Pokemon GO’s just announced the next Go Fest, but the recent Unova Tour LA Tour and now the Global Tour have both recently concluded, and I’ll admit, the fact that the LA Tour had no glaring gameplay bugs or massive lag (as there were still performance issues) was surprising. However, as I’ve said about past tours, the bar for Niantic is low: just make a functional event.
In that respect, this seemed like the company’s best tour to date. Unfortunately, with the rumors of Niantic selling the game draining the game’s color into a stark black and white to match the Unova game versions, just functioning wasn’t actually enough. Niantic’s shortcomings, not just as a “game developer” but as the company driving the “dream,” were on full display, and while Unova Tour wasn’t “Fyre Island bad,” it certainly had a cheap feeling to it. So for today’s Massively on the Go, we’re going to talk why just functioning isn’t enough anymore and how just the rumor of a sellout may poison the game’s future – and maybe the company’s too.
On the road again
First, about the leadup event. Bug with both raids and spotlight hour were disappointing, especially at this stage of the game’s life with something so regularly scheduled, but the makeup quest duplication and repeat spotlight hour were nice. In that sense, service improved, but as noted, the bar for Niantic to pass is low: make it work. That’s it. There were no new features or mechanics here, yet both of these were bugged in Niantic’s fifth year of doing these tours.
I should also note that the amount of raids was both a blessing and a curse, appearing basically every hour for 25 minutes before taking a five-minute rest and than spawning again, no countdown egg to warn players of what was coming or when. On the one hand, I may have noticed the struggle to get daily coins more because, yet again, I have been targeted by cheaters in at least my local community. While I’m super thankful to a certain named (not average) Niantic employee for stepping in again, it shouldn’t have to come to that. Normal players should have access to help, but more on topic, the lockdown of gyms is exactly what causes people to cheat. I saw a lot of “new names” come and go, possibly owing to my practically being a spoofing honeypot for Niantic at this point.
Aside from that, my local friendly rivals struggled to participate in the system. Having maybe 5 minutes to clear a gym, with no warning of the next raid’s starting time, makes it difficult to get coins unless you multi-account, as few people I know really want to spend time taking out gyms on a weekday when we have to find one of three raid bosses around town.
In fact, my new players were on break a few times because nightly raids of high-value ‘mon is just a lot. I get the feeling that because of their inability to duo certain bosses at this point, they do some easier raids during the week, but the double daily passes is already a lot for casuals and built pressure to use them more so than the single dailies. No one forces them to use a daily pass, but FOMO is how POGO really functions, and it certainly seems to have helped drive off members of my previous groups. The one returning survivor actually skipped all of prep week and most of the event-weekend action despite having really good teams from last year that were still useful this year. I think that says a lot about the current state of POGO’s player turnover rate.
All that being said, more raids did mean there were opportunities to get all your daily raids done quick. I’m already feeling the effects of that the day after, as I had extremely limited time and couldn’t squeeze in time to use even one of my two daily raid passes. Having to choose between making the game easier to “finish” for the day (which, for me, is desirable) versus creating a toxic environment that brings out the worst in the community has me leaning towards not repeating this function again, but I also doubt the majority of the playerbase deals with my problems. Most of the complaints I heard were about the difficulty in getting those daily coins, and as that means players may have to actually pay Niantic real money, I’m sure the studio doesn’t want to “fix” this issue.
On a global tour
As a POGO veteran, the wild spawns this year weren’t terribly exciting, as I explained in my guides. They also didn’t excite my group’s newbies aside from Roggenrola and Timburr, as they’re meta relevant and expensive to evolve if you don’t trade them. Even then, they seemed more than willing to cut out of both the LA Rosebowl event we attended and global fest early. We’ll get into that more later, but new players getting bored of a major event is probably not a good sign for Niantic.
On my end, as a vet, I did routes for Basculin candy since I like its Hisuian form from Pokemon Legends: Arceus, but it still can’t evolve. I got a few new shinies, some of which I forgot exist, but it wasn’t terribly exciting for me. Others were hunting Deerling shiny variants pretty hard, but I’m not sure how much they enjoyed it or how much of it was just giving themselves something to focus on. As I’ve said before, my new players are already chasing the meta, so the shiny starters they got were neat but they knew it would only be relevant had it been a Shadow ‘mon, which only further made me question the value and popularity of the event.
