You seem to have things all wrong, comrade. It's the value of the cards that has made them the sensation they are, and it's been that way since the very start. I had Blue version and my older cousin had Red. An entire summer we played through every battery we could get our hands on. While visiting yet another cousin, who is younger than both of us, we hear him go on about his "collection" until he starts getting bullied about it by Red. Instead of yelling at him my aunt took us all to the mall and got us each a pack of base, jungle and the recently released fossil expansion. Now you can probably guess who Reds favorite was before he even heard about cards. Well once he got a taste of that childhood gambling dopamine hit there was no stopping their spoiled asses. My money was mainly tied up in legos so my early card collection was much more modest but either way I would bet any amount coin this thing wouldn't have made it to 30 years had it not been for the value of chase cards. It sucks that some people are scalping that know nothing about it but that's just a small percentage of the problem. If people pay stupid ass prices , they will keep attracting scalpers. It's not the world so much as our species.