So I’ve developed a reputation over the years of being a long-winded writer that sometimes dips back into dated and bewildering references that lose some readers along the way. (I generally try not to, but hey, I’m an old fogie and it happens. 🤷♂️) But today, on a dubious anniversary for the game, I want to speak plainly and start off right in the header art with a reference that’s old AND new again. (Thank you, X-Men ’97!)
Because today, we look back, somewhat wistfully, at the game of a year ago. The game when we had uncapped, affordable remote raid passes. Obviously there were times back then that Niantic was practically giving remote raid passes away, but I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about back when the game just felt different.
And it really was different. The year 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic rocked not just the game we all love, but the entire world. Suddenly we couldn’t “get out and GO” no matter how badly we wanted to. Isolated from coworkers, friends, and even family, how could one engage with a game built around exploring the world outside when they can’t go outside and interact with others? I myself took up hiking trails around our community just to avoid going stir crazy, so there WERE ways to still go out and explore, but gathering for Community Days, other GO events, and critically, raids was literally not even allowed in most parts of the world. And there was, for many months, no end in sight. Anyone who was old enough to remember the events of 2020 and much of 2021 will never, ever forget it.
So how could a game like Pokémon GO survive these world-altering events? Niantic made perhaps the best decisions they ever have to keep their game afloat, setting aside even their own oft-stated vision of gathering and exploring — and their desire for data on those players doing the gathering and exploring (whether you consider that a good thing or not isn’t my call, but I think it’s fair enough to state that desire is unabashedly there) — and responding directly to the unavoidable paradigm shift with grace, foresight, and aplomb. For the first time in Pokémon GO, you could engage in GO while keeping yourself and your loved ones safe, with Pokémon buddies bringing gifts when you ran low, Daily Field Research without even needing to venture out and spin a Pokéstop, and the most game-altering change of all: the ability to raid remotely, joining old and new friends in raids far beyond your typical in-game interaction radius. You could still join with friends to take down the big bosses and still be at a safe distance from the pandemic around you. This was a great decision by Niantic at the time, for which I still applaud them today.
But this was, again, NOT the way Niantic intended to do things. It is understandable — to me, at least — that it wouldn’t last forever. As the pandemic eventually came more under control and people were able to again start venturing out, and then eventually to start gathering again to link up for events and raids, Niantic began to try and get the game back to their original vision. And again just my opinion here: some of that is okay!
The one perhaps controversial take I will state in this article is this: in their general approach to rolling these changes back, Niantic has definitely seemed to favor the stick rather than the carrot. For those who may not get the reference, in the olden days (like, even olden for me) when horse-drawn carriages (or just horses in general) were the primary mode of transportation, you could motivate the horse forward with a potential reward (the proverbial carrot) or smack them in the rear with a stick to get them moving. In one succinct definition I came across, “A ‘carrot’ approach incentivizes good work with rewards, while a ‘stick’ approach uses punishment to push people towards goals.” Now you may not agree with me when I say this — and that’s okay! a healthy disagreement and debate isn’t the terrible thing some make it out to be today — but there have been many ‘stick’ approaches as the COVID bonuses have been rolled back that have frustrated large portions of the GO community, from the reduced Pokéstop interaction distance (and the subsequent “HearUsNiantic” campaign that resulted in Niantic actually reversing that change) to the reduction in Community Day hours back to three hours to drastic changes in Incense seemingly becoming less effective than ever when not walking at a brisk pace, and others. But I’m not here to talk about any of that today.
Because today, April 6th, is the day that, one year ago, Niantic implemented their announced “Updates To Pokémon GO Raids”. As they had teased in that announcement, the following changes went live on April 6th and continue one year later:
- The price of the Remote Raid Pass three-pack increased to 525 PokéCoins (from the previous 250).
- The price of a single Remote Raid Passes increased to 195 PokéCoins (from the previous 100).
- Trainers were now capped at participating in a maximum of five Remote Raids per day.
On the positive side, Niantic also announced the following:
- Remote Raid Passes would now be included in the pool of potential rewards for Research Breakthroughs (along with several other potential rewards already in place).
