Why Would Anyone Nerf Incense in Pokemon GO?

After the Johto Tour and the Season of Heritage faded away, something went wrong. Incense, one of the most accessible premium items in Pokemon GO, was nerfed. In fact, Incense had actually returned to its previous state, before COVID and all that. Why did this happen? I have no idea. But no matter how you look at Incense, it’s definitely not in a good spot any more.

Pre-Pandemic Problems

Before the pandemic, Incense wasn’t a particularly good item. It lasted half an hour and spawned a Pokemon every 5 minutes or so, based on how fast you were going. If you are playing at home or not moving, you’ll get 6 spawns and that’s pretty much it. If you fancy a walk, then you might get a few more spawns, based on how brisk your walk is. But, ironically, the optimum way to get incense spawns was to drive. You know, the one thing you shouldn’t do in Pokemon GO.

Up until the end of Season of Heritage though, Incense has been valuable to players. With a new Pokemon every 90 seconds, not only do you get more Pokemon but Incense was actually worth using. You didn’t need to worry about how fast you were going. And in the Pokemon GO shop, the price of Incense was reduced, so more people could afford to buy them.

Everyone loved Incense with high spawns.

Pandemic Incense was glorious. There were some roadblocks here and there, but the pre-Season-of-Alola Incense was actually a thing one wanted to buy and use. Community Days were one of the much better uses of an Incense, lasting one to three hours (depending on the day), and people who would normally miss out were now able to catch Pokemon on a more level playing field.

If anything, I think the only real complaint about new Incense was that the spawns were a little too fast for some people, at one Pokemon per minute. There wasn’t always enough time to catch a Pokemon, and because Incense-lured Pokemon are more jumpy, they become harder to catch. But even if that was the case, no one wants to go back to the old Incense days. Because they were no fun.

I genuinely can’t work out any benefits of the nerf.

Seriously, how does this benefit anyone? Incense allowed a huge number of players to continue playing the game. And, because Incense was actually good, more people would actually buy them. Incense was also a huge boost for people in rural areas with very few Pokestops or spawns in general, and more people could participate in events. Simply put, anyone can buy an Incense. While you can’t guarantee that you will or won’t get anything good, the use of an Incense gave players a chance to catch Pokemon in general.

The only reason I can think of is that Niantic don’t want us playing from home any more, they want us to go outside and play.

If the idea is to get everyone back outside, well, there’s still a pandemic out there.

Sure, places are slowly opening up. But COVID hasn’t gone away. It’s still here, it’s still infecting people, making them ill and killing them. Horrifically though, we all just seem to accept that now. COVID is here to stay. But for some reason, a Quality-of-Life change for Incense is too much to ask for.