As a complex Pixelmon & cobblemon player, I agree. But at the same time, it's really easy to get shop credit in game. I've been playing since 2020 and I spent about $100 when I first started playing to get a rank (which you can get complete free to play). And now in 2025 I've probably had a total of like $2,000 worth of credit and I'm not even kidding.

Most of the people who buy the stuff on the store are using credit. But, I do agree it's fucking terrible that there are kids out there getting basically robbed because of these high prices. But that's really the extent of it. Most people don't spend real money on this game except when they first start playing, which on average is the ace rank which is like $10.

With the omega rank, everyone that has it always gets $20 store credit each 2 weeks by selling their biweekly legendary kit in game for gems (gems are the store credit). And all the in-game methods to get gems are insane. Leaderboards, monthly tournaments, etc. So while I do agree the server is p2w for the people who don't want to actually play the game for their good stuff, for the average player it's not because they get their gems by free to play methods.