying to come off as defensive. It's just a weird term. Like, what are the acceptable "adult" hobbies that don't indicate a stalled adulthood? Crosswords?
Magjee | 20 hours ago
This article reeks of an older generation whining and complaining about youngins
So I assume they think it's healthier to get shit faced at the bar or something
And not spend time with their kids, until their old and want it and the kids don't care to see them
Something like that
Prestigious_Load1699 | 11 hours ago
I dunno.
I feel you, but I also see all these grown-ass adults going to Disneyland dressed up like children and it does give me pause.
At the end of the day, to each their own.
NicolasCageFan492 | a day ago
Corporations are mad that people have hobbies that are non-consumerist. Once you buy a deck of cards, you don’t need another deck unless you damage or lose your cards, or the game itself (you just lost) advances and older cards become obsolete. They’re mad about gaming too, which is one of the more cost effective entertainment methods. That’s going away though as physical games (transferable/sharable games) disappear.
I expect eBay to go away in the next two years too.
jehnarz | a day ago
I actually think that we are going to see a resale boom as the economy worsens. Why should I buy my daughter a new Toy Story figure when I can get several gently used ones for the same price and not feel so bad about the environment while doing it? We're seeing a huge push for virtual content, but as consumers find their dollar stretching less, used physical items are becoming more appealing. I do suspect that Amazon is going to take a hit soon though, and that's why they are focusing so much on AWS.
NicolasCageFan492 | a day ago
I agree in principle but I am afraid that eBay will be bought by investors who want to expand their margins which means higher prices and less utilization by the public. The GameStop CEO is not taking No for an answer, and he feels like a Musk-type character.
Prestigious_Load1699 | 11 hours ago
How is spending your disposable income on Magic cards anything but “consumerist”?
And what corporations would be mad at that?
Certainly not Wizards of the Coast.
ptok_ | a day ago
I was playing MTG (computer version as it's far cheaper) for some time. I stopped as I did not like direction of that game went and the way Hasbro and WotC tried to milk me more and more. They're very good at milking that game.
IllustriousTip6904 | 23 hours ago
"Magic: The Gathering's record year" - IIRC Magic the gathering has been pumping out sets at a pace that players don't like, just revving that capitalism machine. It's "record year" is more of a reflection of that than some weird construed piece about adult economics.
caliginouscalico | 2 hours ago
They literally doubled the amount of yearly releases, and many of the releases are abnormally large!
Someone with an economics background and an actual interest in the subject could probably get some pretty interesting conclusions out of this, shame that isn't this article!
npcrespecter | 23 hours ago
People are reselling these cards. It isn’t solely an issue of arrested adulthood. I am sure many of these people are looking to prepare items to be resold at a later time. It is unfortunate for articles to have this tone.
Throwaway__shmoe | 23 hours ago
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think Generation X, Millennial Generation and Generation Z exists, rather it’s simply: Boomers -> Xennials -> Zillennials -> Gen Alpha. The “official” generation map doesn’t accurately describe those cohorts appropriately much like how the article describes older millennials are able to get a financial footing.
snowflake37wao | 22 hours ago
Its almost as if mainstream is catching onto the fact we skipped over a generation between X and Y now that it is showing up in data. Xennials.
PompeiiSketches | 22 hours ago
This is a weird article. Are we all supposed to spend our free time reviewing our 401ks and insurance premiums? I am an adult, I don't need to mime an adult.
Also, didn't boomers collect sports cards?
Rin-Tin-Tins-DinDins | 19 hours ago
With dwindling third spaces and the cost of everything rising, MtG is how many of my friends do things together and make new friends. I can’t fault people for finding what joy they can and trying to make the best of things
AiFixedMyMarriage | 4 hours ago
There are no rules to how we age. I know plenty of Magic players who own homes, have families, and are holding down real jobs. Getting old is dumb; we shouldn't be resigned to shopping at Home Depot all the time, just because that is what the economy expects.
kiDsALbDgC9QmLFiIrrj | 4 hours ago
Magic player here: something that seems missing is that MtG cards are game pieces. I buy the cards to play the game, I don't really care if they appreciate in value. Getting a rare card is neat, but there's always a cheaper version that is identical for gameplay purposes.
caliginouscalico | 2 hours ago
This reads like someone saw two dots (doll sales and magic sales) and decided to try and spin an article out of that by inflating the wordcont with platitudes instead of doing actual, you know, analysis. Like a child's essay instead of an adult's.
Magic actually does have some interesting things leading to this spike, from an economics perspective (the increased print rate, the crossovers, them dredging up every checkov's gun they can) but apparently you need to know more about Magic than "It's a TCG" to tell people about those. I wonder if there's any way for journalists to learn things!
basafo | 23 hours ago
Universes Beyond is SUCH a cancer. FUCK THE soulless Fortnite/Funko model. With Funkos, now you can see all those shelves full of figures in shops like dead corpses from other past. Mtg was such a great game. They destroyed it "just" for money. The game is so dead for me and for so many. They destroyed so many great communities of players with it. So sad. Disgusting people from Wizards and Hasbro.
