Earlier this month DeNA, the mobile games company behind Pokémon Pocket, posted figures that do not paint a rosy picture for the future of the app. The game’s active userbase has declined rapidly, with Pocket starting out 2025 with 39 million users and ending it with 24 million.
While DeNA seems to have stemmed the bleeding, only dropping to 23 million users between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, that loss seems to have had a disproportionate impact on profits, with revenue falling by $25 million quarter-to-quarter. Either Pocket is losing more players who were previously engaged, paying customers, or premium players are fast dropping off and becoming F2P.
DeNA plans to shore up its situation by releasing new games, but if it wants to also fix Pokémon Pocket and maybe reverse its game’s fortunes, here’s what it needs to do.
Improve the new player experience
This is something that every F2P card game has to contend with. The optimal business model is one where it’s just about feasible, but quite tricky, for a free player to collect all the cards they could want – missing out only on some flashy cosmetics.
But as more and more sets come out – and Pocket has a particularly punishing release schedule – it gets harder and harder for newbies to catch up. If you want to keep growing then sooner or later you need to bite the bullet and make it easier for newcomers, and Pokémon Pocket has long since passed that point.
While the app does give new players a decent number of new packs to start out with, it’s still not enough to reliably build more than one consistent deck. The app probably needs to get more generous with the number of packs players can open each day, to encourage more consistent usage of the app. And perhaps it ought to do something about that frustrating wait time before card trading unlocks on a new account.
Finally, it’s long past time for DeNA to pool pack points together. It is ridiculous that this in-game currency is still split out between every individual set, and that you therefore have to open dozens of packs you’re not interested in just to purchase a single poxy ex card or supporter from it.
Maintain recent balance standards
While Pokémon Pocket fans love to complain about whatever the top deck of the month is, there’s actually some evidence that set balance is one area DeNA has been killing it of late.
Since April’s Pulsing Aura, the competitive meta has been more varied than ever before. It’s now actually rare for any one deck to make up more than 10% of the meta, whereas previously it was pretty standard for 20% of players to bank on a single strategy.
Bring in rotation
That said, an easy way to make the game feel fresh without having to design new cards is to bring in a rotation to Pokémon Pocket, pushing out old cards as new ones come in. This has the added benefit of making it easier for new players to catch up – as there are fewer sets to worry about.
Perhaps there could even be two versions of the Pocket ladder, a Standard and an Extended mode, just like the Pokémon TCG? Which brings me to my fourth and final suggestion
Explore new game modes
The biggest problem with Pokémon Pocket is that for all its updates and new releases over the months, nothing has fundamentally changed. The app’s gameplay has always been super simple, and while that’s a big part of the draw, I think the signs are showing that players are getting sick of the same old experience.
DeNA needs to shake things up a bit and learn to innovate. We need new multiplayer game modes and experiences to keep things interesting. I’ve already suggested game modes related to rotation, but how about a draft feature, or a puzzle mode where you have to figure out how to win from a difficult spot?
Other mobile apps like Marvel Snap keep things fresh with Limited Time Game Modes, and this is something the Pocket playerbase is gasping for. Just throw out a few ideas to encourage fans to deckbuild differently.
What if there were no retreat costs? What if all energy was rainbow and counted as any type? What if there were 30-card decks? I’d like to see an endless conveyor belt of new ideas rolling out to keep fans interested in exploring the cardpool and playing the game.
DeNA shouldn’t abandon Pokémon Pocket until it’s at least tried some of these tactics. If Pokémon Go can stabilize and even start to grow after its initial decline, then why shouldn’t Pocket?
Source: Wargamer
