Niantic’s recent changes to Remote Raid Pass availability in Pokemon Go have led to talks of players boycotting the game, and now free passes are appearing in players’ Daily Free Boxes.
On May 19, Niantic announced that Remote Raid Passes would be removed from the weekly 1 coin box that appears in the Pokemon Go shop every Monday. This led to an outrage among players and content creators who look forward to their weekly pass.
The community was divided once the first passless weekly 1 coin box rolled around with a value of 600 Pokecoins. Some players saw this as a better deal while others were still furious by the Remote Raid Pass removal.
This removal paired with the increase in the cost of the Remote Raid Pass bundles has led to players organizing another Pokemon Go boycott. With only a few days until the proposed “Pokemon NO Day”, players are starting to discover Remote Raid Passes in their Daily Free Boxes.
Free Remote Raid passes appear days before Pokemon Go boycott
“Pokemon NO Day” is slated to take place on May 30, 2022, and the only way to participate is to not play Pokemon Go during those 24 hours. This is reminiscent of the Pokemon Go boycott from August 2021 which actually led to Niantic reverting some unpopular changes.
However, user nshriup19 posted to the TheSilphRoad subreddit sharing an image of their Daily Free Box which contained a single Remote Raid Pass. This was meant to show that it is possible to get free Remote Raid Passes despite the recent weekly box nerf.
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While some players were happy to know it’s possible, others felt this was a worse way of distributing discounted passes. One user commented, “How to make people even more upset at being on the wrong end of the daily box A/B testing? Ooh boy Niantic, you wild.”
Others pointed out that Remote Raid Passes had never been reported to be found in Daily Free Boxes before now. “Feels like they did it intentionally, which goes against their reasoning for removing the weekly pass” a user commented.
The responses to the post were a mix of mainly negative opinions. Some felt it rude to only give Remote Raid Passes to specific users in testing groups, others felt this was an attempt for Niantic to “save face” after talks of a boycott. Some players even expressed their disappointment in seeing things they miss out on and states, “There you go Niantic, twist the knife a little more…”
So, while the timing does seem curious, it doesn’t seem as if players are happy with the Daily Free Box lottery. We’ll just have to wait and see how Niantic responds to the Pokemon Go boycott on May 30.