- Trainers who participate in five-star raids in person would be able to earn “more Candy XL than before”.
I won’t go back and link to it all, but I am sure anyone playing the game then remembers the widespread outcry about these changes. We all knew, even if we didn’t want to admit it, that such changes were coming, but the price nearly doubling and the low cap of only five Remote Raids per day (after players were hoping for perhaps something like a cap at 10) felt to many very much like the ‘stick’, moreso than ever. These changes were reviewed and commented on (in an article by yours truly) here on GO Hub and all over the internet. (That second linked article includes the initial reaction of many trainers, from those with the largest followings and on to the “everyman”, if you want to go back and peek at the environment of a year ago.)
And as I did in that article, I want to actually stop with my own opining on this topic and look at how our fellow trainers feel about this, one year on now.
First off, I took a poll about a week ago that received over 1000 votes from fellow players. As you can see, I tried to present it from an unbiased perspective so as to not taint the results. In the end, those results were still quite astounding: nearly 4 out of 5 voters said that both their own motivation and play time had been negatively affected by the changes, and that of their own communities as well. Over 90% responded that either their own motivations or that of their communities had fallen over the year since the remote raid changes. I expected that such responses may win out in the end, but I didn’t expect such a drastic majority would still be negatively impacted one year in.
I also asked for specific feedback, and that’s what I want to populate the rest of this article with. Here is how your fellow players are feeling, in their own words.
Firstly, some of my fellow GO Hub writers and staffers shared their opinions with me directly (thank you for that, colleagues!).
Phrixu: “Before the remote raid limit and price increase, I used to raid the legendaries I thought were cool until I hit the shiny. I remember Rayquaza, Latios and Lugia being 3 that I spent a LOT of time and money on. Since the nerf, I haven’t raided nearly as much. I have a look at the raid schedule for the month and mark a reminder to do any T5 or mega raids I don’t currently have in the dex. Most of the time I’ll wait for a raid invite from a friend rather than joining raid rooms through 3rd party apps because I know what it’s like trying to gather a lobby to defeat a raid now. I usually play with my boyfriend and we live rurally, we are not strong enough to duo T5 raids at the moment. We used to be able to gather a lobby through invites but now we struggle. Usually the only time we can raid in person now is on Raid Days, when we travel to London or when we have other friends with us. I’m glad that the change curbed by spending habits a bit, but it is a shame as raiding was one of my favourite parts of the game and helped me make friends across the globe.”
JTizzler: “Remote raids – I would now do less than half as many as before. I actively try to prioritise in person raiding now because I don’t want to fork out ridiculous sums of extra money to raid remotely. Also the increased cost of 100 coins has added to this, as it’s no longer as economical to pay to play the game that way.“
spindiana: “When the remote raid limit came in to play it totally changed the way I played. I would regularly raid to the point where I had the magic 296 XL, the hundo or the shiny or sometimes all of the above. I love to raid, it’s one of my favourite things to do, or used to be. Now, I rarely remote raid and even in person doesn’t hold much sway unless I’ve a good chance of beating it myself because the numbers of people willing to remote raid locally and globally has plummeted. I kind of understand the need or why the remote limit is in place although I don’t agree with it and I certainly don’t agree with how it can be so easily lifted or removed altogether at will. To me that shows Niantic is willing to take players money and listen to what players want when it will benefit them most, not on a day to day basis though. The hardest part to swallow was the price increase, it is a genuine tax on players who can’t raid in normal gaming hours, who can’t get out and raid in person for whatever reason and I completely disagree with that, it was unnecessary to raise prices and impose a limit. Forcing a company vision on people when perhaps they don’t have another option is not the way to do things. There has been so much discourse online about Niantic and Pokemon GO and their relationship with players I’m not going to repeat it here but suffice to say, relations are low and player trust in Niantic is minimal, trust they can manage the game that we all love so much.”
