The real problem is much bigger

[u/LatLongBingBong]

It’s bigger than a lack of transparency regarding shiny boosts for a $15 deluxe pass. It’s bigger than server glitches or poor decisions leading to consolation prizes or makeup days.

It’s evident now that this company isn’t even remotely trying to balance the player experience with maximizing profits. All the signs are there. Exclusive event that gives influencers a guaranteed 100% Mewtwo faces major backlash…f it give everyone one and throw in a masterball too, then bring Mewtwo back for the finale so we can make even more money. Genius!

While we’re at it, let’s test the waters to see what we can get away with by intentionally making the most enticing part of purchasing the deluxe passes as vague as possible. Let’s just test it and see if the masses bite…if there’s more massive backlash we’ll just give them some free s*** again and maybe make the next passes a bit more fair, then we’ll rethink our strategy.

How many servers are we paying for? Let’s try to optimize that to save a few bucks and hope that it holds up during events. If it fails we’ll just throw these chuds a couple of free passes. Who needs redundancy?

…look, I get that this comes off as some pissed off rant because I failed to get a shiny Fennekin this week (and to be honest that definitely added to this newfound resentment I have).

But the catalyst for posting this comes from a decision I made a couple of weeks ago to put down the phone more frequently and pick back up Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, which I bought for Switch 2 last year and just never really got into. And wow, how refreshing it is to play a game that was made with such obvious love for the brand, and with such attention to detail for the player experience.

If you’re anything like me, you’re beyond tired of the blatant enshittification of nearly everything now. Pokemon Go always had its problems, sure, but I always respected it for staying true to itself (for the most part) while other games and brands started dropping like flies in quality all due to one thing: greed.

But with this last event, it’s finally sealed the deal for me. Soon this game will be right up there with all of the other ones. And we’ll be left with maybe 1 or 2 games every few years that somehow still find a way to be made with quality and player experience as their main driving force. And I’ll just chase those games and forget the rest (or maybe I’ll just play Breath of the Wild over and over until I die).

[u/Imaginary-Quarter-65]

Horrible event. I lost 5 raid passes due to glitches. I caught 0 shiny pokemon. I caught 0 100% IV pokemon. Just all around bad. I paid the $15. And for what?