Yes, I'm guilty of taking part in this fad.
(But c'mon, Captain Falcon is THE BEST CHARACTER IN ANYTHING EVER!!)

The thing I don't understand is how quickly these little figures became the HUGE phenomenon they are now.

I'm not a serious gamer, (Minecraft, Wizards 101, Happy Wheels, The Sims 4, and assorted wii/DSiXL games are basically all I play consistently.) but the huge amount of attention that these lil' things have gotten surprises me.

My Captain Falcon is about 3" tall, and I was forced to pay $25 for him on amazon. (That was the Japanese version, the English version was even more pricey.) Why? Well, here's my thought:

Demand is everything for a buisness. And boy, there is a lot of demand for amiibo. So much demand that my friend spent $200 on a Little Mac amiibo. (Which he later received to find the packaging banged up and partly torn open.) I have seen people literally guarding the amiibo section while their buddy gets a cart, which they fill up with all the rare figures. I was at Target, and I saw a man lunge at an elder woman who was trying to get a Mario amiibo for her grandson.

Wow.

Just... Wow.

I know these figures can aid your gameplay if you have a wiiU or 3DS, but my Captain Falcon hasn't done much better than just selecting the default C.Falcon.

It's not the figures that are the problem, it's the craziness of people trying to get them first. It's a sad sight to see, an grown man filling his cart full of Meta Knight and Rosalina figures, a mother and daughter looking for Rosalina, and walking away upset. (And most likely shelling out $60 for her on ebay.)

It's horrible, what people do. Taking all of them to sell for 11x the price when the next person in line just wants ONE.

Nintendo, make this stop.