Trainers, today I follow up on a previous article I published in April of 2018, “Have We Become Spoiled with Events and Shiny Pokémon?” The original article can be viewed here.
It was written in wake of nearly every shiny sprite for the first and second Generation of Pokémon being added to the code. This led a lot of people to believe we were about to see a widespread shiny drop (considering Niantic’s history of adding shiny sprites just prior to their release.) Inevitably, many would be left with disappointment when every Pokémon’s shiny form wasn’t released en mass.
Prime Example
The above graphic was created by our talented Couple Of Gaming User Yaaya26 last year to display the two new families of Pokémon that had their shiny forms released to celebrate the Ingress-Prime launch (Niantics other game.)
Keeping Things Fresh vs. Letting Them Spoil
Releasing a new Shiny form for both collectors and casual players to chase after does keep the game fresh for many players. However, one has to ask if it’s created a “rod for their own back” scenario whereby if more than a few weeks go by and there is no new event, the game loses interest, loses players, and therefore loses revenue for Niantic.
Expected Events VS. Unexpected Ones
The above Ingress-Prime Celebration Event was unexpected. It came seemingly out of nowhere, and it was a lot of fun chasing after blue Ponyta and green Cubone.
These are the sorts of events that go down well with the community at large as players don’t know what to expect and have no expectations.
Compare this to (for example) the Valentine’s Day Event 2017 Where Pink Pokémon were boosted – Players already had an expectation on what they thought would happen and instead, there was some disappointment when a Luvdisc outbreak occurred in 2018, followed by similar Valentine’s Event in 2019.
Niantic does try to mix things up by releasing new events every few weeks, but the also sometimes seem to make things harder for themselves by not living up to expectations or over-hyping a new feature. PvP is a good example of this, as it is still a controversial hot-potato to this day that divides most communities and for some only acts as a way to obtain Sinnoh stones and nothing more.
Other events such as the 3-hour raid windows for shiny legendaries or Pokémon such as Gengar are generally received with warmth but events such as “Feebas-Day” were a general flop amongst players. This highlights how hard it must be for the company to please everyone and get it right every-time.
Parting Thoughts
Have we become spoiled as players? Probably. Expectations can be a dangerous thing to manage, but we think that Niantic is doing a good job so far this year. The change of the Lunar New Year 2019 Event, in particular, to make it from a 48-hour to a 10-day event has certainly gone down well. Giving all kinds of players much more time to acquire rarer shinies or good IV mon for their teams. We believe Niantic will continue to release events in a steady flow and will continue to please most, if not all, of the community at some stage, with something for everyone from new shinies to new raid bosses. Shaking things up can only be a good thing, even the most spoiled amongst us should be able to agree on that.
Thoughts Trainers?
