For so many years, so many have mourned the bad situation Pokemon GoMonthly Community Days. What should be events that encourage players to fill local parks for a fun series of challenges have become repetitive, boring events that can be completed with almost no effort. And now they double in price!
The only thing that can be said for Community Day is that it was free. Every month, developer Niantic would choose Pokémon that evolve twice, and then have them take over the game on Saturday or Sunday. (It used to be for six hours; then in June 2022, in an act that looked like pure self-sabotage, it was reduced to just three.) Three levels of tasks are given to players to complete, which is almost all based on – or inevitably completed by – catching 15 of the given Pokémon. Along the way, you'll find more of the same Pokémon to catch, and eventually an upgraded version with good access to decent stats. And not much else. But it was only 99c.
Apparently, there were stories involved, the smallest of manual effort from the character my son calls only “Dr. Blah-Blah” whose narratives, full of loose language and overly long words, are inaccessible to children, but even these are gone now! Also missing recently is the raid hour that followed the three-hour event, once added as a sop when Niantic unceremoniously canceled it for the day. The challenges don't change, the rewards are never new, and really, the only reason anyone participates at all – the motivation to do it is the day you meet other players – because of more chances to catch shiny versions of the Pokémon. . A successful Community Day is one where you get at least three shots, so you have one of each evolution.
The January Community Day was revealed to feature the Gen IX starter Pokémon, Sprigatito, back in December, but what's surprising is the ticket price for the January 5 event. As Eurogamer spotit will now cost you $1.99 to participate, a 100 percent increase, for almost anything new.
The additional prize released for this price doubling is one Premium Battle Pass – a ticket that allows you to participate in online battles for a bit better rewards than the ones you'd get from the regular Battle Pass, and something the game just gives away for free all the time anyway. You can get two a day for free right now, for example. I currently have nine of them in my inventory, and while the in-game store costs the equivalent of a buck to buy one, you'd be foolish to ever do so.
It might be a sign that Niantic has a surprise, new changes to the Community Day format, or other better rewards that it's keeping quiet about, but crucially, we don't know that yet, and despite tickets are already on sale for the event. at their new price. Come late Saturday, when the New Zealanders line up for Sunday's event, it will all be clear. But given everything that has happened since the game was developed for covidI won't hold my breath.
I don't have data, but it is highly unlikely that Community Days can be as popular as they once were, given how bad they have become, and how little effort is being made to make them between -different or interesting. So apparently this is an attempt to make up for a loss, hoping that desperate people will pay for better chances of finding a shiny Sprigatito anyway. Maybe a better idea would be to double the rewards, quests, and fun to match the price?
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