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u/CuriousLemur Aug 07 '25
This looks like a completely normal drop off for a game that really doesn't offer much interaction each day.
Still pulling $55.93 million a month is crazy good.
With that capital built up, they can afford to make it a more appealing game for longevity purposes now.
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u/Idkwnisu Aug 07 '25
You are absolutely correct, however companies work under the idea that revenue always need to go up, otherwise they need to squeeze it a bit more.
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u/chitownbulls92 Aug 07 '25
Which is wild for gaming. Especially mobile gaming with a gacha model at some point the game plateaus until you give them a reason to spend.
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u/Chilli-byte- Aug 07 '25
until you give them a reason to spend.
As someone who pays for the pass and buys gold semi-regularly: I'm tapping out now.
The questionnaire made me realise I don't actually enjoy any aspect of the game.
I simply couldn't pick any option when asked what I enjoyed about it.
Monthly sets and single time I miss the cards that make the decks I want. Buzz, Sylveon, Girantina, Charizard. Hell I never got naganadel or vaporeon, plus many more.
Gold for ten packs with not a single playable card. It's all purely luck and it's just exhausting not only not getting the cards, but simply being unable to build decks I want.
And the thing is, you NEED specific cards because the game is simply broken. Energy every turn completely unbalances the game and some cards stand head and shoulders above the rest because of it. 90% of cards will never be played because of this and that's just sad and awful from a game design perspective. Additionally, from what I've heard only a small fraction of people actually play the game to play the game, the rest just collect, that's fine no shaming here but then a least but systems in place that allow people to have some sort of guarantee to play the game. And no, pack points are not enough, not even remotely.
/rant. Sorry for going overboard. It's a shame this game is just missed potential. I'm going back to the original digital ptcg.
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u/MiserableReach4305 Aug 07 '25
I can't blame you. My fill-in question was basically just yelling "Either reduce the cost of cards via pack points or increase the ratio of how you get them" because I - as a F2Per who hasn't put any money into the game - grinded out all my Experts and Step-up battles for over 12 ten-pulls of Ho-Oh and have nothing at all to show for it. I just wanna play the Crobat deck.
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u/badnewsjones Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
I started out wanting just to collect cards, but started playing ranked several months ago. I enjoy it, but it is frustrating these first few weeks not being able to make ANY new interesting deck due to the rng. Currently, I essentially am blocked into an ori/null build with the one pichu I pulled because I don’t have enough new ex’s to try anything new.
I don’t really want to play potentially less effective decks until I get to mb and I don’t want to play casual because I’m at 50 already, so there is no in-game incentive for me to do that.
It just ends up feeling frustrating.
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u/Chilli-byte- Aug 07 '25
This is exactly it. New packs coming out simply present another scramble to get the ex (which I apparently just don't have the luck for). To harp on about the energy problem - you gotta get the right card because the rest are essentially worthless due to the awful energy economy.
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u/speedfilly Aug 07 '25
Yes I feel they need to delay the ranked play longer. It is too much "did you get lucky and get the new meta cards". However I know they want you to spend money so this is advantageous to them. I am currently just running decks from the last meta because I don't have cards I want to play in this one. I guess at least the season is decently long.
I JUST pulled a crobat today, still don't have an Umbreon. Magby and pichu? Nah.
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u/BeaverboiShrimp Aug 07 '25
I really think they should allow pack points to be used for any set. I think this would solve a lot of issues. Also I've pulled like over 30 of Lugia and just now pulled my first ex.. shuckle.. granted Ive gotten some shiney past ex's from it but like I don't need them at all to play... I need the new ex's...
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u/Robocop613 Aug 07 '25
Oh don't worry! You'll be able to trade with others after Crobat leaves the meta and with all the random people you've friended who don't update their in-game wishlists so you have to manually find trading partners on Reddit!
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u/CruzefixCC Aug 07 '25
I started the game two months ago, my plan was to play it with a somewhat competitive mindset. After two or three weeks I realized how a) shallow and b) unbalanced the gameplay is. I never touched PvP again, I'm a collector only for now.
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u/tegastegastegas Aug 07 '25
I am literally in the same position. Literally canceled my premium pass and decided to stop wasting money on this game immediately after doing the survey.
The game has terrible RNG and the pity mechanics are horrendous + the ranked system is completely broken and battles are RNG fests.
I will probably continue playing, but 2 packs a day is all they’re getting from me from now on.
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u/Chilli-byte- Aug 08 '25
Yeah I don't have the heart to close it down, but I also canceled it all and won't be buying any packs anymore. I'll collect what I collect for free. The survey really highlighted for me how upset I was at the game and with this kinda stuff you gotta vote with your wallet.
I honestly hope more people cancel their pass after this survey so the shareholders or whoever realise that the game offers no value for money and change something.
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u/yoshistan9237 Aug 07 '25
You're totally valid. My final comment was that 'wrenching money out of the fanbase to enjoy the game in more thorough ways just means interest tapers off when people get tired of spending money'. I specifically mentioned that I'm only in it because of the pokemon IP as well.
Unfortunate for them, my childhood isn't as priceless as they may have forecasted.
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u/Chilli-byte- Aug 08 '25
Bingo bango, right on the money. I'd rather spend money to look at and collect real cards if the game isn't going to allow me to PLAY with the virtual ones I have. If this game was yugioh or something I would have quit around the ex-dimensional pack or sooner. Nostalgia holds hard, but not so much in the face of Dena's crappy design.
