It’s always interesting to see what the first “major controversy” of a popular video game is. We’re talking about the ones that launch to huge fanfare and can seemingly “do no wrong,” and then the developers make a really boneheaded move that strikes up the ire of the fanbase so much that the dev team has to change something in a hurry to appease them. For the Pokemon TCG Pocket title it was one of the most popular mobile games out there when it was launched late last year. It had tens of millions of players, brought in a lot of money, and people enjoyed playing it! …but…
…at the beginning of 2025, it made its “boneheaded move” via trading. No, not by having trading. Every player wanted that so they could trade cards with their friends. The problem was that the game forced players to trade in a very specific way, which lent to much frustration on the player side of things. Why? Long story short, you would be using microtransactions a lot to do trading and to get enough cards to allow trading to happen in the first place. It was very predatory, and the fans knew it, so they called it out.
Fast forward to now, and a special blog post was made to highlight the changes that are coming to the Pokemon TCG Pocket trading system. Here are the highlights:
“Trade tokens will be completely removed and players will no longer need to exchange cards to obtain the currency required for trading. Instead, trading cards of three-diamond, four-diamond, and one-star rarity will now require shinedust.
When you open a booster pack, shinedust will be automatically earned if you obtain a card that is already registered in your Card Dex. Currently, shinedust is also required to obtain flair, so we are looking into increasing the amount offered since it will also be needed for trading. Altogether, this change should allow you to trade more cards than you could before this update.”
If you still have some trade tokens because you refused to use them previously, they will be converted to shinedust, which will further give you a leg up on things. The team also noted that the fan-requested feature of telling others what you’re looking for in a trade is in the works.
Hopefully, this overhaul will make the game more beloved by the fans again, but only time will tell. Furthermore, let’s hope this deters further predatory practices.
