Are the Winds of Change Already Blowing in Pokémon GO Thanks to Scopely?

Scopely used Gust? It's super effective?

Can you tell that I didn’t use Photoshop to make this image? What?!? You can?!?

In the closing of my recent post “Will the GO Battle League Schedule Ever Be Good?” I had the following thoughts about Scopely’s planned timetable for making improvements to Pokémon GO, assuming one exists:

Under Niantic, the prospects of improvement were functionally null, so the sale to Scopely is a slight ray of hope amid the larger concerns for consumers about ethics and monetization, and because Scopely is inheriting an absolute mess of a product, they do deserve a bit of a grace period. If things don’t substantially improve after Delightful Days, meanwhile, the ticking of the clock will get awfully loud awfully fast for Pokémon GO’s new management.

As is perhaps befitting of my blog as a whole, these sentiments were delivered with a certain degree of pessimism. If Andrew Ross of Massively on the Go fame’s read is correct, though, we might already be seeing PoGO’s change of ownership have a meaningful impact.

If there’s one thing that can be said about Andrew, it’s that he’s thorough. As always, I encourage you to read his piece in full, but speaking as someone who sometimes struggles to be concise, ahem, you might want to block out some time in your day to accommodate the task. In all seriousness, Ross’s column gives us a lot to consider regarding potential shifts due to Scopely’s direct intervention, framed under the banner of “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

New Pokémon

This seems to be a bit of a “good news, bad news” category. On the plus side, Ross argues, we’ve seen a lot more Pokémon introduced to the game than we’ve seen added in recent memory, a seeming departure from the slow-drip modus operandi that characterized the later Niantic years. On the minus side, and as I’ve touched upon at different points, the evolution requirements are “getting harsher.” Ross specifically cites the Raid/Dynamax Battle requirements for Kingambit and Kubfu as glaring examples of the direction that’s probable to continue under Scopely.

Ross also addresses the proliferation of Special Backgrounds as part of the deliberation about new Pokémon, ultimately being lukewarm toward a feature that qualifies a Pokémon for a special trade and takes up storage when that space is perpetually limited. For me, I manage as I go, so I don’t feel the crunch nearly as acutely as some players. There’s the time-honored tradition followed by some players, too, of, you know, just not caring. Still, I get where Ross is coming from. Like I’ve written about in the past, PoGO feels like a second job sometimes. The mere existence of Special Backgrounds shouldn’t exacerbate those feelings.

GO Pass

OK, as much as I respect Andrew Ross as a writer and member of the PoGO community, I’ll be candid by saying that I think he misses the mark here. Re GO Pass, for one, referencing the notion that “it’s still in a testing phase,” he offers the following: “As essentially a Battle Pass that is supposed to encourage daily play, it just isn’t working for me.” If that is, in fact, the purpose of GO Pass—I don’t have any confirmation of this from Niantic or Scopely, but Ross is probably closer to this situation than I am as a news consumer—yeah, I don’t imagine it’ll be terribly successful.

If we’re treating GO Pass as an enhancement to normal play, however, I feel like it’s a worthy addition. Unless you’re actually pursuing the paid track, you’re getting bonus items and Pokémon encounters for free. The only real downside I’ve seen thus far is that it takes an already crowded Events tab and it makes it feel that much more cluttered. That said, I’m not about to look gift rewards in the mouth.

Where Ross is apparently truly wrongheaded, though, is this continuation of his meditation on the GO Pass feature, specifically as it intersects with the “deluxe” version: “I didn’t much care for it at Sinnoh fest, and that included the Lucky Trinket, and with the bugs I’ve heard, I don’t intend on dropping cash for it now, even though I do intend on giving Scopely some money just so I’m able to withhold it later to send a message.” Andrew, one user paying and then boycotting isn’t going to send a message. Collective action from a significant portion of the player base is needed, which is why, generally speaking, user boycotts don’t work (remember the limited utility of #HearUsNiantic?). If you want to withhold your money, do it for yourself. After Scopely cashes the check, they could give a shit about your “message.”

Community Day

We’ve evidently dispensed with post-Community Day four-star Raids, and Ross and I would agree that this move is for the better—as would most players, I suspect. To this effect, I think we’d both like to see a return to six-hour CDs or something even more expansive. As Ross reminds us, it’s called Community Day. Why not make it more flexible to benefit people who may not vibe with the now-standard 2–5 PM schedule?

Scheduling/Communication

Probably the most noticeable change which those of us in the PoGO know have discerned is that Scopely appears intent on being more communicative with users. Before the new season dropped, we had details about the month’s events and the full schedule for GO Battle League. It’s a bad GBL schedule, to be sure, but hey—we knew in advance! I also don’t remember the official Pokémon GO Twitch channel doing a live broadcast for a GO Fest prior to this past weekend’s spotlight on the extravaganza in my home state. To echo Ross, major kudos for this.

