A loud groan could be heard across the internet late last night as Pokémon HOME and Pokémon GO updated to add the long-awaited transfer support, and it was revealed that the restrictions on transfers are so heinous it could take players literal years to transfer all of their beloved Pokémon. Luckily, Niantic was kind enough to add a monetary exchange in which players can skip the year-long wait - only for the low, low cost of several thousand dollars.
Around 5:45 p.m. on November 10, Niantic and Game Freak shadow dropped an update for Pokémon GO which added Pokémon HOME compatibility. For months leading up to the update's release, dataminers had uncovered disappointing facts about the new feature revealing it to have predatory microtransactions. However, the leaks did not prepare players for how terrible the transfer restrictions are. The feature is only available to level 40 players, Legendaries and Shinies consume large amounts of transfer energy, and the cooldown for energy to recharge is ridiculously slow.
What made players the most upset was the time it takes for energy to recharge and the insanely high cost of transferring certain Pokémon. Transferring a single Shiny Legendary will nearly deplete the player's energy entirely which then takes 6.9 days to recharge. Players are able to transfer four normal Shiny Pokémon before their energy is entirely depleted, which means free-to-play users can transfer between 1-4 shinies per week. The amount of time it would take for dedicated players to transfer all of their Shinies from Pokémon GO to HOME started to come to light after a tweet from Twitter user A_DVS_NTT started a heated discussion over the new feature.
First, A_DVS_NTT's first tweet has mathematical errors. It wouldn't take him 3 1/2 years to transfer all of his Shinies, but it could instead take him a minimum of 46 weeks. He could easily bypass the cooldown by spending a still insane price $460. However, the replies to his tweet were full of players with even more Shiny Pokémon. Users with hundreds of Shinies will have to wait literal years if they choose not to spend their money on recharging their energy. Players who use up all of their energy can recharge it by spending 1,000 PokéCoins ($10 USD), and players with 500 Shinies will have to spend $1,250 if they don't want to wait 2.5 years for their transfers to go through.
Of course, players can earn a measly 50 PokéCoins per day for free by defending gyms. Doing the math, this means that if a player defends a gym for 24 hours a day for 200 days straight they will have made enough free PokéCoins to pay for a week's worth of transfer energy. This means that once a year players can shave off a week of their total wait time. But once again, if the wait is too much for players to bear, they can always shill out a couple of thousand dollars.
Before this update, Pokémon GO has remained pretty user friendly when it comes to free-to-play user. Microtransactions have always been available, but they have never been necessary for players to enjoy the game. The $1 billion in revenue Niantic has made this year must have gone to its head, as the way this new feature has been integrated is unbelievably out of touch. The Pokémon GO to Pokémon HOME transfer support is a predatory and greedy scheme to force microtransaction onto players, and it shows that Niantic is more concerned with making money than pleasing its consumers.
Pokémon GO is available for iOS and Android.
Source: A_DVS_NTT, youngdrome, ballmanbrett1