When Pokémon TCG Pocket burst onto the scene in October of 2024, it took the world by storm by offering up Pokémon TCG fans a free, digital iteration of the world’s most popular trading card game. The good feelings don’t appear to be last, though, as a new earnings report indicates that Pokémon TCG Pocket is struggling to keep long-time players engaged, which could spell huge trouble for the game’s long-term viability.
This new report from DeNA shows that players who were around for the game’s inception have fallen off. Within this third-quarter earnings report, the developer suggests that the monthly active user base has been declining despite the game raking in a ton of new initial downloads. “While new user acquisition remains strong, the retention rate of existing users has declined compared to the launch period, making MAU [monthly active user] maintenance an issue,”
The exact numbers that are in question aren’t specifically mentioned through this official report, but as we could surmise, this doesn’t bode well for the future of this game. But this is not the first time player retention has been brought up by DeNA. Within an earnings report that was released just over six months ago, this same problem was brought up. It was suggested at that point in time that major overhauls would be made to the game to remedy this problem within the calendar year. This led fans to assume that these aforementioned changes would be brought to the game come it’s one year anniversary event. This is where we had seen the implementation of the Deluxe Pack EX and the re-release of Promo Cards, which was met with mixed reactions from the user base.
If DeNA wants to keep Pokémon TCG Pocket afloat, they have to focus on continuing to create new yet enticing improvements for the game via future expansions. And it looks like some of these ideas include running more in-game events and promotions along with “multi-layered initiatives.” But upon gauging the general fan reaction towards this news, they perceive this as a bunch of very ambiguous buzzwords that lack any clear course of action.
