Pokémon TCG Pocket pack change leaves a bad taste after the big launch

Pokémon TCG Pocket finally arrived on iPhone and Android this week after soft launching in New Zealand last month, much to the delight of series fans worldwide. However, after participating in the soft launch last month, I’ve noticed a big change to the in-game shop, and I’m not impressed.

For those who don’t know, the currency for buying new packs in Pokémon TCG Pocket is primarily pack hourglasses. During the soft launch, you could pick up six pack hourglasses for the price of 12 shop tickets – yes, I know this is going in a very mathy direction, but stick with me. Now, after going global, six pack hourglasses cost 18 shop tickets, adding a fat 50% to the original asking price and making it even harder to track down some of the big hitters from our Pokémon TCG Pocket tier list.

It looks like I’m not the only one who’s noticed the change. At the time of writing, the second hottest post of the Pokémon TCG Pocket Reddit is someone complaining about the change, calling it “a huge dampener long term on card acquisition.” Honestly, I couldn’t put it better myself, and while it’s not unusual for a mobile game to make these sorts of alterations to push users towards spending money on in-game resources, it’s still disappointing.

It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if the in-game shop wasn’t already a bit frustrating, limiting the number of pack hourglasses you can pick up using shop tickets a month at 70. That’s the equivalent of just five packs, with ten hourglasses to spare, every month. Sure, you get two packs for free every day, three if you’re a premium user, but that still makes card acquisition pretty sluggish considering there are over 200 cards to collect from the first three sets. Put simply, it’s going to be no mean feat to collect ‘em all.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely for the Pokémon TCG Pocket shop change to revert back to how it was during the soft launch, so we’re going to have to get used to spending more resources on pack hourglasses. If that’s put you off the new 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-life TCG, check out our sister site Wargamer’s guides to the most powerful Pokémon cards and the rarest Pokémon cards.