Season Of Timeless Tickets? An Analysis on The Rise Of Tickets in 2024

Wait, what season is this again? I know we’re wrapping up the Season Of Timeless Travels, but it feels a bit like the season of Timeless Tickets, does it not? Or perhaps the Season Of Timed Research?

I’ve heard many fellow players discussing the number of tickets we have in the game, specifically this season, noting they seem to be on the rise. But I haven’t seen anyone take a hard look at the numbers behind that. Are tickets actually up recently, and if so, to what degree?

So what better way to answer that than to roll up my sleeves and conduct and present some research on that? Not exactly the standard JRE analysis, but well worth the (what turned out to be a LONG) time and effort, no?

Let’s do this: I will throw up a table (actually broken out into a series of tables) compiled (with some help from folks in the PokeMiners Discord server and Duke1782 on YouTube) that lays out the tickets we have had during the Season Of Timeless Travels (running from 1 December 2023 to 29 February 2024). We’ll compare month to month, and then season to past seasons, to see if we can find any trends in the data.

First, however, I do want to briefly go through the just-wrapped Los Angeles GO Tour, a very successful event by most any measure. This game can still party hard when it needs to, no denying that.

GO TOUR: SINNOH

Price-wise, this is mostly a wash with last year’s Hoenn GO Tour in Las Vegas, as that one had a $25 admission for early birds, but Citywide gameplay was $25 a pop. (Rather than Los Angeles, which cost a flat $30 for admission but Citywide was $5 less, at $20.)

As for value of the add-ons, both were virtually unchanged between Vegas and LA, so same value there. Vegas had an additional bonus for 90-minute Incense, and of course completed the Hoenn Pokédex (unlike Sinnoh, for which we still lack a couple Mythicals). But all in all, you get what you paid for the same in LA as you did in Vegas. So THAT is unchanged, at least.

For the most part, however, I’m not going to be comparing value vs value in these purchases in today’s analysis. That’s what Duke1782 did in his just-released video, so definitely go check that out as he determines whether it’s all worth it. Rather, I want to primarily focus on the sheer number of purchases there to be made.

Because even the chart above isn’t the whole story for this year’s GO Tour. Hoenn Tour had no extra expenditures for those not going to Vegas… the surrounding events between Vegas and Global GO Tour were all free, which if you recall including the release of Rayquaza with an exclusive move. This year was… a different story.

But we’ll get there. First I want to walk through the entire Season Of Timeless Travels, culminating in GO Tour at the end. Let’s start back in December and then start breaking down what we see.

TIMELESS TRAVELS BEGIN: DECEMBER

So for December only:

Relatively standard stuff as December kicked off, with the exception of the first instance of what would become a new monthly offering: the Eggs-pedition, a chance to get daily (single-use) Incubators as we had during past Decembers, boosted Gift capacity, and some extra XP for a couple of our first interactions of each day, all for $5. Another $5 would land us some extra Candy XL, boosted XP and dust from raids, and a number of extra raid passes during the Hisuian Samurott Raid Day, something that would also become a regular monthly feature throughout the Season. A special research for $2 during the Catch Mastery didn’t seem out of the ordinary, but the Timed aspect of it certainly was. It awarded some common items and a little dust, but the main feature was up to 40 extra Cryogonal encounters. Purely optional and probably not a huge deal to many who bought it and didn’t quite get all 40, but still a new way of looking at Catch Mastery mini-events (as the past Ghost and Fighting ones didn’t have this sort of paid addition at all).

But then came the annual Holiday Event, and some eyebrows were raised as not one, not two, but THREE paid and timed researches came with it. The first two were relatively benign, costing $2.00 and rewarding some holiday-themed encountered and some raid/battle passes. But there was also a $5.00 “Frosty Festivities” research that had a desirable pose locked behind it and some more encounters, along with extra catch candy, but questionable rewards otherwise. Players had mixed reactions at best, generally negative.

Other than that, however, December was generally in line with past seasons. In 2022, we had the first timed paid research for Galarian Mr. Mime, which had also cost $5, so nothing TOO wild in 2023 aside from, perhaps, the sheer number of paid tickets. Whereas past Decembers had had only 1 or 2 tickets on average (excluding Community Day, of course), December 2023 had six.

That trend continued in the first month of 2024:

TIMELESS… TICKETS? (JANUARY)

The return of Eggs-pedition made it clear this would be a regular fixture. Easy enough to skip out on, but perhaps feeling a tad more like a — dare I say it — subscription now?

Anyway, the events kept on coming as they have as most years kick off, including a simple little ticket for the New Year’s event… just $1.00 and, for the first time, with a Pokécoin reward, amounting to 100 coins and thus basically paying for itself.

The next (non-Community Day) paid ticket didn’t come until mid-month, but suddenly they seemed to be a part of every event. Dazzling Dream, Raging Battles, even the Team Go Rocket (Taken Treasures) event all came with paid timed research. The Taken Treasures one in particular had people feeling squeezed, noting that even the rewarded 10k dust had to spent to complete the research task to purify 10 Shadow Pokémon, if not even more than 10,000 dust, leaving basic items that can be spun at stops and gyms and a pose as the true rewards, very similar to December’s Frosty Festivities research (and at the same $5.00 price tag).

