A Collaboration event with Ed Sheeran?

Collaborations in Pokemon GO are weird, and honestly quite neat. For example, in various countries, places like Starbucks have sponsored Pokestops. On the other hand, some players get sponsored balloons, that drop in and give you free stuff. And Pokemon GO has done a lot of collaboration with Japanese companies. There have also been events with other American companies too. Heck, we also have an entire dress-up category, where our in-game avatars can wear sponsored apparel.

However, most of these sponsored events, items, and all that, they are all very… corporate. A bare minimum in the hope of selling a few more things.

But a whole event with famous star Ed Sheeran? That’s… kinda weird.

Nice music, I guess?

I’m not really a fan of Ed Sheeran. Never really been my cup of tea. But it’s not bad. He’s got a new album and wants to promote it, so he got in touch with Niantic or whatever and, well, now we have an event. What’s nice about the event though is the fact that the perks are genuinely good. In this event, you can hear Ed Sheeran’s new songs in-game, and there’s special night time music as well. Still, as I said before, Ed Sheeran’s music isn’t really what I like.

Admittedly, the whole playing-in-game thing didn’t work for me. I had to watch it on Youtube. It’s kinda weird seeing a guy on a green screen background in essentially an empty room. Plus, the music kinda doesn’t match Pokemon in general. But they get points for effort. And the performance is good as well.

All that being said, I do actually like the night time music, which you can hear in-game. Unfortunately, like the rest of Pokemon GO’s music, it’s pretty short and loops in a rather obvious way.

I suppose it’s not that weird, in hindsight.

Just the other day, I reviewed a game that was basically a walk through the art and music of Radiohead. But on top of that, they also weirdly ended up doing stuff for Fall Guys, Fortnite and Rocket League. That’s vastly different from what Ed Sheeran is doing, It’s also made worse by the fact that Ed Sheeran is a pretty popular guy who makes nice music, while Radiohead tend not to give a shit about things in general.

Then again, Radiohead have always been strange with their advertising and stuff. Radiohead’s music is unique, but their music pops up all over the place. Heck, years ago, Radiohead were selling one of their albums for literally as much or as little as we wanted. So someone could get that album for $1.

Ed Sheeran liking Pokemon and wanting an event is pretty whimsical and cute in comparison.

The Pokemon GO event is good at least.

I really can’t complain about Pokemon GO’s side of things. Yeah, sure, we just had a week of Piplup, but all the water starters are spawning, because Ed Sheeran likes water starters. The current spawns aren’t exclusively water starters, but there’s enough them, I guess. There’s also a special box in the shop, and a special code to get Ed Sheeran’s jumper as an item for our avatars.

More amazingly though, Squirtle with Sunglasses is spawning. We haven’t had sunglasses Squirtle in years. Not since Squirtle Community Day. The sunglasses Squirtle is a semi-rare spawn, but it is also appearing in event research, which is nice. We also get a Squirtle appear if we take a snapshot of a Pokemon. This guarantees that everyone can get at least one sunglasses Squirtle, before they disappear for another eternity.

So yeah, this is a weird event, but it’s also a pretty unique one. I totally wouldn’t mind other musicians doing the same thing.