© Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK
The next time someone tells you the NFT market is dead point them in the direction of this article. An NFT is a non-fungible token, or a digital asset which represents ownership of some item.
While NFTs are specific to the owners and 1-of-1, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket appears to have cracked the code on selling these digital assets without even having to make them 1-of-1. In its first year, Pokémon TCG Pocket brought in over $1.3 billion from users spending money on digital card packs that are little more than NFTs.
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket Becomes Highest Grossing Pokémon Mobile App
Pokémon Pocket / Cass Anderson
In its first year, according to a report from Nintendo Life, the Pokémon TCG Pocket app brought in $1.3 billion from users buying card packs which led to it becoming the highest-earning Pokémon mobile app debut in the franchise’s history.
For those unfamiliar with Pokémon Pocket, it mirrors both the card trading game where you can rip open packs while chasing down rare cards and it has the ‘battle’ function where users can compete against others, and the AI computer, to achieve status and prizes.
For the rarest of cards, the ‘immersive’ cards, Pokémon community artists are often brought on it create unique artwork and a card will have a living/movie scene hidden underneath the static card art on top, something that could never be achieved with the traditional paper card packs.
So while these are very similar to NFTs in nature, they also fit a very real want/need for individuals to play Pokémon competitively from their mobile phones versus needing to meet up with friends or go to a card shop at specified times to play the game.
Have I played Pokémon Pocket? Yes, absolutely. Far too often actually.
Is it easy to see how people sink money into the game? 100%. They offer a premium subscription where users can unlock rare items each month, achieve goals faster, and open 1 extra pack each day.
Are there a lot of people playing it? Most certainly. I maxed out at level 50 a while back but in the most recent update, for their 1-year anniversary, new levels were added along with new achievements. It took no time to hit level 51 and there’s no end in sight at this point.
Would I recommend you play this game? Well, that all depends. In hindsight, I wish I never would have discovered this game. While it did teach me to how to ‘battle’ in the Pokémon card game for the first time, a game I can play with my young son, for someone like me who is easily sucked into a game it was/is a very hard habit to break. So before you go download it just consider how likely you are to get sucked into the consumption aspect of the game which is at the core of everything Pokémon with the ‘gotta catch ’em all’ moniker.