Pokémon Trading Card Game Comes to Phones

The Pokémon trading card game will soon be available as a free app for iOS and Android devices, The Pokémon Company announced on Monday.

With Pokémon TCG Live, The Pokémon Company promises newcomers and veterans alike will get the classic Pokémon deck-building game with realistic rules and gameplay. Pokémon TCG Live will be complemented by daily quests, customizable avatars and accessories, and more. A robust post-launch content schedule is promised.

“Pokémon TCG Live will go hand in hand with the tabletop version that fans know and love,” Barry Sams, vice president of The Pokémon Company in charge of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, said in a statement. The game “welcomes a new era of digital gaming where trainers around the world can play together regardless of their preferred platform,” he added.

Pokémon TCG Live will launch smoothly on mobile devices in Canada later this year; A global open beta for Mac and Windows PC will also be available later this year on Pokemon.com. Pokémon TCG Live will replace the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online, an existing app based on the collectible card game, which will be shut down before its replacement goes live.

This year marks Pokémon’s 25th worldwide anniversary; The Pokémon Trading Card Game was first released in the United States in 1999. The Trading Card Game, like many other tabletop games and hobbies, has garnered a huge increase in attention and of interest since the COVID-19 pandemic epidemic in the spring and summer of 2020.

Since then, both the basic set and the highly sought after sets, such as Hidden destinies, have seen significant price spikes in the collectibles market. Retailers have struggled to meet demand for current products, in part due to shortages and print closings linked to the pandemic.

Target stopped selling the Pokémon TCG in stores this spring, out of concern for its customers and employees. Mainstream media at the time shared several reports of long queues for new shipments and erupting fights between collectors trying to grab them.

Also in February, The Pokémon Company canceled the 2021 Pokémon World Championships, the flagship event for the collectible card game. This is the second year in a row that the championships have been destroyed due to the pandemic; they are expected to resume with “an expanded celebration for Pokémon” in 2022, although the company has yet to give more details on its plans.