Just under a year ago, I downloaded the Pokémon TCG Pocket beta, and since then, it’s taken over my life and made bucketloads of cash.
Every day, I eagerly rip open my virtual packs, trade with friends, and cross my fingers for that one card I need. I’ve spent an average of 15 to 20 minutes a day playing it, and the Digital Wellbeing app on my Pixel tells me I’ve opened it every day for the past four weeks.
It’s safe to say Pokémon TCG Pocket is my most-played mobile game ever. However, as I reflect on the past year, my initial feeling isn’t one of amused shame; it’s respect.
DeNA (the primary developer behind the game) has created the perfect mobile game, for better and for worse.
Why Pokémon TCG Pocket is so addictive
It’s made opening Pokémon card packs more accessible than ever
If you haven’t tried Pokémon TCG Pocket, here’s how it works.
Twice a day (three times if you pay for the $10 a month premium pass), you can rip open a pack of virtual Pokémon cards. As you add them to your collection, you can earn badges, profile icons, hourglasses (to skip the waiting period for a new pack), and build decks.
These decks let you fight in PvE and PvP battles, where you can earn badges, profile icons, and hourglasses. There are events, missions, and ranked tournaments, but it all boils down to one thing: opening new packs.
Pokémon TCG Pocket is transparent about your chances with each pack. Each new expansion includes a detailed list of the odds you have to earn specific cards.
As this is a mobile F2P game, it carefully balances the rewards so you are always just off completing a set before the next one launches.
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of opening a pack of Pokémon cards, and TCG Pocket immaculately represents this sensation on your device.
I still feel the same rush when I pull a full art animated card now as I did a year ago, and bragging to my friends about which rare cards I recently pulled brings me right back to my Pokémon-obsessed childhood.
What I find most interesting about Pokémon TCG Pocket is not its clever reimagining of the battles or its beautiful animated cards. It’s the way it has perfected the art of F2P mobile games.
It’s a remarkable achievement to execute a task so successfully, especially when it’s done with such art.
Pokémon TCG Pocket is the purest mobile game on the Play Store
It’s pay-to-win, but it doesn’t matter
Most F2P mobile games operate on the same principle. They ensure you don’t need to spend money to play the game, but they’ll make you want to spend money so badly you stop considering how poor the payoff is.
It’s a tactic we’re all aware of, but the consensus is that as long as microtransactions are limited to cosmetic items, we’ll quietly fall in line.
As I started playing Pokémon TCG Pocket ahead of the official release date, I got a head start on my collection.
A few months of paying for the premium pass got me further (before I woke up and realized I was on track to spend $120 in a year to buy virtual cards), so at the moment of writing this, I am a mere two cards short of completing every set in the game.
However, I know that had I started at launch and never spent a penny, I would be so far behind I couldn’t catch up.
Pokémon TCG Pocket groups cards into ten rarity tiers. You only need to collect all the cards from the first five tiers to complete a collection.
My friend, who began playing the game in February this year, has a collection half the size of mine. She plays casually, content to open the two packs a day.
I can confidently say that at the rate new expansions are released, she will never complete all the collections. If you pick up the game today, you might as well ignore every expansion launched so far.
So while it’s technically possible to beat the game (that is, complete every collection) without paying a penny, it’s practically impossible.
This makes Pokémon TCG Pocket a pay-to-win game, which, when you add the element of PvP battles with in-game rewards, makes it no better than Diablo Immortal or other predatory mobile games.
This is the genius of Pokémon TCG Pocket. It has set the bar for “winning” out of reach of free players, but the consequences are so irrelevant that it doesn’t matter that it’s technically one of the most predatory mobile games on the Play Store.
It doesn’t matter that it’s impossible to build competitive decks if you just started playing, because the only reward is more cards. The entire Pokémon TCG Pocket experience boils down to that desire to open more cards, and when you accept that, you can enjoy it.
I don’t mind the day when I’m no longer able to complete sets before the next one launches, which is approaching fast.
I’m revelling in the satisfaction of ripping open packs, and bragging to my friends about the super-rare cards I just pulled. I’m happy to lose myself in the childish nature of it all.
Pokémon TCG Pocket is a masterclass in mobile games
I find it remarkable how Pokémon TCG Pocket has commanded my attention for a quarter of an hour every day for the past year. No mobile game has commanded my attention for so long.
Is it the best mobile game I’ve played? No, that honor goes to Balatro. But if I had to show aliens one mobile game that exemplified the entire industry, it would be Pokémon TCG Pocket.
Congratulations, Pokémon TCG Pocket, you’ve turned addiction into art.
