By Kiana Lougie - POP ROC Culture Coordinator

Pokémon Go is one of the most popular mobile games in the world. Join me as we discuss its history, and how it took the whole world by storm. We will also be touching on the rise and fall of Pokémon Go and how the Pokémon Go community plans on making its post-COVID comeback. As well as my personal experiences with the game as a returning player.  

Pokémon Go made its first debut on July 6, 2016. During that summer the Pokémon Go’s player base peaked at 130 million downloads and over 45 million daily active users. It quickly become the #1 mobile game in the world. My theory as to why Pokémon Go was so popular during its launch was because a lot of people from different age groups grew up with the Pokémon franchise. The Idea of going outside and catching Pokémon has been a dream for many people since their childhood. Raids and trading brought friends and even strangers together, which started to build a community, one of the biggest appeals of the game! With the way raids are designed, you can't do it alone which forces teamwork among the community. 

As the months passed there was a big dip in the Pokémon Go player base. By the winter months there were only roughly 5 million active players (via iPhone), possibly due to the weather getting colder and not many people wanting to go outside. Other reasons for the drop in activity were due to the fact most players did everything they wanted to do with the game by the end of the year. The boom of the player base was lost due to a slow rollout of new content to keep them engaged. One of the reasons why I stopped playing was due to the lack of battles and the lack of variety compared to other Pokémon games. The lack of updates in the early games was quite disappointing for me and many others. However this didn't stop most from continuing to play and soon it became its own community, even though it fell off the top 10 charts there were still over 65 million active players. 

As the game got older Niantic, the game’s developer, kept making much needed updates and changes to the game. One of the changes included community days beginning January 20, 2018. Community days are events that happen once a month. Community days highlight a specific Pokémon with an increased spawn rate and a higher rate of getting shiny Pokémon, making community days a great way to come together with friends and capture new and exciting Pokémon! Another big improvement to the game was PvP (Player vs. Player). In the beginning people were unsure which Pokémon were the best in battle, resulting in players having to experiment for themselves which Pokémon were better than the rest. As time went on a meta was formed by the player base which showed what Pokémon were optimal to use in combat. From this the competitive PvP community was born. 

On July 22, 2019 Team GO Rocket was added, bringing a much needed PvE (Player vs Everyone) dynamic to the game. This allowed the player an outlet to practice batting without fighting other players and collecting special shadow Pokémon (abandoned Pokémon). While the main slogan has always been “Gotta catch 'em all '' the main goal of the games has been to become the champion. This makes the evolution of battling in Go very appealing to long time fans. An exciting update that arrived in August 2020 was Mega Evolutions. This temporary evolution allowed specific Pokémon to increase their combat power. In April 2022,  Mega Energy was added so you can Mega Evolve one Pokémon for free and for more bonuses you can level up your mega evolved Pokémon. Bonuses include increased Candy XL drops, XP catch bonus, and a reduced rest rate. Something that was frustrating for some players was Mega Raids which Niantic said “will be easier,” and you can even Mega evolve from raids and prep battle screens. With all these changes it assisted in keeping the player base still alive, and even got some players to return. May 2018 was when the game was played the most with a total of 147 Million players. This is partially thanks to the changes made to the game to keep everyone engaged.

In the year 2020, Pokémon Go faced another challenge with Covid-19 affecting the world. With places shutting down for safety, people couldn't go and walk around freely, like going to raids and doing community days. Niantic was prepared to make the necessary changes to keep their player base alive. For example they decided to double the radius of where people could play, that way players can play from their homes. They also implemented balloons for Team Go Rocket so that players can still battle without going to Poke stops. Remote raid passes were added so players can still participate in raids by inviting their friends from anywhere. Gift items were doubled so players can still receive needed items like pokeballs and potions. With all these changes to the game it made it so players can still play consistently. A few years into COVID-19, Community days return and are just as big. You can be a part of the fun and help the community grow. Join in the next community days on, June 25, July 17 and August 13.  

Long time player Jacob Sullivan has been playing the game since launch till present day. So I asked him, "As someone who has been playing since 2016, what kept you engaged all these years? What updates did you enjoy the best? What changes made you keep coming back?"

He stated "Pokémon Go has brought me together with many unexpected people of the years. Whether we are taking down a new Legendaries in raids or hunting rare Shinies, Pokémon Go gets me and my friends and family out to parks and landmarks to gather. The addition of Pokémon from generation one to seven, as well as their special shiny variants, gives us more to collect and has really helped keep the game alive for me while Niantic works on new features. I like Pokémon Go because it opens an avenue for people to connect and interact out in the real world that might not come up naturally otherwise." 

As someone who hasn't played since launch it was a fun experience getting back into it. There were definitely noticeable changes to the game that, in my opinion, made it better. One of the reasons I left was because I didn't like how little variance they had in their Pokémon. Only having the original 151 Pokémon in the beginning made the game feel a little empty and most of the time I ended up only catching the same three Pokémon over and over again. They later fixed this by adding more Pokémon from different generations over time. Now there are a bunch of different Pokémon to find and catch. My personal favorite Pokémon generation is Gen 4. I was so happy to find out I can finally catch all my favorite Pokémon that I originally couldn't before. This made the game feel more alive.

Another thing that they fixed that I didn't like originally is the battling system. I didn’t like when it came to battles to fight you would just click on the other Pokémon and it started to get boring fast. In later updates they added ultimate moves with more animations and movement. This wasn't a perfect fix for me personally but it was still an improvement. I haven't seen everything for myself, but returning and seeing the game improve over time was refreshing.

I'm excited to discover additional new features in the future. I encourage players who also haven't played since launch to redownload it and give it another chance. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how much the game changed since 2016.

About Kiana Lougie

I'm Kiana Lougie, Founder and Co-owner of Kiorn and Culture Coordinator for POP ROC. Ever since I was young I loved comics and cartoons. However it wasn't until high school that I found my love for anime and manga. Now mostly everything I watch or read is either anime related or anything superheroes. You can find me on Instagram @k_hawkz and you can find Kiorn on Instagram @kiorn_shop.