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January 29, 2025 — Pokémon TCG Pocket released their long-awaited trading update today — just ahead of the equally anticipated Space-Time Smackdown expansion set — and the reception has been unfavorable, to say the least.
Despite the initial excitement, reactions to the update have turned sour in online spaces (such as the TCGP subreddit and the dedicated trading discord) as the cost of such trades became more widely known. If we take even a cursory look, we can see these forums inundated with topics about the subject.
To be blunt: the cost of trading is absurdly expensive and downright predatory. There are numerous reasons why this is the case, but if you don't know how it works, here's a quick rundown of how trading works in Pokémon TCG Pocket:
First, you need trade stamina, which works as the time gate for trading. Each trade uses a single trade stamina, with a single stamina replenishing after 24 hours. You can, of course, use in-game items and items purchase with real money (gold) to get more of this. Second, you can only trade cards of the same rarity (no cards two-stars or above). This second one is important as it means there's no way to trade something like a Charizard for a Squirtle. Third, trading a card with flair is only possible if you receive a card with flair back. Fourth, you can only have one active trade at a time.
That already seems so restrictive, but we haven't even scratched the surface yet.
Next, any card above two-diamond rarity requires trade tokens, which is a separate resource from the aforementioned trade stamina. Token requirements are shown in the image below — 3 diamond cards are 120 tokens, 4 diamond cards are 500 tokens, and 1 star cards are 400 tokens.
To get trade tokens, you must expend excess (any card copy beyond your second copy) cards. The rates are as follows:
3 Diamond – 25 Trade Tokens
4 Diamond – 125 Trade Tokens
1 Star – 100 Trade Tokens
2 Star – 300 Trade Tokens
3 Star – 300 Trade Tokens
Crown – 1500 Trade Tokens
That means you would need to burn 4 copies of a 4 star card just to receive one back (not counting the one you are trading).
The trading is also blind, for some reason. There is no way to request a card for trade in-game. Instead, you initiate a trade with whatever card you are sending to the other player. There are ways around this, of course, like knowing the person in real life, or joining the trading pages online, but it's a restriction that just makes the experience worse.
On top of the heavy resource requirements that trading necessitates, there lies another, equally annoying reason the trading system is dysfunctional - card flairs.
Card flairs are essentially just little animations that play for your cards when you play them in battles. To obtain these card flairs, you need a totally separate resource (stardust) and an extra copy of the card, where any additional copy beyond the first 2 counts as the 'extra' to be used in crafting. What this means is that a player will have to choose between keeping extra cards on hand for trading, or spending them to obtain the flairs. There's really no room for both, given how rare the 1 star rarity cards are (2.572% chance of any 1 star card appearing at all and it only gets worse from there).
There's really no excuse for this type of model, especially when you consider the primary demographic and player base of any Pokémon game are literal children. It is clear that the only purpose of this system is to further extract money from the player base (again, mostly children), and that it was not born out of any concern for the health, balance, or benefit of the game itself.
Setting aside ethical concerns (Jesus Christ, no), the act of trading itself is pretty convoluted and bafflingly restrictive. As someone who is only missing two regular cards from any existing set, the entire process feels like more effort than it's worth. I know I won't be interacting with the system in any way unless it is completely overhauled.
There has not been any statement from developer DeNA, Creatures Inc., or The Pokémon Company regarding the backlash, and given their track records, I would not expect any positive resolution to this situation anytime soon — if ever. The trading update coming on the eve of the game's largest update (expansion) yet is such a terrible look, you have to wonder if the companies behind it are just hoping for the noise to die down thanks to Space-Time Smackdown.
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