The “T” in Pokémon TCG Pocket stands for “trading,” but ironically that’s been the worst part of the game ever since the feature launched earlier this year. Finally, the mobile hit’s developers have promised a major overhaul of the busted system, though the fixes could still take a long time to roll out and will destroy a currency players already wasted a bunch of cards farming for.
“Thank you for sharing your feedback on the trading feature in Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket,” the team announced in a new blog post. “We’re continuing to read your comments and investigate ways to improve the feature.” The biggest change is that trade tokens, a recently introduced currency required anytime you want to trade, will be removed and converted into Shinedust which will be required for trades instead.
Moments of economic upheaval like this have become common in free-to-play games, but some fans who already destroyed a bunch of their one-star cards to farm the currency for future trades now feel duped. “Appreciate the Trade Tokens being converted to Shinedust, but I definitely feel like an idiot for stocking up on Tokens now,” responded one player on X. “I shredded a bunch of rare cards. Oh well…” Another was similarly disappointed.
“Oh people melting their 1* cards to get trade token while sitting on 100k shine dust and they lost nothing?” explained another. Not everyone is sympathetic. “If you traded a card in you didn’t have spares of, that’s on you man, idk what to tell you,” wrote a player debating the subject on the PTCGP subreddit. Players who have been hoarding shinedust since launch, on the other hand, are quite pleased with themselves right now.
A future update will also let players publicize cards they want to trade for, streamlining the current clumsy process of needing to coordinate trades offline or risk blindly offering up a card with no clue what someone might offer to trade in return. Sounds great! Unfortunately, the timeline for both changes is simply by the end of “autumn 2025.” Huh.
The Pokémon TCG Pocket is also looking at changing the current restriction on trading cards rarer than one-star, perhaps the thing players have complained about most regarding the game’s trade system. Instead of being able to trade with a friend for the hardest-to-get card, many hardcore fans are limited to trading for cards they already have.
“We are also looking into how to accommodate cards that are currently unavailable for trades, such as promo cards and two-star rarity cards,” the developers write. “Keep an eye out for more information about this topic in the future.” Given that trade tokens aren’t getting nuked for another six months as it is, I’m not holding out hope for two-star trading anytime soon.
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