The Rise and Fall of Pokémon GO 

This is such a great breakdown of the highs and lows of PoGo. I first started playing in 2016 and quit by early 2017. Decided to pick it up again in 2023 and was amazed by how much had changed and improved, but the remote raid pass nerf has left a nasty stain on the game...

The fall is worse than charmander’s tail getting washed

Remote raids going away has made it very hard to find excitement about playing, I live in an extremely rural area, and remote raids were the only way I could play a raid. Sad to see that many others are in my same situation

Those first few weeks created some fun memories. Parks were full of life again, and everyone was so excited to catch pokemon you wouldnt normally get so hyped over in the main games. Hundreds would show up to a pokemon go meet up at a park, people would bring waters and sports drinks, and snacks, and share, we would all share info on what we are seeing, have friendly three way rivalrys between team instinct, valor, and mystic. On more than one occasion youd hear someone call out something like "Hey there's a gastly over here!" Then that would relay across the park, and someone would sprint toward the spot screaming "Gaaaaasstlyyyyy!!!!!" and everyone would go running to that spot to catch a gastly, which was really hard to find when pogo first launched. If nothing else, we had a fun few weeks that summer, when pokemon felt real, even if it didnt last.

A lot of people are commenting about how remote raids were supposed to be temporary and all…but before remote raids I couldn’t do legendary raids even in a pretty large area (Raleigh NC) because there simply wasn’t a group that I had the time and availability outside of work to meet up with. This weekend I went to a couple of parks to see if anyone was around to try and work on some shadow mewtwo…nothing. I used to buy a few remote raid passes a week and spend a little bit of real money each month and I could jump on invites I had coming from around the world from people in my friends list. Or I could use a service like pokegenie to do a couple of legendary raids and try for shiny or hundo or whatever. I can’t afford to do any of that now. I started playing on the third day after launch in 2016 and now I’m just losing steam and thinking of quitting. I’m not even really a “rural” player, and I don’t have any disabilities that preclude getting out and about so I can only imagine how badly the game has felt limited to those players lately.

Thank you for saying what were all feeling right now. This game has been a part of my life for nearly 7 years now, leading me to fun and exciting placed I might not have ever seen otherwise. I'm truly sad to see the direction it's going but I'm glad someone is voicing the community's feelings.

Man that first week of Pokémon GO was a truly magical time, and I didn’t even play it that much, but I’d be outside seeing people playing it and it was amazing I ran into friends I hadn’t seen for years who were just walking outside looking for Pokémon And it gave everyone something fun to do

That first month or so was amazing.... Literally everyone was playing the game and everyone was down for hanging out and catching together. Never have I ever seen a more harmonised society than when PoGo released. Those times were the best. Sadly I don't play the game now... It just can't hold my interest, no one I know still plays either. I will remember those times fondly, along with the cool people I met.

It's really sad to see where this game has gone. I love playing this game. It's so much fun to get out and grind trying to find shinies, but raiding was a great time for so long. It brought a community together better than I've ever seen. Since the remote raid nerf, all the groups I participated in are like a ghost town now. Most of my friends have quit and the ones that haven't, aren't excited about the game anymore. I went out for a few hours each day this weekend and couldn't find anyone to help with mewtwo raids. I wasn't able to do one raid in playing for a few hours. While I don't see Niantic changing their mind about this I hope they see these comments and adjust the current rules. I'm fine with only 5 a day, but did they really need to increase the price? I don't buy them anymore but it hasn't pushed me to do in person raids because no one is out playing. I would've been more than happy to get a couple mewtwos this weekend with the help of remote raids. Thanks to anyone who does read this and considers making a change. I don't want to see this game die out. I love playing and plan to continue. I just don't see a way for me to battle legendaries anymore unless I get lucky.

Brandon, this is by far the realest, most open and honest reivew of the game and company I have ever seen from anyone. Not only does it serve as an incredibly perfect recap, but also as a letter to the developers. I appreciate you continuing to be honest about the highs and lows of the game - despite Niantic's not so subtle disapproval of your honesty.

Lots of people still playing.

So basically, if you wanna play Pokémon Go, you gotta be a RU-vidr, rich, or just have a lot of free time. Its impossible to have good pokemons withount grinding it

This video is extremely well made. Thank you mystic for all these amazing years of Pokemon Go while it lasted.

