Niantic could be forced to reveal Pokemon Go shiny odds & drop rates in new law change

Thanks to new guidelines outlined by the UKIE, Pokemon Go developer Niantic may be forced to reveal the shiny odds and drop rates of most Pokemon.

On July 18, the United Kingdom Interactive Entertainment trade body revealed new principles on how the UK will handle loot boxes moving forward.

These principles intend to restrict and improve the transparency of paid loot boxes by forcing developers to reveal the exact odds of all available drops in addition to other measures.

This will likely influence games like EA FC 24 but the impact of these regulations could easily affect Pokemon Go too, and not necessarily in the way you might expect.

Niantic may have to reveal Pokemon Go shiny odds for Eggs & Raids

According to new UKIE guidance, Niantic may soon be forced to reveal the shiny odds and drop rates for Pokemon hatched through eggs or encountered during raids and certain Research Tasks.

One segment of the UKIE’s new guidelines request: “A video games publisher or developer provides all players easily accessible, meaningful, and understandable information relating to the probability of obtaining a particular in-game item or items through a Paid Loot Box prior to their acquisition.”

Pokemon Go offers loot boxes in the form of limited-time offers like the currently available Explorer Box which can be purchased for 195 Pokecoins. Players can also purchase the individual items found in these boxes for real money.

Niantic

Pokemon Go lets players buy boxes with items that can lead to randomized Pokemon and rewards.

Although the contents of the boxes are not randomized, the same cannot be said of the items that are bundled in them. For example, players don’t know what Pokemon they will get from an egg hatched via a purchased Incubator, or the odds of that Pokemon being shiny.

The same can be said about Raid Passes and even Research Tickets. Using these items that you can pay for gives random rewards that can’t be completely predicted. They rely on luck-based mechanics that are tied to real-life money, which fits the UKIE’s definition of loot boxes.

If the UKIE’s guidance is enforced, Niantic will have no choice but to reveal the shiny odds of every Pokemon that can be received through an egg, encountered during a raid, or received as a reward from a Research Ticket task.

Even though these restrictions are exclusive to the UK it wouldn’t take long for the information to spread worldwide. Once the shiny odds are revealed in one country, they are effectively revealed across the world.