It hasn’t always been easy to get Pokémon card packs over the past several years. During the pandemic, Pokémon cards saw a massive surge in popularity, so big that the Pokémon Company had to take drastic measures, producing more than 9 billion cards over the course of a single year as a way to address the shortage. It’s unclear what caused the boom, but it’s likely a mix of people picking up new (or old) pandemic hobbies and the increase of content creators buying cards and opening packs on streams. Basically, Pokémon cards became a nostalgia-fueled way to gamble.
YouTube creators and Twitch streamers started buying up packs to open on stream, and the viewers were there. To get a sense of how popular Pokémon pack opening was on Twitch during the pandemic, we can look toward Twitch Metrics, a third-party site that tracks Twitch data. From March 2020 to January 2021, Pokémon card unboxing grew by 3,000% in monthly viewership. One streamer, Luxury Ball Collectibles, spent six hours opening Pokémon card packs a few years ago. Another YouTuber, Deep Pocket Monster, frequently racks up hundreds of thousands of views. These sorts of videos are alluring because they’ve got big personalities, suspense, and drama. Viewers get all the adrenaline of gambling and pulling out that rare card without any of the risk.
That’s why the upcoming Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, announced Tuesday during the Pokémon Presents Pokémon Day broadcast, makes perfect sense: It’s a way to mimic the experience of watching someone open a card on stream — but better, since you’re directly involved. And with two free packs per day, there’s still that mitigated risk (unless you purchase more, of course). The Pokémon Company is working with Creatures Inc., which makes physical cards, and DeNA, the studio behind Pokémon Masters EX, to release the app on Android and iOS sometime in 2024.
Though you can take part in short, simple battles, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket appears to be centered more on the act of opening, collecting, and trading cards. The trailer shows the highs and lows of a person’s experience opening packs, relishing the satisfying zip of tearing one open. The person in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket trailer gets a notification ping on his phone when his pack comes in, before using his finger to swipe it open and start flipping through cards with a Tinder-esque swipe (no rejections here, though). Because these cards are digital, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket can make cards “immersive,” according to the developers, letting players explore the art of some cards in a 3D space. Because you likely won’t be able to sell these cards, it feels like these immersive cards replace that resale value, adding to the experience of collecting.
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is “free-to-start,” according to the Pokémon Company. Presumably, besides the two free packs a day, there will be options to purchase more. (The Pokémon Company hasn’t detailed any pricing information just yet.) Certainly, there will be tons of people willing to spend lots of money on digital cards, but the two free packs will be enough of a thrill for lots of people — a little burst of that feeling from watching a card opening stream, but even better because you get to keep the cards, even if there’s no sell value. (We don’t know if you’ll be able to sell cards, but it feels unlikely!)
So while the viewership numbers for Pokémon card content creators have decreased since the pandemic, interest remains strong — and the Pokémon Company certainly wants to capitalize on that. Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket looks like a great way to do that, although we’ll have to see what else the app has in store.
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