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Pokémon TCG Pocket Loses Nearly Half Its Players, And It’s Obvious Why

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Pokémon TCG Pocket Loses Nearly Half Its Players, And It’s Obvious Why

Pokémon TCG Pocket is coming up on its second anniversary in a couple of months, but developer DeNA’s latest financial filings show a game in fast decline. The re-imagined version of the tabletop card game was immediately stunningly popular, not least because of the way the mobile game so satisfyingly simulated tearing open packs of cards to build collections and create battle decks. But with the company’s sales down a third, and player numbers for Pocket down over 41 percent compared to this time last year, the shiny is certainly wearing off. And as a daily player since launch, I’m not in the least bit surprised.

Obviously when Pocket first launched it gathered a huge amount of attention. Pokémon is the largest entertainment IP in the world by a significant margin, and the mobile game launched right as interest in the physical card game was growing unsustainably large. Here was a way to rip open digital packs, battle friends, and feel the constant trickle of rewards and extras that a satisfying gatcha game provides. Except, at the same time, it launched with a huge array of very obvious shortcomings and irritations, many of which still haven’t been addressed, and it was carrying the stink of a cheerful, cartoonish game that was overtly promoting gambling to children.

But, it had those animated cards! It’s hard to over-emphasize the significance of these collectibles (called “Immersive Cards”), cards that, when collected, would spring to life with an animation revealing entire worlds of Pokémon beyond the card’s initial art. They were, and still are, completely magical, and remain my primary focus for still playing the game every day: I have lost interest in online battles, in finishing sets, even in my digital binders for Yuka Morii and Asako Ito cards; I just want to collect the animated cards from every single set. And in this single-minded focus, the issues with Pocket are all the more starkly revealed.

Popular Pokémon news account @UniteVids on X posted the news about DeNA’s Q1 financials, and the replies say it all.

“Make the pull rates better,” says one. “Make the pull rates better,” says the next. A third chimes in, “better pull rates.” And on and on and on. And god, yes, this. Pokémon TCG pull rates in the real world are a contentious issue, but have fairly consistently stuck to one-in-four packs offering an ultra-rare or better card for the last few years. Pocket, meanwhile, makes this seem like Santa-esque generosity. You can open ten packs at once and not see a single full-art, nor even a basic ex. The pull rates are disgraceful, and over the last two years have only gotten worse. In my pursuit of those Immersive cards, I have realized the degree to which the game mindlessly restricts access to far less interesting alt-arts, while drowning you in the same few bulk cards, entirely by design. I have sets for which I’ve literally collected 40 or more of the same bulk cards, and maybe two of other equally unimportant regulars. And no Immersive card at all.

But that’s hardly the only frequently repeated complaint. The other comment that comes up in almost all discussions is an appeal for “universal pack points.” Pack points are a way the game—in theory at least—lets you “buy” cards that are missing from a particular set. Open a pack (and the game lets you open two a day for free) and you’ll earn five pack points for that specific set, with regular bulk costing 35 points and the rarest gold cards an idiotic 2,500. (A mere 500 packs’ worth of points.) Immersive cards, meanwhile, are 1,500 (300 packs’ worth), so this method is completely out of reach as a way to bypass the game’s “luck” and snag the cards you want, unless you’re willing to spend an idiotic amount of money. If pack points weren’t set-specific, but rather universal, I’d have enough to buy some of the five Immersive cards I’ve yet to pull. It’s very understandable that people want this!

But the rot goes so much deeper. Of the 10 things that I said desperately needed addressing in November 2024, a grand total of 10 of them remain unchanged almost two years later. At the end of July, Pocket put out a colossal 2.7GB update that it reported would make vital changes to the version of Unity it was running and add huge improvements, and the result was…it’s made the mission screen a bit more confusing. I literally cannot see anything else. Trading, a rather core element of a “Trading Card Game,” arrived a year late to the app, was atrocious on arrival, and has remained so since. You still cannot trade the cards anyone actually wants to trade (including Immersives, and dear god I have duplicates), for reasons that are driving the game’s remaining audience ever more crazy.

Then there are the events. They’re stale, dreary lists of identical challenges (Wonder Pick three times, battle five times, open four packs…) with frequently woeful rewards, offering no interesting challenge or motivation. Battle leagues are bland, and require a constant chasing of the meta that I just can’t find the energy for (not least when vital cards are far harder to pull), and my daily activity is reduced now to simply opening the free packs and cheesing the missions that give you Hourglasses to open new packs. (If you’re not using the “Thanks” trick to blast through battle-based missions, you need to be.) It’s become a weird, daily obligation before I get to my NYT puzzles.

And dear god, the Premium Pass. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve let mine roll since the game launched, and I refuse to let my mind do the math on what that’s cost me for what breaks down to an extra free pack a day, but it is possibly the worst battle pass in all of gaming. Since launch, players have been begging for it to offer something more than a handful of decorative items and the barest number of Hourglasses imaginable, but it remains as desultory and anticlimactic today as it was then. There’s not a single task on the monthly list that you won’t complete by accident if you open the app every other day, and given the money it charges, it couldn’t be less generous. Which makes no sense at all, until you remember that idiots like me keep paying it anyway.

DeNA isn’t exactly strapped for cash, however. It reports that it made $46 million in operating profit in its first quarter 2026, from revenue of $235 million. However, that revenue is down company wide 11 percent year-on-year, and the operating profit has dropped a whopping 46 percent. In response, the company says it will be “executing multi-layered initiatives, including events and promotions to increase login frequency, retention rates and growing activities.” It’s worth noting that DeNA, a company that also has automotive and medical businesses, is pretty heftily buoyed by Pocket.

Perhaps this big drop (which DeNA told investors was within its expectations) will be enough to shake the company out of its hubris and make it start listening to Pocket players. But honestly, after two years of the game sitting stagnant while desperately needed features are never considered, I’m doubtful. I suspect instead it’ll be just allowed to slide into oblivion, like so many gacha apps before it, and given the game’s potential (and those animated cards!), that’s a real shame.

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