Pokémon TCG Pocket Loses Nearly Half Its Players, And It’s Pretty Obvious Why
How Game Design Shortcomings Impacted DeNA’s Financial Success
In the fast-moving world of mobile gaming, success can change in an instant. A single hit game can bring in millions of dollars overnight, while a high-profile failure can deeply hurt a company’s financial health. This is the reality currently facing DeNA, a well-known Japanese mobile portal and e-commerce company. Best known globally for its high-profile partnership with gaming giant Nintendo, DeNA has recently faced significant financial challenges. These difficulties highlight how quickly things can go wrong when a major game fails to meet player expectations.
This article looks into DeNA's recent financial performance, the specific game design issues that caused these struggles, and what these challenges mean for the future of mobile game development. By analyzing these events, we can learn valuable lessons about game design, player satisfaction, and the delicate balance of making money in the modern gaming market.
The Partnership That Promised to Change Mobile Gaming
To understand DeNA's current situation, we must first look back at its historic partnership with Nintendo. Announced in 2015, this alliance was hailed as a massive step forward for the mobile industry. Nintendo, famous for keeping its beloved characters on its own hardware, was finally bringing icons like Mario, Link, and Pokémon to smartphones. DeNA was chosen as the ideal partner to build these mobile experiences due to its deep expertise in infrastructure, online services, and mobile monetization.
Initially, the partnership looked incredibly promising. Early games like Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp showed that Nintendo's classic characters could find a comfortable home on mobile devices. Fire Emblem Heroes, in particular, became a massive financial success, proving that players were willing to spend money on mobile adaptations of their favorite franchises. However, as the partnership continued, the pressure to replicate this success grew, leading to decisions that would ultimately hurt both user satisfaction and financial returns.
The Critical Misses: Where the Games Fell Short
While early titles performed well, later releases struggled to hit the mark. Two games in particular—Pokémon Masters (later rebranded as Pokémon Masters EX) and Mario Kart Tour—illustrate the design and monetization issues that caused DeNA's financial dip.
1. Pokémon Masters: A Rocky Start for a Giant Franchise
When Pokémon Masters launched in 2019, anticipation was incredibly high. Fans expected a deep, strategic game that captured the classic feel of the main series. Instead, players found a game that felt incomplete and overly focused on microtransactions.
At launch, the game suffered from several major design issues:
- Lack of Engaging Content: Players quickly finished the brief story mode and found very little to do afterward. The end-game content was highly repetitive, forcing players to play the same battles over and over again.
- Unbalanced Progression Systems: Upgrading characters required an excessive amount of grinding, which quickly bored casual players.
- Aggressive Monetization: The game's "gacha" system—where players spend in-game currency for a random chance to unlock new characters—felt unfair. The odds of getting rare characters were low, and the cost of currency was high, alienating free-to-play users.
These shortcomings led to a rapid drop in daily active players. Despite a strong initial launch week in terms of downloads, player retention plummeted, and along with it, the game’s long-term revenue potential.
2. Mario Kart Tour: Frustrating Controls and Pay-to-Win Mechanics
Another major title, Mario Kart Tour, faced similar criticisms. While the game beautifully recreated the colorful tracks of the console games, its design choices left many fans disappointed.
The control scheme, designed for one-handed portrait play, felt clumsy compared to the precise controls players loved on consoles. More importantly, the game was heavily criticized for its pay-to-win mechanics. Players who spent real money could unlock superior karts, gliders, and characters that gave them clear advantages in races. This design choice frustrated competitive players, turning a beloved party game into a source of frustration.
Analyzing the Financial Damage to DeNA
The underwhelming performance of these major titles had a direct, negative impact on DeNA's financial reports. In the fast-paced mobile industry, running live-service games is highly expensive. When a game fails to generate steady revenue, the costs of server maintenance, marketing, and continuous development quickly eat into profits.
During key fiscal quarters following these launches, DeNA reported significant drops in both operating profit and overall revenue. The gaming segment, which had historically been a reliable driver of growth, began to weigh down the entire company. While other parts of DeNA's business, such as their sports and live-streaming ventures, tried to balance things out, they could not fully make up for the losses in their mobile gaming division.
For investors, this was a clear warning sign. The mobile market was becoming increasingly crowded, and simply putting a famous logo on a game was no longer enough to guarantee financial success. Players had grown more demanding, and the competition had become much fiercer.