I still get the feeling that, despite everything, there's some semblance of heart behind Pokémon Go, even now. However, if it were to be bought out by a different company, it might be what the game needs.

I had my ups and downs with this game, returning every couple of years. One thing that made me excited this year was the remote raid as most of my friends had already stopped playing. Now, I can play with many people wherever they are and it was awesome. Unfortunately, with the pricy item, Niantic actually should not be limiting people to 5 times.

The fundamental issue with the game is that it isn’t accessible to the casual player. I get shiny rates need to be hard, but for most people it makes them pretty much unattainable. Raids are impossible unless you are in major cities because there just isn’t the player base. IMO Niantic would be better off making everything more accessible to the casual player so that they increase the player base and then can have bigger profits themselves

I've played the game nonstop since 2016, and a huge problem I still struggle to this day is the lack of support for not so large cities. For example, I lived in the 5th biggest city of Brazil and there were close to none pokestops/gyms in the city, but that didn't stop the Pokemon GO craze in 2016 and, of course, the huge drop of the player base soon after. But for an insistent player such as myself, there were no presencial events, and even when I paid for events such as community days, the spawn rate of Pokemon was ridiculously low!! I don't know how I was able to keep motivated in the game. Nowadays I live in a bigger city, but I'm almost quitting the game for good :(

No emotions can describe my rage towards niantic with the way the shadow raids for mewtwo was handled. I don't think they understand how it feels to know, that the strongest pokemon in the game is finally available for two whole days and you can get as many as you want in that time frame, but only a select few can get them, because you need an in-person team to defeat it. I don't think they know how it feels to see everyone else show off their shiny shadow mewtwo or even their shadow hundo mewtwo or the 26 shadow mewtwos they caught during those two days. Meanwhile YOU have literally none, because you have NOBODY to play with, and you can't use remote raidpasses. I do not care about the horrendous nerf to the remote raid pass, but the freaking fact that you removed it from the the event that can give you dozens of the best pokemon in the game, and only a select few get to have it, is beyond infuriating. What makes this so more infuriating is the fact that this is probably never coming back in YEARS. So, tHanK yoU sO mUch NiAntIc, I had so much fun soloing shadow mewtwo and getting an astounding zero shadow mewtwos for 2 whole days.

to be honest, when the remote raid passes got nerfed, i started to see more people outside playing pokemon go and doing raids. so i kind of understood and acknowledged that decision by niantic. after all it is pokemon "GO" and not pokemon "sit at home"

It's so unbelievable the way this game made thousands of people come out of their house and play with full of joy ❤

I’m a truck driver and I drive across the USA and I remember I started playing when the game came out. U couldn’t believe there was promotions in gas stations if u were level 20 u would get a free candy bar stuff like that! Everyone was into it! It was something else

Excellent video. I still play daily, but with a lot of mixed feelings. Things like the shiny shadow Mewtwo raids should bring a hype, but I just couldn't find a group of players in my area, and remote raids are not working even if I would pay. The only thing I can still do reliably, is grinding but the spawns are too mediocre to stay interesting. If this continues and more events are unplayable for many trainers, I don't see the point in continuing, after 7 years...

Never played PokémonGo, I just remembered the news and people going crazy in 2016, it was fun looking all the people running around catching Pokémon, I didn't know how much the game changed on those years and sad to see that the community is no longer what it was. Really nice video, thanks for uploading it.

It was the closest summer to the 90s I can remember. Pokémon Go was everywhere, we had a decent economy, Blink-182 had a song in the top of the charts, and a Clinton was running for president. It was an amazing summer.

Wow i dont even play pogo anymore but i still decided to watch the video and i absolutely loved it! Great energy, music etc

One thing about recent events that’s gotten really upset is the clicking the Pokémon and it running away still happens, spawns aren’t as common in unpopulated areas where before there was a decent amount of spawns. I’ve left game myself and I was one of the biggest defenders and been on the game since 2016 but I’ve been like many and really upset about how it’s going and how it’s going downhill. Much love mystic for this video and I hope you have still get enjoyment front the game!

Played a bunch in 2016 like a lot of people and have come back to the game thanks to our little one discovering and falling in love with the show. Been really loving the game - kind of glad I didn't come back before the remote raid nerf. Hoping for the best going forward.