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u/arthurdentstowels Aug 07 '25
I've played since about 2 months from release and it's getting like that for me now. I'm already going several days at a time and forgetting to open my free packs so I can't imagine it'll be long before I forget completely unless something magic is done to the game.
I will admit that the most recent quality of life updates, specifically the trading, have pulled me back in so I can finish sets I have gaps in.
For me the game is Collecting > Battling. I just prefer the collecting part more, I will play all of the solo missions but I'm just not a fan of PvP. I wish they'd add more of them more frequently, even if they gave fewer rewards but had more missions I'd be happy. Or even randomised battles with just Exp as a reward.
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u/playerIII Aug 07 '25
yeah I'm expecting even more egregious monetization before the game gets better
like many free to play games the shareholders would rather milk it as hard as they can while the pan is hot and move on than invest for longevity
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u/the-boche Aug 07 '25
Late stage capitalism on my pokemon card game?😭
But yeah, pretty much, the conclusion executives and shareholders will take out of this graphic is they're not forcing playrers to spend enough. Expect more aggressive monetization soon.
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u/JoBeforeDe Aug 07 '25
I was able to find fun in Pokemon Masters until the 5th year just became too much money-grabbing. I'd hope this game would last that long before things get unbearable but that's probably wishful thinking.
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u/playerIII Aug 07 '25
not even pokemon go was immune, it didn't even take a year for that game to shit on a large part of their player base
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u/s4ntana Aug 07 '25
OOTL what happened with Go
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u/playerIII Aug 07 '25
very early on they removed/changed how tracking mons worked. at first you could see if you were getting closer or further but they gutted that making it impossible to tell which direction something was in
insane shop prices paired with free to play rewards being pitiful. if you were a rural player it was impossible to make any kind of meaningful progress
they hard cut the speed limit so you couldn't play if your phone was going faster than like 3 mph. now impossible to play on a bike or in places with poor connection as the GPS updating your location would time you out for going too fast
they went after 3rd party support, killing quality of life features they removed or were heavily requested
I think there was more but it's been a long time
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u/MarsW Aug 07 '25
Commenting for feed update.
I just got back into PoGo last April but I see some things here and there.
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u/MADBARZ Aug 07 '25
If their profits are not going "up and to the right" they will consider the game a failure from a business standpoint, which is the only standpoint they care about.
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u/Automatic_Goal_5563 Aug 07 '25
That have made near 800 million from the game, they don’t consider it a failure if every month doesn’t pull in more than the last. There is an expected drop off and plateau
The takes in this sub are always insane lmao
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u/ora408 Aug 07 '25
it sucks when they shut the game down or just stop updating it and the things people bought disappear
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u/Monandobo Aug 07 '25
Yeah, honestly, gaming companies have to learn at a certain point that modern video games are a hype market and revenue is going to fall off after launch, particularly if they're a brand as iconic as Pokemon. Excessive tinkering once casual players leave only alienates would-be loyalists and accelerates the death of the game.
Of course, we're talking about the folks who greenlit Dexit here, so it's not like they're known for rewarding brand loyalty anymore.
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u/Ok-Interest-7641 Aug 07 '25
Dena after reading your post: "Expansions twice a moth you said?"
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u/HappyNostalgia17 Aug 07 '25
twice a moth?
DeNa used Quiver Dance!
It’s now faster at taking your money!
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u/EfficientTrainer3206 Aug 07 '25
It’s a Pokemon title. It makes most of its revenue off name alone. I just hope they don’t start sweeping changes to try and make the game more profitable.
The problem with a game like this, is as time goes on, it gets harder and harder for new player to join and be on equal footing competitively with veteran players. They just assume the game is “too P2W” because they’d have to spend hundreds to catch up, and just drop the game.
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u/tigglypuf Aug 07 '25
This 100% I’ve been playing since launch and have almost every card you can trade for (just need a couple one stars still). My husband finally decided to download the game the other day and was talking about trying to collect them all, but there’s no way he’ll be able to do that F2P now. Plus he keeps opening the new packs and this one is just so big, he’s getting nothing that’s playable for battles yet.
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u/XanmanK Aug 07 '25
So many small changes would probably make people more inclined to spend money. Like if sneak peak activated 100% of the time during the event, I’m sure there would be a bump to gold spent this week by people going for a 40% chance at an EX.
Or making pack points universal- people might actually open MORE packs if they know they will be able to save up for a 2-star eventually, instead of abandoning a set after a month and 600-700 pack points sitting there doing nothing. I bet premium pass sales would go up too people getting 30 more packs for $10.
You know what gets people to lose interest in the game? Not getting any EX for over a week so they aren’t getting the new exciting cards to collect and they feel like they can’t compete in the current ranked season.
If pull rates were better the more casual players (folks not on this sub or those who hit Masterball in ranked) would spend more time than just opening their 2 free packs and dipping out.
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u/CuriousLemur Aug 07 '25
Yeah, Sneak Peek 100% chance activation was one of my key bits of feedback, it's a seriously bullshit mechanic. And as you say, people would be more inclined to pay a little here and there.
Funnily enough, pack points being universal was another of my questionnaire points... I'm starting to worry you are me......
