Summary
- Pokemon GO's recent Riolu Hatch Day event received negative feedback from players, highlighting their dissatisfaction with Niantic's decisions.
- The time-limited event required players to hatch eggs during a specific three-hour window, which caused technical problems for some players.
- Some fans expressed frustration with Niantic's focus on daytime-only events, as it excludes players who work night shifts and desire nighttime raids.
Developer Niantic's latest effort to reignite interest in Pokemon GO with its recent Riolu Hatch Day event seems to have fallen flat with some players, leading to complaints from fans of the AR game. The mixed reception to the time-limited event marks the latest instance of Pokemon GO players feeling unhappy with some of the developer's decisions regarding the game in recent months.
The latest in a long line of special events introduced to Niantic’s AR game over the years, Pokemon GO’s Riolu Hatch Day tasked players with hatching eggs to unlock both normal and shiny variants of the titular Emanation Pokemon. While players had an increased chance of hatching Riolu from 2 km Eggs throughout the event, and could also get themed Field Research tasks, they only had a small time window in which to do so. Unlike some previous events, which have sometimes spanned multiple days, Pokemon GO’s Riolu Hatch Day event only ran from 2:00 P.M. Until 5:00 P.M. In players’ local time.
Almost immediately after the Riolu Hatch Day event drew to a close some unhappy Pokemon GO fans took to the internet to express their displeasure with it. In a post on r/pokemongo sarcastically titled “Thanks for hatch day, Niantic…” Redditor Ditronus explained how they encountered technical problems when trying to hatch their Pokemon GO eggs during the event. Stating that Pokemon GO’s GPS tracking failed to keep up with their travels, Ditronus claims that they covered 23 miles during the three-hour event but failed to have a single egg hatch. Some replies were suspicious of Ditronus’ claims, though, pointing out that they’d have to be an Olympic-level runner to cover that much ground on foot in 3 hours.
Another Redditor decried Niantic’s choice to keep focusing on daytime-only, time-limited events. Noting that they work the overnight shift in a hospital, Redditor OptimusPam remarked that they were frustrated that the mid-afternoon events “are always when I have to sleep for work.” Their post goes on to state that they’ve been playing Pokemon GO ever since the game launched, but feel put out by the lack of nighttime raids for players to take part in. Expressing a sentiment likely shared by other nocturnally-inclined fans of Niantic’s game, the post closes with the exclamation that “Night owls deserve to have fun playing too!”
With the Riolu Hatch Day facing serious pushback from some players only hours after its conclusion, it’s clear that Niantic’s latest Pokemon GO event didn’t quite go as the developer had planned. It will be interesting to see how Niantic responds and what it may have planned to keep players from logging out of Pokemon GO for good.
Pokemon GO is available for Android and iOS.