Pokemon Go and What Could Have Been So Much More

Since we are coming up upon the 1 year anniversary of Pokemon Go, I thought it was appropriate to talk about the success and also failure that was Pokemon Go.

When Pokemon Go was released, it say it was a success is putting it lightly. I've never seen so many people playing a game before in my life. It was an absolutely amazing experience that I will never forget. The sheer amount of people out and about as a result of the game was nothing but extraordinary. The gym I used to go to was part of a larger park and I swear there were nearly 200 people in it at any given time of day during the first 2 weeks upon release. Kids, teenagers, and adults were all playing and working together to capture Pokemon and take over Gyms.

My most memorable moment from the game was seeing a kid run over to a group of people screaming "THERE'S A DRATINI OVER HERE, COME QUICK!", sparking a group of 50 kids, teens and adults (including myself of course) into a mad sprint to where the kid was beckoning, It was truly a sight to behold.

The implications of how such a phenomenon came about is extremely interesting to me as a psychology student, but that is a completely different topic than what I want to discuss today. I am here to discuss the shortcomings of Pokemon Go, and how it left us wanting so much more.


The main problem Pokemon Go faced is that it is simply a shallow game. There were way too many features lacking in the game upon release that there was nearly no incentive to play. The mechanics of the game were so poorly designed that it's astonishing that the developers, Niantic, thought it was a good idea to go ahead with it. I understand the want to release the game during Summer, but if the game is that incomplete, Niantic should have just delayed the game instead.

My strongest Pokemon.

While there are countless problems and issues with the game, it mainly boils down to Niantic straying away from the mechanics that makes Pokemon fun. For some reason, Niantic thought it would be a good idea to change several core features of Pokemon and believed everyone would be perfectly fine with it. Primarily the combat system, and leveling system.

Instead of gaining experience through battles and gaining levels, Pokemon "Power Up" by spending Stardust and Candy's that you gain throughout play. The level your character is determines the maximum Combat Power (CP) that a Pokemon could reach. CP determines the amount of health and damage that a Pokemon could output during combat. This means that the Pokemon you found while you were a low level had virtually no use since it would only reach a maximum of ~150 CP, whereas the highest CP possible is roughly 4760 CP. The only use for low CP Pokemon is to "transfer" them to professor in exchange for Candy, which are then used to "Power Up" and evolve your Pokemon.

Due to this system, there is almost no point in keeping Pokemon that you have found as you will always be on the lookout for a stronger version. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, this completely goes against how Pokemon video games traditionally work. For example, in Pokemon Red, if you picked Charmander as your starter, you could keep it the entire game and it would increase in power as it gained levels. Whereas in Pokemon Go, your starter Pokemon was essentially worthless as it was too weak to fight in Gyms. The only use for it was transferring it for Candy (good luck finding starter Pokemon in the wild though).

The thing that people liked so much about Pokemon is having the ability to create a well balanced team of Pokemon that you liked using and leveling them up. Naming your Pokemon and seeing gain new abilities and evolve over the course of the game allowed for players to form connections with their favorite Pokemon and create their own stories. However, with the system that Niantic implemented, this is not possible in Pokemon Go. This is just absolutely bewildering to me that they thought this would be a good idea, and the fans made their concerns loud and clear.

In-game shot of a battle. I don't think I ever successfully dodged an attack.

Possibly the worst offense that Niantic made with Pokemon Go was the changes to the combat system. The complex, tactical turn based combat Pokemon is known for was changed into what felt like a spamfest. In normal Pokemon games, each Pokemon has four different abilities you could choose to use allowing for strategy and tactical combat. However, in Pokemon Go, combat is real-time and you attack via tapping on the screen. Additionally you could tap and hold for a "Special Attack" as well as swipe left or right to dodge attacks. Eventually, it was found that just tapping the screen as fast as possible was the "best" way to win a fight. The worst part was that combat was so laggy that sometimes none of your attacks would register and you would lose the fight without damaging the other Pokemon. And to top it all off, you couldn't even battle your friends, you could only battle at Gyms.

After discovering how combat functioned, myself and many others had no desire to continue battling and focused on capturing and evolving Pokemon. It's a shame that this core aspect of the game was also poorly done.

Pokemon pretty much only spawned in highly populated areas, and especially the closer you got to a Pokestop. If you live in a rural area, the likelihood of you finding any Pokemon (other than Pidgeys) is extremely low. Seeing as how this game is mainly marketed towards children, it seems unfair to "punish" people who don't live in a city, or near a popular park.

I wish I lived near this many Pokestops...

Now you might be asking to yourself, if this game is so bad, how did it become so popular?! Well, that's because its Pokemon. I would be very surprised to find someone who has never heard of Pokemon nor Pikachu before in this day and age. I would say it is safe to assume that Pikachu is one of the most recognizable characters in the world today.

Despite all my bashing, I had a great time playing the game for those initial few weeks. There were a lot of things that Pokemon Go did right, but not nearly enough to overlook its faults While Pokemon Go was not the first AR game, it was definitely what made the industry, and the world realize its massive potential. While I do not know the intricacies of software development, the systems behind the implementation of how GPS tracking determined where Pokemon spawned was extremely innovative to someone looking from the outside. Most importantly was how the game not only garnered a massive audience, but how it spawned countless stories of people's lives changing for the better.

Since the game required you to go out in public to catch Pokemon, thousands of people were out and about walking around getting exercise. I cannot even count the number of Reddit posts talking about "How Pokemon Go gave me the motivation to exercise", or "How Pokemon Go helped me conquer my social anxiety". It is truly incredible the motivational power that video games can elicit in people and change their lives for the better. Are these people permanently changed? Maybe not, but it helped, and at the end of the day, that's a lot more than most games can do for people.

It's just disappointing that the game wasn't better designed. Instead of being a massive hit for 2-3 weeks, it could have been a massive hit for months or even years. I had such high hopes for this game, but like many games, it ended in a let down.

I can only hope that some other developer is working on a new AR game that capitalizes on this untapped market, I'm looking at you Digimon, don't screw this one up...