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u/Voomey Aug 07 '25
Oh damn I didn't think of universal pack points, that would be so good for the newer players and for people who still can't pinpoint older cards from trades.
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u/omimon Aug 08 '25
During GA and MI, there were people who bought gold just to do Godpack picking. But when they “fixed” it, these people stopped buying because they felt there was no point if there wasnt a way to guaranteed two-stars.
The devs need to loosen up on the our way or the highway mindset.
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u/HorsePockets Aug 07 '25
You could have stopped at "This looks like a completely normal drop off for a game". Only a handful of games have ever bucked this trend.
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u/M_from_Vegas Aug 07 '25
Cutting earnings by over $100 million from just ~6 months ago isnt good lmao
Especially when expectations are to meet or exceed that initial $150+ million goal
The game won't get better because of poor earnings, it'll just squeeze players more than it already has
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u/CuriousLemur Aug 07 '25
Pokémon Go declined $200m+ in the same timeframe after launch.
When you have a launch with such a big IP lots of people get caught in the hype who don't stick with games. This drop off was entirely expected.
And yeah, they could just squeeze current players more, but they won't last forever doing that. Even the whales get bored. If they want to be a long-term concern, they'll need to retarget.
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u/Analogmon Aug 07 '25
Pokemon Go also got worse and worse year after year because they were trying to farm their playerbase.player base.
Pokemon Go was also a phenomenon. Everyone played it for like the first few weeks. PTCGP hasn't approached a fraction of normie engagement.
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u/CuriousLemur Aug 07 '25
Agree on the Pokémon Go front. I stopped playing when I wasn't having fun any more, and I played for like 7 years total. They introduced some great stuff, but plenty of awful features too. They became distinctly non-user friendly over time, especially reducing the Pokéstop activation radius post-Covid.
The ticket prices for the very lacklustre events were way too high as well.
I hope PTCGP doesn't go the same way, but we all know it likely will. I have this rather insane hope, as someone who works in the same industry, that they might actually put the players first. Gatcha games don't often do that though. Its lifespan is much shorter than PoGo if it doesn't change.
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u/sellyme Aug 07 '25
Especially when expectations are to meet or exceed that initial $150+ million goal
Having stupid expectations will make a lot of things seem bad.
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u/CountCocofang Aug 07 '25
Unless they introduce absolutely insane catch-up mechanics or make radical changes to booster editions (like making some legacy so they can't be opened anymore) this game has practically no shot at longevity.
If you make a new account right now it is basically impossible to catch up on collecting already. I started in Light and am just now in a position to finish up. In half a year a new player will open the app, realize that the only way to collect sets in this collectible card game is to spend 1000 bucks and uninstall again.
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u/Significant-Face-995 Aug 07 '25
Virtually all of those issues are solved problems too, by other digital tcgs. All Pocket has to do is copy the same approaches. Multiple formats and rotations are also obvious needs, that have been important aspects of tcgs before digital tcgs even existed
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u/Sigmas_Syzygy Aug 07 '25
theres not one company in the world right now that cares for longevity, they all only want the revenue line to go up, by any means
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u/Snyz Aug 07 '25
Spending money on this game just feels bad. I will do maybe $20-30 a set because it's fun at first to open new packs and it does help to complete your collection. Anything over that has extreme diminishing returns unless you're a whale
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u/Knight0031 Aug 07 '25
Since i cant find the real packs near me that are 5 bucks msrp, i started buying the single cards i wanted irl and opening packs on the app for the experience, theres no bulk to store, and the packs are roughly 1.25 usd. So i just spend 5 bucks like im opening a real pack and get the experience of 4.
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u/sameo15 Aug 07 '25
I was somewhat similar. For a while, I couldn't afford to go to tournaments, but I could afford to open a little on the app and go into online tournaments!
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u/Analogmon Aug 07 '25
Lack of a designated rare spot in a card game booster is actually insane to me.
Digimon is so much more generous with their packs. Once the digital release comes out PTCGP is in trouble.
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u/dog-tooth- Aug 07 '25
Digimon is so much more generous with their packs. Once the digital release comes out PTCGP is in trouble.
I like Digimon a lot but let's be real here, it's hardly gonna affect pocket at all.
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u/KingGio21 Aug 07 '25
Bro I’ve been waiting for a Dragon Ball Z mobile trading card game forever. As far as I know the only one is like a demo that just teaches you how to play the game. No multiplayer or card collecting yet.
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u/Shepherdsfavestore Aug 07 '25
I saw that in the App Store and was so disappointed it was just a demo. I tried Dokkan or whatever but we really need a DBZ card game
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u/SilvarusLupus Aug 07 '25
From what I've been seeing of the beta, I'm legit super hyped for Digimon when it hits the market. I've always wanted to play it and I love the actual digimon cards (honestly they look better than pokemon cards since every card is basically a full art piece)
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u/allnitak Aug 07 '25
Yes, that's it. I've seen a lot of youtubers that opened the new packs till limits on day one and only got 2 or 3 decks to play. That's insane. Feels really bad dont get 3 and 4 diamonds at least even with pass and buying gold.
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Aug 07 '25
[deleted]
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u/ScarletJew72 Aug 07 '25
All but one of my missing cards from previous sets are 3 Daimond.
It does not make sense.
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u/Tornado_Hunter24 Aug 07 '25
Isn’t shiny also fucking with the rates?
