Last October I received a call from my cousin, Jake. “Dude, you have to download this Pokemon game.” He was really happy about Pokemon TCG Pocket. I figured, why not?
Big mistake. Well, not downloading it. That part was fine. The trading, though? What a complete disaster. Can’t believe what a mess they made of that.
Everyone Downloaded It
This game was huge. I’m talking massive. $120 million in two weeks! My barber was playing it. The lady at Starbucks was playing it on her phone. My 60-year-old neighbor was even trading digital Pokemon cards.
But here is the thing no one talks about. All those people downloading? They wanted to trade cards. Like, that’s the entire point of Pokemon cards. You gather them, and you trade them with friends. Simple stuff.
Except there was no trading when it launched. None. Zero. We had to wait months.
Trade Tokens Were Stupid
January 2025 rolls around. Finally! Trading is here! Jake texts me immediately. “Trading is live; let us trade some cards.
So we attempted to trade.
What were they thinking? You couldn’t just trade cards. You needed to acquire these things called Trade Tokens first. And how did you get Trade Tokens? By trading away cards to get tokens to trade for other cards.
When I first read that sentence, I read it three times. Didn’t make sense at the time, doesn’t make sense now.
Jake was really wanting this one Charizard card I had. Cool, right? Wrong. He first needed a set of five Trade Tokens. In exchange for five Trade Tokens, he had traded away five other cards he actually liked. So, instead of giving up cards, he wants to get tokens to maybe get the card he really wants.
Absolutely bonkers.
People Lost Their Minds
The Pokemon community went ballistic. And I mean ballistic. Reddit was on fire. Every single day there were new posts about how trading was broken. They called it “trade jail” because you couldn’t even trade anything without this stupid token system.
My friend’s kid did the math on how long it would take to earn enough tokens to acquire the rarest cards. Four months. Four months of grinding to make a trade for a card in a mobile game. YouTube creators were making videos titled stuff like “Pokemon TCG Pocket Trading is BROKEN.” The comment sections were brutal. Thousands of people saying they were done with the game.
The Pokemon TCG Pocket trading system backlash was real. This wasn’t just a few complainers on Twitter. People were actually quitting.
Company Finally Listened
March 2025. The Pokemon Company puts out this statement basically admitting they messed up. Trade Tokens are getting removed. They’re switching to something called Shinedust instead.
Shinedust was already in the game for other stuff. Made way more sense. You open card packs, get duplicates, and automatically get Shinedust. No weird token exchanges.
But get this; they said the fix wouldn’t come until July. Four more months of the broken system!
Jake deleted the app that week. “Call me when they fix this garbage,” he said. Can’t blame him.
July Update Actually Worked
July 29th finally came around. They shut down trading for a few days to roll out the new system. I was scrambling to use up my leftover Trade Tokens before they vanished forever.
The new system? Night and day difference.
Now you just play the game normally. Open packs, get cards you already have, and boom; Shinedust in your account. Want to trade? Use the Shinedust. Done.
They also added this thing where you can post what cards you’re looking for. Should’ve been there from day one, but whatever.
Jake redownloaded the app. We’ve traded more cards in the past two months than we did in the entire time that token mess existed.
What Went Wrong
I’ve been playing mobile games since Angry Birds was a thing. This was just plain stupidity.
Someone in that company thought players needed protection from… what exactly? Trading too much? Having too much fun? The whole point of Pokémon cards is trading them with other people.
They took something simple that’s worked for 25 years and made it complicated for no reason. This is a classic case of overthinking a problem that didn’t exist.
My nephew’s been trading physical Pokemon cards since he was seven. Give a card, get a different card. Easy. But somehow the digital version needed this elaborate token economy? Please.
Game’s Fine Now
Pokemon TCG Pocket is actually pretty decent these days. The cards look amazing on my phone screen. Battles are enjoyable when you’re stuck waiting somewhere. And trading works like it should’ve from the beginning.
The Pokémon TCG Pocket trading system backlash taught them a lesson, I guess. Sometimes the simple solution is the right solution.
Jake’s back to playing daily. We trade cards over lunch breaks. My nephew shows me his rare pulls when I visit. The game finally feels like what it should’ve been all along.
But man, what a way to learn. They probably lost millions of players who just got fed up and moved on. Some of them aren’t coming back, no matter how good the fixes are.
The Real Lesson
Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Pokemon card trading worked fine for decades. Kids figured it out without instruction manuals or tutorial videos.
When you’re making a Pokemon card game, maybe, just maybe, you should make trading work like Pokemon card trading always has. It sounds like a crazy idea, right?
At least they fixed it eventually. Some companies would’ve kept that busted token system forever and blamed players for not “getting it.”
I still think they could’ve saved themselves a massive headache by just keeping it simple from the start. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a guy who wanted to trade Pokemon cards with his cousin.