I also received literally hundreds of comments across Twitter and Reddit and elsewhere. I cannot hope to share them all here, but I did want to pick out a number of comments that were either repeated many times or particularly stood out. My apologies to those whose comments don’t make this writeup, but I will link to both of my major Twitter threads and on Reddit at TheSilphRoad and official PokémonGO subreddits (over 1000 combined comments on Reddit alone!), so you can read through all the feedback there at your leisure if you wish.
So just pulling out a sampling of all of that….
@DanTheWildBird1 – Used to be a daily raider. Now I barely raid. No one wants to join invites and no one shows up to the park. Even through discord and poke genie it usually doesn’t work out.
@gazzas89 – My proper local area the raids pretty much died, can’t even get raids for me and my partner half the time as we can get people to join. Glasgow City center still seems OK, but no where near the level it used to be (except for today, Shadow Mewtwo raid day)
@Herbu815 –
- I don’t have a community
- people no longer join remote raids
- missed most of the new megas & legendaries
- got banned for using an alt account for raids that I can’t solo because niantic said “you don’t have friends? get banned”
@ProfJeffCLewis – We would have been out organizing shadow MewTwo raids this weekend but today finds us facing a gloomy day and little traffic on our messaging channels. We used to have local potlucks and raffle contests, and I raided actively with friends in Poland, Norway, Australia, Philippines
@ZAGrrl – It was an awful decision at the time and has totally degraded the experience for me and my fam. We don’t raid anymore. Yesterday (Shadow Mewtwo raid day), I spent the morning replying to my email. When weekend email is more fun and rewarding than playing, you have a game problem!
@JasonCardinal9 – Our community of hundreds are now in the tens. Not all stop at that moment but it has effected the community over the year
@animefanatic781 – It was a horrible decision. If there NEEDED to be a limit, it should’ve been 20 a day minimum & the price should’ve stayed the same.
@Luck_Fire – Even during Covid i was always more to raid local because of prefer use free passes, but i was very dependent of remote help, after the nerf get this help became much more difficult get this help, overall i became to raid much less even if i was raiding like how Niantic wish.
@BossDokins – It remains an appalling decision. I have not, and will not, spend any money on this game until they relax the changes. There are fewer players, and the local community is less engaged now we’ve lost this means of interaction. The game is far less accessible and too overpriced.
@Duke1782 – This was a year ago? Damn. There’s pros and cons. Sure people gathering again is nice, BUT considering that happened before the limit, it’s clear that’s not the main reason
@ChadAChavez – I don’t raid as much and the community is in shambles. Know a lot of bigger cities have been fine but we’re mid-size and the community just fell away from the game. Maybe would have happened anyway, but not having reasons to check in with each other dissolved the interactivity.
@bobplusbill – Harder to raid because often we need 1 or 2 more people to join, but a) nobody is around in person and b) people aren’t responding to random remote raid invites as much as before (or sometimes have hit the limit!)
@BrandonPet92717 – I took a month break, came back and played until August then quit and haven’t played since. It wasn’t the only factor but definitely contributed and also made time to rethink the value and experience of the game.
@markmcerqueira – I raid SIGNIFICANTLY less. I have 3 Remote Raid Passes and don’t even bother to keep it under 3 for a meager chance at getting a free one.
@ProfJay1331 – There wasn’t really any need to change anything. It was a perfectly functioning bit of the game. It was helpful for rural players, you do remember us ? we’re the ones that have limited stops and gyms…
@Erratikdj – The 5 locals I know that played the game, quit. That should answer all your questions.
@Noah016668 – For me, it is not the limit that hurts but the cost of raid passes. I rarely did five remote raids anyways but the cost of doing 2 or 3 remote raids every wednesday or on weekends has made me stop.
@MZuma365 – being a f2p player it didn’t affect me too much, but still, getting one remote pass for basically the price of a bag or storage increase just doesn’t make me buy them anymore, i just wait to get one in the research tasks now.