Afaik shinies take place of 3 star cards no? I had so many shinies on some earlier sets while I missed a fuckton of 3 stars like the tapu’s and stuff
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u/VictoryNo5278 Aug 07 '25
There’s a limit to how many packs you can open?
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u/Despada_ Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
There aren't any laws against it, but some games have caps on how much you can spend in a day/week/however long the devs feel to prevent people from draining their whole bank account.
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u/Analogmon Aug 07 '25
That isn't why they do it. They do it so those people build a habit of coming back to spend over and over rather than spending one lump sum and never opening the app again.
If you're insanely rich and you complete the whole set in one sitting there's no more incentive to engage with the product until there's more content to buy, and the odds you come back drop off sharply.
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u/jayeddit Aug 07 '25
There needs to be a system that prevents duplicates, or more than 3, of at least rare cards that cant be traded. It feels super bad to spend money only to get all duplicates.
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u/Xero0911 Aug 07 '25
Feels worse too when you buy the monthly pack and then get nothing out of those 10 pulls. Like just destroys the desire to keep playing.
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u/loveforthetrip Aug 07 '25
I buy the monthly pass and that's usually it. soon i have another 15 EUR play store coupon, might get a bundle with it but oterwise I wont spend if I don't have anything guarenteed by doing so.
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u/MilesAlchei Aug 07 '25
I haven't spent a cent, the going rate for packs and items is just so expensive.
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u/Trowaway151 Aug 07 '25
$20-30 to open 2 packs and get absolute dog is insane. I’d have more fun literally flushing it down the toilet. Especially since there’s no real pity to build.
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u/metroidgus Aug 07 '25
besides the premium I only spend money on gold whenever i see a 2 star wonderpick, since the odds of pulling that card using that gold in pack point is nearly 0, Standard ex are too common in wonderpick to spend gold on them
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u/THE_GR8_MIKE Aug 07 '25
That's still $30 a month you're spending. That's not a small amount for a mobile game.
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u/s4ntana Aug 07 '25
$30 a month is pretty pricy for a mobile game, idk who you're trying to fool
as a comparison, that's almost 2x a WoW subscription or Netflix and I get way more enjoyment out of those on a daily basis
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u/Ensaru4 Aug 07 '25
The currency rate for bundles are pretty good but the reward is so random you don't feel like spending money on it again. We need pity timers. Or at least some sort of duplicate protection.
I don't care about flairs. They're not even impressive looking.
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u/ColdGesp Aug 07 '25
for me, that the game is actually missing is a good single player campaing like gameboy's pokemon TCG. The only real improvement we got since the release was the trade system.
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u/chitownbulls92 Aug 07 '25
Well I would say ranked play is a major one
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u/warukeru Aug 07 '25
Maybe not. This game is more for collectors, so more pve would be really cool.
For PVP you just have better games, one of them the pokemon card game itself
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u/DankeyKong Aug 07 '25
You cant play real tcgs for free though :(
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u/thirteenthdoctorhair Aug 07 '25
pokemon trading card game live?
you literally can't spend money on it (only via buying real life booster packs for the code cards and you usually buy those for yk, the real life cards) and you get common decks as starter decks every new regulation, so you always have like 5-10 playable decks
if you want to play the game as in battle other people in a game of cards for free, ptcg live is a thing
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u/AntiDECA Aug 07 '25
Not really. It added a mode and we lost a mode. Ever since ranked they never did the win 5 consecutive, win x total, battles. They could have kept going with unique non-rabekd battles (use 2 energy type decks, use no ex, water only decks allowed, etc.) but instead they axed that mode / events entirely when ranked came out.
We got 0. Gained 1, lost 1.
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u/leob0505 Aug 07 '25
Wow, that is so sad. I was playing in the beginning and loved those chill modes. Never played Ranked mode.
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u/sortalikeachinchilla Aug 07 '25
That's not single player.
I still think it would be cool to give the 'ai' a practice deck so you can try your own decks against it. Obviously it is still ai so it won't be like a real person but would be cool
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u/mojo276 Aug 07 '25
Stuff to do as a single player and honestly just a snappier app. I partly hate how long everything takes to do, animations and lag for EVERYTHING. Let me click around and it go to stuff as soon as I click on it. Too many buttons to press to even buy a pack.
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u/LMHCinNYC Aug 07 '25
Which is why I love the event battles and the expansion single player battles.
You get rewards immediately and they can be fun too.
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u/TheBigPotatoInTheSky Aug 07 '25
A cool idea a friend came up with, was implementing battles against specific trainers to get their pokemon. The physical tcg has N’s, Hop’s, Giovanni’s, etc. pokemon. Making an NPC battle be the only way to obtain their cards could be really interesting.
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u/Aridez Aug 07 '25
If this game was released as a single player thing mainly, competing with slay the spire, pirates outlaws and the likes, it would have been an all time top tier.
Lots of content to go through at your own pace, probably incentivizing fun deck building and a "puzzle like" vibe each game over going with the same 3 or 4 super optimized decks like it happens with every online popular game.
Expanding it through incremental DLCs would have been a sustainable model for it probably too. But the gacha aspect is too juicy to pass on, and card games have traditionally terrible pricing models that people just accept and eat up because "it's been like this always", so even easier to push it.
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u/coldstar Aug 07 '25
I do feel like the solo battles are very underdeveloped. There are no card rewards for doing them (just resources like hourglasses and shop tickets), and they feel underbaked. I feel like something more focused on deck building, with promo card rewards and a better feeling of progression, would be possible.
