I wonder what the online Pokemon community will look like in 10 years. What platforms will emerge for people to engage in? What platforms would you like to see?
My outlook:
The “10 Year E4 Awards” had me thinking of how I interact with Pokemon as a hobby. For me, it ebbs and flows between three major mediums, eBay, E4 and Bulbapedia. For others, their interactions go much deeper. Reddit, Discord, Instagram and Facebook all offer different communities, marketplaces and value systems. YouTube provides a free video platform for sharing content. And many of these platform choices vary based on where a person lives, services in other countries, or personal preference. What I love about E4 is that it creates bridges to connect many of these platforms. An open and moderated forum for discussing and sharing in the hobby which connects many of the services I listed above. Just to name a few. I’ve seen E4 members create YouTube channels for sharing their knowledge or enjoyment of the hobby. Programmers have used their skills to create websites for tracking and pricing their collections. And many have provided information and images to Bulbapedia in support of Pokemon’s largest public resource. I like to think of E4 as the Grand Central Station to the Pokemon hobby.
What I hope to see:
Ten years from now I hope to see E4 continue to expand as it serves as a platform for business, communication, entertainment and education.
For business, I think E4 does quite well. There are discussions about current market trends, threads about recent sales and new auctions. People link to their online stores either through eBay or their own websites. And people are working on providing and improving pricing tools and collection trackers.
For communication and entertainment, this is E4’s bread and butter. Links to social networking, forums for discussion and sharing, tools for messaging and reaching out to other members are all available and accessible.
For education, this is the area I think could be most improved. Many people over the past 10 years have provided wonderful articles about specific cards, rare releases, historical tidbits and articles detailing intricacies of the hobby. Many users recently took the time to find great posts and nominate them for E4 awards. I think many of these posts should have a higher platform and more visibility on E4. I recommend elevating posts like this to E4’s Home page. A “Monthly Top Posts” could be something fun and engaging for the community. It filters through the riffraff and weaker posts and promotes higher quality content. Perhaps it’s not just a top article or something educational, but just a highlighted post that was funny or had great photos.
“Price check on” “You are all sleeping on HF and modern” that’s the future of E4.
Hopefully that’s not the future. But i do hope that this site remains as a place where you can get into and have nice discussions about the hobby and more in depth look about certain topics.
“Can’t believe this charizard is 140k now. This is total bullshit. I should’ve bought in 2025 when it was only 30k. I miss the 2020s when pokemon was actually affordable if you saved up enough.”
Hate to say this, but as generations of collectors come and go, platforms will evolve. For example, eventually, newer generations of collectors will feel the E4 UI is far too old school. Maybe E4 will change with the times, but regardless, E4 will definitely be an artifact to look back on decades from now at awe in prices (could be because they “can’t believe this charizard is 140k now” or “can’t believe people payed 30k in 2025” but we’ll never really know).
The gold E4 is holding is knowledge. It’s easy accesible.
You can search and read older threads easily. Mostly organized.
If you then compare to IG and facebook all knowledge that comes in one way goes the other way. Gone kinda.
‘’ Rothschild has bought up all the shares of PSA. Through secret meetings at the bohemian grove , they decide which cards are allowed to get a 10 to keep the pop in check. ‘’
I think e4 is a hold-out of “the internet’s better times” and because of that, appeals to a certain demographic. Similar to how Reddit has kept its styling simple and programmatic for so long. I imagine there will be slow growth here, but groups of younger collectors will pop up in other mediums. Keeping things the way they are here will limit growth but maintain some level of quality, as I don’t think it’s very appealing to more casual types at the moment. (Not necessarily a bad thing, just trade-offs)
That being said, I think e4 could benefit from better search and organization to make knowledge more discoverable (pro boards limitations?); as others have said here it’s a trove of wisdom, but finding that can sometimes be difficult. Most of the time I end up going to google and searching " elite fourum."
I think it will be much the same. Just a whole lot more of it. The actual trading card game will continue to grow as more and more people start to play because of the money that is starting to become attached to it. Some of the kids that are in their late teens now will collect what they grew up with. Most of us will still be collecting wotc. Add a zero to damn near every wotc holo that’s 1st edition. I know that sounds like a lot. And it is. It’s insane. But I’ve had cards that have appreciated 5x inside of two years. What do you think is going to happen as everyone starts to get more money when they’re in their late 30’s-early 40’s? Pokemon is a young hobby. Lot’s of room to grow.
Also there will be a lot more content. Lots of people will have youtube videos talking about sales and stuff. Speaking of which, check out my YouTube channel where I go over sales data every day Pokemon sales data 22 June 2020 and new price point for Trophy Kangaskhan - YouTube