@Manuel83188307 – overall, I just play a lot less now. barely ever using remote passes, and it’s not the 5 limit. doubling the price is what shook me out of the curse that this game had on me
@DemStefanseiner – It was a bad decision in my opinion. There is no community here in our small village. So I can do small raids but no 5 star raids. So I try to do what is possible but not much. And I don’t will pay the prices for remote raids and all the tickets now.
@CaseyAlbert – It made me play about a quarter of the amount I used to. It definitely hurts our local small town community pretty hard.. a lot of the people who had been playing since the beginning and were basically community leaders slowed way down too.
@tomoparker – I have essentially stopped raiding outside of the raid day events. Shadow raids I’ve never done. Elite raids I haven’t done since Hoopa. Overall it’s saved me a lot of money but I miss how it used to be.
@djsm1988 – A year ago I stopped the game because I realized that it is operated by a company that makes fun of people who play their game
@Christian_Ps3 – I only raid during events with the restriction lifted or I do my 3 daily passes and if I dont get a shiny then I move on
@torusu0809 – It’s a pretty good decision because it saved me from spending any money on this game.
@Judyallbrite – I wasn’t a heavy remote raid user so it didn’t directly affect my behavior severely, but it gave me a more negative feeling about playing. I think I hit a wall this month. I don’t play as regularly as I did and don’t spend real money on the game.
@NoHuddleTweets – It pretty much killed the game. I used to remote raid a lot + spent money on raid passes. Once they got more expensive & they became less useful, it became very rare for me to raid. Even when I go to the busiest place in the state the community isn’t as strong as it was
@PokeverseKaren – Remote raid price hike plus Niantic pulling sponsorship of the Silph Road website soon after was the beginning of the end for me. Used to be a routine daily player, now I log in for a handful of mins a few days per week.
@jackmattsmom – We’ve stopped raiding unless it’s free. Used to spend at least $30mo or more. Played since day 1. Haven’t stopped playing, but it’s not exciting anymore. There are no goals. Tasks seem monotonous. The Pokémon are recycled. I used to love this game and I don’t really care anymore.
@BjBehr – Limit was fine, price change also fine. The combination og limit and price change wasnt fine. Ive barely done remote raids since these changes. Also seriously lowered the amount of raids i do cause I cant fint people to do them with as often.
@JordanB06774684 – Had they kept prices the same on remote raids and just added the limit I think this change would have been better received.
@Matze316 – Less then 3 remote raids per month, mostly free daily raid passes (and even that not daily). My raid community died and most of them skipped PoGo. 🤷♂️
@CatLCh – My once thriving and active online community is pretty much dead. I have essentially stopped playing Pokémon GO. The only reason I still have an account is that right before this change I had convinced several people to play, and I will still exchange a gift now & then
@dizzlenizzl – It changed the game for the worse. As someone who doesn’t have a large local community it has made raiding nearly impossible sometimes. I have tried to regain my enthusiasm, but with one of my favorite in game activities limited, it’s been difficult
@spicygecko1 – As a F2P the increased price sucks but I didn’t really care about the limit tbh. Spending $5 on raid passes a day seems a little ridiculous
@ccdoodlebug – I play less as far as raids go. Before I used to raid whenever I got an invite. I really enjoyed it. Now, unless it’s a raid of a Pokémon that I really want, I keep my green light off, so I won’t get the invites. I do try to make it to most CET raid hours.
@XxCL0UDxX1990 – Both them heavily increasing the price and limiting us to just 5 remotes per day was & still is a horrible idea. Almost all the people I used to raid with remotely, now barely raid or really play GO at all anymore.
@SaltyChaos_ – Biggest L in the history of raiding. I moved mid covid because of work. I now live rural and used to raid with my previous community, now remotes have skyrocketed nobody bothers raiding anymore as 95% are adults with a job. My community is gone.
@Sweet13Poison – Answers to the questions:
- I almost stopped playing the game entirely. I feel like uninstalling it.
- What community?
- I don’t raid much anymore. Maybe once in a blue moon for a Pokémon I don’t have. If I have enough free gym coins for a remote raid pass.