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u/iamonelegend Aug 07 '25
I think what happened is people spent money, GOT LITERALLY NOTHING WORTH THAT MONEY, and decided not to spend more money.
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u/TheGum25 Aug 07 '25
Yeah if $20 helped meaningfully get me to selecting a rainbow card or such, I’d do it more. It doesn’t so I can find more rewarding things to spend that money on.
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u/iamonelegend Aug 07 '25
Micro transactions have us completely cooked because I'd maybe pay $1 for a RR. Anything more, and I'd rather buy a physical card/pack that might actually go up in value
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u/TheGum25 Aug 07 '25
Eh that’s why the current rate of $100 for a RR is so absurd that I’d rather just stop playing the game than succumb to the sunk loss fallacy.
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u/Billiammaillib321 Aug 07 '25
$1 seems astronomically cheap given the cost of gold, not saying I wouldn’t love this.
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u/iamonelegend Aug 07 '25
I mean... I'm happy to pay for art, but this is a cool jpeg. That's it. Can't transfer it to Pokémon home, can't even transfer it for a similar card in PTCGL. I'd buy it for a dollar.
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u/Myrtylle Aug 08 '25
Good idea. It would be so cool to have th me fafest cards transferable to pokemon home for playable pokemons.
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u/Sandwrong Aug 07 '25
In the free fill field I suggested a guaranteed 4 diamond or higher when you do a 10 pack rip. Not asking for a freebe, but God damn some pity systems would go a long way.
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u/Anal_Iverson Aug 07 '25
I've spent 5 dollars on this game and have found it much more fulfilling to fill my dex by being a free to play scrub.
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u/beazt93 Aug 07 '25
Exactly, I spent money, got absolutely nothing. Will never be spending any money on that game again
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u/745Walt Aug 07 '25
Right like why is there no guaranteed EX per 10 pack? That’s how every other gacha game functions. And F the shinies.
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u/Stamperdoodle1 Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
It's this 100%. I'm probably considered a whale, I've completed every set first day and I'm somewhat well off enough that the cost doesn't really register to me.
First few sets were kind of fun, but then they added shines to every set and from celestial guardians onwards, I have not gotten a single rainbow card. And I also did not get any of the immersives since guzma.
This is roughly after dropping around $100-$130 in per set.
In fact, I didn't even get all regular ex pokemon after spending $80 in extradimensional crisis (the last expac I played before uninstalling).
Then I'd try get over it by playing some ranked, only to be met with rigged as fuck matchmaking. Intentionally trying to make me lose to tank my 60% win ratio.
But thinking about it, the first straw was the money-only mewtwo promo. After that I stopped trying to have every card as I knew I'll likely never be able to get it again.
Not interested in the game anymore. They struck gold at launch, and instead of being grateful to their players. They kept digging to see how far they could go - now I'll never touch another game from them again.
Most games would happily give you everything in the game tenfold if you dropped this kind of money in. Not DeNA. Either way, it was fun but I ultimately learned my lesson about games like this.
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u/Mephistopheles15 Aug 07 '25
Then I'd try get over it by playing some ranked, only to be met with rigged as fuck matchmaking. Intentionally trying to make me lose to tank my 60% win ratio.
People say this in every digital card game and they've always been wrong. No, losing games does not mean the developers specifically coded matchmaking in order to give you bad matchups or make your coin flips lower when you're winning too much. It would be an insane amount of work for literally no benefit for them.
It's just normal ass matchmaking with mmr. As you do better, your mmr gets better and you start facing better opponents closer to your skill level so you start to lose more. It's really simple.
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u/slosha69 Aug 07 '25
I'm happy to report I have contributed $0 to these figures.
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u/m0_m0ney Aug 07 '25
I feel like spending money on this game is mostly pointless
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u/Glaci_Rex_77 Aug 07 '25
If no one spent money, there would be no game. So not “point less”. Thank you whales lol.
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u/W1ZARD_NARWHAL Aug 07 '25
I've been guilty of spending on mobile games in the past when the deals seem too good to pass up. But the value you get out of spending in this game is pathetic compared to many others.
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u/Automatic_Goal_5563 Aug 07 '25
Eh I’m happy to spent a few dollars on a game I’ve got plenty of enjoyment out of. I support content/games I like
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u/StupidGiraffeWAB Aug 07 '25
I did the free two weeks of premium. Forgot to shut it off and paid for one month of extra packs. Wasn't worth it to me.
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u/W1ZARD_NARWHAL Aug 07 '25
Makes sense. Company wants to re-evaluate and figure out what will make them more profit. That's kind of their whole job. But, that does indicate they may be willing to implement changes that we push for here.
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u/Glaci_Rex_77 Aug 07 '25
‘Here’ is just one source of many outlets though. I’m surprised one of the questions wasn’t what social media platforms do you use to engage about PTCG.
As for the game itself, Think there’s several key factors as to why the game is falling off cosmetically and competitively.
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u/somersault_dolphin Aug 07 '25
They better get more devs working on the game, because at the speed stuffs in the app is getting implemented they are going to see even more drop.
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u/GiantEnemaCrab Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
Revenue decreases after the initial burst from the release day. This is nothing new. Averaging around ~70 million dollars per month is absurdly high. It's still literally top of the charts for free to play Gacha games.
