Pokémon TCG Pocket Dev Gifts Players Trade Tokens But Still Doesn’t Have Answers to Fix Controversial Feature

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket developer Creatures Inc. has gifted players 1,000 Trade Tokens — enough for just two significant trades — as it continues to investigate ways to fix the controversial mechanic.

Players logging in today will find the Trade Tokens in their Gift menu with no message, but Creatures Inc. posted on X/Twitter to thank fans for their feedback and patience. The developer was last week called “hilariously toxic,” “predatory,” and “downright greedy” after finally introducing trading to the trading card game.

Alongside the standard Pokémon TCG Pocket mechanic that restricts players from opening packs or Wonder Picking or, now, trading too much without spending real world money, the feature was also introduced with these Trade Tokens as an extra restriction. Players criticized the high cost of obtaining these, as they essentially had to delete from their collections five cards before trading one of the same rarity.

It’s now been eight days since Creatures Inc. released trading to the incredible backlash, but it did have a heads up that fans weren’t impressed when it outlined the feature almost three weeks ago. “Your concerns are seen,” it said at the time. “Once this feature becomes available, I’d like to invite everyone to try it and provide feedback.”

This made many players believe things would be better than expected, but this wasn’t certainly the case. Creatures Inc. eventually responded by admitting “some of the restrictions put in place are preventing players from being able to casually enjoy” trading.

It also promised to alleviate complaints by introducing required items as rewards in upcoming events but has already failed to do so as the Cresselia ex Drop Event released February 3, includes none.

Fans complained trading is fairly clearly being implemented as a means of increasing revenue for Pokémon TCG Pocket, which is estimated to have made $200 million in its first month, before trading was possible.

This is also evidenced by the inability to trade cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, as if players could immediately trade for their missing cards, they wouldn’t need to spend $10 or $100 or more for a random chance of getting them. It cost one player around $1,500 just to complete the first set, for example, and the third in three months arrived last week.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.