Released on October 30, “Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket” presents itself as a virtual version of the playing cards that have haunted playgrounds since the end of the 90s, combining the opening of “boosters” (sealed packs of cards), the collection of creatures and online battles.
This Nintendo game displays “one of the highest performances of all time for a mobile game”, notes Sam Aune, analyst at the specialized firm Sensor Tower, with “180 million dollars” generated by the application stores of Apple and Google in a month and a half. Developed by the Japanese studio Creatures Inc., “Pokémon TCG Pocket” ranks second among mobile games having generated the most revenue in its first month of operation, only ahead of another achievement by Pikachu and his gang: “ Pokémon Go.”
Transposition of the opening of the deck of cards
Beyond the worldwide fame of the creatures created in the 90s by Nintendo, the game especially benefits from a “very strong synergy” with the physical version of the card game “popular for decades”, says the Sensor expert Tower. The key to its success? Pokémon TCG Pocket was able to “very effectively transpose the opening of card packs and the gaming experience onto digital media”, believes Simon Carless, founder of the consulting agency “GameDiscoverCo”.
On social networks, many players share videos where they discover their new cards or perform in tournaments, and the keyword #Pokémontcg has more than 1.5 million publications on TikTok. Above all, “Pokémon TCG Pocket” gave a boost to sales of physical cards. “It brings the player back to the Pokémon brand,” explains Frédérique Tutt, toy market expert for the company Circana. “And physical cards remain the heart of the brand that collectors want to have at home to play and trade. »
Purchasing boosters
If it is free to download, “Pokémon TCG Pocket” adopts the “free-to-play” business model, meaning that the player is then encouraged to spend money in the application to obtain more cards. “Since it came out, I have had to spend 70 euros,” confides Sacha Bernard, 33, including around ten euros per month for a subscription allowing him to unlock additional “boosters”.
“It’s really the first time that a mobile game has made me spend an amount like that. » If he admits to being tempted by “nostalgia”, this librarian professor in Créteil is delighted with the “short and quick” format of the games offered by the mobile version.
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