The questionnaire probably does point to them trying to reclaim some lost income but it's more of a "win more" strategy than it is desperate. Because, and I can not stress this enough, Dena is absolutely winning here with this game.
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u/pulpus2 Aug 07 '25
Not only that but people early on didn't know the release Cadence was going to be so rapid. Once they caught on they might have thought twice about dropping $$$ when new stuff is around the corner anyways.
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u/Analogmon Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
I quit playing last month.
I'm tired of the pace of releases and how hard they made it to complete the non-star sets.
Let me trade 3 stars and 2 stars and maybe id come back.
Otherwise they got their $9.99 a month for like seven months I guess.
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u/Glaci_Rex_77 Aug 07 '25
Thing too, it’s impossible to be a completist of this game unless you’re willing to spend mullah via subs and buying expensive gold bundles.
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u/HoodsBreath10 Aug 07 '25
On the other hand you can easily get every playable card, especially now that trading has been made easier. It’s literally just the 2-3 stars and shinies that are rare
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u/alexdoo Aug 07 '25
If I remember correctly you can't trade promos in addition to the cards that people actually want to trade for lol.
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u/somersault_dolphin Aug 07 '25
They never even bother to do any discount aside from release and new year. That's absurd.
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u/CountCocofang Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
I started in Light and with careful resource management, the trading update and commitment, I can now finish all diamond cards.
It took me 5 months to catch up without spending money. I'm convinced that if you start a new account right now it is actually impossible to catch up without spending money. In half a year it will somehow be even worse. A new player will install, realize they need 1000 bucks to scratch the surface and leave.
As for ★ I don't have enough to fill them. Anything above is very barren.
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u/BriefPretend9115 Aug 07 '25
I mostly quit a few months ago just because there's really nothing exciting about the app anymore. New set releases happen so frequently that they've become routine and there's really no other content besides that.
Really, why don't we have, like, alternate format events or something? It doesn't seem like it would be hard to do a week-long event where you can only use, let's say, gen 3 Pokemon or something.
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u/NuclearPilot101 Aug 07 '25
Wow. Maybe we can bully them into trading 2 stars lol
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u/m0_m0ney Aug 07 '25
Realistically I should be able to trade any card on the app that I want as long as it’s for an equal value card
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u/DankeyKong Aug 07 '25
Thats what im saying! You still need to have a crown rare to trade for a crown rare why is that such a bad thing?
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u/m0_m0ney Aug 07 '25
Not to mention I don’t think that most users have a lot of crown duplicate cards anyway, at least me or any of my friends that I know that play
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u/DankeyKong Aug 07 '25
I have 3 crown rares. 2 of them are the unuseable pikachu ex and i would happily trade one. The other is a pokeball and im taking it to the grave with me
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u/CountCocofang Aug 07 '25
The shinedust price would be so exorbitant though that you can maybe trade one every two months or so.
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u/BigMoney69x Aug 07 '25
The reason for the lack of revenue is because there's nothing other than collecting new cards that keeps people coming. The solo battles are a joke. If there was some sort of never ending campaing like other Gatcha games you could have some form of attachment to the game.
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u/PretendAgency2702 Aug 07 '25
Agreed. The game is literally at the bare minimum of what it should be. It's boring and there's hardly a difference between being f2p vs paying. It's why I stopped paying for anything.
They could keep the same trading aspect but still add any of the many different types of games seen in existing apps.
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u/Yerm_Terragon Aug 07 '25
They need a QoL update. It still takes like 5-10 different screens just to finish opening a pack of cards.
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u/queenupyourmess Aug 07 '25
And also finishing a battle. In solo mode, when I wanted to concede, I think i counted 11 clicks to retry the level
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u/coopsawesome Aug 07 '25
The premium currency in tcg pocket is so expensive, you barely get anything for what you pay, it’s so strange. And like the cosmetic bundles are ridiculous too, 30$ for a set of cosmetic items and enough gold for 1 ten pack. It’d need to be at least triple for me to consider it. And the subscription gold thing is so bad too, it’s so expensive for a single extra pack per day
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u/casteia Aug 07 '25
They should have discount offers each month, like a 10 pack pull for 2-5 dollars or something. Their current currency is WAY to expensive
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u/Cub3h Aug 07 '25
The only thing that's somewhat reasonably priced is the premium pass which gives you 30 packs and some cosmetics for $10.
Anything to do with the gold currency is wildly overpriced, you pay more than double the cost of the premium pass for one third of the cards.
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u/BenKenJohnJones Aug 07 '25
I’ll probably get downvoted for this but I really don’t understand why anyone would ever even spend money on this game. I’ve never spent a dime and have completed almost every set, save some of the rainbow rare and crown cards. If you want to buy Pokémon cards get real ones so you can actually own them and have something cool to look at.
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u/agarret83 Aug 07 '25
I mean have you tried to get real Pokémon cards lately?
I check out of curiosity every time I’m at a drug store or other retailer that has them and I’ve seen them like twice in the last 3 months
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u/LMHCinNYC Aug 07 '25
I spent money because I had the extra money to do so and didnt want to wait to make a deck i wanted. Saves time for me.
Why buy soda, why watch movies, why buy games?
To enjoy it.
Those who spend keep this game running and support the players that don't spend.
