Why are Niantic Nerfing Remote Passes?

On March 30th, Niantic made an announcement regarding the future of remote raid passes. Simply put, they are increasing the price of remote passes to 195 coins, with a pack of three costing 525 coins. Even worse, they are reducing the amount of remote raids a player can do in one day, from infinite to 5. This announcement has popped up very suddenly, and the changes will occur on April 6th.

Of course, no one likes any of these changes.

Remote raids offer so much freedom.

The changes made to remote passes are pretty damn drastic. Not only are they nearly doubling the price of a remote raid pass, but they’re also greatly limiting how players can, well, play. Five remote raids a day sounds like a lot, but really, we have constant events that introduce the need to raid. Legendary raids require at minimum 4 people (or up to 6 or 7 for some bulkier bosses) and Mega raids also require people. But many raids happen at different times of day, and not everyone can go

Not only that, but remote raid passes give a huge amount of freedom to people who otherwise can’t normally go out and play. Whether you have a disability or are in quarantine because of Covid, remote raids give you access to more Pokemon and more people in general.

Heck, my local community is probably going to suffer now. The group has always relied on 1-2 people being physically at a raid and inviting everyone to join them remotely. That’s going to be a lot harder to do now, with both the remote raid limit and the increased cost. I’m certain that other communities are going to have the same problem that we have, with some communities shrinking away entirely.

They don’t even try to make normal raids better.

While Niantic is making remote passes suck, they’re also doing very little to make raiding in person more attractive. How? Well, you’ll be able to buy three premium passes for 250 coins (like remote raid pass bundles used to cost!) and you get more XL candy from catching the raid Pokemon. That’s pretty much it. That’s going to do nothing to help players in areas that can’t raid.

Making in-person raids better is how you get more people to raid in person. But these tiny changes don’t affect the fact that you need people to physically be at a raid, and you need to have a group ready to go. Where I live, most raids are ignored because there’s almost zero people near these raids to actually do them. If you REALLY want people to go to raids in person, then Niantic NEEDS to make it a lot easier to communicate and prepare for raids. Campfire is a very primitive start, but not everyone has it, and not everyone is privy to third-party apps to communicate with others.

It would also be worth adding more rewards to in-person raids rather than nerfing remote raids. More people would probably try in-person raiding if in-person raiding was buffed with extra rewards and conveniences. Rather than just giving us more XL candy, why not give us more premier balls, make Pokemon easier to catch or make them more likely to be shiny? Because, as it stands, remote raids and normal raids both give the same rewards.

It’s like Niantic doesn’t want our money.

This is what I REALLY don’t understand. People buy tons of remote raid passes. So many people do raids every day, and remote raids are insanely convenient. I’ve bought plenty of raid passes, occasionally with real money. But the new price AND the daily limit are massive turn-offs not just for me, but for the entire player base. Even ‘whales’ (people who spend a lot of money on micro-transactions) are going to be affected by this. These nerfs affect everyone from the casual player to hardcore masters who can do up and over 70 raids in order to get XL candy for Legendary Pokemon.

People WANT remote raid passes. They don’t want price hikes and artificial limits. And people are willing to spend good money on remote passes. Well, they were willing. I doubt people will buy them with their doubled price and strict limits. I’m certainly not going to spend any more money on Pokemon GO. I’m going back to completely free to play. (Okay I already was mostly free to play, but you get the idea.)

But Niantic is happier just selling off locational data, rather than getting money from micro-transactions. Even if it kills them and our communities…