This was true over 20 years ago when I was in elementary school - I don’t know anyone who really played the game, most people just collected the cards.

Magic the Gathering was always both though, you collected good/rare cards & played the game with them!

Yes I remember having a hard time finding other kids who wanted to actually play the pokemon card game. And even when I could find someone, they didn't care about the rules/energy costs. This was in elementary school though to be fair.