The Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has stirred controversy with the emergence of a black market where players are buying and selling digital cards online, facilitated by the game's trading mechanic. Listings for these cards have flooded eBay, with prices ranging from $5 to $10 per card. Sellers are exploiting the trading system by exchanging friend codes with buyers and then sending over the desired card. For instance, a $5.99 listing for a Starmie ex requires buyers to have 500 Trade Tokens, one Trade Stamina, and an "unwanted Pokémon ex" to trade.
This practice blatantly violates the Pokémon TCG Pocket terms of service, which explicitly prohibit "buying or selling virtual contents or data on the service." Interestingly, sellers face no loss in this transaction; they simply trade a card they don’t need for one they do, which aligns with the game's trading rules that only allow exchanges of cards with the same rarity. This means a seller can continue to trade and sell the same rarity of cards repeatedly without losing stock.
On eBay, there are numerous listings for ex Pokémon and 1 Star alternate art cards, which are the rarest available for trading. Prices vary, and even entire accounts are being sold, often containing Pack Hourglasses and other rare cards. This practice, though common in online gaming, still breaches the service's terms.
The trading feature in Pokémon TCG Pocket has been controversial since its release. It comes with restrictions like Trade Tokens, which players have criticized for their high cost, requiring players to delete five cards from their collection to trade one of the same rarity. Despite these restrictions, a black market would likely have emerged regardless, driven by the basic nature of the trading mechanic that only allows trades between friends.
Community members, like siraquakip on Reddit, have expressed a desire for a safer and more open trading system within the app. They advocate for a feature that would allow public card trading, reducing the reliance on external platforms like Reddit, Discord, and now eBay to find desired cards.
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Creatures Inc., the developer, has warned players against engaging in such transactions, promising to take action against violators, including account suspension. Ironically, the Trade Tokens mechanic, meant to prevent such exploitation, has failed to do so and has instead alienated many players.
Currently, Creatures Inc. is actively investigating ways to improve the trading feature, though no specific plans have been released despite ongoing complaints since the feature's unveiling three weeks ago. Some fans speculate that the trading system is designed to boost revenue for Pokémon TCG Pocket, which reportedly earned half a billion dollars in less than three months before trading was introduced.
This speculation is supported by the restriction on trading cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, which would otherwise allow players to easily complete their collections without spending significant amounts of money on packs. For example, one player spent around $1,500 just to complete the first set, while the third set in three months was released last week.
