M3: My Morning Musings – amiibo craze

Retailing at $12.99 in the US, amiibo flew off shelves with lesser known characters like Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, and Marth being some of the most sought after characters. These quickly began selling for $30 to $90 each after the initial supply was gone through sites like eBay and Craigslist.
But what makes amiibo so popular? Why does anyone care about plastic figures similar to what you find in Disney Infinity and Skylanders? To answer this question, I began a test. I would offer myself up to see what this craze was all about. Little did I know, it would take over my life.
I began small–collecting a few characters I cared about: Zelda, Link, and Mario. Soon I found myself reading about amiibo through various websites and hearing reports of people camping out to get a new wave of amiibo released. Silly people, I thought. Little did I know, I would soon find myself camping out for a limited release of the Kirby franchise Meta Knight and trading amiibo with other collectors.
I am not sure if it was an addictive personality problem or what exactly led me to the next step in collecting amiibo, but I soon found myself wanting to get the other figures. Some like to collect amiibo sealed in their original packaging but I was content, like many others, to open them and display inside my office. I have gone from collecting just a few amiibo to trying to get my hands on all of them.
Since I began my first initial hunt for amiibo, Nintendo has gone from releasing figures based off of Super Smash Bros to a new Super Mario Bros line that includes a very hard to find Toad amiibo that sold out almost as quickly as it was put up. While it is unknown, at this time, if everyone who begins to gather amiibo suffers from addiction, I am wondering if Nintendo put something on the packaging that makes you crave the process of collecting.
This is Kaleb Rutherford and these are my Morning Musings.
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Kaleb Rutherford
In 1997, Kaleb started CVGames and since then ttended and covered a variety of different events for the public including PAX, QuakeCon, E3, and many others. With over 20 E3 events covered, there isn't much that surprises Kaleb anymore in the industry as he has seen it all.
Kaleb is married to Emily and they have been together over 20 years. They have 4 boys who share a passion and love for technology and gaming as well.
Kaleb started Parents Press Play to begin podcasting and reaching a more casual segment of the world that tends to have coverage dominated by by "Hardcore," or "Core players. CVGames still exists to cover that section of users.
Combining CVGames and Parents Press Play together, Kaleb created CVGN: The Covering Video Games Network. While world domination is unlikely, our passionate team continues to strive to inform the different audiences with content we are passionate about.
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