One of the most anxiously awaited features in Pokémon TCG Pocket has been trading—but now that it’s finally in the game, players are less than pleased with the new mechanic.
Released just before the new expansion set Space-Time Smackdown, the trading mechanic in Pocket revolves around Trade Tokens and prioritizes lower-rarity cards. It is possible to trade high-rarity cards, but doing so requires having several copies, which has upset a number of collectors. Players dug into the new mechanic online, with one person posting a screenshot of the Trade Tokens tab and declaring, “Let’s face it, the game does NOT want you to trade cards.” Other fans were inclined to agree, chiming in with their thoughts on the new addition.
“Completely useless,” one frustrated fan replied to the post. “You throw a spare card out there and hope you get one back that you need, while consuming trade tokens in the process.” The Trade Token currency seemed to be a big sticking point for a lot of players in the thread.
“I’d like everyone who said I was complaining by calling trading worthless last week to apologize lol,” another player joked.
Some attempted to see the issue from the Pocket team’s perspective, with one player theorizing, “If anything, they probably got in trouble for saying trading in the first place. Then they were obligated to add it after people spent money. From a business standpoint, allowing trading is only a downside.” Others considered how the mechanic might look with future events and challenges. “Anyone that thought you were going to be able to trade with any kind of abandon was fooling themselves,” another person noted. “I’m guessing 125 tokens per event in the rewards. Just enough to drip feed.”
Some particularly irritated players encouraged the community to cancel their Premium Pass subscriptions altogether, showing just how many felt let down by the implementation of this mechanic.
The topic of changing the game’s name came up a few times, with players laughing that it could be renamed to Pokémon Card Game Pocket after this mechanic’s introduction. “If only Trading weren’t literally in the title of the game,” one joked. “They should rename it to PCGP and take out the T.”
While the mechanic hasn’t been well received for the most part, it is clear from this digital outcry that there are still scores of collectors who are passionate about completing sets and filling out their collection binders in the game.
Based on an official statement made via the Pocket X account on Jan. 16, it’s possible that we could see changes being made to the trading system in the future. The statement promised to look at how trading impacts and changes the game for players once it actually goes live, so all hope is seemingly not lost yet for the future of trading.
Nothing further has been announced by the Pocket team at the time of writing, but we’ll be sure to update our guide to the trading mechanic if anything else becomes known.
Published: Jan 29, 2025 11:40 am