Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket arrived on mobile last week, and, after racking up an impressive 10 million downloads in its first 48 hours, it has reportedly been pulling in some beefy revenue numbers over the weekend (thanks, VGC).
As reported by MobileGamer.biz, the mobile market research firm AppMagic estimates that TCG Pocket has been bringing in a sweet $3 million per day since launch, racking up $12 million in its first four days on the market.
To make things sound even more impressive, this, the firm suggests, puts the trading card app's revenue more than three times higher than Pokémon GO for the same period — which still brings in an estimated $1 million per day.
Of course, it's still early doors for TCG Pocket. The novelty is bound to wear off in the coming years, so we wouldn't expect to see numbers like this forever, but, credit where it's due, it's not off to a bad start.
According to AppMagic, players in Japan are the biggest spenders so far, contributing 45% of all earnings to date. The United States follows behind with 25%, Hong Kong and Taiwan make up 4% each, while South Korea, New Zealand and France take 3%.
It will be interesting to see just how long the magic lasts. In our review, we described Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket as heaps of fun for card collecting but felt it was let down by its monetisation (not that it's put many people off, clearly).
What have you made of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket so far? Let us know in the comments.
[source mobilegamer.biz, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 40
I'm more impressed that Pokemon GO is still raking in the cash all these years later. At least you won't see grown adults fighting in stores over these virtual Pokemon cards but we will get lots of YouTube videos opening virtual packs instead.
That’s pretty wild. While I enjoy the game and have not (and will not) spend money on it, I have hit a solid brick wall on progression and keeping general attention. Wish there was more to do, and I’m not even begging for more packs.
@Enigk
Pokémon Go was always popular. It is not in the regular news anymore, but still is played a lot.
Pokémon GO, unfortunately, doesn't have the frenzied hype that surrounded it upon its release in 2016, but it's still being played.
I only started playing it "full time" a few months ago after a loooong hiatus (I didn't seriously play it during 2016-2020; never did any raids or defended gyms). Now I'm meeting up with local fans about thrice weekly. I was at level 23 or so in May, now I'm already at Level 40.
I'm hoping to organise a golden lure party for early December.
@Enigk There is a spot in my town that still has regular groups of adults clearly doing some raid. It's pretty wild to see.
But I am glad they are still having fun with it.
@Daniel36 : Gigantamax raids debuted recently, so they've been attracting some sizeable crowds.
How anyone has spent any money on the app is beyond me.
Once you have all the cards, the battling system is so short and mostly luck based, that is appeal quickly disappears.
I like the TCG videogames enough to carry on playing, but I just don't see the point of whaling the game when there is no competitive reason to do so. Utterly baffling.
I've never played Pokémon TCG before and I'm completely addicted to this
Oh wow that's a lot of money even considering the number of downloads, on the one hand good as they'll continue the app for a while then, but on the other I wish people didn't spend so much money on games of this kind (most surely there are whales involved here) - personally, I'll just keep on playing it for free as I'm more than happy with slowly collecting the cards!
This wouldn't surprise me. Anything Pokemon, (and specifically Pokemon cards) seems to be on the rise, so this is the result I expected. I am sure The Pokemon Company is happy.
I'd be curious to know where these numbers are coming from. As mentioned in the article, these are estimates. Based on what exactly?
Imo, this is just another way to generate free cash and publicity. I don't believe they could possibly know anything about the revenue of such a newly released app. Estimate in this case means "wild guess".
Game is really fun, honestly. The collecting and the battling feels great. Haven't spent any real money and managed to open tons of packs(although most of it was the first day).
Wish normal games were that commercially successful. Gachya games shall cease to exist.
I'm having fun with Pokemon TCG Pocket and am already at level 8. Like in Pokemon Go, I still have no plans to spend money. But it's pretty fun for what it is even if I've hit the "open 1 pack every 12 hours since you're out of items" wall. I've had some decent pulls too, though no "god packs" yet. Battling is fun, simplified, and snappy. The only bummer there is I found prize decks earned through achievements have limited uses. At least I'm able to build my own functional decks from my collected cards. 131 unique Genetic Apex cards so far.