The Shifting Economics of Mobile Gaming
The issues DeNA faced are not unique to them; they reflect a wider change in how people play and pay for mobile games. To understand why DeNA's games struggled, we have to look at how the broader mobile market has evolved over the last decade.
The Decline of Aggressive Gacha Systems
In the early days of mobile gaming, aggressive monetization tactics often worked because players were still getting used to the "free-to-play" model. However, modern players are much more aware of these mechanics. They can easily spot games that prioritize making money over providing a fun experience. When a game feels more like a virtual slot machine than a piece of entertainment, players are quick to uninstall it and leave negative reviews on app stores.
The Demand for Deep, Console-Quality Experiences
Mobile devices are more powerful than ever, and games like Genshin Impact have shown that players want deep, high-quality experiences on their phones. They expect rich storylines, beautiful graphics, and fair gameplay systems. When companies release games that feel shallow or rushed, they struggle to compete with these high-quality alternatives.
How DeNA Tried to Turn Things Around
To DeNA's credit, they did not ignore these complaints. Recognizing the threat to their business, the company took several steps to fix their games and win back player trust.
Rebuilding Pokémon Masters
Following the poor reception of Pokémon Masters, the game’s developers issued a rare public apology. They admitted to the game's design flaws and promised a complete overhaul. Over the next year, they systematically updated the game by adding:
- More generous rewards for free-to-play users.
- New gameplay modes that added much-needed variety.
- Stamina systems and progression updates to reduce tedious grinding.
This effort culminated in the rebranding of the game to Pokémon Masters EX. These changes successfully stabilized the player base and improved player sentiment, but the initial damage had already hurt the game's long-term financial prospects.
Adjusting Mario Kart Tour
Similarly, DeNA and Nintendo made major adjustments to Mario Kart Tour. Eventually, they removed the controversial gacha mechanics entirely, replacing them with an in-game spotlight shop where players could buy specific items directly. This shift toward fairer monetization helped rebuild goodwill with the community, though it came long after the game's peak popularity had passed.
Key Lessons for Mobile Game Developers
The challenges DeNA faced offer several important lessons for developers and publishers working in the modern mobile industry:
| Challenge Faced | Impact on Players | The Better Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Aggressive pay-to-win design | Frustration and drop in player numbers | Fair, cosmetics-focused monetization |
| Lack of launch-day content | Boredom and quick uninstalls | A solid roadmap of end-game activities |
| Poor response to feedback | Loss of community trust | Open communication and fast updates |
1. Put Gameplay and Player Experience First
Monetization should always be designed around the gameplay, not the other way around. If players genuinely enjoy playing a game, they are much more likely to spend money to support it over time. When monetization feels forced, it ruins the experience and drives players away.
2. Plan for Long-Term Content
A successful mobile game is a service, not a one-time release. Developers must have a clear plan for adding new content, events, and updates long before the game launches. Keeping players engaged over months and years is key to maintaining a steady stream of revenue.
3. Listen and Adapt Quickly
No game is perfect at launch. The developers who succeed are those who listen to their community and make changes quickly. DeNA’s willingness to apologize and rewrite their game systems helped save their titles from complete failure, showing how important it is to adapt.
Looking to the Future: DeNA’s Next Steps
Despite these financial setbacks, DeNA remains a major player in the tech and gaming sectors. Their partnership with Nintendo has evolved, leading to the creation of a joint venture company called Nintendo Systems Co., Ltd. in 2023. This new venture aims to strengthen Nintendo's digital business and create more integrated entertainment experiences across platforms.
By moving toward joint ventures and diversifying their business, DeNA is working to protect itself from the volatility of the mobile gaming market. They are also investing in other growing industries, including healthcare technology, artificial intelligence, and virtual live-streaming platforms.
Conclusion: A Path to Healthier Game Development
The financial struggles DeNA experienced due to their games' shortcomings serve as an important story for the entire mobile gaming industry. It proves that even the most famous characters and experienced developers can struggle if they do not prioritize player satisfaction and fair game design.
As the mobile market continues to mature, companies must focus on building deep, high-quality, and fair experiences. By learning from these past mistakes, DeNA and other developers can create games that are both fun to play and highly profitable over the long term.
from Kotaku
-via DynaSage
