Pokemon Pocket’s Eevee Grove Expansion Is The Game’s Most Transparent Cash Grab Yet

I’ve fallen off Pokemon TCG Pocket. It was only natural that the initial hype would die down, but it’s got to the point where I’ve cancelled my premium subscription and I’m lucky if I remember to open my two packs a day any more. Hang on a minute, let me- nope, all commons.

Somehow, I’ve still been able to get my hands on the immersive art Buzzwole ex – it’s almost like the game is tempting me back with big cards. I’m over the initial excitement and refuse to spend any more money on virtual cardboard, even if I can write it off on my taxes.

Eevee Is Pokemon’s Cash Cow

Pokemon Pocket has always been transparent about how obviously it wants your money, but somehow many players didn’t realise it at first. The first major outcry about monetisation came when shiny Mewtwo was locked behind the premium pass. It’s a gorgeous card, but people were aggrieved they’d have to spend money to get it. What did you think the game was doing when it launched with five different currencies and has added another half dozen since?

When your spending is obfuscated, it can be harder to track exactly how much things cost. Ten packs of cards, for instance, costs 120 pack hourglasses, or 60 Poke Gold. 60 Poke Gold costs… Well, it’s complicated. You can only buy Poke Gold in certain quantities, none of which equal the 60 required to buy ten packs – the only number that you can bulk buy in.

50 Gold (plus seven free, for some reason) costs £7.99, a price point so deliberately aimed at forcing you to buy it twice in order to open ten packs that it makes me cringe. Yes, nearly every gacha game does this. No, that doesn’t make it okay. 100+20 Gold costs £15.99, so we can work out the costs that way. 16 quid for 20 packs is about 80p a pack. But you can already see how convoluted it is to work this out, and it only gets worse when you purchase Gold in bigger quantities to get better discounts.

But still, a tenner for shiny Mewtwo is a travesty! An assault on free-to-play gamers! Let me break it to you now: none of this is consumer-friendly. This game is specifically designed to extract as much cash from you as it possibly can. And the forthcoming Eevee Grove expansion is the epitome of that intentional design.

What Cards Are Available In Pokemon Pocket’s Eevee Grove Expansion?

This set, understandably, revolves around Eevee and its evolutions. All eight Eeveelutions will be getting new cards as well as Trainer support to make an all-Eevee deck viable. Just take a look at Eevee ex’s ability – it allows you to evolve it into an Eeveelution card, despite its ex status. Four Eevees, four evolutions, you’ve got the beginnings of your next off-meta deck.

But it’s not all Sunflora and rainbow rares. Eevee is one of Pokemon’s mascots for a reason: Eevee merch sells. Eevee cards sell. Eevee, I don’t know, foot spas would probably sell if they made them. They do literally sell Eevee crockpots, after all. A cynic would say that introducing an Eevee-focused expansion to Pokemon Pocket is the biggest money-grabbing move this money-grabbing game has pulled to date. It’s me. I’m the cynic.

I’m not going to wonder whether this is a sign of the game’s decline, guess that sales are declining, or anything like that. We don’t know. It makes sense for a game where the primary aim is to make money to release a set including the series’ most marketable monsters. I’m cynical, but I’m not going to make up some reasons for this move beyond ‘DeNa wants money’.

And the problem is, players will give it their money. I’m glad that the game didn’t drop a Gen 2 set in its early days, or else I might have gone bankrupt. And, let’s face it, I still might. After all, I don’t blame players for spending their cash on virtual cards – I’ve done it before and I likely will again. We’ve not seen any alt arts for the Eevee Grove expansion yet, and I know if I see a certain Jolteon I’ll do everything in my power to hold it in my palm, phone still warm from all the Google Pay transactions.

Jolteon is my favourite Pokemon, you see. It’s not very original, but I was a Gen 2 kid and loved Raikou. But even at eight years old I didn’t want to choose the mainstream option. Your favourite Pokemon is a Legendary? Lame. So I picked the closest Pokemon to Raikou I could – Jolteon. So much less mainstream, young Ben. Well done. Two decades and change later, and Jolteon grew to be my true favourite. It accompanied me in every region, thankfully surviving Dexit due to Eevee’s sheer marketability. And I’ve collected Jolteon trading cards to go along with my virtual pets.

I’ve got the original Jolteon card, Dark Jolteon, Light Jolteon, Jolteon ex, and Jolteon V. But it’s the latter that has my favourite artwork. The alt art version, with Jolteon practically crackling through the streets of a city centre, is perfect. It’s exactly how I imagined my partner Pokemon to be running alongside me through Goldenrod City all those years ago.

If that artwork comes to Pokemon Pocket, I’m out of luck. Bills? Unpaid. My wife’s 30th birthday plans? Postponed. We’re going all in on Jolteon, boys.

Thankfully, I don’t think this will come to pass. Pokemon Pocket hasn’t introduced V cards yet, and I doubt it would start so soon after introducing exes. And I think that it will save this iconic artwork for when it does introduce V cards – which it will, eventually, just as things start to feel stale and it needs another cash injection. But if there’s a new alt art Jolteon, something by Asako Ito or, heaven forbid, Akira Egawa… Lord give me strength.

Ahead of Eevee Grove, my advice to you is this: plan a strict budget and stick to it. If you have enough spare cash to spend $200 a week on this game, go for it. Knock yourself out. But if you’re just a normal like me who has to be careful how they spend their spare pennies, think twice before ripping another ten packs with Poke Gold. Is this really how you want to spend your cash? On yet another game that will likely shut its servers before the decade is out? If that’s alright with you, knock yourself out. But I’m having just as much fun as a free-to-play player as I ever did spending money on Pokemon Pocket. So spend carefully. And most of all, have fun.