It’s been a difficult day for Pokémon Go players.
Last week, they pointed out ticket prices for pay-to-play events are becoming absurd. They’re even considering boycotting them. Today, however, the fiery passion and enthusiasm was replaced with sadness and sorrow.
The community realized there’d been a pay-to-play event every week so far this season, and prices aren’t going down. It has them fearing the worst for the game’s direction moving forward. To add to the gurgling pit of woe and despair, others lamented over features that have been removed or replaced. They’re begging Niantic to add them back in the form of wish lists.
That might be one of the more somber introductions to a Pokémon news column I’ve written. But the good news is at least one upbeat and somewhat positive thing happened today.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet might fall short of the mark in the performance department, but it’s been praised for its attention to detail—and players found another cool example in Area Zero.
It’s the gift that keeps on giving, long after the main storyline has been finished.
Niantic, what the heck are you doing?
Rather than address the growing dissatisfaction brewing over the frequency and cost of pay-to-play events in Pokémon Go, Niantic has done the opposite. They’ve remained tight-lipped as the cash train rolls on.
The community is exhausted at this point. They let out a collective sigh together on Reddit. It’s drawn more than 3,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments, with most trainers agreeing they’re losing faith in Niantic.
“This game is becoming less and less attractive to anybody. This has been my favorite game for a long time and I don’t even play that much anymore because of all these pay-to-win events,” said one trainer.
“I have basically stopped even logging in now except to start a new egg. It’s no longer fun when companies break down the user base into the haves and have-nots,” said another.
Not the only thing they’re ticked off about, either
All the reflecting on better times had other Pokémon Go trainers thinking about all the old features that have been removed, including six hour community days, incense being somewhat effective, and more.
While they were at it, they also called on Niantic to add remote raids back, fix performance issues, and more—and went as far as putting them together in a wish list for the holiday season.
Combined with the pay-to-play event backlash, it sounds like Niantic has got some flames to extinguish.
Well played, Nintendo and Game Freak!
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet aren’t perfect—at least, not in terms of performance—but the area it shines the most in is their attention to detail.
Nintendo and Game Freak put in a lot of work to keep the tesseract of overlapping details in line with each other and maintain continuity, and the fanbase keeps on discovering new examples.
The latest one, for instance, is that all the moth-like Pokémon appear in Area Zero for a reason—because like how moths in real life are drawn to light, they’re drawn to the glimmering crystals that illuminate the end-game area. They’re also a symbol of death in some cultures, which ties into the mysterious nature of the area.
Even a player claiming to be an Entomologist who works in a moth lab was impressed!
And with that, we’ve reached the end of another Pokémon news day. It wasn’t the most cheerful one, but at least it ended on a good note.
Maybe Niantic will respond to all the backlash and make a change, too. Pokémon Go trainers have taken a unified stance, and there is always strength in numbers, so you never know!
