Pokémon TCG Pocket Warns Fans Not To Trade For Money

The creators of Pokémon TCG Pocket have issued a warning to all players not to tamper with game data or participate in real money trades, or risk getting their accounts banned. The crackdown comes right before card trading and a new Space-Time Smackdown set are added to the mobile hit.

“We are aware that some players have engaged in data tampering, real money trading, and other behaviors that violate the Terms of Use,” read an in-game announcement that went out to all players on Monday. “If we confirm that a player has engaged in behavior that violates the Terms of Use, we will warn them, suspend their account, or take other action.”

Pokémon TCG Pocket’s makers, Creatures Inc. and DeNA, are presumably trying to get ahead of what seems likely to be a surge in black market bartering for the game’s virtual cards once trading goes live on January 29. In theory, nothing would stop players from creating a third-party marketplace on a subreddit or Discord server where people who have tons of duplicates sell them to the highest bidders.

That’s possibly one reason why the development team is restricting Pokémon TCG Pocket’s trading feature to one-star cards and below. The rarest cards, like specific gold variants with only a .053 percent chance of dropping, will remain locked to players accounts. They would still be able to sell entire accounts to one another, but that would sort of defeat the whole purpose of playing the game and collecting cards in the first place.

Of course, all of this is violates Pokémon TCG Pocket’s rules, but that’s never been enough to completely stamp out cheating and other illicit practices in other economy-driven live-service games like Diablo IV. The proof will be in how many players Pokémon TCG Pocket potentially ends up banning for this sort of thing, and if it publicizes those numbers as has become common across lots of other online games.

The Pokémon Diamond and Pearl-inspired set Space-Time Smackdown arrives this week, alongside the new trading feature, but those cards will also be excluded from trades at launch. Creatures Inc. and DeNA have said exchanging cards with friends will only be available for existing the Genetic Apex and Mythical Island sets at the moment.

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