Well no, thats not a fair example and I'll explain why. Pokemon TCG has always been about buying boosters and collecting cards, much like other card games such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, and such. Triple Triad is not, and comparing it to a TCG is almost a mad mans attempt to justify the thought of booster packs in the shop... forgive the frankness, but last i checked, I didn't buy a single GD booster pack in Final Fantasy 8. I'd much much rather them just give us a "Card" ability and force me to farm the cards, adding rare ones to quests/dungeons/In-Saucer events than to have to drop 5.99$ on a 5-set booster pack. I don't mind buying TCG cards, physical version... I get the enjoyment of collecting those and I enjoy a lot of TCG's and collect and play them myself.
For what its worth, I'm not against the cash shop in general, in some games I think it works, I've used it in games like GW2 occasionally, even in STO... I do not find it to be the source of all evil... but I don't find any positives to a cash shop in XIV at this time, as I know without one, these items would be obtainable through other means, but since they can sell them for money... they'll sell it for money. I suppose the same could be said for GW2/STO, but those are also both F2P...
Though the apathetic sigh of disappointed in humanity when I see someone riding a 24$ digital horse does seem to be killing me slowly.
And for what its worth, I know this is pure speculation... so I'm personally not freaking out over it, just pointing out... apple and oranges my lady apples and oranges. Even if they add Boosters to the cash shop, so long as I can obtain them in game I'll be happy enough to continue to ignore the cash shops existence.