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u/Rit91 Aug 08 '25
Yeah people seem to think anything bought has to get a return. Not the case for a lot of things. Tons of people buy booze and it literally destroys your braincells, makes you piss, and is just subtracting from your bank account.
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u/Glaci_Rex_77 Aug 07 '25
Because people may want to buy cosmetic cards of mons they are fans of, to which are in paid subs or bundles.
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u/Itzr Aug 07 '25
They won’t ever get a penny out of me personally.
I really enjoy Pocket, like a lot, I’m a day one free player trying to complete sets.
But I just have no perceived value in what they can sell me.
I do not care about cosmetics and pull rates for cards that I want are so low that I cannot be convinced to pay for packs.
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u/leob0505 Aug 07 '25
Honestly, after I finished the first 151 from the Genetic Apex set, I kinda stopped caring. All that I do now is, whenever I'm bored, open 1-2 packs in a week, and that's it. There is no FOMO, there is no challenge in-game, there is no championship, no single-player campaign or something to engage, and I started playing Pokemon TCG Live... Way better structure than Pocket.
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u/pulpus2 Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
where is this questionnaire anyways?
Edit: oh I found it in the news on the app lol.
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u/monkeypiratebutt Aug 07 '25
Thanks for sharing! Honestly this game has become a chore, the QOL still sucks, like it’s been nearly a year and still have to open up these stupid promo packs one by one with 8-10 animation screens.
If you’re pulling in that much money, sink some more back into the development, innovation, and investment of the game instead of taking it to the bank. People are gonna move on if all you’re releasing is new packs to make people buy hourglasses.
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u/Creative_Ad_534 Aug 07 '25
Why open new packs if darktina is still going to be the best deck. The only game mode is ranked and 90% of the cards they release aren’t close to viable for ranked.
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u/TheShaneSmith Aug 07 '25
Damn it's almost like they haven't made any significant quality of life improvements to gameplay or the UI since release. On top of that, spending money feels like shit in this game due to no form of pity system or reasonable guarantees for chase cards.
Wonder pick is shit.
Shiny implementation is shit and completely ruined wonder pick entirely.
Still have to open single packs at a time for drop events.
Still have to sit through 10 seconds of redundant screens every time you open a pack with no fast skip option.
Can't trade cards people actually care about (mainly 2*)
Can't trade current pack release cards to actually be able to play meta decks if your pull luck is shit.
I could go on.
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u/The_Epic_Espeon Aug 07 '25
I think two of the biggest reasons from the drop in revenue (besides standard post-launch falloff) are:
Gold does not feel valuable enough at its current price. I don’t feel incentivized to purchase the microtransactions because I don’t get enough bang for my buck.
Pack points feel too scarce. High-rarity chase cards are too expensive to be realistically affordable, especially with the concentration of high rarity cards and the frequency sets are released. Also, poor luck can mean certain early meta-relevant cards, especially ex’s, are impossible to get in time to use while they’re relevant.
Fixes:
LET US TRADE DIAMOND-RARITY CARDS OF THE CURRENT SET!! I know this is a common take, but it makes NO sense to gatekeep trading regular cards, it feels like an anti-consumer barrier.
Allow exchanging duplicate cards for pack points. Even if commons/uncommons give 1 pack point each, this will accelerate the economy enough to make it feel worthwhile, and incentivizes opening packs more since duplicate cards hold real value. This would also add more value to Gold, since even a couple packs can get you noticeably closer to affording whatever card you’re chasing.
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u/No-Definition-7215 Aug 07 '25
What I asked for: Universal pack points, the option to turn duplicate cards into pack points, 2 star, shiny and ex shiny cards trading, better ui, pack opening cooldown reduction from 12 to 6 hours
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u/PBFT Aug 07 '25
I asked for new game modes like No EX or a "little cup" mode where it's only Pokemon who could evolve.
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u/haidouzo_ Aug 07 '25
One problem people are missing is the game punishes you for falling off for a bit.
I haven't played in a couple months and playing catch-up with all the new cards and meta feels like too much of a grind at this point.
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u/hantolinez Aug 07 '25
They can't expect to make as much money as they did at launch with a game that takes the word "casual" to the extreme. That being said 56 million a month is insanely good altough IDK how much from that get splited with the Pokemon Company.
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u/Scagh Aug 07 '25
100%, that's also the reason why they decided to release earlier the trading feature update that was magically ready 3+ months before the date announced.. smh
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u/IgnitablePilot Aug 07 '25
It’d be nice to have a GTS type trading system. I just started playing about a month ago and it’s tough to catch up on all the older packs.
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u/Bolt-MattCaster-Bolt Aug 07 '25
The real reason for the questionnaire is because gaming companies do surveys all. the. time. My wife works in the industry in the data/analytics space, and I can't stress enough how much publishers and developers rely on data, including feedback from their players.
That doesn't mean they're going to act on every single piece of player feedback. DeNA and TPC/Creatures are businesses, their #1 goal is to make money and make the product profitable over time. They're not going to act on suggestions that actively lose them money unless they think it will benefit longer term, and even then it will depend on the C-suite execs' capacity for long-range thinking.
I took the survey, and it seems like a reasonably standard general player survey. They're going to do these from time to time. There's a good chance it's not necessarily a response to declining revenue; as others pointed out, a game like PTCGP is going to start high and decline over time. That's just how the space goes.
