I still remember when the original set of Pokémon cards hit shelves in the United States. A few friends had brought theirs to school to show off, but none of us knew how to actually play the game. I hadn’t been able to get in on the craze because it became increasingly difficult to find cards — they were flying off the shelves, even deep in suburbia at my local deli down the street.
One day, while making a stop for my parents I noticed that they had a box that showed they were in stock. I ran home and grabbed my hard earned allowance to get the *very* last pack. Off I ran again, back home to rip it open. Waiting for me in that pack was a holographic Charizard — 10-year-old me lost my mind, full of elation (and completely unaware of what the value of the card would be 20 years later).
Ultimately, collecting is the main draw of Trading Card Games (TCG) — I mean, it’s in the name. The thrill of cracking packs and finding an extremely rare card is the reason that their value can outpace even the stock market. For reference, Alpha booster packs from “Magic the Gathering” originally cost about $2.50 and now go for over 10,000x that value from reputable storefronts while a single share of Amazon bought on the date of their IPO would have “only” yielded roughly a 3,000x ROI over a similar stretch of time.
So, it should come as no surprise that we have started to see an increased interest in TCG beyond playing the actual game, for better or for worse. You can see this not only in the scramble to scalp the latest sets, but also in the increase of channels that “Rip and Ship” TCG products — essentially, you buy cards from your live-streamer of choice so that they can open them live on air for everyone to see. Fun, right?
Not for the honest to God enjoyers of the game. For them, increased interest means that product can be difficult to find and more expensive as a result. But, what if you got to open up multiple packs from your favorite IP every single day, completely for free?
Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?
Enter: “Pokémon TCG Pocket.”
Pokémon TCG Pocket, a mobile-only game with simplified game mechanics from the physical card game, hit the market a couple of months back and quickly hit #1 on both the iPhone app store and Google Play. Since then, over 60 million people have downloaded the app doing over $300 million in revenue — and making it the #1 Pokémon app by both of those metrics, month over month. Needless to say, it truly took the world by storm. However, the game had a shortage of content which exposed it’s questionable game mechanics and card balance.
At launch, all you could do was play through the tutorial NPC matches, battle other players, and after a few days there were a few more matches you could play versus a very easy computer. Battles granted XP, which in turn granted you in-game currencies, so you were stuck playing against other people and that is where the game began to draw some ire from players who enjoyed..playing the game.
For the uninitiated, battles consist of you playing a 1v1 where you need to knock out three of your opponent’s Pokémon — or getting three points, with EX-Pokémon counting as two (points). EX-Pokémon are stronger versions of their normal counterparts and it is very clear that the developers had specific strategies in mind when building out the deck archetypes. Fire Pokemon ramped up energy and relied on strong evolutions. Electric Pokémon built out their bench and relied on gaining a fast start. You get the idea.
However, as players began to identify deck synergies and energy archetypes, the metagame coalesced around several highly optimized decks, with MewTwo EX being one of the most contentious meta decks. The strategy revolved around an inevitable combination of cards that would one-shot most other cards if it got online. Then, there were Misty-Articuno decks which were either hit or miss based on how lucky you got flipping heads as well as several other decks that made players feel as though they had very little control over the game. Even Moltres-Charizard decks could get out of hand with enough luck.
And this is why Pokémon TCG Pocket sucks. From the moment you start the game you lack player agency. You flip a coin to go first or second and the time of publishing, going first is often times a disadvantage, especially versus certain decks. Even still, you could theoretically overcome that if your deck has cards like Misty which, with a dash of luck, can super-charge cards that would typically need several turns to set up. The reduction of points to win down to three also introduces it’s own issues as you can’t sacrifice your early game in order to obtain an advantage later on. The game is still young and there are likely going to be new cards that shake up the meta (as evidenced by their latest Mystical Island release), but these problems with the game-design are currently frustrating for serious Pokémon TCG players who are used to playing the “standard” version of the game.
But, challenging and complex card battles are not why Pokémon TCG Pocket exists.
It’s easy to forget that the game is meant for children to be able to play it. Not only are the Pokémon meant to look adorable, but the primary game mechanic revolves around flipping a coin, which is makes wins and losses really easy to understand. Compare that to a 30 minute game of “Magic the Gathering” where a decision at minute-5 can come back to haunt you in minute-30. It’s much easier to dismiss loss with “well he flipped all 4 heads and won, what can you do?” but it also makes it more painful for TCG veterans when your opponents are getting lucky rather than playing smart. Again, Pokémon TCG Pocket is designed for children to understand how to play it.
Consequently, this makes the gameplay feel like a casino driving you to purchase more spins to get the best cards so you can keep up with those filthy meta players. You’re granted a slow drip of free spins that have a low chance of pulling the good stuff, incentivizing players pony up cash for additional spins at the casino table. While this practice is not inherently pay to win because over time odds are you will get what you want (or Wonder Pick it), but let’s be honest — is it a surprise that at release one of the best meta decks happened to feature a card which has one of the three rarest versions of it in the game?
And this is why it’s okay that Pokémon TCG Pocket sucks.
At the end of the day, Pokémon TCG Pocket exists for people that enjoy the dopamine hit of opening cards. Pulling a “crown rare” or even any of the full-art versions of a card and showing it off to all of your friends on Discord harkens a nostalgia that should bring you back to the 10-year old version of yourself, opening a holo Charizard with your hard-earned allowance. It should make you feel like you’re sitting at the lunch room table with your friends, no idea how the game works, but having fun anyway because it’s Pokémon. For that, I think Pokémon TCG Pocket nails it. Besides, maybe we should just be having fun with the game because it’s meant to be fun, not competitive or serious — just like the game was the first time we played it.
Or you can get mad because your opponent is better than flipping a coin than you are — the choice is yours.
