Latin American Pokémon GO Influencers have published an open letter to Niantic, addressing the problematic pricing of event tickets in the LATAM region. We usually cover LATAM region news on es.pokemongohub.net, but given the recent uptick in ticketed events, we wanted to give exposure to this on our mainsite.
If you’re not familiar with the topic, ticket prices in the LATAM region are far more expensive than they are in the rest of world. The cost per dollar is the same, but the relative cost of the ticket compared to the standard of living is much higher than in rest of the world. The whole campaign is being promoted under the #PokemonGOLATAM hashtag on Twitter and other social media websites.
LATAM Open Letter on Ticket Pricing
Hey Niantic!
Hey Niantic, how’s it going? We hope everyone’s doing well!
This year was full of financial successes for the game, which can be seen in the company’s profits, equivalent to more than a billion dollars according to Sensor Tower. But from the Pokemon GO LATAM Community, we would like to raise awareness of a critical topic that we believe should be considered: the current cost of the paid events in Pokemon GO.
We understand that the cost we see in the store is the result of the exchange rate from Dollars to the currency used in other regions. However, the price in Dollars is a lot more accessible for other countries that are outside of Latin America.
To give you more context of what we are trying to say, let’s use the Kanto Tour event as an example: in the countries of the region that sign this letter, the ticket has a cost between 5% and 7% of the minimum wage. That’s a lot! And that’s because our economic situation have been conditioned by the different public health and political contexts we are living.
A cost so high will result in small participation from our community, which will cause frustration and the feeling of being left out. We kindly ask you to revisit the cost of the tickets for the LATAM community, with a new cost closer to our reality. We truly believe there’ll be many more players participating in events like these with a new and a fair price. We also have some suggestions (see next image) that may be helpful to our problem.
We hopefully wait for an answer.
LATAM Pokémon GO Trainers
Tiger Games | Jogada Excelente | LeeGengar | AndysBr | Mestre Pokemon GO | Direto da Cozinha Nidos Argentina | Pokemon GO Hub en Espanol | Pokestgo | PoGoPerti | LEGENDS | Keibron Gamer Paranoias Garners | 8BitCR | Legi do dos Herois | Canal 40 | igor99 | XilonhaGames | Rhadamanto Dih nerD | Zumbel Games | XD NG Pk | Yan Queiroz | JakabooYT | Rod Warth | Vida de Treinador
Regional Pricing Methodology
As you are probably aware, a common practice in the gaming industry are regional prices, where prices are not set equivalently to the US Dollar in different markets. This practice considers the local currency.
Many gaming companies put in place this strategy, selling more games as they reached a bigger audience, and making players happy on top of that. A few examples of videogame companies that use this methodology are: Epic Games, Steam and Blizzard.
We know that some stores have strict rules that don’t allow this, but we came up with a possible solution for this issue and we would like to know your point of view on this proposal.
PokéCoins
We know that the bundle of 100 Pokecoins is regionally priced using Apple’s “Alternate Tier A – 0.99 USD”, making it possible for several players to purchase in-game items at a fair and local price, and we appreciate your efforts enabling that option in the game’s store.
Our proposal is to extend that same price methodology for the new paid events, since these types of events seem to be a trend, considering the most recent events announced.
Tickets could be purchased directly with Pokecoins.
So, a ticket for the Kanto event, that actually takes more than 2 days of work for a player to buy it (considering the average wage of our region), would cost something like a half-day of work.
Our take on the matter
I can only talk about Croatia, the country I’m from, but I assume that other European countries and Northern American states fall into the same bucket. Pokémon GO event tickets were never something we consider expensive. Nor something that costs 5% to 7% of our minimum wage.
The Kanto Tour ticket costs 12 USD, our minimum wage is 658 USD per month, which amounts to 1.8% of the wage. That’s fair and acceptable pricing for something, and in Croatia, 12 USD is something you’d spend in an afternoon over coffee and drinks if it weren’t for COVID.
I personally feel like LATAM Trainers and Influencers are completely in their right here – the pricing is simply too steep in many of the LATAM region countries, including Brazil and Mexico, where minimum wage hovers around the 200-250 USD range. See this Statista page for a full list of minimum wages in the LATAM region.
Even in Uruguay, which has the highest minimum wage in LATAM (430 USD), the cost is 2.7% of the wage, which is not negligible when you take into account additional costs associated with playing the game.
We look forward to Niantic’s response on the matter, but we do hope LATAM players get a price adjustment.
