Pokémon’s director of global esports & events, Chris Brown, recently revealed that there are no immediate plans for Pokémon TCG Pocket to arise as the next big genre in the competitive Pokémon scene.
While speaking to Insider Gaming and multiple media outlets at Pokémon EUIC in London, Brown stated that the planned course of action for TCG Pocket “feels great” and that there are always ongoing discussions to improve the overall gameplay experience for players. “With Pocket, what feels great for us right now is the Side Events, a casual way for people to meet up,” Brown stated. “We are talking through things like how we can encourage trading, we want to support the Pocket community at the shows, but there are no plans for it to be a main title.”
While this may be sad news to some, the franchise is not devoid of different competitive scenes that trainers can use to test their battling prowess. Pokémon as a franchise currently has four main offerings for the competitive scene, which include the main TCG, Pokémon GO, Pokémon Unite, and the current mainline games Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. It is worth noting that the Pokémon Company does have tentative plans to shift focus from the mainline games to the upcoming Pokémon Champions, which is a more battle-focused game for Pokémon Worlds in San Francisco.
It was publicly stated a week ago that Pokémon TCG Pocket was struggling mightily to retain monthly active users during a Q3 earnings call. So one could be led to believe that it would be in the best interest of DeNA and The Pokémon Company to explore every avenue to retain players and continue to grow the TCG Pocket platform, despite said avenue not currently being charted on their current content roadmap. Potentially facilitating a competitive scene within the app could entice trainers to hone their skills within the app even more and prove they are truly the best, like no one ever was.
