Gambling. An art form, the golden juice of life. A gambler is and will always be the happiest person to be alive. The thrill of winning, nothing can compare to it. So who cares if you lose your house, your family or even your stupid friends telling you that gambling is destroying your life and you need to quit and it’s not healthy for you and “please come back to us we miss you”…
The new Pokemon TCG mobile game is, behind all those cute little animals and bland UI, a gambling game. Obviously not as dark and evil as playing a slotmachine in Vegas, but still not ethical or right – but I’d be a fat liar if I didn’t say it’s fun and effective.
Everyone is familiar with Pokemon, we all grew up with it and even your grandparents probably know something about it. It’s cultural at this point. Pokemon is great, and we all know the anime and games hold up very well (at least the older ones). Many people are probably familiar with the cards as well. For me at least, the Pokemon cards were a staple of my childhood. We used to collect them, trade them and even see who could throw them the furthest to win each others cards, but we never actually played the actual TCG game.
When I downloaded the game on my phone, I was not really expecting there to be an actual TCG game tied to it. The premise was, and is, that you can open two packs of cards each day and progressively build your collection. It’s a fun idea, and the cooldown on opening packs makes it easy to not stick with the app for too long and go do other things. Then I found out that you can use these cards to build decks and battle. The actual TCG game that I never got familiar with as a kid. I’ve tried it out for a bit now and I gotta say that I actually think it’s pretty good. I’ve played some Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering before, and the simplicity of Pokemon is a breath of fresh air. It doesn’t take a genius to play, but it also still allows your brain to tickle a bit when building a fun, unique and effective deck.
Me personally? I’ve made a super cool Dark deck all about applying poison! Is it good? No, but it’s mine.
So from a gameplay perspective the game isn’t actually that bad. Open packs and battle. You can even trade with friends and see each others collections! It’s fun. But of course you can’t have Pokemon without a huge amount of greed sprinkled on top of it. There are some big issues in this game that makes it go from a fun, cute little past time activity to a dark, greedy pile of shit.
First off, you can’t trade unless you have a specific currency to trade with. This is alright in theory since it removes the problem of people just making new accounts and trading rare cards back and forth. Problem is that the ONLY way to get this currency is by destroying rare cards. Not common ones – rares. Cards that you can go multiple packs without seeing. On top of that the amount of currency you get is abysmal. You’d need to destroy about 5 EX’s so that you can trade one. This just makes trading stressful, and in most cases not even worth it. It’s not a fun mechanic and it doesn’t promote any sort of community feeling.
(Quick note; low tier cards are free to trade, but nobody cares about those)
Secondly, you’re able to open more packs a day if you pay for it. This is not a weird idea, especially since the game is free. But all the different mechanics of the game is based around getting cards. Trade? Need cards. Battle? Need cards. Quests? Need cards. There is an insane amount of incentives to make you spend that quick buck for a new pack. Sure, you can just decide to not do it, but it’s a game that mainly targets a younger audience. You have a game that shoves the idea of spending money on it down your throat, and the vast majority of the playerbase will be young kids with no sense of how to handle money.
I understand that the company wants to earn money on the game, obviously. But does it really need to push it so violently?
I’m not done by the way.
There’s a third system that allows you to pick a card from a pack that other people have opened. The card you pick is randomized, but it’s a fun little “extra” that rewards you if a friend or stranger got a really good pack. But of course this system also needs to be predatory. The “stamina” that you use when picking these cards recharge at a super slow rate, and the cards that you can pick on is on a timer. On top of this, if a pack has a good card it will cost more stamina. So let’s say I want an EX card from a pack my friend opened; first I need 3 stamina, but only got 1. It disappears in 2 hours. That’s not enough time. I go grab mommies credit card. I buy gold. I picked the wrong card. I’m mad.
The game creates these cool and fun systems, but butchers them by forcing unethical and greedy practices on to them.
ON TOP OF ALL THIS… the game has limited events with unique cards that also uses stamina and creates a feeling of FOMO.
Sadly, there are people who spend thousands on this game. I’ve seen videos of small creators who spend hundreds of dollars just to open a couple of packs, only to be left with no good cards. It’s insane, and as long as we as consumers keep spending our HARD EARNED MONEY on these things, it will never change.
It makes me sad.
But I won’t sit here and lie. I’m a hypocrite. I’m addicted to this game, I’m gonna keep opening packs because I’m not strong enough to withstand it. Who knows, maybe one day I also fall into the trap of spending money on worthless digital cards.
I might actually do it right now.
Hopefully I get something good… 6/10.