Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has received its long awaited trading update today and, despite players slamming the mechanic upon developer Creatures Inc. revealing how it would work last week, it's somehow launched to an even worse reception.
Players have taken to social media to share their frustration at the trading feature, criticizing it for having too many requirements and too many restrictions. While the latter were revealed upon trading's announcement last week, the former was veiled under the statement "items must be consumed in order to trade."
Unlike the Wonder Pick feature or opening booster packs, every instance of trading will require two separate, new use of items. The first is similar to those other mechanics, where in order to trade players must have Trade Stamina. This recovers over time or can be exchanged for Poké Gold, meaning real world money.
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Trade Tokens
The other item is what's causing a stir amongst the Pokémon TCG Pocket community, however. Trade Tokens are also required for trading any card at 3 Diamonds or higher. 120 Trade Tokens are required to trade a 3 Diamond card, 400 are required to trade a 1 Star card, and 500 are required to trade a 4 Diamond card, meaning an ex Pokémon.
Trade Tokens can only be obtained by essentially selling cards. Players can delete from their collection a 3 Diamond card for 25 Trade Tokens, a 1 Star card for 100, a 4 Diamond card for 125, a 2 Star card for 300, a 3 Star immersive card for 300, and a Crown gold card for 1500. Cards of lower rarities are worthless, though require no Trade Tokens to trade either.
This means players must sell, for example, five ex Pokémon before they can trade one ex Pokémon, or five 1 Star card (the rarest available to trade) before they can trade one 1 Star card. What's more, selling one Crown rarity card, which are the rarest in the game and may not be obtained even after months of playing, will only net players enough tokens to trade three ex Pokémon.
Selling one of the next rarity, the 3 Star immersive art cards used a selling point for Pokémon TCG Pocket itself, doesn't grant enough Trade Tokens to trade either a 1 Star card or a 4 Diamond card.
'A Monumental Failure'
"The trading update is an insult," wrote hurtbowler on Reddit in a post with over 1,000 upvotes, a player who vowed not to spend another penny on the game. "It's just frustrating. The greed is just so excessive I can't be inclined to spend another dollar. They should probably remove 'Trading Card Game' from the title screen. It's just insulting to look at."
"It's silly to have to burn two immersive cards to be able to trade just one 4 Diamond ex," said someone in the comments. "I understand they want to keep people from creating bots and exploiting the system, but this is currently absurd."
Others called it "hilariously toxic" and "monumental failure," and lamented that a "safe way for the community to connect more" was sacrificed for something "so laborious." Exchanging something for Trade Tokens also takes around 15 seconds, meaning many will have to spend minutes in menus before they can trade a single card.
"If these are the trade costs, the app should be renamed to Pokémon Card Game Pocket wrote Darkmalice in the comments of a post discussing the high costs. "I don't think they want people trading at all," said another user. "That's why they made it so bad."
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Pay Day
Fans have complained trading is fairly clearly being implemented as a means of increasing revenue for Pokémon TCG Pocket, which is estimated to have made $200 million in its first month, before trading was possible.
This is also evidenced by the inability to trade cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, as if players could immediately trade for their missing cards, they wouldn't need to spend $10 or $100 or more for a random chance of getting them. It cost one player around $1,500 just to complete the first set, for example, and the third in three months will be available tomorrow.
"The trading system is predatory and downright greedy," wrote ACNL on Reddit, who outlined the Trade Token conversion rates. "That's just messed up man. Like who designed this? If there were other ways to get tokens, this might be passable, but at the moment there are no other ways to get tokens.
"This isn't sustainable at all. On top of that, you can't even burn a card unless you have three copies of it. If you want to trade in this game, you better buy a ton of packs and keep buying them."
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Creatures Inc. Stays Quiet
Creatures Inc. has not yet commented on the backlash to trading. Doing so is a rare move for the developer but it did so for the initial complaints when trading was revealed last week. "Your concerns are seen," it said at the time. "Once this feature becomes available, I'd like to invite everyone to try it and provide feedback. This way, the game can continue to evolve in an enjoyable way for everyone."
This response made it sound as though things may be better than fans expected, but that is certainly not the case. IGN as asked Creatures Inc. for comment on this reaction and if any changes are planned.
As mentioned by some users, the trading mechanic could be rectified somewhat by Pokémon TCG Pocket including Trade Tokens as rewards for missions and such. It's more likely Trade Stamina will feature in these though, as it has so far included adjacent items like Wonder Stamina and Pack Hourglasses as rewards.
Regardless, the introduction of such a poorly received mechanic today is a bad look for a game about to debut its next big update, which will introduce Diamond and Pearl Pokémon such as Dialga and Palkia to the digital card game.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.