The Pokémon Trading Card Game Online isn't making a load of cash even though it is one of the most downloaded apps for iPad.
Pikachu, the most popular Pokémon character is not so great with money.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game Online is one of the most downloaded iPad apps in the world right now. According to data-tracking company App Annie, the card battler is the fourth most downloaded app on iPad in the United States. While in Canada, the pocket monster TCG goes No. 2. This shows the nonstop popularity of the Pokémon franchise and that a huge percentage of its audience is using devices like smart phones and tablets to play games. At the same time, the game hasn't figured out a great way to make profits.
After its debut in Canada, the Pokémon TCG Online went live around the world earlier this week. In spite of the worldwide launch, it only features in-app purchases in Canada.
As a test market for selling gems, which players can use to buy booster packs and upgrade the cards, the Pokémon Company uses Canada. But the result of that experiment until recently isn't exactly great.
According to App Annie, Pokémon's card battler is only the 108th highest-grossing iPad game in the card genre. It doesn't even rank when in the overall app and game markets. It reached its highest rank of 55 on Sept. 28, and has gradually fallen ever since.
Even though, Pokémon, being an incredibly popular brand, doesn't mean people will spend their money on it. Plenty of companies struggle to produce in-app purchases in their games, and it's no difference for the pocket monsters when it comes to this.
When publisher Blizzard's World of Warcraft card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft launched in April, it shot up to the top of the download charts. It also managed to get into the top-30 highest-grossing games on iPad unlike the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online didn't even in get into the top-100 highest grossing games.
As Pokémon gains additional players on iPad, it could have move the charts up in Canada and the developer could also introduce more in-app purchase options. But as of now, you can only pay $10 for 250 gems or $25 for 650. It is also possible that a $1 or $5 microtransaction could give a big boost to the game.