Didn't touch on the fact that Niantic is likely making double the money by selling our data. Hence the push to get back outside.

One is the best franchise just to be ruined by horrible companies

John Hanke would foam at the mouth watching this lol But seriously, thank you for sparking back interest in Pokémon GO. You showed how passionate you clearly are about this game, and you reminded Niantic what it's like to rise and fall. I hope they adapt faster than they die!

This hit the spot, like most I started when it came out and played through for a year. I came back in 2022 and fell in love, started walking 40km a week spending $50-$100 a month and exploring places I generally never went. I have spent a total of 10 hours playing and spent $1 since the raid pass increase. I haven’t been as active(which is really the most depressing thing) and I haven’t been exploring as much either. I used to meet up with 10-30 people every week for raid hour and meet up with pogo buddies once a month for spotlight hour, I haven’t seen any of them for weeks. I also used to watch tons of videos for pogo for pvp, raid counters, prep for future events and now I have watched maybe 3-4 videos this being one of them. At this point I’m not sure what I want. To become a free to play player, quit the game completely, or fight for change. Thank you for the history lesson it really help to show a returning player the severity of Niantics actions, the depth of their betrayal per their own words.

The frustrating thing is as a low income person who doesn't have a car, even in a nice city it just began feeling like PoGo was an exclusive club. It just ended up being really frustrating instead of fun.

I am not done watching this video but wth, my man, this is so insanely well made u could probably start making videos for large companies. Very much well done! Edit; This production quality is amazing!

Yeah really awsome watching all youtubers catch 100 shadow mewtwo from this weekend event and there I was in my local city hoping someone will show up at a gym.... The game is totally dissbalanced right know, I agree there should be a limit to remote raids, but releasing content like shadow raids and leaving out a huuuge part of your player base out just cause they dont have a local community is trash. They could have at least given everyone the possibility to complete 3 remote raids for the whole weekend so that everyone can participate...but nooo

At the end of the day they got greedy, the same way streaming services got greedy. There was no point to increasing the price on remote passes besides them wanting more money.

As a 2016 PoGo grinder, I'm level 47 atm. I no longer play PoGo like I used to, I basically quit 2021, but there is still something PoGo in me, I feel like coming back soon.

You crushed this video, thanks for making this! Perfectly summed up my feelings: past, present, and future. Something has gotta change because I’m so checked out and this was one of my favorite communities/hobbies

Thank you for this man! Decided recently that I will no longer be spending any of my own money on the game. Niantic needs to makes some major changes to get things back on track, first in the area of communication and receptivity.

It was one of the worlds first geo locational games that used a big hit franchise that already had a universally acclaimed reputation. So it’s no surprise that it went as far as it did, and fell from grace just as hard and fast!

You have said everything that has been on My mind. We started playing with my eldest son and now I play with my younger children. I have chronic illness issues and not many friends in the area to raid with ATM. The remote raids were an amazing way to allow me and my family to 'catch em all'. I truly hope things start to look up from this abysmal low.

My husband and I have played since 2016 and our son is finally old enough to play with us, it’s such a great thing to get to do together as a family, but the timing is heart breaking. I hope Niantic feels the heat enough this year to actually respect the players again, and work with us instead of against us..although as of right now that feels unlikely /:

Pokemon Go, Overwatch, Grand Theft Auto... All games that I love and that are deaf to thier communities. It's saddening. The exceptions to that are Fortnite and Snowrunner which are thriving because they listen to the players.

I stopped playing because there was quite literally nothing to do around where I lived. I have 2 pokestops that were right next to each other that would only occasionally drop pokeballs and one gym. The only other pokestops anywhere close to me were miles away. I couldn't drive there since I was only 15 and didnt have a license not to mention it would be a waste of gas if I asked my parents and I sure as hell wasn't walking miles away from my house alone. Eventually after a week of not being able to catch that many pokemon due to not having pokeballs I just stopped playing and went back to playing pokemon on my DS.

i first started playing in 2016 and quit somewhere early 2016. Then i decided to pick it back up again in 2017 and i've been playing ever since and almost at lvl 40.