I was hoping this was going to be more like the Gameboy games.
I'm seeing more luck than strategy.
Because of course it is. When you see those figures it's hard to blame them for going this route.
Still not gonna be a part of it though.
@Kiz3000
You have all the cards already f2p???
Ive got terrible luck
@milonorth When I found myself wishing there was more "game" to TCG Pocket, I realized that it's there to be a casual card collector over anything else, and it does that super well. Checking in for a few minutes every day, doing quests and a couple battles feels like a bonus and a lot of the appeal is that you don't have to spend hours on progression. Just enjoy the ride, that should be more than enough to keep general attention.
@eltomo It wasn't ever intended to be like the Gameboy titles. It's first and foremost a card collector that is best enjoyed a few mins every day. It's honestly a breath of fresh air!
@Kiz3000 I've seen meta decks for Pocket already and I must say, it can still be competitive. Decks right now consist of more support cards than pokemon.
After the amount I spent on Hearsthstone in the past, I'm going F2P this time around. I think this will make it a more meaningful and fun experience for me.
I got it, but only collecting as I cannot understand the game itself
Seeing as the two-week free period is still here for the yearly pass (which costs an insane $120/year)...this has to be whales.
It's always the whales.
But who else could it be, when it costs $23 bucks for a digital skin set?
That explains why I keep running into opponents with teams full of Mewtwo EX cards. 😭
I have enjoyed it a lot since I hadn’t ever learned how to play the card game but yeah, luck if the draw really does end up largely controlling a win or loss.
I wish this game had more of an incentive to do battles because the game barely even mentions them.
@Xeraphis I can imagine it is. Speed your way to get your strongest monster in play and just sweep through your opponent with very little resistance or time to counter.
Don't get me wrong, this sped up rules has its place, but it is quite luck based.
@Arminillo Apologies, I didn't mean to imply I had all the cards. I believe I am at 160/220 and can still see that having all the cards makes battling trivial.
the sky is the limit for gacha gamers
the game gets kinda boring if you have all the cards this early on, doesn't it? I'm going slow with f2p and haven't used my items yet until I see an update with a pack that I like.
Pulled the crown charizard last night I’m so happy 😭🤩
I have co-workers grabbing the app. It's quite popular it seems!
If I wasn't broke I would definitely use a lot of money on this
I somehow managed to pull 2 dragonites and build my deck around them. They take time to set up for battle but its fun making comebacks on unexpected oponents
@Kiz3000 This is exactly how I feel. I’ve tried some of the top tier decks and sometimes I just have to give up due to bad luck. The amount of real strategy is very limited. I like the cards and I see the game having some appeal but just opening 2 packs per day and mostly getting the same old stuff quickly gets old. They have to add more progression to the game to keep it interesting.
@Uska
They’ll have to keep adding cards and new ways to play like an expanded single-player, what they have now doesn’t cut and I’m sure a lot of players will drop it rather than attempt MP battles.
I’ve gotten in just a few days 54 boosters and 142/226 of the current cards which includes a tons of rares including 3 EX Mewtwos without paying a cent, they’ll need a compelling reason to keep me around or even consider paying up.
I need them to add either grindable solo content or some more arbitrary points/currency that you still get when you lose. That way I won't be as depressed when I lose every coin toss three games in a row.
Won’t spend a buck to roll the digital dice.
@Anachronism And now they have. Very kind of them to do that just because I asked.
Yeah I'm not spending any money on this, as for the battles, I'm mostly sticking with CPUs, every time I've went against an actual person, I've seen nothing but tons of EX cards when I barely have any. Also last time I tried online with one of these card games, it keeps giving me bad matchups. Like, seriously, I put together a decent Fire Deck and the game is like "Alright, cool, you're fighting someone with Water types."....sighs
I’ve had terrible pulls and that’s making online play not fun. So yeah unless that changes I’ll not be playing much.
@SalvorHardin
I’ve got the opposite problem but with the same result. 🥹
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