@MalcolmGervais9 – Despite those it did not affect, it still remains a terrible decision. Put yourself in the shoes of our rural trainers and others who are not as able bodied as us. Just because populated communities prosper does not mean others do as well.
@Moose6619 – To get all the Vivillion patterns, one must have friends from all around the world. It was fun having them and being able to play with them at your gym or their gym. Now, I feel like I am only using those people for their Vivillion pattern. All the Communities I belong to died…
@MathewDonnelly – Less engaged with the game actively. I have picked up a pogo+ and play passively. Raids I would say is less since communities are not there anymore which remote raiding fixed as it was more accessible. I also feel like Niantic only cares about inner city players which sucks.
@DustyxBlade – Horrible, we are still feeling the effects from this change a year later. I don’t use remote raid passes due to the price increase, and it’s hard to get people to join for raids unless there’s a raid hour/day. Overall I just play less now and seems like many others do as well.
@Oguri57 – Made events such as Primal Kyogre/Groudon Raid Days rather terrible for people playing in smaller cities and towns and without a group.
@jaysid – I feel guilty inviting friends to raid because I know how expensive it is now. It’s ableist and remains an awful decision.
@Kaytee24421 – It has impacted gameplay where I live. Other than raid days, you can’t count on doing 5* raids as no one comes out for them. When they come for raid days, they come by car with their friends and stay in their car so not much community interactions happening.
@silxxuk – Raid day in my area is dead despite my nearby being full of raids. It hasn’t enticed people to go out and do them at all. At least with remotes I’d get a few people who would join remotely, now raid day is pointless without using apps.
@archie333333 – I simply raid less, both remotely and locally. Remote raiding with price hike is an obvious reason behind it. If it doesn’t affect you directly, it’ll affect others who used to join your raid more often. Too strict for my liking.
@xena_and_gabby – Most people I know have basically stopped buying raid passes. They just got way too expensive. $2 a raid is ridiculous. Unfair for players who can’t get to gyms.
@TheHyphen15 – As a semi ftp player (only buy big events) I’d take 2 gyms and then get a remote raid pass. Defending gyms in my area was hard but normal worth it for the RRP. Now having to defend 4 gyms for 8 hours isn’t worth it. Nor is paying $2 for a chance to fail a legendary…
@JuanAlbertoArb1 – I don’t remote anymore. A lot of my online friends quit all together. I never thought Niantic was doing good by us in this aspect.
@CoolguyTorvald – For me, legendaries became more accessible because of additional legendary XL I get from IP raids. But it definitely has decreased the total number of raids completed in my community, and a few players have quit. I’d say it’s a net negative for the community overall.
@elninotatem – I used to have multiple group chats and family play pogo with me. After Hoenn day and these changes went live I haven’t touched the game since. Not worth it. Nerfing Remote raids killed pogo. I’ll stand on that.
@damienmocata – It ruined the game for me. Local community all splintered at the cost increase, internet community left out in the cold. I went f2p and still have spent no money since, seeing how terrible events are if you’re not spending. It really revealed how Niantic uses FOMO.
@Robby95819068 – My play is about 30% of this time last year. I don’t do events and I catch on walks by my house or work. My community went from packed every event to almost dead. I stopped going out because no one was there. My group is almost nonexistent. I’ll occasionally get a text. Rarely.
@nbpwba – I know I just managed to do 2 shadow raids in 4 hours because no one is around
@trulyDMoney1184 – Some legendaries bosses are not unbeatable. If it’s not something that people really want, no one will accept an invite. Shadow 5-star raids may as well not exist. I won’t even try them.
@genuween – My community fully disintegrated. WhatsApp chat groups that had a waiting list to join are now about 100 odd members and see actual chats maybe once a week. So I did like most of them and quit back in December…
@HHartwellz – At least three THRIVING international communities I was a part of DIED because of the changes in raids. It was shortsighted, exclusionary, and tone deaf. Promoting in-person benefits did not have to come at the destruction of the remote system. You can have both.
I know, I know… that was looooooong. But that was barely a sampling of what I saw, and only on Twitter… I didn’t even go in to the much longer Reddit comments, but it’s more of the same there too, with some very common themes:
- The price is just too dang high. Not spending on raids anymore.