Admittedly, Gen 5/Unova gets a lot of hate, partially because it locked players out of the old ‘mon until post game. It’s also when you got pokemon designs like sentient ice cream and actual garbage. I won’t lie, I actually like these ‘mon, but as always, I try to show how my personal tastes weigh against the average user so you readers understand how much it may mean when I say that despite liking things the majority likes, I’m in agreement with how much I disliked aspects of the event.
The new event “bonus” to do list, the Tour Pass, was ok when lumped in with the Rosebowl event ticket, but I didn’t focus on it, largely because the upcoming Global one seemed like it would be a cash grab from the advertising, and that’s exactly what it felt like when it landed. The one included with the LA Tour was fine, but not really what I’d call “fun,” because, again, these “battlepass” type things aren’t fun, they’re gating mechanisms. Chore lists.
Dangling a prize in front of you to make you work through arbitrary levels – not even tasks – is pretty transparent, but more so when the rewards aren’t great. The only thing I really remember offhand was the new Lucky Trinket, which is why having to pay $15 for that, Victini, and a hat for the Global chore list looks painfully obvious as a cash grab.
I’m not saying the value is there, but because of the damage Niantic has done to its own name, it’s easier to say no to it compared to, say, raid passes, which actually let you actively play the game more and give you potentially 15 legendaries if you’re paying full price for passes.
I mention the raid passes specifically because, honestly? For a lot of players, big ticket Niantic events are basically raid days with neat spawns, fun eggs, and an interesting quest or two. The spawns this time lacked the wild legendaries we’ve had since the Gen 2 Johto Tour. Even bad ones like Sinnoh’s Lake Trio got people excited, so limiting it to only Thundurus or Tornadus – the only roaming Legendaries in the Unova games – would have been acceptable and avoided the power creep of letting everyone stock up on candy for Landorus, the only useful one of the trio and basically only in its therian form, which doesn’t roam. The eggs weren’t terrible, but the quest(s) we got were forgettable, to the point I can’t remember what it was about right now. No, this was basically a raid day with some new shinies.
We previously would get extra free raid passes for these, but starting at the global Hoenn tour, we lost a lot of the event value. Having no ticketed event to include extra passes at a discount was leaving money on the table, but also made some of us rely on whales to do content. The bosses are duoable, but it can be painfully hard on your revives and potions. The fact that remote raids were unlimited probably means both that Niantic knew this and also planned on using these players to artificially boost profits at the expense of free to play players who essentially used their free raid passes and went home.
My new players in particular were severely disappointed in the Global version, especially after seeing LA’s, which we’ll get to later. Even though they’re new and couldn’t always afford to full evolve a pokemon, they didn’t see much value in the Global tour. If you didn’t do LA, you have to pay for premium passes to do the free quest, as you can’t get enough Fusion energy without additional paid raids. My newbies were smart enough to see this issue and generally refused to participate, even staying home on the second day, which isn’t uncommon but not a good selling point when even new players do this.
In all honesty, the event had more of an aura of dejection than I usually notice. Someone felt our raiders were more interested in shiny hunting, and admittedly one kind of was. To be fair, he was also looking to get doubles for a living dex (not just the entry, but able to show off the actual pokemon). Again, part of this may be the sell-out rumor lingering in the air.
Additionally, the Tour Pass in general felt problematic given the raid/fusion issue. Niantic could have turned the ticket into an actual event upgrade, with more raid passes included in the tiers, but it didn’t. The lack of the shiny boost and week-long 2k eggs didn’t help. Not boosting lure timers up from 30-minutes also seemed to make people stingy, as for most of the event, one other long-timer and I, in a community hosting multiple lobbies throughout the location (sometimes multiple max lobbies), were the only ones dropping lures.
The hourly “Catch 5 [x pokemon]” to get more “points” for your Tour Pass flew well under the radar, and progressing through the Tour Pass was the only reward, which really didn’t feel worth it for free to play players. Many of the people I spoke to skipped the paid version, including people I generally consider whales. If whale and new players resisted the Tour Pass purchase, I hope you readers who don’t play can understand just bad poorly thought-out this pass was.
