Earlier this week, fans received difficult news about Pokemon Go being sold to Scopely, a company with a monetization-heavy reputation. With some players already planning to transfer their best Pokemon from Pokemon Go to Pokemon Home, others are waiting to see what happens next for the popular mobile app. Unfortunately, a recent leak suggests that fan fears about increased monetization and pay-to-win features in Pokemon Go may not be unfounded. Newly mined data suggests that the Pokemon Go team might be working on a feature to let players improve individual stats for their Pokemon. And a feature like that isn’t likely to come without a cost.
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Over the years, Pokemon Go has continued to add new, paid features. Many fans have complained about the various event tickets and bonuses locked behind paywalls by Niantic. And yet, the game’s core functions like catching Pokemon, spinning PokeStops, and battling in Gyms and PvP, have remained pretty accessible for free-to-play users. Though rare and Shiny Pokemon are increasingly showing up behind paywalled tickets, those paid options rarely promise anything in terms of IVs. The data found by @thepokemod group, however, suggests that may be about to change.
The leaked code shows that Pokemon Go may be working on a feature to increase individual stats. While players can currently use candies to increase a Pokemon’s CP, individual stats can’t be adjusted at will. Adding this would give players the ability to take their favorite catches and turn them into battle powerhouses, even if they have bad stats at first. For those who know the pain of catching a great Shiny only to realize it’s a Nundo, that might initially feel like good news. However, fans smell a new wave of monetization coming, one that will give paid players a distinct PvP advantage.
Pokemon Go Individual Stats Boost Would Likely Be Paywalled
Some fans are cautiously optimistic about a feature like this, noting that they’d love to turn their pretty good Shiny Pokemon into Shundos. However, players fear that adding this will mean devaluing Pokemon stats in the wild. To force gamers to spend money to improve stats, will wild three-star Pokemon be a thing of the past? If implemented well, however, players would welcome the ability to improve their favorite Pokemon to take into battle. Those on the more positive side of things are hoping for a freemium model, where trainers can pay to get the stat increase items more quickly, but free-to-play Pokemon Go fans can grind to get them in other ways. But many more fear this could be the game’s most highly monetized feature yet.
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With this info being revealed just after the Scopely deal was announced, many players see this as the inevitable first step in the new owner’s plans to make more money from Pokemon Go. Some are even ready to be generous to formerly maligned owner Niantic, saying that the freemium model probably would’ve been the way under the old regime. As for Scopely? Marvel Strike Force fans have little faith that a stat increase feature in Scopely’s Pokemon Go will be anything but entirely behind a paywall. And if so, it will mean players can spend money to get stronger Pokemon, which they can use in battle – the true definition of “pay to win.”
That said, despite how the timing feels for fans, it’s likely that this leaked feature has been in development for quite some time. Whether or not Scopely was aware of these plans or will make changes to them, the idea for stat increases has likely been in development since before the deal went public. After all, main series Pokemon games like Pokemon Scarlet & Violet have offered single-stat increase items before, so it’s not an unheard of mechanic for the franchise.
For now, we don’t have any specifics or confirmed details about what this code could mean for Pokemon Go or when it might be released in-game. It’s not unusual for code like this to show up long before any related features go live, so trainers might be wondering about this one for a while.
Would you want to increase your Pokemon stats in Pokemon Go, if you could? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
