Pokemon Go’s Meteorite bait-and-switch isn’t helping Go Fest hype

By
Andrew Ross
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Niantic is not heading into 2024’s Go Fest on great terms with the Pokemon Go playerbase, owing to a string of problems: a sales snafu, the botched avatar update, and now, a bit of a social media bait-and-switch.

In its original announcement and follow-up, the company promised players a Meteorite, an item used to Mega Evolve Rayquaza into its top-tier Mega form, in exchange for 38,400 TikTok followers. But once players hit that goal, Niantic instead gave out a code for a quest that had to be completed within 24 hours to get said Meteorite. Worse, the quest required players to participate in what may arguably be one of the worst Elite Raid Days to date.

Unlike normal raids, Elite Raids are limited to in-person players only, and these are very specific locations. They also appear only at a set time, they run only on a set date, and they cannot renew (i.e., if a raid is from 12 p.m. to 12:30 p.m., it won’t reappear as a 6 p.m. raid). And as for the quality of the raids, well, we’ve covered many, many times before just how bad Elite Raid events are.

While past Elite Raid Days gave players roughly 24 hours to organize their communities, Niantic itself admitted that “the rule doesn’t apply this time,” angering many in the global community. In fact, even if they ignored also location availability issues and bugs that delayed/locked out the in-game start warning, many players had just 6 to 12 hours, worse in rural areas with few raid-location options.

Players were annoyed even from the announcement that (unlike Kyogre and Groudon’s Mega raid days) Mega Ray would be an elite, but day-of research revealing the increased difficulty of the raid added more salt to the wound. This is a studio that has been caught faking metrics, so some players even assumed Niantic was cheating again with bot followers, though nobody’s proved it yet.

Ultimately, dangling the Meteorite in front of players and then undermining expectations by attaching it to a much-hated feature isn’t helping Niantic build hype for this year’s Go Fest – and the rest of July isn’t looking much better.

Source: Twitter
Pokemon Go studio Niantic is considered a controversial gaming company owing to multiple scandals and deceptions, starting with the Wi-Spy privacy scandal; over the years, it’s repeatedly failed to secure player data, endangered players during the pandemic, and refused to address documented stalking in POGO. It also rolled back popular accessibility features to incentivize data collection, faked data, and lied about event results. Following 2021’s community-driven Pokemon No boycott, Niantic vowed transparency and communication; it has not delivered.
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