Great video! There were a lot of new players that joined during the pandemic, so the bonuses were all they knew. When Niantic nerfed them, it was a straight nerf to their entire experience of the game. I think a lot of botched/ rip off events deserved to be mentioned. Egg events with terrible odds, then changing shiny odds mid event, and Niantic even forgetting to turn on the shiny at least one time.

This is such a great overview of what went down. Really measured and pretty unbiassed. Niantic would make a good case study on the long term effects when a business works against their community and customer base.

Thank you Brandon. I think I started watching your video around 2017, and I had great time with Pokemon Go. I can't remember how many Sunday mornings I have spent in Santa Monica Pier. I actually had seen you there one time. I stopped playing the game around 2020 while there was huge change came to my life. The world we living in today is completely different than the world prior to COVID. I sometimes wish I can travel back to the good old days. Thank you Brandon. 06/18/2023

This is a great video Mystic! This is so nostalgic for me, I miss playing pokemon go and when it was a huge trend..

It hurts because no one plays around my city anymore and i can't do any of the raids without online players anymore. So i couldn't even participate in the shadow event since it was local only

I saw someone say this and it's very accurate: if it wasn't POKEMON Go, this game would have died years ago. The only reason it's still around is because people love pokemon. Maybe if Niantic's new game fails, they'll understand that their company isn't that great after all

I startedback in 2016 but due to the lack of pokestops I stopped, I checked in back Jan. 2023 we got a gym and pokestop right in my backyard, came back to the game since then

Thank you for this concise video. The whole situation just makes me so tremendously sad. I've been with the game since the very beginning, have had annoyances with it at times, however it always generally remained fun enough for me not to give up on it completely. But more and more I too get the feeling that the game may well shut down for good as more and more players leave, too frustrated with the decisions being made. And it really is frutrating; With most other games, one gets tremendously frustrated over any blatant cash grabs. However with Pokémon Go, players are implicitly encouraging and asking for such cash grabs, so long as it provides an enjoyable experience; this through incenses being useful as they were before, remote raids being properly available and so on. It could be easy money on Niantic's behalf, and one that players encourage, too, yet here we are. And even if they wish to stubbornly cling to this whole "make people go outside and play", I feel like they should have kept up all the current perks that keep the game viable, while introducing updates that makes real-life play viable, enjoyable and worthwhile, to the point the alternative "stay at home" methods are not too relevant anymore. For instance, many people may not care about remote raids per se in a sense of "I'm too lazy to leave my house", but because it simply was the only opportunity to do raids at all. As a person living in a rural area myself, my only options at clearing legendary raids were to join raids remotely, or to "go out and explore" by hosting a local raid for others to join remotely. But now with these "in-person only" raids, I find myself missing out entirely on very elusive, major events like Hoopa, Regidrago and shadow Mewtwo. If anything, the only possibility I'd have to actually partake would be to intentionally break the game's rules (account sharing to a friend in a large city, multi-accounting to solo a raid with some 8 accounts, or spoofing outright). These new changes are doing the opposite of "encouraging me to go outside and exploring"; they are taking away any incentive to do so, as I know walking to the nearby gym for that shadow Mewtwo is a futile waste of time. Meanwhile stuff like this could be easily resolved by making more gyms/raids available anywhere, and making sure people can do them solo one way or another. If they wish to encourage social play, they could throw in additional bonuses for clearing raids with multiple people. It's not impossible, and a great deal of players would likely be satisfied with stuff like that, then would have no qualms to see remote raids largely fade out (which may unfortunately not be the case for these with accessibility issues however). But no, instead they simply take away the positive changes that actually allowed everyone to enjoy the game at their own pace, whilst giving little to nothing in return to actually make playing in-person feasible for a large deal of players. And on top of that, there is not even the mention of how adventure sync has been malfunctioning for several months now, while to boot many recent events revolve around egg hatching. On one hand I generally can no longer participate in the raid events, on the other hand I cannot passively hatch eggs by logging in every so often during breaks, as I go about my day in which I have walked around quite a bit, making me also miss outo n the hatching events. Consistently missing out on a great deal of otherwise fun content can rapidly turn the game from "fun though mildly frustrating" to a downright miserable, unenjoyable experience. I truly hope they will change course for the better. I truly believe that people love this game, want to keep on loving this game, or get back into loving this game, and people are trying real hard to be patient about all of this in hopes of seeing it all get better instead of having the game die out entirely. But months upon months of poor decisions that lead down a rabbithole of frustrations is making it very hard for the playerbase to remain patient.

