Even though Pokemon TCG Pocket has experienced substantial success since its launch last year, not everything within the game has been well-received by players. Proof of this is the trading tokens introduced in late January, which met with a particularly negative reaction, partly because players were required to destroy their duplicate cards to create them. Now, the game’s creators, Creatures Inc. and DeNA, have announced that they will be eliminating the trading tokens and substituting them with a different in-game currency.
As announced on Pokemon’s official website, trading tokens are expected to be entirely withdrawn from the game by this drop. In their place, shinedust will be utilized as the currency for trading cards. Any trading tokens that remain in players’ inventories after the transition will be converted to shinedust.
Shinedust will only be needed for trades involving cards with three-diamond, four-diamond, or one-star rarity. However, the specific details regarding the cost in shinedust were not revealed. Players automatically earn shinedust when they acquire a card that is already listed in their Card Dex. As shinedust will be used for trades, the developers are looking into increasing the amounts awarded to players.
The in-game trading feature will also receive an update in the long run that enables players to indicate the cards they wish to trade for, which should help facilitate a more streamlined trading process. The developers further mentioned that they are exploring ways to allow players to trade cards that are currently non-tradable, such as promo cards and two-star rarity cards.
The Triumphant Light expansion for Pokemon TCG Pocket was released at the end of February, coinciding with the game’s surpassing of 100 million downloads. Earlier this week, Pokemon Go developer Niantic’s gaming division