Although Pokemon TCG Pocket has been extremely successful since its debut last year, not everything in the game is popular with players. Case in point, the trade tokens introduced in late January were met with an extremely negative response, in part because players had to destroy their duplicate cards to earn them. Now, the game’s developers, Creatures Inc. and DeNA, have revealed that they will be getting rid of the trading tokens and replacing them with another in-game currency.
As shared on Pokemon’s official site, trade tokens will be completely removed from the game by this fall. In their place, shinedust will now be the currency used to trade cards. Any trade tokens that remain in players’ collections after the switchover will be converted to shinedust.
Shinedust will only be required for trades involving cards with three-diamond, four-diamond, or one-star rarity. However, the exact breakdown of the cost in shinedust wasn’t disclosed. Shinedust is automatically earned when players get a card they already have registered in their Card Dex. Since Shinedust will be used for trades, the developers are looking into increasing the amounts that are given to players.
The in-game trading function will also receive an update in the future that lets players share the cards they want to trade for, which should make the trading process go more smoothly. The devs also stated that they are investigating how they can let players swap cards that aren’t currently able to be traded, including promo cards and two-star rarity cards.
The Triumphant Light expansion for Pokemon TCG Pocket launched at the end of February, as the game passed 100 million downloads. Earlier this week, Pokemon Go developer Niantic’s gaming division was purchased by Scopely in a $3.5 billion deal. That won’t affect plans to bring Pokemon Go Fest to Paris and other locations this summer. The next Pokemon Switch game, Pokemon Legends Z-A, recently unveiled a few of its starter Pokeman ahead of its launch later this year.