Niantic seems to be looking to experiment with a new type of event in their mobile Pokemon Go game this weekend as they have announced a special paid event called A Colossal Discovery. The details have been shared online as it will be a Special Research Tasks to gain early access to the Legendary Pokemon, Regigigas! After the event, Regigigas will be an exclusive Pokemon to the EX Raid battles for a period of time. What is significantly different about this event is that players will need to buy a special access pass costing $7.99 in the United States to gain access to the Special Research Task.
The event will start at 2pm on November 2nd but will be able to be completed anytime after it starts. However, some of the tasks needed to be completed will change after the event on Saturday as it will also be tied to the returned of the “Regi” family of Legendary Pokemon Regirock, Regice, and Register. They will be available in Raid battles over the weekend and will also be available in their Shiny form if you are lucky to encounter one after a Raid battle. It is likely that the Raid battles will be part of the Special Research tasks as Niantic promises unique experiences when completing the tasks.
In addition to the exclusive early access to Regigigas, a number of additional items will be given to the players that purchase the event. Up to 10 free raid passes will be given which will help with any of the Raids that may needed to be completed during the event. They also mentioned that Sinnoh and Unova stones will be provided to participants. This bring value to the cost of the access although they will not allow it to be paid with any PokeCoins in player’s accounts as it will need to be purchased via the apps instead. This is unfortunate for the players playing for free which continues to be more challenging for players considering the restrictions of resources to those who do not expand their storage capacities for example. Lastly, new avatar poses will be available as well.
I am still divided on the event as paying that amount seems onerous for something that will eventually be free in the future. However, since I have not been able to Raid much which has not provided me a chance to get a EX Raid pass, it may be a good way to secure me eventually a Regigigas to complete my Pokedex. While it seems that players will be provided commensurate value, I am worried that it will lead to similar “paying up like” events in the future which would not be exciting in the short time. It will be interesting to see how much of the community will be participating given the costs and what I believe is not a very impressive Pokemon for our Collections!
Thanks!