Comment by ThrowawayR2

Buying a CCG pack is a rather detached process; you fork over you money and you get a foil wrapped packet. You unwrap it afterwards and that's fun but it's clear that an ordinary purchase is occurring. That's much less stimulating than the glitzy animation and audio one gets that is carefully designed to give kids the impression that something special and exciting is happening and to spark that bit of hope that they'll get something good. Add on top of that the additional animation/voice-over when they do get something good to reward them and it's therefore not surprising that children are strongly attracted to it.