Is Pokemon Go The First Free-To-Play Mobile Game That Doesn’t Suck?

I hate mobile videogames with a passion. Yet, here I am downloading more. Every week I check the Google Play store in hopes of seeing one that doesn’t suck. Yeah, I give games a chance. I’m currently playing Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and some TMNT RPG that’s more level grinding/time consuming than fun. But these games last but a few weeks on my phone before something causes me to delete them. A realization that I’m repeating the same things over and over and not getting anywhere.

Enter Pokemon Go.

It’s all the rage. If you didn’t tweet about it this weekend, did you even have a weekend? Everyone from the young to the old actually departed from their stoops, of which they were afraid to leave, to go live out their fantasies of being a Pokemon trainer. The memes came full force and provided laughs to those who stayed inside or weren’t hunting late. The joke is that Go is about to cure obesity in America, but it might actually happen if the hype doesn’t die down.

Free-to-play games all have a bad reputation, and for many good reasons. The price to purchase things in said games range from a mere 99 cents to a ridiculous $100 dollars. Why on Earth would I ever want to pay that? A PS4 game with DLC is still cheaper and 5678% more satisfying. Yeah, you don’t need to pay the developers to enjoy any game, but it gives other players a facelift while you’re stuck grinding it out for weeks.

Pokemon Go, thus far, has proven that you don’t ever need to buy a thing. If you’re lazy and want to, by all means, go ahead. The game is rewarding players by the amount of walking they do. I don’t need to explain how terrific that is. The more you explore, the more you get. So, you can’t blame a paywall for your shortcomings. I may not be able to take over a gym yet, but I have a real chance to do so.

The game is fresh, so there’s always the possibility Niantic Labs screws up at some point. However, seeing the sheer amount of reception and Nintendo’s stock adding $7.5 billion in market value in less than a week will make the company focus on keeping the format the same. Everybody is playing it, so it’s all a matter of how you keep those people before they move on to the next big thing, which will probably be a bunch of augmented reality rip-offs.

Some of the upcoming improvements, as revealed by Niantic CEO John Hanke, to Pokemon Go include trading Pokemon, a leaderboard, and making the technology run even smoother. The importance of trading in the world of Pokemon has always been expressed in the cartoons and video games. Adding it into the game could cause players to make friends or at the very least promote conversation. Knowing that the augmented reality function can always be advanced is smart thinking too. You know how many times I’ve caught a Pokemon and the game froze? Maybe like five times, but if it keeps happening that’s grounds to quit.

If I fail as a trainer, and that’s a devastating thought alone, it’s my own fault. Not some paywall that says I need to give Niantic money to progress. I’m sure there will be moments where I’ll feel cheated, but it’s important they feel far and few. The beauty of Pokemon is there’s many ideas to use to make money. They’re generating so much already, but say you had a limited edition shining Pokemon. Not appealing to everybody but the collectors will shell out a few dollars for it. One day I might feel compelled to show them support should they continue making a game I want to play every day.

For mobile games, it’s easy to make week one a success. Pokemon Go did that and then some. What counts is where you’re at by week 52. Fifty-one to go.

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