"Pokémon GO Keeps Getting Better." Does It, Though?

Remote Trades and other minor improvements don't negate the misuse of player data, paywalling new content, and a lack of ambition in several aspects of the game.

Confused, Piplup? You're not alone.

As someone who regularly consumes videos but doesn't produce them and who recently gave his mother permission to slap him across the face if he ever decides to start making this kind of content (true story), far be it from me to lecture people on how to create and manage a YouTube channel. It's bad enough that I take mental note of my view counts on Substack. I've witnessed the frustration first-hand of those who have taken the plunge and have met with frustration over their uploads being algorithmically overlooked or otherwise failing to gain traction. Internet fame, she is a harsh and often elusive mistress.

So, yeah, never having delved into the realm of content creator as a profession or even a periodic generator of ad revenue, I'm not the best person to outline sound YouTube business practices. That said, I think MYSTIC7 using his platform to sell his nearly three million subscribers on what amounts to little more than pro-Pokémon-GO propaganda is borderline irresponsible behavior, even if his livelihood depends on it.

The title of this article is borrowed from his video of the same name from March, though his presentation here only hints at the reverent tone with which he'll greet certain facets of PoGO in a future state-of-the-game-type post. In his March upload, MYSTIC7 starts by talking about a “buff” to PokéStop Showcases, which, if you've read previous installments of The PoGO Journal, you know is a questionable assertion given that they're now more infrequent and that Spotlight Hours are a relic of the past except on the odd occasions that the game decides they're worth doing again. While admitting that he doesn't even participate in these Showcases, he nonetheless focuses only on the increased rewards for winning or for placing higher in the final standings. It's a bit of missing the forest for the trees, but in the spirit of charitability, I'll grant that this change could be considered at least a sidegrade.

The rest of the runtime, however, is devoted to MYSTIC7 running through the various features and events to come in the month of April as if they're particularly novel or interesting. Having lived through them, I can tell you that they weren't those things, but even without the benefit of hindsight and especially in light of the framing, I could assess this as overhype. Dynamax Battles. Five-star Raids. Mega Raids. Very few of these offerings were new or exciting, and what's more, MYSTIC7 approaches them pretty much solely from the mindset of a Raider/Shiny hunter. It makes sense that, as someone who doesn't do PvP, he might neglect that aspect somewhat, but then again, he could consult another creator who does battle. For instance, Tinkaton with the Community Day-exclusive move Gigaton Hammer now being widely available has shifted the meta for GO Battle League and even competitive play. MYSTIC7, meanwhile, is largely dismissive of its significance on the schedule, and as with PokéStop Showcases, he hasn't even been playing recent Community Days, so I don't know how he can feel qualified to regard the topic with this sort of nonchalance.

Where things quickly and markedly go off the rails, though, is with his video released within the last two weeks, “Pokémon GO is BACK.” In this upload, MYSTIC7 discusses the state of PoGO under Scopely vs. the state of PoGO under Niantic, and the elements he's able to justify with essentially a wave of his hand are more than a little troubling.

While acknowledging his concerns about privacy, MYSTIC7 states in the same breath that he's OK with the fact that Niantic farmed players for data and leveraged it for an eventual pivot to training AI models. He rationalizes this by saying that Pokémon GO has given us a lot of joy over the past 10 years and that, deep down, we knew they were probably going to be selling our data. Bro, what? He also suggests the implementation of Niantic’s models in AI-powered food delivery robots, which I've previously covered in great detail, has been made out to be a bigger story than perhaps it deserves. Never mind the contributions to a surveillance state or potential job loss. I guess it ain't that deep, right?

That happens in the first three minutes of a half-hour-long video, by the way. Over the course of the runtime, MYSTIC7 espouses the following beliefs that had me scratching my head:

• The monetization practices of PoGO aren't so bad when considering the pay-to-win mechanics of other mobile titles. It's just business, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

• Niantic and Scopely are still probably collecting and capitalizing on user data, but the game is more fun now, so it's fine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

• Spending on Pokémon GO is OK because “it's a hobby.” By this token, gambling large sums of real-world money is a hobby. That doesn't necessarily make it a good thing.

• New features aren't bugged or broken upon launch. Citation needed.

• We need more investment of capital to make a better product as Scopely has done with PoGO. Optics of Saudi parentage be damned, evidently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What's aggravating about MYSTIC7's video essay is he seems cognizant of certain issues facing our world, but—and I hope you're observing a trend by now—he's willing to explain them away. He decries the influx of private equity and other top-down purchases in the modern corporate landscape, but since he likes and materially benefits from PoGO, it's apparently kosher when Scopely does it. He brings up how we're drowning in plastics and microplastics in detailing how he and his partner are trying to eliminate synthetic fabrics from their lives as much as possible, but he weirdly makes an analogy between how some companies will place profit over people's health and how Niantic, uh, didn't maintain a very good pocket monster product (?). It's rather jarring to hear MYSTIC7 on one hand laud Scopely for more closely aligning its priorities with those of players and on the other hand give Niantic a pass for doing Arceus-knows-what with our data. Overall, in support of the thesis that Pokémon GO has been trending upward and is poised to continue improving, he gives a confusing mix of reasons why. And he tries to insist that people are spending more on the game when, on an annual basis, revenue has been on the decline since the early years of the pandemic.

I will concede that, if spending responsibly, players are free to do with their money what they want, not that this inherently excuses exploitative in-game incentive structures. Moreover, I don't want this to read as a personal attack on MYSTIC7 simply so I can fish for Internet clout. I'm a small creator operating this Substack as a passion project, not because I think it will ever amass a sizeable audience. I even believe that, in some respects, PoGO legitimately is improving. MYSTIC7 didn't cover Remote Trades amid his positive profile of the game in 2026, but that was a major development when it finally launched. The shift to GO Passes for all events, if nothing else, has brought a measure of consistency to the user experience.

These concessions notwithstanding, I feel as if MYSTIC7 is trying to elevate the banal aspects of Pokémon GO purely in service of generating excitement about the brand, and in specific instances, willfully overlooks its pitfalls to further said agenda. Even if his primary goal is to grow the game for the community's sake, if we're seeking to disentangle that aim from his desire to earn income from YouTube, it becomes hard if not impossible to manage that. One of the top comments on his more recent video reads, “This whole video seems like a gigantic Scopely ad,” and yeah, it does. That assertion got some pushback from other users—whether they are MYSTIC7 superfans or simply average YouTube patrons, I couldn't guess—but I believe a lot of players categorically disagree with some of the positions MYSTIC7 takes amid his flattering portrait of PoGO’s current leadership. Already, with how much he can afford to travel and spend on the game, MYSTIC7 is having a much different experience than that of casual fans. His commentary only serves to make him seem that much more out of touch with those who aren't engaging with in-game content for work.

Does Pokémon GO keep getting better? I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I don't feel as if it's getting demonstrably worse, but it's also not improving by leaps and bounds. There's more to do now in 2026 than there was when the app launched in 2016. Quantity is not a substitute for quality, however, and no amount of silly YouTube video thumbnails from partners can overshadow an absence of creative momentum. MYSTIC7 is selling us a story of a superior mobile game. He really shouldn't need to.