Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: Niantic, Niantic Labs, pokemon, pokemon 25, pokemon go

Should Pokémon GO Add Global Remote Trading?

Pokémon GO is meant to be a lifestyle. That's how Niantic envisions it, anyway. That wording is one of the biggest things that sticks with me from my experience watching Niantic's November 2020 press live stream when they announced the rollout of Levels 41 – 50, the addition of Seasons to Pokémon GO, and the imminent (and, we'd later find out, very slow) release of the Kalos Region. Niantic is invested in creating ways to make Pokémon GO permanent in its players' lives rather than a passing phase, and in doing so, they spent 2020 adding major, major features. It's strange as a long-time player to take a pause and realize that before 2020, none of the following existed in Pokémon GO: GO Battle League, Buddy Adventure, remote raiding, remote raid invites. Now, Niantic has begun experimenting with increasing trade range, with a current cap of 40 KM that has only appeared during select periods. In looking at the future of Pokémon GO, one thing that I believe we should — and, likely, will see — is global remote trading. Here's why.

For a long time, Niantic kept Pokémon GO on the path of the original mission: getting people out in the real world to interact with real places and make real, in-person connections with other players. 2020 shifted that mission in major ways as Niantic made the game playable remotely due to the global pandemic.

Now, Niantic's challenge of 2021 and onward as the world begins to open up again is staying true to the original vision of Pokémon GO while not pulling back on what has been seen as an expansion of what the game can do by many players.

When I think about what Niantic means about Pokémon GO being a lifestyle, I think that they're thinking about the distant future. We can tell, in a way, because of the way that events and new content has slowed down. The game is settling into a new pace, but new features continue to roll out. We just saw our Friends limit double in size and witnessed the introduction of referral codes. The game, as it has always done, expands.

We will, over time, see fewer people play Pokémon GO. It is the nature of things. The game's player base will tighten as the years pass, and then it will likely boom again, going through phases like we're seeing in the Pokémon TCG. Niantic seems prepared for that, and that's why I think that, in time, we will see the game adjust to the needs of players who aren't able to easily find people to play with in person. I believe we'll see the following in the next five years:

• Global remote trading: Those Lucky Friends you have from across the world? I'd hold onto them. Pokémon HOME already features this kind of trading, and it's something I believe, based on Niantic's mode of operation, that we'll see sooner rather than later.
• Raiding rooms: Niantic's other major game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite fixed Wizarding Challenge, their equivalent of raids, in a different way than Pokémon GO during the pandemic. Rather than creating remote ways to raid in physical locations, they added the Knight Bus: a digital room where players can see people choose a battle and then enter it. This, I believe, will be much more likely than scaling raids to a player's capabilities, as I have seen others suggest.

What about you? What do you see (or want) for the future of Pokémon GO?

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