After the long pandemic restrictions, players should play outside again, not from the couch. The attempt to move the trainers back outside and thus strengthen the “Go” part of PoGo’s game philosophy was discussed long and hard on Niantic’s part, but met with some resistance. That’s why they seem to be using a different tactic now, and that is to generate popular features so blatantly over time that no one wants them anymore. Conversely, it should then also meet little resistance from the community if they are then abolished, right? Such a procedure seems to be carried out at least currently with the event box in Pokémon Go, after the long-distance Raid Passes had also been affected by it. But first …

From Pokémon Couch back to Pokémon Go

First of all, pandemic bonuses that had become dear to us were to be removed without replacement. One of the first adjustments to go was the doubled interaction radius of PokéStops, which had been raised from 40 meters to 80 meters due to Corona restrictions. There was a tough struggle between the community and Niantic, because no one from the players wanted to see what advantage they would have if the interaction radius had been reduced again.

There was no such advantage either. The Pokémon Go people couldn’t convincingly argue their case, and that’s why it stayed the way it is: The interaction radius remained at 80 meters. Nice side effect: Pokémon Go fans were convinced that the developers actually took their concerns and worries seriously. But … did they feel safe and end up being wrong?

The smoke and its function

Next point of contention at the beginning of March 2022 was the consumable smoke and the again cancelled increased effectiveness if you did not move. If smoke attracted Pokémon every 30 seconds on average, the time window was increased again to five minutes. A small beauty correction to the smoke duration to 90 minutes instead of just 60 minutes couldn’t hide the fact that those among the players who preferred to stay home took a glaring nerf. Coaches around the world lamented this toning down of the smoke, but nothing happened. Niantic remained firm and remains so to this day.

The question arises whether the issue was discussed in the community council that Niantic had set up – probably not. Because an effective use of this council consisting of well-known influencers of the Pokémon Go community was known only once since its creation, namely in the PokéStop customization and that was in the fall of 2021.

The number of remote raid passes

The people from Niantic have emphasized that a Pandemic era feature would not be cancellednamely the long-distance raids. However, and now I come to the theory that on the part of the developers the tactic of “nerfing to death” is driven, the price for the Remote Raid Pass Bundle has been raised from 250 Poké Coins to 300.. In other words, the bundle now no longer offers any savings over buying the Remote Raid Passes individually. At the same time, the free weekly Remote Raid Pass has been removed from the above-mentioned event box. This means that you will have to dig into your pocket if you want to play remote raids.

And that brings us to the event box itself

The developers of Pokémon Go may not want to eliminate long-distance Raids. But they do seem to want to make them unattractive by raising the price of them and, in the same breath, talking about making on-site raids more rewarding. It’s only a matter of time before long-distance raid combat bonuses are eliminated without replacement. It seems like features that are positively rated by the community should be made uncompromisingly unattractive – then the removal of the features wouldn’t be a big deal, would it?

The event box started with the removal of the long-distance raid pass in the penultimate week of May with three super brood machines. Below are the contents of the event box since the passes were dropped.

• Fourth week of May: 3 x super incubator
• Fifth week of May: 20 x Pokéball, 10 x Superball, 5 x Sanana Berry, 3 x Growlsp
• First week of June: 15 x Pokéball, 15 x Superball, 10 x Hyperball, 2 x Premium Battle Pass
• Second week of June: 15 x Pokéball, 15 x Superball, 10 x Hyperball, 2 x Premium Battle Pass.
• Third week of June: 20 x Himmihbeere, 10 x Nanabbeere, 10 x Sananabeere, 2 x Knursp
• Fourth week of June: 10 x Hyperball, 5 x Hyper Potion, 1 x Charge TM
• First week of July: 1 x instant TM, 1 x growl sp

See what other fans of Pokémon Go are seeing? Over time, the contents of the event box became less and less attractive. In the fifth week of May, there were three Knursp, currently, in the first week of July, there was just one. Wow, that escalated quickly. It’s no wonder that trainers believe that Pokémon Go will soon no longer offer an Event Box at all – because with such unattractive content, no player will strike.