Pocket Pokémon TCG finally launched on iPhone and Android this week after a yielding launch in New Zealand last month, to the delight of fans of the series around the world. However, after attending the yielding launch last month, I noticed a huge change in the in-game store and I’m not impressed.
For those who don’t know, the currency for purchasing recent packs in Pokémon TCG Pocket is primarily hourglasses. During the yielding launch, you could buy a six-pack of Hourglasses for the price of 12 store tickets – yes, I know this is going in a very mathematical direction, but stick with me. Now available globally, six-pack hourglasses cost 18 store tickets, adding 50% to the original starting price and making it even more hard to track down some of the huge hits from our Pokémon TCG Pocket tier list.
Looks like I’m not the only one who noticed the change. At the time of writing, this was the second hottest post on the Pokémon TCG Pocket Reddit is anyone complaining about this change, calling it a “huge, long-term factor in purchasing cards”. Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself, and while it’s not unusual for mobile games to make these types of changes that trick users into spending money on in-game resources, it’s still disappointing.
This wouldn’t be such a problem if the in-game store weren’t already somewhat frustrating, limiting the number of hourglass packs you can purchase per month with store tickets priced at 70. That’s the equivalent of just five packs, with ten hourglasses in stock, each month. Sure, you get two packs for free every day, three if you’re a premium user, but that still makes earning cards quite snail-paced considering there are over 200 cards to collect from the first three packs. To put it simply, collecting them all will be quite a challenge.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely that the Pokémon TCG Pocket store change will return to its pre-soft launch state, so we’ll have to get used to spending more resources on hourglasses. If that’s putting you off a recent game, why not remind yourself why you still love the series with our guide to the best Pokémon games? Or, if you’re more interested in the real TCG game, check out our sister site for Wargamer’s guides to powerful Pokémon cards and the rarest Pokémon cards.
