Pokémon GO is feeling like a monthly subscription, let’s talk about it

There are often paid tickets for research during events in Pokémon GO. These tickets unlock exclusive rewards such as avatar clothing, poses, XP and Stardust. Let’s take a quick look at the tickets made available through 2023…

The above table excludes the GO Fest, Hoenn Tour and City Safari tickets. Towards the end of the year, it felt that every event had something locked behind a paid ticket, and these add up very quickly.

Are event tickets on the rise?

Every month during the season of Timeless Travels, there has been access to a $5 Eggs-pedition Access ticket. Eggs-pedition Access includes Timed Research opportunities and bountiful bonuses that supply Trainers with Incubators, Gift storage, and extra XP. Each month’s Eggs-pedition Access provides new Timed Research that unlocks at the start of the month. A monthly payment to have access to basic gameplay bonuses such as opening or holding more gifts feels very much like a beta subscription model. 

The first time we saw something like this was in October 2023, with the Ticket of Treats. This ticket granted spooky Halloween themed Timed Research throughout the whole month. With the ticket, every Thursday a new Timed Research was unlocked, giving you until the end of October to complete them all.

Events feeling increasingly locked behind a paywall

Dazzling Dream Collection Challenge

During the January 2024 Dazzling Dream event, there was a collection challenge that involved hatching Pokémon. This was a 4 day-long event which required 4 different Pokémon to be hatched. These Pokémon were available from 7km eggs obtained from gifts once the event had started.

This challenge felt majorly locked behind a paywall. The average player usually only has their infinite incubator and maybe one or two other incubators. To then walk 7km each time to try to hatch the Pokémon without a guarantee of hatching the one you need, particularly when half of the event is in a work week. This event encouraged the purchase of either the Egg-spedition ticket or super incubators, for those that wanted to complete the collection challenge.

Dusk Form Lycanroc

Dusk Form Lycanroc released during the Lustrous Odyssey event. Previously caught Rockruff could not evolve into Dusk Form Lycanroc upon its debut, meaning that everyone looking for the dex entry would need to go out on a new hunt.

Field research I hear you cry, that’s free to complete! Well… the two research tasks rewarding a Rockruff (with only a chance of it being Dusk Form) were: ‘Hatch 3 eggs’ and ‘Win 2 raids’.

… yeah. In a 5-day mid-winter event (including only 2 weekend days), obtaining a Dusky Husky required the use of Premium Passes, remote raid passes, or purchasing incubators. If you were looking for the hundo or the shiny you would be sinking even more money into this cute little pooch. This event had a clear paywall issue.

Taken Treasures Paid Timed Research

Onto the Team GO Rocket Takeover of the season. Team GO Rocket are back, and this time they are armed with new Shadow Pokémon! Giovanni has captured Shadow Kyogre, Shiny Shadow Ho-Oh is in Shadow Raids, Paldean Pokémon Varoom makes their debut, and exciting new Shadow additions are coming to the game, including Shadow Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup, Snorunt and more!

Sounds good right, and what sounds even better is the new pose releasing with the event. During the Rising Shadows Event the Rising Hero pose made it’s way into the style store for 500 coins. The beauty of this is that it stayed in the store past the event, so even to this day you have the option to buy it. What’s more, you’re guaranteed to get the pose after spending 500 coins.

However, the $5 Taken Treasures event ticket grants paid timed research. The new boss pose is a completion reward for the 4th and final stage of the research. This is after having beaten no less than 30 Team GO Rocket grunts. In a town or built-up area this research could be easily completed within a day. However, there are some people without access to stops during the working week and would be solely relying on the TGR balloons to complete these tasks. It is not fair to players to pay £5 and feel rushed, or as though they might not get one of the main rewards for the research.

Upcoming Sinnoh Tour

There are two tickets available during the Road to Sinnoh event running the week before Sinnoh Tour. For US$5.00 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), you’ll be able to access event-exclusive Timed Research and other raid/egg hatching-themed bonuses.

Yes, some of these bonuses seem enticing. However, $10 worth of tickets on the week leading up to a Global event where lots of Trainers will be travelling to bigger cities for a better gameplay experience or planning to do more raids whether that be in-person or remote is a big sting.

When you look at the bonuses for these tickets it’s not even that great. Mostly it’s a little boost of XP, candy and stardust but doesn’t seem worth $10 overall. Not even to mention it’s yet again an instance of paid timed research.

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Most events nowadays seem divided between a basic ‘free’ version and a ticketed version, providing exclusive encounter opportunities and premium items (excluding community days). This dual structure makes players more hesitant to invest in raid passes when already spending considerably on ticketed events. It seems that the amount or value of tickets just seems to be increasing.

So, what is the solution?