Of all the many excellent changes Niantic has made Pokemon GO In the face of the global Covid-19 pandemic, remote raiding appeared to be the one most likely to survive in the long term. Of course, every new move made by the developer seems to threaten its future.
Time was when you wanted to take part in a raid Pokemon GO, you would have to gather with other real players and all stand a few meters away from the imaginary gym. For a five-star raid, meaning the most powerful — often legendary — Pokemon, you need at least five or six people working together to successfully battle it. When the game was new and gyms were few and far between, this was actually possible.
Faced with the pandemic and the utter impossibility of such actions for much of the world, Niantic introduced the Remote Raid Pass. This allowed you to participate in a raid from any distance and team up with friends from anywhere in the world to attack the Pokemon. Or you could even just click on a relatively nearby raid and fight it yourself from afar.
Smart people quickly saw an opportunity here and created various apps that allow total strangers around the world to team up to tackle specific heists. All it takes is a local person to host, then apps like PokeRaid and Poke Genie will automatically assign players into teams. Everyone makes friends with codes shared across the apps, and then the host invites everyone to the raid.
Well, if it were, maybe you could see how Niantic could be upset that third-party app makers are making money instead. (Though I heartily recommend Poke Genie over the more popular PokeRaid — it never charges a dime.) However, Niantic also charges fees for the required Remote Raid Passes, meaning that the more people encouraged to participate in such raids, the more they do. Most likely, you will spend money for this in the game. And, quite importantly, Niantic took no steps at all to create its own version of similar technology.
Remote raiding just makes a lot more sense, everyone loves it, and Niantic has gained a new in-app revenue stream. It couldn’t have gone better, could it? Well, of course we can’t have nice things, and Niantic is now taking steps that will threaten this new normal.
The first worrying sign was the simultaneous removal of a weekly 1-coin remote raid pass previously given to all players on a Monday. Then, at the same time, the price of three remote raid passes in the in-game store was increased from 250 PokéCoins to 300. (Individual passes remain at 100 coins, or $0.99 each.) That felt like a spectacular move, timing-wise. (However, the weekly 1-coin boxes remain available and offer some really good bundles of various in-game items.)
Then Niantic did a new June Community Day announcement, who managed to put salt in two wounds at once. Players are rightly angry at the inexplicable (and never rationalized) Decision to halve the length of the Community Days from six to three hours, only 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Now Niantic announced another “new” feature: players can “extend” the day after 2 p.m. by participating in a new type of arena raid. They are “new” in the sense that you can only participate in them if you are physically at the raid location. Yes indeed, you can extend Community Day any way you wished, but only if you engage in a really obvious move to make remote raids seem less reliable.
Eurogamer talked to Niantic about itto ask if this was the beginning of the end of remote raiding and was told, “We have no intention of removing remote raiding for the regular raid tiers at this time… But we weren’t shy about that We’re looking at opportunities for players to play in person again.”
That “now” reads so ominously to me, especially given the extended couchings in the rest of this answer. And as was to be expected, we once again received the request “Play in person again”.
We’ve reached out to Niantic to elaborate further, but after waiting a day, we’ve had no response.
Here’s what’s wrong with their “get playing in person” line: it doesn’t work. Sure, if you’re in a big city and attending a big event, there’s a chance you’ll bump into the other six or seven people you’d need to do a Mewtwo raid right now. But for absolutely everyone else around the world? No! It’s not a thing. Unless you’re lucky enough to have at least five other friends who are still playing the game and are all amazingly free at the same time and then can all gather in the same place at that time, how is anyone supposed to be raiding by saying ” playing in person again”?
That’s not hypothetical. Here’s a photo I took during the climax of the game’s biggest event, GO Fest 2022, a central square in the large park near where I live, where four gyms can be reached at once, the only place i’ve ever been before encountered others Pokemon GO gamer in the wild.
That lone figure sitting on the derelict bandstand is my son. That was not the end, the dregs of the event. This was high season, the very best place to play for miles. Yay, personal game!
It just feels unfathomable at this point, let alone while the pandemic is absolutely not over, that Niantic is operating under this illusion that it’s 2016 and masses of gamers will be standing in each city’s few gyms. If only they would all get the message and play in person again!
Removing all of the features that have dramatically improved the game over the past two years won’t magically do so, and it’s confusing that Niantic seems to think it can punish the game’s players until it does .
It’s so very, very obvious that it intends to phase out Remote Raid Passes. “For now” followed by his infatuated mantra says everything we need to know. And yet, like the Community Days halving to the benefit of absolutely nobody, it seems inevitable that it will be pushed anyway. (Because of course the halving was Community Day Also an attempt to penalize players for congregating, believing that doing so would concentrate people in one room at once, against all visible reality.)
Niantic continues to push in-person events across the city to its entire audience, as if that helps too. Play the game this week and you’ll be notified of a very exciting GO Fest personal expansion where brand new Legendaries are available! If you live in one of three cities around the world. those in Berlin, Seattleand Sapporo be able to catch Pheromosa, Buzzwole or Xurkitree. Every body else? You were unlucky.
While the planned in-person events in various cities around the world for next weekend’s Community Day are a little more accessible (you can find your closest one on a map here), just look how crappy you are if you live somewhere with no coast.
But all of this does nothing to help someone if they want to go on a raid on any given day. Right now, Mewtwo and Snorlax are in raids, along with classics like Venasaur, Blastoise, and Charizards X and Y. They’re all four or five star raids, and as such, impossible for one person to complete alone. In fact, extremely unlikely without at least five people.
And how am I supposed to do that today? I’m 44. I was lucky enough to have one adult friend who I got to do a few trades with today for the latest TCG crossover event while we waited for our kids’ school sports day to start. Literally my only available method to participate in most events these days is to start Poke Genie and spend a Remote Raid Pass to team up with people from anywhere in the world.
Taking that away doesn’t mean, “Get me out and play in person again!” Niantik. It will make me stop throwing my money at your game and let me know that I am not wanted at all as a player. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.
