Poll Results: Do you plan to buy the A Colossal Discovery event ticket?

Special Research Event Ticket

With A Colossal Discovery creeping closer by the day, we decided to ask our Twitter community how they feel about the paid event ticket. Our question was rather simple – “Do you plan to buy the event ticket and get Regigigas earlier?” – but we left ample room for discussion in the replies section. To our surprise it seems that the community is split smack down the middle, with the “ayes” being much more vocal than “nays”, despite the results painting a different picture. We’re calling “Yes” voters “ayes”, and “No” voters “nays”, as is tradition in the US senate.

9,289 votes were recorded on Twitter and 286 comments were posted at the moment of writing this article. This is not a statistically valid experiment, nor should these results be used as a basis for any bold claims. However, this is a fairly interesting snapshot of online opinions and, by our account, the largest census to date on this topic. We truly hope that Niantic will read through the comments section, as there is a handful of constructive criticism in there.

With that being said, here are the pool results and our selection of favourite responses. For the sake of article reading performance, we won’t be embedding each and every comment – most of them are grouped with similar responses in the list below. Alas, the results!

“Do you plan to buy the event ticket and get Regigigas earlier?” results:

  • Yes: 46%
  • No: 54%

Feedback summary for Ayes and Nays

Ayes

Ayes are voters that are planning to buy a ticket.

  • Most ayes compare the event with a GO Fest experience, but playable anywhere. Unlike GO Fest, you don’t need to travel to have a special experience.
  • Ayes also noted that the ticket “pays for itself” in Raid Passes and loot. It seems that the decision to give out 10 Raid Passes was a good one, but we’re not sure if voters are aware that they can only have 1 of those at a time.
  • On multiple occasions Niantic was praised for their decision to make Regigigas available for free via the EX raid system. We’re quite sure that the sentiment would differ wildly if that wasn’t the case.
  • A lot of voters mentioned that they would use the same amount of passes shiny hunting Regis that weekend, so buying the Ticket only benefits them.
  • Some ayes are buying the ticket because their work schedule does not allow them to do or trigger EX raids otherwise.
  • Unova stone was mentioned more than once on the aye side, pushing some folks to buy the ticket for the sake of this lucrative item alone.

Nays

Nays are voters that are not planning to buy a ticket.

  • The nays weren’t silent as well, with dozens of voters protesting the idea of content being locked behind a pay-wall.
  • A common theme for most nays is the dislike towards pay-walled content in general, and they see their decision as a measure to keep paywalls out of the game.
  • One nay pointed out that buying tickets for Go Fest gives you an actual event to participate in, while this is an in-game event.
  • A number of nays shared that they are unable to organize a local raid or that they live in a rural area, which makes raiding difficult. Scheduling is a problem for a few nays and they can’t guarantee that they’ll have a local team to do it on a different day.
  • For some nays, there’s no reason to buy the ticket given that Regigigas will be available as an EX boss later on. This is in direct contradiction with a similar argument on the Aye side.

Parting words

As GO Hub, we are always in a peculiar position, especially with hot topics like this one, but here’s a few thoughts. Both sides have perfectly valid arguments, although Nays do approach the issue with more emotions. For some Ayes, the whole idea seems as a rather practical way to avoid the EX Raid lottery and to get a guaranteed Regigigas.

The scheduling problems and problems with players’ local community are valid issues. Personally, if we don’t get a group for the event, I’m not buying the ticket. And it seems that this is a common sentiment for most people who are on the fence – will my ticket go to waste? Does my community care enough about shiny hunting Regis?

Niantic did an excellent job balancing the ticket price and rewards, and we salute them for their decision to release Regigigas as an EX Raid boss. As we mentioned before, if Regigigas was obtainable only through A Colossal Discovery, the community perception would be wildly different.