Niantic Talks Pokemon Go Community Day Classic, Potential Pikmin Bloom Crossover, and More
Niantic has combined the Pokemon Go Community Day schedule with tomorrow’s Bulbasaur-themed Community Day Classic, the first of its kind to reward the community event a week after the January 16 Spheal event.
While we love the idea of an additional community day – and we love Bulbasaur – this new initiative does raise some questions. We sat down with live game director Michael Steranka, who shed some light on the strategy behind the extra event and whether we’ll see more in the future.
Bulbasaur was the star of the first Community Day Classic.
Big head dragon!
The first question we had was simple: why was Bulbasaur the best choice for the inaugural Community Day Classic? Aside from our insistence that it’s because Bulbasaur is the best — which Steranka says is “controversial” — the first Pokemon in Pokedex is a logical choice for a number of reasons.
“Bulbasaur is one of the Pokemon we debuted at Community Day,” Steranka explained, “and is also a very relevant Pokemon in PvP. Also, there’s a great themed element in Pokedex, he’s actually It’s number 001. So we thought, let’s start with him and see where we go from there.”
The Community Day Classic event will also reward efficient Crazy Plant moves to any Ivy who evolves into Venus during the event. While other community day events for Pokemon Returns have introduced new initiatives—for example, Ibrahimovic’s second community day, and Ibrahimovic knows the last resort—it’s a conscious decision to keep Crazy Plants in Venus here.
“We’re introducing brand new moves for the Pokemon that were re-shown in the early Community Day events, but we’ve received a lot of feedback from players wanting to use the original super-powerful moves – Crazy Plants, Explosive Burns, Water Cannons, etc. – and we want to Respect that.”
🌱 It starts with #001.
Get back to the roots of Community Day in Heritage Season! As a special treat, we’re hosting a Community Day Classic and bringing back a favorite: 🍃 Big Head Dragon! 🍃
📝 Read more here: https://t.co/cCg71zui4t pic.twitter.com/73KKXpqmvP
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) January 4, 2022
Community Day Classic Experiment
The origins of “Classic” Community Day started with the simple fact that the game was nearly six years old, and there was a large group of players who might have missed out on older versions of Pokemon. “It really boils down to a lot of the Pokemon we’ve launched in previous years that haven’t been in rotation for a while,” Steranka explained. “We see millions of people getting into the game every year, but they miss out. We want to make sure everyone has access to these Pokemon.”
Still, holding a second Community Day only six days after the previous one can lead to burnout or fatigue with the game. Steranka absolutely understands this – he himself played all six hours of last weekend’s Spheal Community Day – and admits the team understands it too. “I absolutely sympathize with those who may be exhausted by this event coming so quickly,” he said. “But yeah, it’s definitely something we’ll consider.”
For those who might be concerned that we’re inundated with Community Days every week, this weekend’s Community Day Classic is essentially a trial run, and player feedback will be key to its future. He explained that player perceptions of the event will be key to its future, and as of now, the team has not committed to making it a permanent part of the Pokemon Go experience.
“We’re always looking for player feedback to guide us into the future of the product, so we don’t want to overpromise and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have these classic community days every month,'” Starenka said. “Maybe we’ll do it every three months, or maybe 1-2 times a year, or players will hate this and we’ll say, ‘That was a good trial run, but we don’t need to do it again.'”
Another Nintendo mobile project by Niantic, Pikmin Bloom, also held a Community Day on January 22nd.
Pokemon and Pikmin
The upcoming Community Day Classic shares a day with another Community Day from Niantic: the 10,000-step event for the recent mobile game Pikmin Bloom. Are these two events deliberately planned to take place at the same time? Steranka says no, but the two games do work well together.
“We do a lot of what we call ‘air traffic control’ with a lot of teams at Niantic,” Strenka explained. “I think there are some games where Community Days don’t overlap so naturally. In this case, we don’t want players to have to decide which game they’re playing.” Luckily, Pikmin Bloom played really well on Community Day with Pokemon Go gets along just fine. With our Adventure Sync, you can stay active in Pokemon Go while getting the kilometers you need in Pikmin Bloom. “
When we asked if there were any future plans for “cross-pollination” between Go and Bloom — because Pikachu in a Pikmin hat sounds great — Steranka told us not to get too excited. “As of now,” he revealed, “it’s not something we’re currently exploring.”
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