So much nostalgia seeing all those clips from over the years 🥲

I've played a little of the game but it always gets old for me at some point, the most I played was I think 1 year after the pandemic. It was very interesting to learn about the entire history of the game since launch, it's so weird that they seem to be ignoring the players now after they were listening to them at some point.

Honestly I wonder why niantic didn’t make the Apple Watch integration better? Like auto catch; auto poke spin at stops; even syncing during workouts to help walking buddy get an extra friendship boost during activity.

The edit quality of the vidoes this man and his team produce is amazing. Love it!!

Loved this video, thank you for being so honest and informative about the history! Really enjoyed reliving the journey in good detail!

I saw that you and Daxi both made a video about this but after watching both, they are very different. I like that you showed all your friends in this one so often. Thanks for the great work

I remember just not caring about the rollbacks in 2020-2021 Or the remote raid price hike, I find raids tedious anyway

I haven’t really seen this angle discussed much, but I know I’m not the only one that actually did MORE in-person raids before the nerf. It gave me a chance to successfully reciprocate for the remote invitations I’d get (and I was doing A LOT of remote raids). Now it feels like the community *can’t* be as helpful as it used to be, because everyone will prioritize their own raids/catches over using a pass on another copy of something you’ve already caught 5+ times. This video was really well made, thank you

I agree Pokemon go has beginning to come to a end with me because today me my mom and dad whent to do some shadow Mewtwo raids but then I realized they are local raids wich means I can't invite any people on my friends list to help and this is sad for me because I really wanted a shiny shadow Mewtwo 😢

Great vid, I started playing in late 2016 and can’t remember when I stopped playing, then I picked it up again in lockdown and played for a solid 2 and a half years before stopping in January 2023, I don’t really see myself playing it again but I enjoyed it so much

I started playing Pokémon Go with my son the end of 2019. I remember receiving my first raid ticket for Regigigas. I met up with raiders in person and it was awesome. I got invited to the local Facebook group for raids and that was how I know my local community. When the pandemic hit, remote raids changed the game. I used to raid a ton, it was a chance to finally get that hundo legendary. I took a break in mid 2022. When I came back about a little over a month ago, the momentum for raiding has never been the same. The price of remote raiding is crazy, and now the limits put on it mean that the chance of catching that hundo legendary are slim to none. Niantic shot themselves in the greedy foot with that. With inflation hitting hard, they should have kept the prices the same. I still love Pokémon go, but it’s just not the same.

I can feel a career switch coming here

After the remote raids nerf I tried to adapt to the new play style, started to do lots of in-person raids with the green passes that I've got and never used before (While heavily relying on remote invites), and less than two months later I have lost all of the interest I once had in this game. It's been at least a week since I last did a raid and now I even forget to open the app for the daily catch and spin streak. Even shadow Mewtwo didn't ignite that spark back. It's a matter of days before I uninstall this game and move on with my life entirely. What a shame that Niantic is so determined to fly this plane into the ground.

Forgot to mention that when shiny Heracross was debuted , a regional to Florida, they removed all wild spawns and locked them behind raids for players that natively had Heracross spawns. You covered a lot of mess ups but there are so many little things like that that have worn down players like me. Honestly if they just give us back normal remote raids with no cap, and give us back our 30 sec-1min spawn incense id be happy, as i cant leave the house often. When they got rid of incense effectiveness and the backlash came, they band aid it with 1 hour incense (instead of the normal 30 min incense) with crappy effectiveness. like great.... i get what, 3 more spawns maybe? I've been so annoyed and disgusted with Niantic ever since 2021. 2018-2020 were def the highlights and i miss it so much honestly.

In person raiding was my absolute favorite part of the game. Remote raid passes KILLED it😢.

This is a fantastic video breaking down the highs and lows of PokeGo. I played on Day 1 and still have it on my phone, but haven’t really picked it back up because of these reasons. However, I appreciate you, Trainer Tips, and Brandon Tan for your content. Makes me want to play!

