What I know About Pokemon Go
An AR company called Niantic teamed up with the Pokémon company to create a new location based game called Pokémon go.
Pokémon go first started out in 2016, and it took over the google play store instantly with over 250 million downloads, it was the thing to do back in 2016, one of those fads like, flappy bird, loom bands, fidget spinners and everyone's favourite fortnite (back in secondary school that was the thing that all the popular children talked about, i was not one of those people who talked about it though), they all eventually died down, so of course Pokémon go by 2017 lost about 80% of their players and downloads decreased significantly too.
but luckily for the Pokémon go game franchise, there were still enough players and money being raked in to keep the game running.
the game is designed for the player to go out and to interact with the real world and was originally an AR game centered around catching Pokémon and spinning stops to grab items.
gyms didn't do anything when the game first launched.
The Old and The New Gym System
a bit later on Pokémon go introduced the usage of the old gym system, in this gym set up, 10 Pokémon were allowed to guard it, and you would train the Pokémon in there to keep the ego of the gym up and to receive poke coins (up to 100), the Pokémon as well were ranked from the lowest CP to the highest CP (weakest to strongest).
but because the old gym feature was way too hard for newer players, the game updated the gyms so that the Pokémon got weaker over time aka the dreaded motivation meter that drains over time or when the Pokémon wins/looses a battle, the only thing you can do yo keep them strong is to give the Pokemon treats in the form of berries and that that has a limit of 10 berries per Pokémon and you can feed 10 Pokémon (100 berries can be given all together).
Not only that, the number of defending Pokémon had been reduced as well from 10 down to 6, many players did not like this change by the way.
as you can see the gyms had a total make over/mechanics change
Be Careful when playing the game
When you play a game there is a very small chance that the is going to harm you, however Pokémon go can be very dangerous at times, a few people have left this world by and a few have been injured by playing Pokémon go, many of those incidents being, not paying attention to your surroundings and people being ran over.
Also in 2016, a group of 4 teenagers got lost in a set of caves and had to be rescued by 3 fire engine crews and 2 rope rescue units and no they didn't find what they wanted to find, but they hopefully learned their lesson to keep an eye on their soundings and to not go into anywhere that is too dangerous.
Link To article
the guardian, Pokémon Go players rescued after getting lost in Wiltshire caves, 15.07.16
There is also a chance if you are not looking in where you are going that you might walk into private land, if he owners of that land catch you either through seeing you or through CCTV they probably will prosecute you for trespassing and in many countries you can go to prison because of that.
Teams
There are 3 teams in Pokemon go, they are team instinct(yellow), team mystic(blue) and team valor(red), most of the pokemon go players back in 2016 were a part of team Mystic which was the most popular team at the time, the team with the least amount of players in it was team instinct, that team also built up a reputation of not holding the gyms very well, and it took until 2018 for that team to lose that bad reputation.
I believe now that the teams have evened out a bit over time, because many of the players have stopped playing Pokemon go however, i have tried to research about it but nothing came to me that was useful.
How Pokemon go gets its money
there are 3 ways nitanic makes money off of pokemon go:
way one: Poke coins, you can buy poke coins from the shop and then exchange them later on for in-game items.
way two: very big events, you can also buy things like event tickets to get extra perks on the day or days of the event.
way three: as pokemon go is a location based game, it perks the interests of companies who want to promote their business through a sponsor and because of that, some clothing items have been created to make trainers aware of the brand or company, for an example nike sponsored pokemon go and now you are able to wear nikes clothing in the game, but even if you don't you are aware that nike exists.
pokemon go also gets sponsored companies who want to make their stores known to the player, they do this by making their stores into Poke Stops/Gyms which will attract passing pokemon go players because they will want to get items from the stop. depending on the needs of that person and what type of business it is, they might stop off to buy one of the store's products, or if it is a super market they may do their weekly shop in there, therefore every company wins.
Uses 3D models of the pokemon
Pokemon go was the 3rd game ever to use 3D models out of all the Pokémon games, other than Pokémon X and Y and Pokemon omega ruby and Sapphire.
it was quite unique back in the 2010s because before Pokémon X and Y, all the Pokémon and people were 2D sprites in those games, which shows how far and successful the Pokémon company has been.
front view of 2D sprite
Back view of 2D sprite
3D models
The First Event
Niantic hosted the very first Pokémon go event on Halloween 2016, the temporary chances that were made included: certain types of Pokémon spawning much more frequently in the wild and increased candy reward for catching/transferring Pokémon.
it went from October 26th 2016 to November 1st 2016.
The First Event Pokemon
After The Halloween event, came the Christmas event, the first, the bonuses for that event are, costumed Pokémon are spawning in the wild and a free egg incubator when you first spin a poke stop for the day, (you can only receive one a day while the event was running).
it went from December the 12th 2016 to December 29th 2016.
the event Pokémon was a pikachu wearing a Santa hat and if you really wanted to, you could evolve that pikachu into a Raichu and it would keep its Christmas hit so you would be able to have as well a Christmas hat raichu, but only the Pikachus would be spawning in the wild so the only way to obtain the raichu would be you having to evolve a Christmas hat pikachu which at the time was quite rare to find at the time.
Event Pokemon
That was the first time that you could have a Pokémon that was wearing something, even if it was a silly Santa hat, but that pikachu was the link to starting something quite special, simply known as event Pokémon (I am someone who just loves these event Pokémon, especially when they are shiny, sometimes i even think that the consume goes well with the colour of the shiny Pokemon).
These Pokémon are quite rare (especially the shiny) because they are event exclusive, and can be only spawn through events that mention that they are making their appearance, a lot of those event Pokémon will come back in the following years (like the Christmas hat pikachu making their way into the 2021 Christmas event), meanwhile a few others will probably never spawn again (like the 5 year anniversary balloon pikachu) adding to the fact of how rare they are.
This link will show you many of these event Pokémon:
https://pokemongo.fandom.com/wiki/Event_Pok%C3%A9mon
Pokemon Lets Go
in 2018 the pokemon game-freak collaborated with niantic to create a remake of the original pokemon games, but unlike the original pokemon game the pokemon catching machines were very different, instead of battling the pokemon to make it weak, you can just catch them like you do in pokemon go.
Pokemon let's go games orientate around 2 pokemon, depending on what game you chose meant you would get one, or the other, the pokemon are pikachu and eevee, you would be able to customise those pokemon with different hair styles and clothing.
A new catcher/controller came out, called the poke ball plus, it posed as a controller in the pokemon lets go games, and a catcher in pokemon go.
One of its most interesting features is that it can hold a pokemon, you can interact with the pokemon in the ball, and on top of that the pokemon will auto spin stops, this feature would also carry on in pokemon sword and shield.
