Collectible Avatars, can they really be collectible/valuable, or are they "just art"?

Now that the dust of the launch of the 4th Gen of Reddit Avatars has settled a bit, I've come to notice some stuff and I'm curious how you all see this.

So, aside from the $10 avatars that should have cost 100 bucks, I would argue the launch was a relative success. While undoubtedly aided by the sour taste the G3 launch left most with, there was relatively little betting and the countermeasures taken by Reddit made sure distribution seems fairly evenly (again, aside from the 10 dollars ones)

It's interesting to me to see that people have stayed away from the most expensive ones for a much longer time. They're selling out now, but it seems with much more caution and actual demand.

It got me thinking how this will play out in terms of value.

Oversupply?

So in a Collectible Card game I follow, there is a lot of debate for the past few years about how an oversupply and reprinting of cards tend to devalue everything across the board, except for certain non reprintable ones. This has led to a lot of comparisons to the comic boom and bust and to a lesser extent, the sports card industry. Where tons and tons of different and special versions make sure that nothing is really special (aside from OG old prints).

My curiosity is in how this will be for these Avatars moving forward. It's clear to me these will be "printed into the ground" in terms of Gen releases, so what will this mean for value? I believe they are too new to really say that G1 will hold all its value, especially because it's not tied to a game that will give them more functionality (another important reason why in Magic cards have value)

They're "just" art?

I've seen the argument that these aren't necessarily meant to have loads of value, but I don't really buy in to that argument as they're marketed as collectibles, have artifical scarcity and price points and have resale royalties. So my conclusion, they're expected to have "some" value.

Reprint policies?

Will it be "necessary" at some point to have:

• stricter policies in terms of how many times an artist can create Avatars? Making their collections more scarce?
• Should there be policies in terms of how derivative these can be (seeing the growth of Jeweled and Encrusted ones).
• Or some other type of "reprint" policy?

Do you all see special 1 of 1 releases coming up, or redeemable Avatars? I personally liked the free release of the Raving Rabbid Avatars where the Unicorn Rabbid had a supply of 500. Even those these were free, they traded for over $100 for a short while.

More functionality?

Should they, at some point, have more functionality other than being "art" so that they can move beyond the sports cards comparison and be more like a gaming skin or even functional game piece?

Honestly, even though I myself haven't participated all that much in this release, I still see a great deal of potential for these. Both for the casual "mashers" and for collectors (and maybe even gamers) alike. At the same time, I would definitely argue that in time, certain "policies" could help these become more structured in terms of expectations and therefor maybe even more, collectible.

What do you all think? Assuming every launch will go better than the previous one technically, how can these thrive instead of boom and bust? And is that even necessary?

Regardless of how everything went in the past, the issues, the extreme loss of "value" (my own responsibility), I genuinely enjoy these and would love to see them grow into their own phenomenon.