Basically stopped playing after the remote raid price increase. I have no passion for the game now. To be honest though, it’s nice, I forgot what the world actually looked like as I’ve been walking around for years with my head in a screen

Absolutely awesome well detailed video, this game has been through a lot of ups and downs, 2016 times was an absolutely great time to be alive but the game still a vibe

Great video. I only played it for a few months in the infamous 2016 summer rush, only to quit after feeling like the progression was too slow and unrewarding. Very interesting to see how it's progressed since I left it, though I still have very little appetite to try it out again.

This was a great video. It was fun looking back at the game.

Can we just appreciate how much work he put into this video? I see you my guy🌟

A lot of work went into this video, and I really enjoyed it. Thanks

Thank you so much for all videos you made. You are one of my absolutely best youtubers ever. :) Jsi borec. Mám moc rád tvoji tvorbu.

Long video but extremely well put together. Great video Mystic.

The game is now an afterthought for most of us. I am still holding on in hopes that things will change. I'm really heading to uninstalling it and taking a vacation from it. Don't want to delete it in-game because it might get better, I can hope.

Recently there was a 4x xp and Dust event, I didn't realise and only just started playing again. I was leveling so fast and getting so much dust to level up spacific Pokimon, now my xp and dust grind has slowed way down.

The only video game ever to make people touch grass

The remote raids didn't effect people going outside and playing if anything it made more people go outside and want to play more it brought more communities together more people could play and have fun and now they destroyed

I honestly feel like they want me to lose interest and I am

i had the most fun when I could spoof. It was fun exploring maps to cities around the world like in Iran, Stalingrad, Japan and seeing all the cool stops in other countries. Before a family trip I would travel to the city we were going to be in and travel around and learn where the Starbucks, grocery stores etc were and practically learn my way around before we ever got there. Made getting around easier because I wasn't so dependent on looking at my phone's navigation while driving. I work in a gym heavy area where me and my coworkers would spend raid hour raiding in person and hanging out. Didn't really burn my passes on remote raids much. Same for X raids. I have friends all over the globe and can't lucky trade with them anymore. I think niantic should take the "trainer" phrasing more seriously and make it where you can actually improve the IV's if a mon by "training" it rather than just changing it's attack. The more you use it in raids, pvp, fighting team rocket etc could boost the mon's appraisal over time.

Great overview and completely spot on. My playing has tempered off immensely thanks to the revert from the pandemic changes (I really got into it then) and the lack of any major changes to the way the game plays. It just hasn't evolved enough to remain interesting and they have increasingly locked new features behind paywalls or players and needing to party up with friends to do anything. I am a solo player and don't have a group to play because nobody else I know wants to play the game anymore. I still play it every so often mostly just a catch a day to keep my streak going or shiny check but I don't really want to bother with the events because they aren't even worth it anymore to spend the time doing it, which they made shorter recently too. Just a lot of bad parts of the game (revert of pandemic changes, lackluster events, having to rely on having a group to be able to do 5 star raids because there's hardly any people there doing them like they used to, bad spawns, shiny rates, the same 7km egg pool, remote raid nerfing, etc.) and a lack of game growth has made the game treading water. I'd love to get back into it, but I can't see it happening with the game as constructed. The novelty may have finally worn off for me and I spent hours every day on it for years. It actually felt nice to go out to a new city and not be worried about regionals or getting Pokestops or gyms. I love the game and appreciate what all they put into it, but the excitement isn't really there for me anymore. Surprised it took 7 years for it to start to feel this way, pretty impressive honestly. I thought it would have come and go after a year or two at most.

this was very well done. great breakdown of its history, the highs and lows, and the choices that led the game there

I am disabled, and I bloody love Pokemon, including Pokémon go. So the remote raid removal struck me hard. Some days I can’t leave the house and I still want to play. :/

I hate the fact that sitting in city centre rewards you more then a walk in forest and touching grass. They couldn't make it worse ..

Playing just feels too much like a chore now, I don’t always have the time or ability to link up with people for in person events. If they wanted us to get out and actually do more they should incentivize it by giving out more free daily raid passes or by expanding the distance you can join raids.

Pokémon Go should hear the community and make the game better

Great overview of Pokemon Go! I am one of those on-again; off-again players, so it was interesting to see the history of the ups and downs.

