Even if it's not Scopley, It's obvious that Niantic is getting ready to sell.

[u/PhDExtreme]

Sorry for any formatting/grammar mistakes, I'm currently on mobile.

I've been a long time F/P2P gamer for a lot of different IPs. Most notably RuneScape. The people over at /r/2007scape know this all too well, we are actually getting ready to change ownership AGAIN 😢.

Whenever a company is in talks with potential investors/buyers, they make the product a lot more enticing by estimating the revenue that the game can bring in. RuneScape is known to add more microtransaction in RS3 and raise membership prices right before another sale. Have you noticed anything similar happening in Pokemon Go?

Yep, the recently announced schedule for the new season... In which EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND has a paid ticket event. And multiple weekends in which we have a community day followed by a raid/max day 😵‍💫.

Saturday, March 8, 2025 (Community Day)
Saturday and Sunday, March 8–9, 2025 (Max Battle Weekend)

Sunday, March 16, 2025 (Catch Mastery)

Saturday, March 22, 2025 (Community Day Classic)
Sunday, March 23, 2025 (Raid Day)

Saturday, March 29, 2025 (Research Day)

Saturday, April 5, 2025 (Raid Day)
Sunday, April 6, 2025 (Hatch Day)

Sunday, April 13, 2025 (Raid Day)

Saturday, April 19, 2025 (Max Battle Day)

Sunday, April 27, 2025 (Community Day)

Saturday, May 3, 2025 (Raid Day)

Sunday, May 11, 2025 (Community Day)

Saturday, May 17, 2025 (Shadow Raid Day)

Saturday, May 24, 2025 (Community Day Classic)
Sunday, May 25, 2025 (Max Battle Day)

The 3.5B is probably an ask that needs data. I can see the sale going through at the end of May, which also coincides with the end of Q2. They'll get half a year of revenue estimates with the inclusion of Go Fest and all these paid tickets (including the new battle pass).

Niantic is in a perfect position to have their cake and eat it too. All this time Niantic was building their AR map. Pokemon Go was just a means to that end. They've probably realized that the amount of money going into development was not worth the effort.

Right now on their site you can buy their services. If you wanted to make a pokemon go clone, you can do that... For a price.

https://www.nianticspatial.com/

When this sale goes through, Niantic can charge the new owners to continue using Niantic maps. What are the new owners going to do? Switch? They can't. There is no alternative. So not only does Niantic get a part of the 3.5b from the sale, they also get money from the monthly usage of their services.

Fucking G move. But also like... Damn...

Not saying we should protest and not buy any tickets, do what you want with your money. But if a sale does go through, be prepared to be the product (more so than we already are). We are going to get milked until the buyer gets their money back and then milked some more so they can sell. Pokemon Go is on the path to becoming a financial investment for companies instead of a video game.

God speed, gotta catch this Yveltal Hundo before I get an ad roll mid catch.

[u/JULTAR]

People in here talking about how the game is gonna become pay2win due to power creep thanks to Scopley 

When really that was unavoidable even if the game never changes hands 

Those who are not convinced let me introduce you to fluttermane/roaring moon and garchomp somehow being UU of all things while terrakion chills in NU despite them both being tier destroying threats in their prime 

[u/PhDExtreme → u/JULTAR]

It's about quality and that comes with the commitment to supporting a game. With a game only having ONE owner, the owner is responsible for financial growth and the happiness of the player. There's always room for a middle ground. The players can protest, go on social media, make SOME difference. If it's keeps changing owners, no company is going to care enough. They'll make the minimum amount of changes, milk their player base just enough to make the product viable for a sale.

[u/JULTAR → u/PhDExtreme]

What are you honestly expecting different by this point 

Some pokemon will be raid exclusive? , we already know this and have this and that includes the legendaries 

Their is nothing that can and will be changed by this point 

[u/TreGet234 → u/JULTAR]

Master league is pay to win anyways. No way can a f2p player get a meta squad of maxed out legendary/shadow pokemon.

[u/samfun → u/TreGet234]

First 2 or 3 years for sure, but ever since we got guaranteed 3xl from in person raids it's not even too crazy to get 296xl in one rotation f2p

[u/zhurrick → u/samfun]

Literally impossible.

Even if you’re getting 8 XL per raid (3x guaranteed and 5x from catch, usually you get less though) it would take 37 raids to max something out. That’s 19 days of raiding twice per day, when rotations usually last a week.

[u/Chaotic-Catastrophe → u/zhurrick]

Except you can raid more than twice per day. Save up your gym coins, buy bundles of discounted raid passes, easy peasy.

[u/zhurrick → u/Chaotic-Catastrophe]

Lol, easy, sure. Saving up for weeks/months to get passes for another 10-20 more raids in the cycle to reach full investment is a breeze.

[u/Chaotic-Catastrophe → u/zhurrick]

Well considering I've done it a bunch of times, yes, it's actually extremely easy. I currently have 34 green passes in my inventory, and I didn't pay for a single one with real American currency.

[u/Oofpeople → u/zhurrick]

I already got 130 dialga xls when it was available this Jan. F2P. Another raid rotation and I can complete 296.

[u/zhurrick → u/Oofpeople]

And that would be more than one raid rotation…

[u/Oofpeople → u/zhurrick]

Touché. But still. It is doable.

[u/Jjustincredible3 → u/TreGet234]

I had no problem maxing 3 legendaries as a f2p player

[u/dark__tyranitar → u/TreGet234]

Not with that attitude lol. It can be done my friend, but you need to walk, a lot.

[u/JULTAR → u/TreGet234]

Some of the easy to get Pokémon are pretty good in pvp Tbf 

Primarina/dragonite/rhypiriour/metagross e.g 

[u/Chaotic-Catastrophe → u/TreGet234]

F2P since 2020, I have like two dozen maxed out legendaries by now. And then like another two dozen other mons maxed out for Master that aren't legendary.

Dragonite, Metagross, Mamoswine, Garchomp, Togekiss, Sylveon, Rhyperior, shadow Rhyperior, Hydreigon, Haxorus, Goodra, Avalugg, shadow Tyranitar, Gyarados, shadow Gyarados, Annihilape, Excadrill, Magnezone, Chandelure, Primarina, Gardevoir, shadow Machamp

Damn that's only 22, sorry it's not actually two dozen

[u/Chaotic-Catastrophe → u/JULTAR]

Garchomp even got moved to Ubers in Gen 4 lol

[u/SlowResearch2 → u/JULTAR]

It basically already is pay to win if you look at special dex completion and GBL

[u/omgFWTbear → u/JULTAR]

unavoidable

Pikachu - to pika a random, not particularly amazing pokemon from alllllllll the way back in gen 1 - evolves to Raichu, and is ~66% the strength of the current best electric attacker (shadow Raikou, according to DialgaDex). That’s nine years of power creep, and you’d still be useful in a group of what, 6 (out of 20 possible) similar trainers, able to engage with top tier content?

To say nothing of someone just trading you a random spare Zekrom or whatever and being able to power it up with completely fungible rare candies.

No, take MSF for what power creep is: next year, a new raid tier will unlock (every year, or 1.5 years) and if your pokemon is older than a year in terms of release date, it either stats-wise won’t be useful, or once they boil the frog a bit more, it’ll be mechanically unable to be used (so think dynamax, but just making up new letters every year - this year it’s eynamax! Next year fynamax! Etc etc). Sure, TPC will probably prevent that brand confusion so it’ll be framed differently, but it’ll function the same - if you didn’t pay for Pokemon this year, you aren’t playing the same game other people are.

I wouldn’t put it past them to make Pokemon under 1 year old untradable.