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This month, Niantic hosted the very first Community Day Classic in Pokémon GO. This event, styled after the original Community Day format, featured Bulbasaur in the wild with an increased Shiny rate, the return of Frenzy Plant as a special move for Venusaur, and the normal Community Day bonuses. The event was a way to spotlight a Pokémon that had already been the subject of a Community Day while not using the month’s standard Community Day to feature it. Instead, both longtime players and newer players were satisfied by two Community Day events in January: one featuring a Spheal for the first time and the other seeing the return of Bulbasaur through this new Classic-style event. Niantic has recently commented on the possible future of Community Day Classic along with the way that Pokémon GO and their other game, Pikmin Bloom, will co-exist.
Niantic’s Michael Steranka, CEO of live game development in Pokémon GO, spoke to Gamespot about the future of Community Day Classic, saying:
We’re always looking for player feedback to guide us into the future of the product, so we didn’t want to overcommit and say, ‘Hey, we’re always going to do these classic Community Days every month moving forward. Maybe we’ll do it once every three months or 1-2 times a year, or maybe players will hate this and we’ll say, ‘That was a good trial run, but we don’t need to do this again.’
He continued, commenting on Niantic’s latest game launch Pikmin Bloom:
We do a lot of what we call ‘air traffic control’ with a lot of the teams at Niantic. I think there are some games where a Community Day isn’t as natural of an overlap with one another. In those cases we don’t want a player to have to decide which game they’re playing. Fortunately Pikmin Bloom plays very nicely with Pokemon GO on Community Days. Thanks to our Adventure Sync, you can be active in Pokemon GO while also getting the kilometers you need in Pikmin Bloom.
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