- My communities dried up, even the local, in-person ones this was supposed to build back up.
- I want to help far off friends by remoting in like I used to but have to be very selective now.
- I can’t keep up in the game with Legendaries and 5 star raids because I can’t form raid groups.
- My motivation to play has decreased significantly over the last year.
- I and others I know simply don’t play anymore.
And worse, many of these have a hopeless feel to them, as if what play time and friends people have left is slowly circling the drain, never to return.
Now, I DO want to present the positive aspects that a few people expressed. Admittedly (as you can probably guess by the poll results), this is a much smaller group of comments, but I wouldn’t be a good analyst and writer if I didn’t pull them out too:
@Sol3akaEarth – It honestly didn’t affect me at all, but over the last year, my perspective of the community has greatly improved.
@CholorikMadness – I just stopped remote raiding completely, besides that, nothing changed. Community is doing a lot better, tbh. Raiding was a side thing and is even more side (besides Raid Days.) A lot of QoL Updates since then as well. Still a horrible decision generally speaking (price hike!).
@EdoinJapan – I see it as positive change overall. So many people are raiding in person since niantic limited remote raids and that is what I like about Pokémon Go
@AceMathias – Day to day i now see more players in person than post COVID (although less than pre COVID) and it’s only a few despite being in small UK city. Raid days lots of players turn up. I can still find remote raid players when i need support when there are no locals.
@CentrureAstrike – Ever since the crazy price increase, unless there’s a raid boss worth raiding for XLs I almost never buy Remote Raid Passes. In fact I’ve gotten to doing more in-persons, but could they please reward players for raiding in-person? The increased chance of Rare Candy XL was nice.
@SH_Strelizia – I have very mixed feelings on the change. It definitely destroyed community engagement in large numbers, but at the same time it has influenced me to attempt a local Campfire group, and coordinate raids and events that way. With little success, so far, but I have met new players.
It is good to hear that some HAVE benefitted from this, and more power to them. Certainly some communities have grown stronger, or popped up from scratch as players have gone back out into the world as the COVID pandemic has loosened its grip on most parts of the world. And that’s a good thing!
But Niantic, if you are reading this, it is clear by many, MANY comments and by simple numbers in the voting that the vast majority of players are still being impacted by this change a year later, and not in good ways. Depressed motivation. Less spending and play time. Markedly smaller or entirely non-existent player bases where communities once thrived. Less ways to keep up with friends made during and even before the pandemic. A feeling of hopelessness in trying to keep up with the more difficult raid bosses for use in the game because the number of players are just not there, and not for lack of trying. These are the themes, the words of your own communities of players, that have resulted from too much ‘stick’. Many have even commented that the limit is too restrictive, and many more have expressed dismay at the extreme price hike, but they would have been willing to go along with one or the other, or less drastic price increases, but all of it together is too much. Players ARE willing to compromise on these things, but only to a point. The changes, the nerfs, were just too much, Niantic. THAT is the general theme running through all the pages and pages of real player feedback across multiple mediums.
Is any of this likely to enact real change in Niantic’s thinking? Based on recent trends and direction, no, likely not. Let’s not kid ourselves. But is it clear that player base is playing less, spending less, despite Niantic claims to the contrary? I don’t know about you, but I trust the sentiments of my fellow players far more than nebulous claims about closely-held data that only Niantic leadership has access to (and can’t share).
And those sentiments, even a year later, are overwhelmingly of the opinion that this change is still keenly felt today, and the game — and players’ motivation and experiences — are sadly lesser for it. And Niantic’s statement about the changes being “necessary for the long-term health of the game” seems at odds with the players who drive the game forward. Players who, by all accounts, are checking out more and more over time.
What about YOU, dear reader? How are you getting along in GO a year after this impactful change? Let us know in comments/replies, and of course on socials like Twitter (where you can usually find me for regular analysis nuggets).
Thank you for reading, and catch you next time, Pokéfriends!
