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Why Pokemon Go’s Halloween Event Is Too Little, Too Late

Why Pokemon Go’s Halloween Event Is Too Little, Too Late

When Pokemon Go released earlier this year, it was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. Back in July, when excitement surrounding the game was still at a fever pitch, the number of daily active users reached its peak at just under 45 million people. For a while, it seemed you couldn’t go anywhere – either on social media or in real life – without running into someone either talking about the game or playing it. Even my desert hometown of Tucson, Arizona had hundreds upon hundreds of people congregating in public parks and across the sprawling University of Arizona campus in search of rare Pokemon despite the blazing summer heat.

Now, a few short months later, Pokemon Go ‘s playerbase continues to dwindle at an astounding rate, having lost some 80% of its active users. The game is still immensely popular by mobile standards: analytics firm App Annie indicate that about one in every ten smartphone owners in the U.S. are still playing. But Niantic has been notoriously quiet when it comes to addressing players’ concerns about the game’s frustrating mechanics. Pokemon Go ‘s success has largely banked upon its characters’ nostalgic appeal, but what happens after the initial wave of excitement upon seeing a wild Dratini wears off? The game’s laborious progression system takes center stage, and its demanding nature has a way of sapping even the most dedicated players’ enthusiasm. I mean, four hundred Candies to evolve a Magikarp? Come on.

Enter the Pokemon Go Halloween Event, a seasonal update that increases players’ likelihood of encountering a spooky subset of Pokemon for a limited time. More importantly, the event dramatically increases the rewards players receive for catching Pokemon, transferring them to the Professor, hatching eggs, and walking with a Buddy Pokemon. All of the aforementioned actions are temporarily awarding two to four times the normal amount of Candy, which drastically reduces the amount of time it takes to evolve Pokemon.

This is a boon for active players, and yet all this event really does is acknowledge the frustrating nature of its progression system by temporarily alleviating it. Certainly, balance is an important element of game design, and I don’t play games expecting everything to be handed to me on a silver platter. I welcome challenge, particularly when it’s fine-tuned, but there is a difference between challenge and the monotony of “the grind.” It makes sense that a game like Pokemon Go requires an element of grind to function, but the Halloween Event makes it readily apparent that the game’s baseline requirements for progression are a bit too steep.

Why Pokemon Go’s Halloween Event Is Too Little, Too Late

The bigger problem, and one that Pokemon Go ‘s Halloween Event fails to address, is more fundamental. A core component of the Pokemon experience has always been player-to-player trading, and yet Pokemon Go has no such system in place. Acquired Pokemon are sent to a box, where they either idle for eternity, get ground up into evolution paste (er, “Candy”), or are lucky enough to be selected as the player’s stalwart battle companion. This is to say nothing of the battle system, which only allows players to challenge gyms, but not other trainers – another conspicuously absent piece of the Pokemon puzzle. I certainly don’t expect a seasonal event to bring these kinds of sweeping changes to Pokemon Go , naturally. It’s simply unfortunate that instead of making me excited about Pokemon Go again, all the event did was make the game’s glaring issues even more conspicuous.

Hey, if nothing else, there’s always Generation 2 to look forward to… right?

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