Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: costumed pokemon, Niantic, Niantic Labs, pokemon, pokemon go

Costume Pokémon Get An Unfairly Bad Rap In Pokémon GO

If you exist as a Pokémon GO player on social media, you have undoubtedly seen complaints about Costumed Pokémon in the game. Many trainers seem to think that these hat-wearing creatures are a lazy replacement for actual change in the game and criticize Niantic accordingly for including them at all. Is that really what's going on with these fashion-forward Pokémon? Personally, I think that Costumed Pokémon get a bad rap, and I'm here to speak on their behalf.

Costumed Pokémon Don't Take Real Progress Away from Pokémon GO

If Pokémon GO was a static game, it would make sense that players harass Niantic online for releasing Shinx with a bowler hat, referring to it as top hat, and making no other changes. However, in this year alone, Niantic has overhauled the Buddy system, introduced the GO Battle League, debuted Remote Raids and Remote Raid Invites, added Mega Evolution, changed Mega Evolution in response to criticism, and has released Shinies of dozens of species. Compared to other mobile games and even compared to itself in previous years, Pokémon GO is a dynamic experience… so no, it's not exactly fair to say that taking Croagunk for a shopping spree at Lids is Niantic hiding from making changes in-game.

Collectibility Adds Versatility to Pokémon GO

Pokémon GO develops at a quicker speed than the main game series. Instead of waiting years and years between generations, Niantic has rolled out at least one generation per year since the game debuted back in 2016. It will someday catch up to the main games, meaning that there is a finite amount of content to release. Not only does adding variants like Flower Crown Buneary allow them to create a little tidbit of new content, it also gives hardcore players something to do. Pokémon GO has been mostly good at tailoring the game to players with different styles, from casual to the whales who feed hundreds of dollars into the game monthly. Introducing costumed-wearing spawns with Shiny variants may not be interesting to you, but it gives players who already have hundreds of Shinies something to focus on in the game they've loved playing for years.

Not Everything Has to Be For You

And here's the crux of it. If you look at Twitter and Reddit, you'd assume every trainer hates Costumed Pokémon. Playing in real life with a raid group may show you a different side of things. Costumed Pokémon exist for a reason: people hunt them. They're highly tradeable, coveted items that bring casual players back to the game. Some may not believe it but Twitter, in the Pokémon GO community and in basically every community, is not representative of what people believe in the real world.

Costumed Pokémon are here to stay, and I think that's a beautiful thing. Now… what's up with that Cowboy Hat Caterpie?

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