Max Battles

Ross spends a lot of time on the subject of Max Battles. A lot of time. Seeing as I’m often excluded from all but the easiest Dynamax Battles by virtue of not living in a city and not using Remote Raid Passes, I struggled to care with my first pass over this material. Then, I considered that there was a lot of verbiage about Max Battles, so I revisited this section—and I still struggled to care. Then, I finally reckoned with the idea that I’d need to write about Max Battles, so I ultimately came away with these notes:

• Like Ross, I’m in alignment with the idea that being able to use Remote Raid Passes to be able to participate in Dynamax and Gigantamax Raids is a boon for those who want to join in the reindeer games enjoyed by urban players. I also share the reservations, meanwhile, about the daily limits of Remote Raid Passes and especially the price.

• Evidently, on social media and in messaging app channels, there are a lot of complaints about Max Battle participants using underpowered or otherwise suboptimal Pokémon for the task at hand, which informs why I don’t do them. I don’t wish to be publicly harangued for being the weak link of the lot. All the same, this is a game, not a matter of life and death, and if anyone should wear the L, it’s Niantic/Scopely, not the Trainer who seeks to be involved and can’t be a full-fledged teammate because they can only beat Squirtles and Machops by their lonesome.

• Perhaps the greatest detriment of being active with Max Battles is that powering up Pokémon when not specifically asked to satisfy a Research requirement feels like such a waste of resources. If I were a new player and this were my first rodeo, I don’t believe I would mind so much. But I’m not. I’ve been playing this stupid game since 2016, and I very much don’t want to build a new Charizard or a new Metagross just to be able to make an impact in these battles. I’ve been there, done that, and gotten the T-shirt—just check my avatar.

• Ross has issues with acquiring Max Particles, and maybe it’s because I don’t have much regard for this feature in general, but I don’t find them all that compelling. I’m usually fully stocked with Particles, as I’m waiting on better versions of the Pokémon I have to evolve and power up, I can’t do most of the Max Battles I see locally, and I acquire my fair share between walking and interacting with Power Spots. Feel free to read this paragraph yourself and make better sense of it—I simply can’t be bothered.

• This will shock you to learn—shock you, I say—but the Max Battle system is incredibly buggy. I know—hard to believe.

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Well, given Andrew Ross’s volumes penned on a new era for Pokémon GO, what’s the final verdict? Are the winds of change already blowing thanks to Scopely? If so, is the overall change a positive one? At heart, the answer is probably highly nuanced, but generally speaking, Ross believes that “the game is already in a slightly better spot” with new management in place. He encapsulates his thoughts thusly in the closing of his piece:

We’re only about a week into the formal Scopely transition as I write this, but I’d argue the core parts of the game have improved more than the annoying additions detract. We may not be seeing direct communication, but sharing more details with us on at least monthly events feels more respectful of my time. Death bells for local-only content is a really good starting move, but Max Battles in particular are an ugly, complicated mess, though Scopely is tackling them with some success in a very short amount of time. None of this has really brought back any lapsed players I know of, but as a daily player, the ownership change is palpable.

I’m in broad agreement with Ross, with my deviations already being noted, specifically those objections to his objections to GO Pass and the very notion that reversing your status as a paid player in isolation would send a message to Scopely. If I were to give a fig about Dynamax and Gigantamax Battles, I might be in even broader agreement, but I’m honestly not in the weeds enough about the feature or engaged enough to render a downright meaningful opinion.

At the end of the day, I’m encouraged by many of the same things about which Ross is encouraged re Pokémon GO, but I’m also measured in my enthusiasm. I owe part of my muted optimism to a distrust that is obviously colored by my first-hand experience with the game under Niantic, but one also borne out of observable trends in the game industry as a whole. It feels like a weekly refrain at this point, but I have to bring up Scopely’s parentage as another factor in my mixed emotions. Simply put, as long as Savvy Games Group’s shadow looms over proceedings, I can’t be full-throated in my support for PoGO, although as a United States citizen, it’s hard to point the finger when our country is, er, holding honorary military parades for the current commander-in-chief. It’s at least somewhat reassuring that millions of Americans turned out for the so-called “No Kings” protests across the nation, but now that the dust has settled, will these statements of principles amount to constructive political action? When billionaires are throwing out vast sums of money to buy newspapers and whole social media platforms, the path to progress feels steeply uphill.

Even so, there’s hope for better days ahead for Pokémon GO—and maybe the U.S. as well, but check back with me later on that, OK? Andrew Ross doesn’t know of any lapsed players returning to the fold, nor do I, quite frankly, but in the meantime, I’ll take a slightly better user experience.