Pokemon GoFest Day 2 – The Climb #877

Sunday 18^th July 2021

It was ridiculously hot today.

I wilt in the heat. Give me a nice 18 degree centigrade day with some light cloud and a fresh wind and I’m happy. As soon as we get into the 20s, I can feel myself overheat.

Today was the second day of Pokemon Go Fest 2021 and as such, I spent the first part of the day raiding. They did this thing where they put loads of raids on featuring all the old legendries. I had them all, so for me it was just a case of trying to get the day’s researches done and then hunt down more shinies.

Give Niantic credit, they did it so everyone got a load of remote raid passes as well as normal passes. As such, we did 8 remote raids pretty much as soon as they came up to complete the researches, then went down to the park and did raids on the gym that popped up every half hour or so, and still did not run out of passes. I was genuinely impressed with that.

After my walk on Thursday, and wandering around the park yesterday, I was sore and knackered, so I just found a spot in the shade, sat myself down and shiny checked. The shinies I was after came from incense, so whilst others went from stop to stop to stop in a small circuit taking advantage of available shade, I just sat down in one spot.

I’d not done too bad yesterday, but others had terrible shiny luck and were understandably having a terrible event. I was trying to have an enjoyable day. This is another of the reasons I’ve come to dislike about Pokemon Go.

I’m all for random chances, but in a game that’s supposed to be for kids there seems to be a massive disparity. Why can one person get 20+ shinies, and another get just 5 when they are playing the same way over the course of an entire day? Surely they should build the odds so there’s less disparity (and maybe introduce some bad luck protection).

I read something recently that talked about game design and how developers have gone from avid gamers who were passionate enough about games to build their own studios into corporate studios where the driving force isn’t fun but maximising profit.

Pokemon Go has massive FOMO, and at times that’s massively unfair. As an adult gamer, who understands all this, I find myself getting massively frustrated with the game at times. For kids and those with cognitive disorders it’s ten times worse. It’s gone from being something fun to unwind, into a panic. Sure there’s that endorphin rush when you get a shiny, and that keeps people playing, but it doesn’t feel entirely healthy.

I ended the day trying to wind down with Warcraft. That’s another game with its problems, but at least there I feel I have options… even if it’s creating 15 alts and then waiting for a couple of years to farm the raid every week 15 times over.

I’m not entirely sure whether I’m totally done with Pokemon Go. I started it as a way to get a friend out the house. Now it just ends with someone or other feeling upset… and that’s not worth the hassle. It’s supposed to be fun.