I do remember playing Pokémon Go as I do remember enjoying it. I wasn't always on Pokémon Go but I did enjoy it. I think maybe I started playing it around 2017 on the Samsung Galaxy on one of the A series. It wasn't bad and I do remember picking Charmander out of the three, and I didn't attempted to do the Pikachu Easter Egg to get him as the starter either. It was something that I did enjoy a lot, but I didn't always play it everyday. What I found was great when I was going on long walks was that Pokémon Go did lead me to find great places that I didn't know existed locally, it was great to discover new places that I might of not explored without Pokémon Go as I don't think I would of found those on Google Maps myself. I was well impressed with that. I did get the odd legendary Pokémon and mostly got quite a lot of Pokémon. It was fun taking control and taking over the GYMs for the Red Team. During the Pandemic, I was still using Pokémon Go as I lived close to a couple of GYMs as well as going out at midnight when it was quiet outside with less people out. It gave me a reason to go outside as well as to walk out and about. The pandemic thought did make me think that it was coming to the end of the world. After the pandemic, I just stopped playing Pokémon Go as I just got busy to focus with my college work to understand what I wanted to do in creative media and discovered that animation was that for me, to study it and to learn how to animate, which took me 1 year and a half to understand it. The pandemic was the worst how most of those year was made. Though now that the pandemic has now gone by middle 2022, I stopped playing Pokémon Go. The only time I've used it recently was to transfer the generation 1 to generation 4 Pokémon onto Brilliant Diamond, that's exclusive to Shining Pearl, as well as the rest that was possible to transfer onto Pokémon Sword. I did also transfer my own shiny few Pokémon onto Pokémon Home too as I don't see myself really returning to Pokémon Go again as I had my fun with it.

Beyond frustrated today. Spent all weekend using Campfire and Discord trying to find groups to do Mewtwo raids with. Only was able to get a group for 1 raid. One. For the entire weekend. I live in the suburbs of the capital city of my state, so it is not a small town. But at the places with the most gyms, where players were most likely to go, there was only one raid every 2 to 3 hrs. They should have cluster scheduled raids to encourage people to go to these places. Nobody went to our park that is recommended by PoGo as the best place to play in the city. We are going out. We are trying. And that's still not good enough for Niantic.

Pokemon Go is over. Thanks Niantic, you ruined one of the best games in history.

Thanks for speaking in behalf of the community! All the points you raised are spot on.

My issue with the game is that it drains a phones battery really quickly, you really need a battery bank to play for multiple hours. And another factor early on was when they banned radar apps that helped me know exactly where are the rare Pokémons

To me it is absolutely insane that they continue to push the narrative of wanting people outside. WHO CARES????? Games are for the user to enjoy and the developer to provide. How we play it should be up to us. If I choose to sit at home and play it then it should be my decision. Has everyone forgotten that there are no leaderboards or prizes??? What I have in my dex is of little importance to anyone but myself. To put all these restrictions and limitations doesn't make any sense until you remember the fact that Niantic gets sponsorship from local business when they drive foot traffic to that business and then it all makes sense. This is why they force all this stupid stuff onto the game. Fact of the matter is they say its about getting out just to hide the real reason and where they make a big if not the biggest chunk of their cash.

Aw man . I’ve just started grinding again more frequently after being super casual over the past 7 years lol . Hope it doesn’t fall off completely I’m loving shiny hunting lol

2021 was truly a fun year, my brother and I were hooked and i was so happy to catch a shiny Lugia, the game is still being played by many but i still wish there were more players :,)

I remember playing first time in 2016 i think i was like 11-12 back then. Such good memories spending so much time on summer vacation searching pokemons with friends and the raids, it was cool to see like 20-30 ppl on the same raid old and young ppl

This was a great breakdown. It is well informed and touches on so much of what happened to Pokemon go. I do wish he would have put his foot down a little hard about what might happen in the future. Niantic is about to kill this game and I'm not sure they care. Soon people will refer to Pokemon go like they do to Raid shadow legends. It will instill a feeling of body cringe at how much you loved something that abused you and your wallet

My only blessing after the changes is that i was was able to find my shiny legendaries by normal raids rather fast. I entered a "no money for niantic" since the nerf of the remote raids simply because i was frustrated. My main hobby when i came back from work during covid was popping an incense and watching some TV and when they removed it my experience got way worse. after the nerf of the remote raids, i simply never bothered again!