This weekend may have been disturbed to previously unexplored levelsbut it was also Go Fest in Pokémon GOthe annual event in which mobile gaming reminds its millions of players why they loved to play. This year, as the app reaches new lows of money-hungry banality, the event’s terrific execution had the unintended consequence of glaringly highlighting where gaming falls apart the rest of the time.
Go Fest has been a hit or miss over the past few years, the absolute disaster of 2021—an event built around the excitement of meeting Hoopa for the very first time, which, incredibly, never actually featured Hoopa— the wonderful third closing day of 2022 which finally gave people a reason to safely gather in public with its celebration of Ultra Beasts and Shaymin.
Last year it was somewhere in the middle, a dull and dreary event It felt like a reluctant addition to the local live events that had taken place in just three cities around the world, and ended in anticlimactic nothingness. So the much simpler affair of 2024, with no elaborate twists or surprise fake endings, felt like something of a victory. And when it ended, it returned the game to its current, disastrous state.
Let the sunlight (and moonlight) in
The 2024 theme pretty cleverly riffs on 2022’s best approach, with a slew of Ultra Beasts players can earn from raids (many are available in shiny form for the first time) and a storyline that culminates in the ability to fuse Necrozma with Solgaleo or Lunala to create Dusk Mane and Dawn Wings, respectively. This is a repeat of the events that took place in 2017. Pokémon Ultra Sun And Ultra Moonand carefully attached to Cosmog 2022 events which allowed long-time players to create both variants, while also allowing beginners to create at least one. (Which was a nice change, take the trouble to remember people who have been playing the game for over a month.)
On top of that, for the first time in so long, SO For a long time, the game seemed a little generous.
The most marked slowdown POGO over the past year, following many years of disastrous choices who saw the match get rid of players during the Covid pandemic, this is how much more unpleasant gaming has become. In a way that gaming used to stand out not In doing so, Niantic changed feature after feature to start costing money, or cost more money, making you pay every moment, at the same time as laying off entire sections of their employees. What used to be regular free tasks and quests that motivated you to keep playing now cost between $2 and $10 (seemingly at random). Remote raids, a staple of the game during covid, have become essential to the experience, so Niantic Raised Prices While Reducing EfficiencyAnd so on, disgusting choices that made this experience more and more sad.
However, this weekend at least, the game didn’t seem enough It’s so cheap. Sure, the $15 entry fee seems like a lot of money for a mobile game, especially when you could throw in another $5 for more Ultra Beast shenanigans. But discovering that items the game usually doles out as sparingly as ruby-encrusted diamonds, like Golden Razz Berries, were being tossed to players by the handful, made for a different atmosphere. (Having rationed mine so carefully, I went into the event with about 30. I now have 242!) The same was true for local raid passes, Star Coins, and even Rare Candies, the magical items that help you evolve any type of Pokémon.
Come in Raid or Shiny
Raids at Poké Gyms (imaginary locations within real locations) refreshed every 10 or 15 minutes, meaning my son and I, along with our makeshift group of new friends, weren’t sitting around waiting for a new Necrozma to battle. Oh, and they (very temporarily) fixed one of the the most unpleasant aspects of gamesand raids won with guaranteed catches!
And shinies! The prizes, which are usually so surprisingly low, were perfectly paced over the weekend, making them feel special, but ensuring that everyone who played got a good number of them. I got myself Dratini, Tyrunt, Yungoos, Amaura, Crabrawler, Illumise, Morelull, Golett, Gible, Pidgey, and a scarf-wearing Umbreon. (Tragically, I didn’t manage to get a single shiny Ultra Beast, but the group I played with saw a good group show up.)
A brief glimpse of sunshine in the UK this weekend (don’t worry, it’s still raining today) really helped turnout in our small town’s large park. It’s a place that sees people come from the larger, much more populated cities on both sides, due to a particular concentration of gyms in one area that makes for perfect raids. At one point there were 20 people in a single raid, most of them locals, something I’ve never seen in five years of playing.
All this led to those so, so rare perfect POGO circumstances where the circles of poke-nerds all glued to their phones outnumber the normies kicking balls at the park, and you know they’ll be friendly if you go say hello. The guy and I recognized some members of a group from a previous event, and this gathering of mostly 40- to 60-something women welcomed us into their gang for the entire weekend.
The holidays are over
And then it was over. On Sunday at 6pm, after a weekend of frivolity, the game resumed its normal course. It was the same feeling as entering a room after all the Christmas decorations have been taken down.
Oh. Back to normal then.
My son, now 9 years old, had such a good time playing. He had recently started his own new account, despite being level 44 we have been sharing since 2020 being in his name (and, to my eternal frustration, being a child’s account that lacks many new features), and insisted on playing on his bulky tablet, making him look like a Borrower holding a normal-sized human’s cell phone. And despite the fact that our family has recently faced a terrible loss, he was upbeat and talkative for the first time in a week since. So he’s desperate to get going again and has his eyes set on Tynamo Community Day next weekend.
But I know that next weekend’s Tynamo Community Day will take place shit. Because they all are, and have been for years now. They require absolutely no effort, with a few lines of poorly written nonsense spoken by Professor Willow that everyone on Earth has learned to ignore, before the same boring tasks of catching 15 Tynamo, transferring 10 Pokémon, and evolving three Eelektrik. It’s completely routine, when it could be an opportunity for imaginative ideas, new surprises, and, at the very least, a fun story. They can invariably be completed in less than half an hour.
And that’s half an hour on Sunday. The rest of the time, damn it, there’s virtually no reason to load the app. Masterwork’s research quests have become so unmanageable that they die in the background when there’s something more interesting to do. I’m certainly not going to jump into a game hoping for Sinnoh monsters to spawn to boost my 239/492 score. The event screen is empty beyond battles, and the store doesn’t even offer a $2 option to buy it. something to do. I have never felt more like Niantic has given up.
A brief moment of watching my child having a good time, while walking five miles during an afternoon without a single complaint, reminded me of what Pokémon Go maybe. Which, in turn, only serves to underline even more sinisterly what he is not. But it could be! If Niantic would just focus on pushing their game as a truly successful and profitable one, rather than distracting themselves with an endless string of unwanted failures to replicate Pokémon’s success (Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, NBA All-World, Catania, Transformers: Heavy Metal And The World of Marvel Heroes all of them have failed or never been released in the last five years, and I bet you’ve never met anyone who’s played them Pikmin Bloom Or Peridot), this could be such a joyous thing to play. Hell, there are dozens of Pokémon from as far back as 2013’s Kalos that still haven’t been added to the game, not to mention 61 of 2022’s Paldean beasts.
Pokémon Go It could be better
Go Fest 2024 stood out in part for the basic fun of a constant questline that culminated in the fusion of a cool pair of Pokémon, as well as an unusual generosity of in-game items and shiny rates. But it also stood out because it was fun to play again, for a brief window, reminding us all how much fun it can be when the decorations are up and the presents are open. Now, with all that taken down again, it’s just the old living room, except the TV is broken and the chairs are all worn out to the point of being uncomfortable.
But it could be better! I truly believe it is possible. It just needs to break the curse that has been cast on Niantic that causes the company to make the worst possible decisions at every opportunity. Have fun again. Be generous, so that players feel welcome and therefore more comfortable spending money here and there. Pay attention to the writing. Think about the children who play. And most of all, give casual players something to do!
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