Over the last couple of years, there have been multiple video game developers and publishers who have done, let’s say, “questionable moves” that have gotten quite the reaction from players. Sometimes, it was little things, like announcing a big game that wouldn’t be out for at least three years and then never talking about it again. Then, there were the times when developers launched a video game before the title should’ve been released at all! Finally, there are those who did so many live service things that it ruined the title. Pokemon TCG Pocket is in that last one, as they made a move recently that sent the fanbase ablaze, and the team is still apologizing for it.
If you missed out on the chaos, Pokemon TCG Pocket introduced trading for the first time since the game’s launch in October. This was not only a long-promised feature but an anticipated one with fans. This was a great way to finish their Pokedex without necessarily having to try and get all the cards via random booster packs. However, once players actually tried out the trading feature, they learned quickly that it was more about spending money to make trades than making trades to get cards. There were multiple restrictions around the trading feature that made it feel like a predatory practice rather than a new feature in a TRADING card game.
Many fans were willing to quit the game outright if things didn’t change. Thankfully, The Pokemon Company did apologize and promised to do right by fans in the future. Today, they continued that apology by offering players 1000 Trade Tokens so that they wouldn’t run out anytime soon.
The team also promises to keep “investigating ways to improve the feature,” which could mean many things, but at least it’s something.
True to their nature, fans commented on the post and suggested all sorts of things to help improve the trading feature overall. Some people wanted to see the cards that their friends were trading them so that it wouldn’t be a “blind deal.” Others felt that the cost of trading was still too high. Suggestions also touched on the concepts of a “wishlist” so that they’d only be trading with people who had the cards they wanted, certain levels of cards having a few free trades a day, and so on.
As such, The Pokemon Company has plenty of suggestions/offers on how to make things better. Now, it’s up to them to make the players happy again.
