Pokemon TCG Pocket players can’t believe how much money the game has made already
The Pokemon CompanyEven though Pokemon TCG Pocket has been out for less than three months, it has managed to make half a billion dollars, leaving players shocked.
Since its announcement, people around the world eagerly waited for the launch of Pokemon TCG Pocket, which hit 10 million downloads in only two days and 30 million in its first week.
While Pokemon products are always a massive hit, trading card games in general tend to appeal to smaller groups, so players were surprised to learn it had made half a billion dollars – almost as much as the cultural phenomenon Pokemon Go – in only three months.
A half-billion-dollar game with poor content
Apart from the shock the earned money caused, what surprised users the most was that Pokemon TCG Pocket managed to achieve this milestone with so little content.
One PTCGP Reddit user highlighted how crazy this is, given that the team behind the game couldn’t even design a Trading System that works properly.
The Trading System was released on January 29, 2025, and caused a stir among the community, but not for the right reasons.
The mechanic was instantly hated by users, who took to social media to make their displeasure known, which eventually led to The Pokemon Company releasing a statement promising to improve the system in the short term.
Players were not surprised, as one commented, “Not making it trade-friendly is a part of the plan of continuing to make that much”, while another added, “Predatory systems work the way they work because they’re working as intended, it’s not a miscalculation or an accident, it’s a design choice”.
However, the complaints go beyond the failed Trading System, as the repetitive events with little to no real rewards have been taking their toll on users.
“Making the game trade-friendly seems like not even a top 10 issue for the amount of money they make. How about the fact they won’t add any new types of events or the fact they give terrible rewards, or that we got what, 3 packs for New Year’s after giving them a quarter of a billion? Or that instead of increasing quality of life or UI changes they focused on nerfing Wonder Pick instead of any kind of improvement on the game”, an angry user wrote.
Since its launch, the Pokemon TCG Pocket has released three expansions and only two main types of events – the Drop ones featuring Promo cards and the Emblem Events – leaving players with little to do once they are over.
While players feel minimal effort with existing assets is a working formula for DeNA and The Pokemon Company, they expect some respect as users, even more so when they are making so much money.
Nonetheless, as yet another Emblem and Promo Cards events are live and one more Wonder Pick event is on its way, players will have to wait to see if Pokemon TCG Pocket has something new in store that can infuse the game with a breeze of fresh air.