The nickel-and-diming, multiple event tickets for bonuses on top of bonuses, and lack of free bonuses to do the minimal guided event content made the whole tour feel like a money pit. Even normally cheerful players I know who travel for events around the world seemed more dejected than I’m used to; I go to them for positivity most of the time, which, again, shows the sorry state of Niantic right now.
While my cheery players didn’t mention the potential buyout looming on the horizon, I did hear it whispered by people inside and outside my usual group, multiple times. This really wasn’t the time for Niantic to drop the ball, and while I still give it kudos for finally getting the event to mostly work and being generous with makeups, a smoother event that was more welcoming of all players may have opened more wallets. I know I kept mine closed because of the state of the game/Niantic, as did my newbies, and I’m sure many, many other trainers did as well.
Rosebowl blues
It’s quite easy to complain about Niantic and Pokemon Go, but there were some good points and even improvements. Unlike last year, which made us feel like guinea pigs, this year I’d say at least the stability of the game and mechanics were the same between the in-person event and global event.
Weirdly, I also heard a lot of people comment both online and in person that their city-wide experience, whether it was the actually city pass or just the raid lover’s pass, was at least as good if not better than their Rosebowl experience. What I think Niantic forgets and other location-based games can’t achieve is the in-person community feeling. While it’s nice to go out to “famous” locations and cities for an event, it’s better when done in groups, and due to limited space and time, it’s pretty hard to coordinate that sometimes.
Speaking as a local, I know being able to play almost anywhere any time and still be doing the event is great. Unlike last year, we had a rough idea what the limits of “city-wide” meant, and it was more like “two-counties-wide” as it’s both LA County and Orange County. I was able to participate while walking my puppy, hitting rural trails, and in my usual and alternative raid spots. While the event proper fractured my usual communities, those of us who weren’t at the event location proper would spot each other and chat it up, and no, not always to bash the game. This was the experience we should have had for the Global Go Tour, and I think it says a lot that so many people enjoyed being able to play outside the Rose Bowl
I’ll also add that, whether it was restraint of the fact that they didn’t exist in Unova (which may also have been a limitation placed on Niantic by The Pokemon Company) or just taking it easy on us, the lack of Max Battles was refreshing. No one seemed to miss them, but they were seen as an inevitable addition to future content whether we like them or not, and I didn’t hear a lot of love for them.
At best, it was acknowledged that they’re challenging content that’s more interesting than the usual raids, which normally are more about pre-planning/leveling the right ‘mon, but few people started or continue to play for that content. Even though they may sit around in the same place these days, everyone I spoke to started playing because they wanted motivation to get outside and move, and Max Battles are proving that Niantic has lost its way in that respect. That may sound odd given that you sometimes need to walk to min/max your daily particles, but the fact that walking limits in-person content that can be skipped with a purchase is telling.
Sadly, for the Rose Bowl experience itself, even new (adult) players felt like it was a cheaply constructed version of Disneyland, with some parts looking as if they’d been built with leftovers from Spirit Halloween. For example, the “winter cavern” many people lined up to see apparently had no pokemon in it, with a single fan and just mirrors and a disco ball. I say this having asked people who came out, who never seemed refreshed or excited on their way out after standing in a fairly long line. The people I spoke to were severely disappointed, and especially since it was a warm day with little cloud coverage, people were looking for some respite from the heat, and the “winter” cavern failed to deliver in a palpable way. And don’t even get me started on the “carnival” of generic games about two suburban blocks away from the Ferris wheel, located so middle-of-the-field that it looked like a random carnie set-up in the middle of a desert.
While the event was less hectic this year thanks to a shorter to-do list, people still seemed a bit overwhelmed. Even though the main story quest was short, it seemed like a combination of wanting to raid as much as possible versus the pressure to complete the Forces of Nature quest – which required finding and spinning the right pokestops, with some needing to be done in the right order – was a bit much. It’s not that the content was hard, but with all the stops to sift through and problems trying to keep inventory unclogged (items and pokemon), it just felt like another thing to juggle. At least one Day 1 Tour player just ignored it after hearing and promptly forgetting the reward ‘mon, and I would have done the same if I hadn’t been with other players.
