• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Pokémon TCG Pocket Earns Pay-To-Win Label With Two-Year Investment for Single Card Set

Cpt.Jank

Staff member
Joined
Aug 30, 2024
Messages
113 (0.99/day)
The Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is billed as a "casual," accessible way for people to enjoy the fun of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, regardless of where they are in the world. That said, it looks like players will also have to endure the added fun of the financial burden of the real-world Pokémon TCG if they want to be able to play the game in any serious fashion. According to one gamer's analysis posted on Reddit, however, the amount of time you'd need to invest into Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is anything but casual, clocking in at over two years of daily gameplay to unlock your first whole set.

The method used in the analysis was based on the likelihood of obtaining a new card needed to complete a card set in one of the two daily card draws available to non-premium players. Without optimizing gameplay using features, like the Points Shop or the Wonder Pick, both of which greatly increase the odds of drawing specific cards, players would need to play consecutively for 1843 days, opening a total of 3,687. Paying for a premium pass enables opening three packs a day, however, reducing that number to 1,229 days and resulting in a total bill of $404 for that period. It's only by making full use of the Wonder Pick and Points Shop that the total play time comes down to a little under two years, at a total of 655 days (around 1,310 packs). Upgrading to the premium pass reduces this, but will run up a total of $180 but reduce the amount of time significantly.



The alternative to using the randomized pack mechanics to complete sets would be buying the cards outright, which would cost an incredible $1,200. Of course, it's a trading card game, and The Pokémon Company is planning on introducing trading to the game, which will inevitably reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a set, although it's currently unclear what form trading will take or whether it will be limited in some way.

According to the Reddit post:
TL;DR: 655 days of continuous playing, or 437 with the premium pass.

With the only method of obtaining cards being opening packs, it would take on average 3687 packs to finish your set. That is about 1843 days (more than five whole years!), or 1229 if you have the premium pass (although this would net you a bill of $404 if you had it active for this long). Alternatively, if you wanted to outright buy this set, it would cost $3,200. Clearly, this is unobtainable.

Let's put it all together! Both the point shop and the wonder picker. We can see that this takes approximately 1310 days (sic). Only about two and a half years! Or one and a half with the premium pass, costing a pretty penny of $180. Still, this is leagues better than buying the set which would cost about $1.2k. Wow!

Of course, this is also only an estimation, and it should also be noted that games are played with decks of 20 cards, so gamers should be able to play the game with a reasonable degree of fun and diversity fairly quickly after creating an account. Still, it's difficult to argue that the game in its current state doesn't rely on pay-to-win mechanics.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Joined
Apr 15, 2021
Messages
884 (0.66/day)
Seems to be typical with most games like this these days, which more often than not, are just garbage. Imo, if games need to rely on "pay to bypass HUGE time sinks/RNG" in order to generate the majority of their income, then they're not worth playing. A good game should generate more than enough income with a monthly subscription. Its odd how gamers are willing to throw away more money on micro-transactions vs. spending less on a monthly subscription. I mean, if a game is good, many will pay the subscription.
 
Joined
Dec 5, 2018
Messages
42 (0.02/day)
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard ASROCK B550 Phantom Gaming ITX
Cooling Corsair H115i Elite Capellix
Memory 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 4000
Video Card(s) EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra
Storage 1TB WD_Black SN850 + 2TB Samsung 860 Evo
Display(s) LG 32UP83A
Case SSUPD Meshroom S
Audio Device(s) Klipsch ProMedia 2.1
Power Supply Seasonic Focus GX-1000
Mouse Logitech MX518 Legendary
Keyboard Corsair K70 RGB PRO Cherry MX Blue
Software Windows 11 Pro
Title says TGC, is it supposed to be TCG?
 
Joined
Aug 22, 2007
Messages
3,593 (0.57/day)
Location
Terra
System Name :)
Processor Intel 13700k
Motherboard Gigabyte z790 UD AC
Cooling Noctua NH-D15
Memory 64GB GSKILL DDR5
Video Card(s) Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
Storage 960GB Optane 905P U.2 SSD + 4TB PCIe4 U.2 SSD
Display(s) Alienware AW3423DW 175Hz QD-OLED + AOC Agon Pro AG276QZD2 240Hz QD-OLED
Case Fractal Design Torrent
Audio Device(s) MOTU M4 - JBL 305P MKII w/2x JL Audio 10 Sealed --- X-Fi Titanium HD - Presonus Eris E5 - JBL 4412
Power Supply Silverstone 1000W
Mouse Roccat Kain 122 AIMO
Keyboard KBD67 Lite / Mammoth75
VR HMD Reverb G2 V2
Software Win 11 Pro
Seems to be typical with most games like this these days, which more often than not, are just garbage. Imo, if games need to rely on "pay to bypass HUGE time sinks/RNG" in order to generate the majority of their income, then they're not worth playing. A good game should generate more than enough income with a monthly subscription. Its odd how gamers are willing to throw away more money on micro-transactions vs. spending less on a monthly subscription. I mean, if a game is good, many will pay the subscription.

I'm willing to pay an upfront cost not subscriptions or micro-transactions.



That's interesting that it's a Bimodal distribution. I wonder what's the difference there.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2011
Messages
19 (0.00/day)
i think worth to note that for pokemon tcg (including pocket version) there are some rare cards is just alternative to normal version, which is purely just for collection purpose

like this :
that same meowth card with just different art/foil

i am not sure how many card that have alternate version like above, but i think around 15% of set-list

i am not completely agree with saying the game is pay-to-win because like any TCG, considering we dont need full complete set to build a deck, casual player can play with whatever cards they have and play just fine, and tuning their deck as they getting new cards

player that have more cards obviously have more selection to build deck they want, but that not always make them auto-win
because each deck have strong point&weakness

then like real tcg or hearthstone, people that enjoy the game and play alot, will more likely want to spend to get more card they want

edit : i checked the reddit post, seems the op edited his post
"TL;DR: 655 days of continuous playing, or 437 with the premium pass. EDIT: Since people have been asking, to only complete 85% of the set (the amount of cards in the set that are non-secret), it would only take 130 days (87 with premium). If you miss any regular cards you can purchase them with pack points (although I do not recommend it), you'll get more than enough within that time-frame to buy anything you've missed. Expect a more in-depth post on subsets, decks, and completion percentages next week. Suffice to say, the bulk of completion time comes from getting the secret cards. "
 
Last edited:
Top