Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket rockets past $500m in just 22 days more than Pokémon Go

• Pokémon TCG Pocket has surpassed $500 million
• The Space-Time Smackdown expansion doubled daily player spend on day one

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has surpassed $500 million in lifetime revenue, now halfway to one billion dollars in little over three months.

After launching worldwide on October 30th, 2024, Pokémon Pocket entered its first lengthy dry spell in late December with no major new expansion until January 30th.

According to AppMagic data, revenue in the interim slumped to record lows as a result, but suddenly surged with the Space-Time Smackdown update as over 140 new cards were added for eager fans to obtain.

That update has seen revenue reach record heights, surpassing $10 million in daily gross earnings for the first time.

Evidently, Sinnoh really does sell.

Space-Time spike

Space-Time Smackdown’s release date immediately became Pocket’s most lucrative day ever at the time, hitting $9 million in daily player spending on January 30th, doubling the day prior’s $4.5 million. This was also a 4% increase over the near $8.7 million generated on December 21st, Pocket’s previous record day.

Gross player spending rose by another 15% day-over-day on January 31st, 2025, hitting eight figures for the first time with $10.4 million. Spending then peaked on February 1st at $11 million.

With Space-Time Smackdown’s release right at the end of January, the period remained Pocket’s weakest full month yet for total revenue at $92.5 million. The expansion update contributed 21% of those earnings in just two days.

Furthermore, prior to the Space-Time Smackdown launch, Pocket’s average daily revenue was $1.8 million in January, but Space-Time Smackdown increased this to $3 million by the end of the month.

Of course, likely the largest factor in Pocket’s sudden acceleration is the cards themselves, with over 140 new additions making this the biggest expansion since the game’s release.

Though the launch set Genetic Apex featured 286 cards, December’s Mythical Island introduced only 86 cards.

Other new additions also coincided with the latest expansion’s release, likely contributing to this spike in earnings too.

Time to trade

January 30th saw the launch of in-game trading, giving Pocket another means of imitating 90s playground nostalgia with players able to exchange cards in their collections.

This has added a more compelling reason for players to continue logging in and opening packs after they have obtained most cards, as the previously underwhelming experience of opening full packs of duplicates now presents an opportunity to trade those duplicates with other players.

In return, players have the possibility of obtaining a specific new card without pulling it from a pack themselves.

DeNA and The Pokémon Company have also introduced new currencies used in trading, further building upon Pocket’s monetisation model while also tackling bots and multi-account players who may have otherwise sent all their rarest cards into one save file.

However, players haven’t received the trading system’s new stamina and resource requirements well, or the fact that the game’s rarest cards simply cannot be traded. A "large number of comments" have already reached the development team.

"We understand that some of the restrictions put in place are preventing players from being able to casually enjoy the feature as intended," the official Pokémon TCG Pocket account posted on Twitter, just one day after trading was added.

"We are actively investigating ways to improve the feature and address the concerns. Going forward, we plan to offer multiple ways to obtain trade tokens including through event distributions."

Spending space

Less controversially, January 30th also saw updates to Pocket’s in-game shop with new accessories added and extra incentives to join the subscription service.

Limited-time items, new binder designs and more likely contributed to the player spending surge that same day, featuring popular Pokémon like the Legendary Darkrai and fan-favourite character Cynthia.

Across these myriad factors, the latest update has ultimately helped to propel Pokémon TCG Pocket to half a billion dollars gross in 97 days. This makes it the second Pokémon mobile game to ever hit the $500 million mark, a feat behemoth Pokémon Go took 75 days to reach.