Normally these events are good for trading with Global players. I’ve gotten some regionals from players who couldn’t find our local ones or from regions I’d traveled myself, largely thanks to the free signs several stations in previous Go Tours had. Especially with the last-minute required clear backpacks, these would have been even more useful than usual. Would have.
For whatever reason, Niantic cut the signs out this year and instead had people line up to call out or request an MC to announce what a player was looking for. The running gag in my group was just about everyone requesting Armored Mewtwo, but no one either had them or wanted to trade them. Perhaps because there were a lot of kids, many of the trade requesters just didn’t seem to be dissuaded from making the request for the hundredth time.
It made for not only a poor overall experience but specifically a poor trading one. As someone who often goes to these events solo, I think it’s hard to make use of the bonus special trades, so failing here hurt some of the more solo-oriented members of my community, who I did try to help as I saw them at the event space. If you traveled alone, you were probably SOL unless you paid for a ticket for multiple accounts, which some people did openly.
Somewhat relatedly, Niantic’s decision to keep the raids hidden from non-ticketed users made sense, but keeping them local too felt like overkill. On the positive end, multi-accounters at least had to buy multiple tickets to benefit from the raid locations this year. That doesn’t help most players much, especially when event space is limited and one person buys six tickets essentially for themselves, but I guess it’s something.
On the other end though, I was partied with two other ticket holding players, and getting into the same raid group was rare. Raids just filled up too quickly, and that meant fewer balls for catching. For those considering private lobby options, recall that local raids don’t have that option, which makes sense, but it seems like yet another reason for Niantic to handle gyms more like Jurassic World Alive, where the “raid” is basically where you queue to get matched with other players. There are already bonuses for having party members, so layering that with party-queue priority would only strengthen that, while making remote raids less of a factor and further strengthening the local communities over mega-groups of essentially randoms. But again, this is Niantic, so all we can do is shrug at what could have been.
We also had a negative experience with shiny odds, but this is why I remind people that Niantic’s lack of odds disclosure means don’t get too excited for shinies. I’d also argue the lack of a pity-break mechanic makes this sting extra in highly dense play populations, as it always seemed like some young child was screaming about getting a shiny Kyurem (the main raid boss) while those of us worrying about taxes and the cost vs. quality of $17 reheated freezer food stared at unshiny, bad-stat Kyurems. It’s the nature of the game, but it’s also why it feels like these big events are easy to skip if they’re not located super close to you.
Kids probably got the most out of the event, but unless that kid lives in a super safe place, the game still mostly feels geared for adults, and the mismatch felt at the event only seemed to bring up discussions on how things may change if Niantic really did let someone else take the wheel. Assuming Niantic tries at least one more of these events, it would probably be best to show more generosity to players who are old enough to pay.
My local experience was admittedly colored by a nearby location-limited event that was a better buy than all the global event tickets. That being said, when we see that this event outsold the Sinnoh one, I don’t think it was for the reasons some have guessed at. I suspect the biggest selling point was remote raids, as they can’t be hoarded like other passes and weren’t capped like event tickets. Since the LA event didn’t allow for attendees to invite remote raiders, they likely spent more during the global event, and especially for rural players, the drive to get the best Ice type – a typing that often sees relevant ‘mon doubly weak to it – may have pushed them to spend more. That doesn’t make it fun; that makes it FOMO.
There will always be those who are strictly free to play, but enough people I spoke to at both events kept wallets closed not only because of fear provoked by the sellout rumor but because Niantic just didn’t seem to want to create something. The local event held by Niantic was a letdown, but playing with friends was much more fun, even with limited passes. Those living near future events, such as the upcoming Go Fest 2025, may want to simply buy the city-wide experiences, as they’re far more flexible and you actually can better tailor your experience to your needs than Niantic ever could. Many trainers I spoke with seemed to feel Niantic just wants our money, and that’s exactly the line you don’t want to cross to keep a game – or in-person event – profitable.
Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
