The Problem with Eggs and Incubators in Pokemon Go

Hatching eggs seems to be a recurring thing in Pokemon, with almost all Pokemon in existence having been hatched from what are honestly pretty large eggs. This is the same for pretty much everything except from Legendaries, which just happen to spring into reality or are made in labs. Eggs are also a thing in Pokemon Go, despite the fact that there is no breeding or anything. In fact, abandoned eggs are just given as rewards for spinning Pokestops, which, if my theory about Pokemon Go critters being brain-dead clones from the real Pokemon dimension has anything to say about it, paints a really awful picture.

But that’s beside the point. Eggs need incubator to hatch in Pokemon Go and there is a massive problem with how this works and what you get from these eggs.

I’m going to be blunt. Hatching eggs in Pokemon Go is basically gambling. It is 100% no different from getting a key in Team Fortress 2 and opening a crate and, 99% of the time, being solely disappointed in the reward. But while Pokemon Go DOES in fact give you a free incubator that can be used indefinitely, there are plenty of other issues.

The first issue is the time invested VS the very random reward. You hatch eggs by walking. You have to walk 2km, 5km, 7km or 10km to hatch one egg. This distance is halved (or rarely quartered) if an egg is incubated during a hatching event and you can purchase premium incubators for €2 each which will cut the distance down a bit more. What you can hatch from these eggs, well, it’s anyone’s guess, but you do have to walk quite a bit, especially if you only have the free incubator. Walking 10km for one Pokemon might be easy for some but very difficult for others, and it’s never very nice to do all that work and hatch a Nincada.

But that’s another issue. You have no idea what you’ll get. Sure, recently there was an “egg shake up” which changed what was in those eggs, but you don’t know what you get until it hatches.

In fact, no one even knows what the chances are for these Pokemon. Sure, groups like the Silph Road can make educated guesses based on what people report back to them, but there are no concrete numbers on the chances of hatching any Pokemon from an egg are. Even lottery tickets will give you the odds on the back of them, but Pokemon Go gives you nothing. You are gambling with every egg you hatch. And most of the time, whether you use the free incubator or buy incubators, you will get something you want.

To put it another way, I was INSANELY LUCKY to hatch two Larvitars during the December community event. I did however forget to evolve a Larvitar though because I was too busy playing Railjack. A lot of people weren’t as lucky as I was. In contrast to eggs though, doing raids was an almost guaranteed Pokemon no matter what raid you did.

Even if you spend zero money though and only use incubators given to you for free, you’re still in trouble. My sister is mostly a free player due to being poor and Irish and she has a massive problem: she has an inventory filled with mediocre 7km eggs that she has no idea what’s in them and, because she mostly gets items from opening gifts due to a lack of pokestops where she lives, she CAN’T GET RID OF THOSE 7KM EGGS.

Sister is in a constant loop of being unable to open more eggs that may contain Pokemon she wants because all she has are 7km and she has no way to delete them and get different eggs. She might not ever be able to clear her backlog until she gets to level 40 and gets 4 incubators, gets enough coins to buy an incubator for gyms (unlikely, the only gyms nearby seem to take forever to change hands) or spends actual money on the game. But even then, she will most likely get Pokemon that she will delete instantly because the 7km pool is filled with Pokemon she doesn’t want.

The problem with eggs is that you can’t walk them fast enough to get rid of them, you can’t delete them aside from walking them and, if you want to get new eggs, you HAVE to buy incubators to clear out eggs you already have, only to get insanely random and unknown chances at maybe getting the Pokemon you want.

It doesn’t matter that the eggs are free or that you get a free incubator. It is still a massive gamble as to what you can get, with no guaranteed information on the probabilities of these Pokemon.

Eggs are loot boxes.