In the end, only one of January’s eight events did not have a paid component, and that one event (Lustrous Odyssey, from January 6th through 10th) was centered around trying to hatch or raid Dusk Form Rockruff/Lycanroc for the first time (requiring paying for Incubators and/or raid passes if you wanted to use anything but the daily freebies). If players weren’t already talking about the seeming rise in tickets in December, they certainly were by the end of January.

That said, the overall price tag of buying all the tickets remained stable, with the total of December tickets and January tickets each coming to about $22.00.

That trend, however, was busted for February. Note that I am intentionally leaving out all GO Tour expenses (for now) and focusing only on non-Tour tickets and research with this next table:

THE ROAD (AND EXPENSES?) GO EVER ON AND ON (FEBRUARY)

Again, noting that this is all NON-Tour expenses, first take a look at the total price at the bottom, which is about 33% higher (nearly $30) than the previous two months at $22 apiece. Keep that in mind…

…because the number of tickets also rose. While December and Jaunary each had four tickets/paid research (excluding Community Days, Hisuian Pokémon Raid Days, and the now-regular Eggs-pedition), February — the shortest month of the year — topped that with five: the Lunar New Year/Dragons Unleashed paid timed research, the Carnival Of Love paid timed research, two $5.00 Road To Sinnoh tickets (one for Raids, and one for Hatching), and the latest Masterwork Research for Shiny Shaymin. And here’s where the upped cost for the month comes in as well, as the last three of those each cost $5.00. December and January, comparatively, had each had only one add-on costing that much (aside from the Raid Days and Eggs-peditions, which each cost $5 as well), and the week between Vegas Hoenn Tour and Global Tour had a $5 research for shiny Jirachi, but that was the extent of it.

Now I do want to note before I move on: for the most part, these DO seem “worth” it for the cost, aside from perhaps the Dragons Unleashed timed research (which, like the Taken Treasures, required you to spend basically all the stardust you were rewarded just to complete it). But just stating the facts here when I say that both the price and number of tickets required to not experience any FOMO rose higher than before.

I also want to take a moment to compare not just to the last couple months prior, but also seasons prior. Again, without factoring in GO Tour yet, there’s a total of 23 tickets/paid research listed above. (Forgive me if my math is off… my poor brain is really tired after poring over all of this myself! 😵) We’ve had 13 weeks so far in this season, so that’s an average of 1.8 paid tickets per week during the Season Of Timeless Travels. Or looked at a slightly different way, if you back to the week of December 18th (when the pace of paid tickets/research suddenly accelerated with the trio available during the Winter Holiday events), the average is an even 2 paid tickets/researches per week during each of the 10 weeks between then and now.

Now look at past seasons. By my count, the Season of Adventures Abound (September, October, and November 2023) had a total of five (non-Community Day/Tour/GOFest) paid tickets/researches. The Season of Hidden Gems (June, July, August) had four. The season that occupied December 2022 through February 2023, Mythical Wishes, had only three (one of them being that aforementioned Galarian Mime research). And the Season of Rising Heroes (1 March to 1 June 2023) had — that I can find — only one such expense.

As a reminder, Timeless Travels has twenty-three. Take away the Community Day tickets and the Hisuian Raid Days and you’re still looking at three or even four times the number of paid tickets/research of past seasons. In fact, you’re still looking at a higher total than the entire previous year of (again, non-Community Day/Raid Day/GO Tour etc.) paid tickets/research combined.

Now I’m not here to say whether that’s a good or bad thing, or just a thing. I’m trying to be a simple fact finder in this analysis, and just tell you the numbers and allow you to draw your own conclusions. But by any measure, the sheer number of expenditures in the Season Of Timeless Travels has skyrocketed. Not all are expensive, and several do seem worth it in a vacuum. But it seems that events that are entirely free have suddenly become a thing of the past. Nine out of twelve multi-day events this season have had paid components, and only one (Lustrous Odyssey) since December 15th. Something has changed drastically over the last two and a half months, and whether you’re happy about that or not, one cannot deny it.

WHERE DOES THE ROAD GO FROM HERE?

As we prepare now to forge on into the World Of Wonders (officially Season 14), will this trend continue? How many tickets and paid timed research can we expect? Was The Season Of Timed Tickets Timeless Travels the first of a new normal, or an experiment we’ll be leaving behind?

Personally, as paid add-ons seemed to drastically accelerate in the middle of December and hasn’t let up since, I am inclined to think this may a sign of things to come. How about you, dear reader? Do you feel good, bad, or indifferent about this seeming change? Do you think Niantic is perhaps trying to make up for lost players and revenue by trying to get more funds from players still in the game, or is there no real correlation? Do you think this will drive people away, or perhaps bring more in to pursue the flashy new add-ons?

Whatever your opinion, I wanted to try and answer the question I know many had this season: have the number of tickets really gone up recently, and if so, to what degree? Hopefully I was able to cover that for you, with as little of my own personal thoughts as possible.

Thanks again to Duke1782 (and go check out his collaborative video!), the PokeMiners Discord, and YOU for sticking with me until the end. I hope this was insightful!

Next time we’ll get to some good old-fashioned PvP analysis, of which I imagine there will be quite a bit as we kick off the new season! Until then (when I’m writing like a madman after Niantic gives us the info I need 12 hours from the start of the season 😝) you can always find me on Twitter with regular Pokémon GO analysis nuggets, or Patreon.

Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends, and catch you next time!