Avoiding the Fear of Missing Out in Pokemon Go

One of the larger things that keep people playing is FOMO. FOMO, short for Fear Of Missing Out, is a major problem, especially with video games. The worry is that you might miss on something insanely rare, important or powerful by not playing the game and not playing in various events.

Pokemon GO is very guilty of this, especially since they are CONSTANTLY doing events with various new or costumed Pokemon. Luckily, here are a few things you can do to mitigate that fear of missing out.

They are just costumes

My first tip is actually pretty basic. There are always new Pokemon in costumes being added. Mostly for Pikachu. But these costumes are pretty ugly or basic most of the time. They also often can’t evolve either, so there’s no point having them. All they do is sit in your backpack, taking up space. As of writing, there is currently an event with a hatted Eevee, but the hat is ugly, and good luck evolving one of each eeveelutions, as they are wholly random.

So really, don’t bother catching costumed Pokemon. They always have some sort pf drawback or downside. And they always take up too much space.

Take a break

Sometimes it’s good to just close the game and not play for a bit. You don’t need to take massive breaks or go on haitus for long periods of time. Just chill and play something else for a bit. Hopefully something that doesn’t induce FOMO. Most Pokemon GO events are pretty crap anyway, it’s mostly just the same recycled Pokemon time and time again. Plus, you don’t need that costumed Pikachu. Which appears in so, so many events.

Plenty of alternatives

One thing that’s worth pointing out is how many alternatives there are for both PvP and PvE. For example, Terakion is currently the best fighting type, beating out Lucario and Conkledurr. However, you can still just use Machamp, which is a perfectly good alternative.

This applies to most Pokemon. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a perfect shiny Terakion. Your Machamp that you’ve had for years will be absolutely fine. And heck, IVs don’t change that much. As long as you have some Pokemon with average IVs, you’re fine.

It all comes back

Speaking of recycling, pretty much everything comes back eventually. Even Pikachu costumes. If you missed the release of a new pokemon, it will reappear some time in the near future. For example, Sunglasses Squirtle was a stupidly early event, but it was repeated, almost at random, some time later on, in a water-themed event.

The trick here is to just wait.

Seriously, patience is your best friend here. There aren’t many things that don’t come back, and most of those are crap. Just look at armoured Mewtwo, for example. It was a promotional tie-in, but is all-round worse than a normal Mewtwo. Plus it’s ugly as fuck.

But even as I type this, it’s entirely possible that Armoured Mewtwo comes back. Because Niantic love recycling Pokemon. Particularly ones in costumes and with hats. You just need time and patience.

Hopefully this helps with FOMO. After all, you’re not missing out, you’ll get what you want some time in the near future.