Ugh! Yes!!!

There's the whole Max Bid thing that can totally get you. These days it's less about playing the game and more about what your what you're ultimately willing to spend.

Fooey.

I think there are a couple different factors behind the low market value of G3s.

1.  The Core Seven.  Who remembers this?  Going into the toy aisle and just seeing the same seven ponies, ooooover and oooover and ooooover.  It was worse than the current re-releases because it wasn't just "not very many other characters", it was literally NO OTHER CHARACTERS.  It was around this time that I began to see an exodus of collectors from the community, or people going into "sleep mode."  "I don't bother checking the toy aisle any more, what's the point?"  "I'm just not excited about ponies any more."  The G3 ponies who had been released previously became tarred with the same brush as the Bore Seven;  people were less excited about G3s in general. 

It was also at this point that G3 prices began to nosedive.  I do not think the dip in prices had much to do with G4s.  Long before G4 came out, I had a rather extensive sales thread where I was STRUGGLING to sell absolutely mint G3s for $2 each.  Two dollars!! 

2.  Okay, but that wasn't the only reason.  There was also Pony Fatigue.  I hated the Core 7 for erasing all but seven characters.  I am not happy with the lack of new brushables in the current line.  But there was a time when many collectors were completely overwhelmed with the continuous onslaught of new G3s.  It was almost impossible to keep up and very, very expensive to buy them all, if you were a completionist.  In addition, some ponies were kind of generically similar (especially in the Crystal Princess line).  Like, "pink + purple + flower", you know.

So, I saw some people burn out from that.  They were just tired of trying to keep up. This leads me to my next point . . .

3.  Lack of emotional attachment.  The toys we had as kids we played with and loved.  Toys we want as collectors we usually have to search for, which is exciting.  Going into a store and buying six new ponies all at once is not really exciting and, in my opinion, can become more of "just a goal" rather than a toy.  What I mean is . . . it's all about the acquisition, not about enjoying what you acquire.  When the glamour wears off, you're left with a lot of things you don't want, at just the point when a lot of OTHER people discover they, too, have acquired a lot of things they don't want.  They all go for sale at once and doooown goes the value.

Within a few years, we will see the market for G3s re-emerge, as the kids who played with them hit that "nostalgia stage."  It really is different if you grew up with something rather than collecting it later.  But for now, there is just not much demand.

(I also think G3s are hurt by a more limited palette of colors compared to G1 and G2.)