Prestigious-Worth-49 | 7 hours ago
lol Got a good laugh out of this. Thanks!
chainsawinsect | 17 hours ago
This article is written by somebody with a decent understanding of economics but very little knowledge about Magic: The Gathering. It's easy to see the huge surge in profitability in the brand and think it's a sign of the times, but in reality, in recent years, the parent company that owns Magic: The Gathering (NASDAQ: HAS) has been cracking the whip on the game's makers to force them to do unprecedented things that will surge up the stock price in the short term at the expense of long-term viability, as a way to offset losses in their other properties. If you had done that exact same thing 5 years ago, or 10, you would have seen a similar bump regardless of the state of the economy or the nostalgia element.
There may be some truth to the broader theme, as we do see some similar patterns in other areas (like reboots of shows from the current working generation's childhoods and the surge in collectability in Pokemon TCG cards), but Magic: The Gathering has way too many confounding variables right now to be relied on for supporting this theory in any way. That game is basically in "maximum quick cash grab" mode right now, so it's not surprising to see some quick jumps in profitability year-over-year.
Prestigious_Load1699 | 11 hours ago
Rather just put your money into an S&P500 index fund.
If we have a generation that reaches retirement age with a bunch of MtG cards instead of a high-growth retirement account, they have noone to blame but themselves.
Just sayin’.
irishwolfbitch | a day ago
I am worried about the psychic damage, down the line, who instead of choosing a meaningful career or a family actively devoted the rest of their lives to consumerism.
keynoko | 23 hours ago
Meaning is derived from what the individual places meaning in. Not what the other deems as meaningful.
Too many retirees look back on their careers and wish they had spent less time, energy, health, working.
irishwolfbitch | 23 hours ago
My comment has everything to do with how people spend their money and free time/time.
TheGoonSquad612 | a day ago
Heaven forbid people enjoy their lives and have hobbies, they could have super fulfilling lives slaving away for more corporate profits!
floridorito | 23 hours ago
And/or slaving away to sacrifice themselves for offspring who will face an even worse outlook.
Runfasterbitch | 17 hours ago
Please don’t call children offspring, it’s dehumanizing. Children are the most precious class of people on earth and we shouldn’t talk about them like they’re liabilities
irishwolfbitch | 23 hours ago
Playing video games until you’re 80 doesn’t really feel like much of a life but we’re going to start getting there with a lot of people. My comment about meaningful career was about using all your money to have a sick Lego collection—or watch TV which is what most Americans do—rather than devoting your time to more “fulfilling” endeavors.
BBQpirate | 23 hours ago
I have a few friends in their mid-thirties that still play video games all day.
I never asked them, but I do not get the impression they are “fulfilled” in life.
Princessformidable | a day ago
Well meaningful careers and the ability to support a family are in short supply.
merlin48 | 21 hours ago
No, psychic damage would be from Pokemon, not Magic.
Neapolitanpanda | 23 hours ago
Is there something about buying little pieces of cardboard that prevents one from getting a promotion or having a baby?
Joltizer | 18 hours ago
Oh joy, more doomer slop from people who get all of their political and economic information from social media
Reminder than Millenials are vastly more wealthy than boomers were at the same point in their careers. The only thing that is less affordable is housing, and a large part of that is a choice by Millenials themselves
Octomyde | 18 hours ago
Less affordable housing is a choice? Care to explain?
Joltizer | 18 hours ago
Millenials support rent control, which is the single most destructive policy for housing affordability. They also generally support other destructive policies like community review and SFH zoning
NinjaKoala | 16 hours ago
Oh, nonsense. Rent control has existed for many decades, and millenials have had very limited political power and influence.
Joltizer | 16 hours ago
Please do not share your uneducated takes and listen to what I am teaching you. Complete the assigned reading below
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20181289
CockchopsMcGraw | 11 hours ago
What a smug wanker. Apart from NY, where is this rent control happening which has supposedly distorted the housing market? Your imagination?
Joltizer | 7 hours ago
You're confusing education for smugness, because you are largely uneducated. Most cities have rent control through IZ. SF is the other city that is very big on rent control, which your assigned reading shows you
CockchopsMcGraw | 7 hours ago
No, it's definitely smugness, as evidenced by the presumptuousness of the following little dig. The world is a much bigger place than the US, and these pressures are being felt throughout the rest of the world, regardless of rent control policies. Assigned reading indeed. Arrogant wanker.
Joltizer | 7 hours ago
No, it's education and knowledge. I understand that you are not familiar with them since education in the UK is such low quality
As you will not engage with the material of the lecture, you are dismissed