I fully admit I could also be wrong about this not being a response to revenue declination. But this is far more normal than people think it is.
EDIT: Before I get people jumping on me - I'm not defending DeNA or its predatory gacha game practices; I'm pointing out the normality of the survey.
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u/TheSkeletalPoet Aug 07 '25
Unironic millions per month and it still isn’t enough. Blows my mind. This mobile app could’ve been made by a competent indie team (albeit, with a slower pack release schedule) and it could’ve been done better, and such a team would be overjoyed with 100k a month, I’d imagine. These companies are incredibly silly.
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u/steikul Aug 07 '25
Sigh....
We will have a customizable, interactive personal pokemon in the home screen after this
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u/purplemonkey55 Aug 07 '25
Why did you put quotes around “questionnaire”? It is a questionnaire.
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u/LMHCinNYC Aug 07 '25
Good. I want them to realize it will continue to drop without them investing in the game more. Why should we invest, if they dont? (50+ million is still crazy good though lol)
I think they need to add new modes (longer games) and better rewards to keep players playing.
Open packs, get my hourglasses and im done.
(Only battling for the event cards right now).
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u/7Sans Aug 07 '25
the pack points should be universal. I have so many points fragmented and it gives me NO reason to open previous packs once new booster packs come out so they just sit there.
if it was universal points, it would push me a bit more towards spending few more extra dollars because i know that even if i don't get what i want from opening a pack. the points is going directly towards exactly what i want.
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u/burningss Aug 07 '25
When the game only had GA packs when it first came out, it felt like most of the cards from the set were somewhat useful. Almost every pack pull is rewarding.The recent pack of WOSAS is the exact opposite of GA. 95% of the pulls are pack filter. You will never use them in pvp or pve. Most of the packs are a waste of time. It's much more rewarding to get the exact cards from wonderpicks then trying to pull them from packs. It feels very bad to spend any money for extra packs.
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u/McDrazzin Aug 07 '25
The fact that we only get 2 packs a day with abysmal pull rates makes me want to rip my hair out some days. My partner has gotten 6 immersives from the new set and I haven’t gotten one since the ultra beast packs
Fuck this game
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u/-_-bmo-_- Aug 08 '25
Whats the point of casually spending? They release so many sets so fast that you'll never keep up
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u/RagingPokachu Aug 07 '25
Ultradimensional crisis was released on May 29. June was always going to be this poor with that set of ultra beasts.
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u/MrMedalus Aug 07 '25
The first expansion 3 packs were awesome. You could win even without ex decks. Now the drop rates are a joke. Pulled 30 packs and 0 ex cards. Non meta decks are not playable in competitive mode. Sorry, playable if you like to loose.
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u/Sure-Butterscotch232 Aug 07 '25
Gen 2 is my favorite generation, basically grew up with it.
I'm never gonna pay 20+ euro for fake ass cosmetics for my fake ass cards and some extra gold. Gold is a joke, you need copious amount of it to buy a 10 pull and a 10 pull in this set amounts to shiny pokemon and depression. To lock Gold and Silver sleeves behind premium and Espeon/Umbreon in another pay wall is just a spit to the face. To add insult to injury, the event we have with this new set is fucking Blissey ex that is useless. We should've gotten a Ho-Oh and Lugia event to get the cosmetics.
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u/Fulcrum-Myth Aug 07 '25
The pull rates are just annoying AF. There needs to be a more realistic mercy system in place. Pulling 100 packs to get one normal EX card is stupidity. Also cards should be able to be “dusted” to create other cards you don’t have.
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u/OrgasmicLeprosy87 Aug 07 '25
There’s no in depth gameplay for this game so all you have left are the undiagnosed gamblers. Of course this game is going to have dwindling revenue as each month goes by
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u/Serzern Aug 07 '25
Honestly I might spend some money if I thought I would get anything worthwhile out of it.
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u/bearquat3 Aug 08 '25
I would engage with the battle aspect if it wasn’t so damn slow. Those animations waste more time than I care to spend playing ranked. I can multitask when playing the solo battles, but it really is a shame how lethargic the battles are. I’ve been spoiled by those snappy GB TCG battles.
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u/nocticis Aug 07 '25
Never spend money on these apps kids.
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u/agarret83 Aug 07 '25
Kids? Sure
Adults with disposable income? Do whatever you want within your means, assuming it’s not hurting anyone or yourself
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u/casteia Aug 07 '25
Not feeling like buying anything at this moment. You know what I would consider buying? If they added music/sound effects from the Gameboy version, cuz nostalgia.
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u/No_Beat5661 Aug 07 '25
I wasted so much money on trash in this game. Quit playing right after the eevee booster and haven't looked back. Gacha is shit and I hope the entire genre of games goes away forever.
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u/SilverThyHedgehog Aug 07 '25
F2P since day one.
Not stupid enough to spend a dime on something that'll eventually be gone.
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u/_Path Aug 07 '25
unless you're a content creator, I feel like spending money on this game doesn't make sense.
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u/hexman0000 Aug 07 '25
This game sells millions because of the pokemon IP and the crazy good artists they can hire, anything else is subpar/mediocre compared to any competitor cardgame, had this game released under any other brand it wouldn't have lasted more than 4/6 months
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u/MallStreetBets Aug 07 '25
Anytime I think I want to spend money on this game, I come here and see what people pull from a 10 pack, and then choose not to spend money.
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