I’d only been at Pokemon Go Fest for five minutes the first time I heard someone shout that an ultra-rare Pokemon was nearby. With 20,000 of the most dedicated Pokemon Go fans from around the world in one spot, it wasn’t surprising to see that people were passionate, and the friendly, cooperative spirit that started the day represented everything great about Pokemon Go and its community.
As players ran past me, I joined them, running toward a 10-foot tall physical PokeStop and excited for my first chance to catch an Unown, one of the rarest Pokemon in the game. People were laughing, the weather was great, and everyone had a smile on their face. As I got closer to where the crowd was gathered, I saw Unown pop up on the in-game map. Pokemon Go Fest was already a blast, I thought to myself.
Then the game crashed. It was 40 minutes before I was able to play again.
That experience sums up Pokemon Go Fest nicely. The event, billed as the first birthday party for the game and developer Niantic’s inaugural real-world gathering, was held in Chicago’s Grant Park this weekend and intended to be a celebration of a massively successful first year.
Then the game crashed. It was 40 minutes before I was able to play again.
As an avid player myself (I currently have almost the entire Pokedex complete and have suffered personal injury multiple times in my pursuit of catching them all), I was especially excited at the promise of playing Pokemon Go with a gigantic slice of the community. It was a chance to meet fellow players and to catch some of the rarest Pokemon in the game.
When the game was functional, it was exactly that, and there were some exciting, special moments when the crowd was working together. But for much of the day, most people couldn’t even get the game to start, leaving them standing in the hot, crowded park with not much to do but wander aimlessly. Others could connect but found the game laggy and unresponsive, or encountered crashes every time something good popped up.
Some attendees found success with wireless hotspots, but frequent disconnects and restarts meant that batteries drained too quickly for any stable connection to last long. AT&T customers (including myself) were able to connect intermittently thanks to carrier-provided WiFi in the park that was more reliable than cellular data, but its range was extremely limited, and the rush to connect left the network overwhelmed and unreliable.
An event meant to celebrate a year of successes instead served as a perfect bookend for the game’s earliest troubles.
In short, an event meant to celebrate a year of successes instead served as a perfect bookend for the game’s earliest troubles, which included days of server instability and crashes. As Niantic CEO John Hanke took the stage for the first time, he was booed, and the crowd’s early friendliness turned to anger, with chants of “fix your game” drowning out Hanke’s attempt to speak to the riotous crowd.
To its credit, Niantic implemented several fixes, like disabling the visual effect of Lure Modules to cut down on server strain and extending the event’s radius to two miles within downtown Chicago, allowing players to leave the park and keep catching rare Pokemon. Eventually, Niantic CMO Mike Quigley announced that every Pokemon Go Fest attendee would get a full refund for their tickets, as well as $100 of in-game PokeCoins.
As the day wore on (and the temperature went up), stability did improve for some players, but for others it was ultimately a frustrating experience. One family I spoke to was in the park for nearly seven hours and never caught a single Pokemon.
But despite it all, the sense of community endured. Ironically, the game crashing forced people to talk to each other and still produced the intended effect of meeting fellow players and making new friends. Hours after Go Fest had officially ended, servers were (mostly) stable and groups of 20 to 50 to literally hundreds of players met up with friends they’d made earlier in the day to take on the Legendary Pokemon Raids that were released that evening.
Even the next morning, downtown Chicago was a sight to behold. I participated in eight Legendary raids throughout the weekend, and never even came close to having trouble meeting the recommended 20-person party size. In most cases, crowds of Pokemon shirt-clad groups could be seen in any direction in the two-mile radius surrounding Grant Park, and many of them walked from raid to raid in huge groups reminiscent of those seen in Pokemon Go’s trailers.
In terms of fostering the community, Pokemon Go Fest turned out to be an incredible success.
Pokemon Go is a game about going outside and working together with fellow trainers, and in terms of fostering that community, Pokemon Go Fest turned out to be an incredible success. I spent hours playing with complete strangers across most of downtown Chicago over the course of the weekend, and it’s genuinely one of my favorite memories at a gaming event ever.
But those aspects stand in sharp contrast to an experience that was messy at best, and it shines a light on the overall problems with the current state of Pokemon Go. Niantic has done an admirable job of rolling out new features like the second generation of Pokemon and raid battles, but those additions were built on a shaky foundation. Until the game is truly stable, it’s time for a major backend overhaul to make sure that players can actually enjoy the experience as intended.
I’ll never forget Pokemon Go Fest, and I have no regrets about attending. I did end up with a pretty decent Pokemon haul and met a diverse group of people that reminded me why I love the game in the first place.
With multiple other real-world events already planned for this summer, I hope that Niantic can make sure things go more smoothly. If they do, hopefully more people will be able to appreciate exactly why Pokemon Go became such a cultural phenomenon last year and why it appeals to such a wide audience.
Pokemon Go is a social experience unlike any game before it, and real-world events are a perfect evolution of that, but they’re only fun if the game is functional.
Andrew is IGN's executive editor of news and currently has 238 Pokemon caught and 240 seen in his Pokedex. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.
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