Hey, Pokemon Go is still a big deal among certain people, even if it’s not quite as society-pervasive as it was for a few months last summer. (I’ll never forget how quickly weekend nights in downtown Denver were filled with groups of Pokemon hunters walking en masse, venturing to various areas of the city on foot. They were tough to avoid, litereally; not looking up from phones meant they ran into a lot of people.)
It’s still a thing, though, and enough of one that there was an entire Pokemon Go festival scheduled for this weekend at Chicago’s Grant Park, where people bought tickets with the promise of rare monsters being available to capture, among other perks. Unfortunately, someone forgot what you’d think would be a key detail: put a ton of people in one place all trying to do the same thing online, and some servers and data speeds are going to slow way down.
That’s exactly what happened. Kotaku has some details:
For a day, Pokémon Go Fest promised to be a festival full of rare monsters, special raids, medals, and eggs. But as first reported by Game Informer, the game is apparently “unplayable” for many at the event. For people who flew in from out of state, or even out of the country, these issues really suck—they paid a lot of money just to get connection errors. John Hanke, CEO of Niantic, got on a stage at the festival to address these concerns, only to get booed by the crowd. People seem pissed.
And they were pissed!
Chanting 'WE CAN'T PLAY!' #PoKemonGoFest pic.twitter.com/NBGjhINfc4
— Maria MsDBZbabe (@MsDBZbabe) July 22, 2017
And those are just the people who actually managed to get in:
Early entry line for Pokemon Go Fest starts at Jackson/Columbus, wraps around block to LSD. #PokemonGOFest pic.twitter.com/khZFiGCvrC
— John O'Neill (@jrichardoneill) July 22, 2017
#PokemonGoFest #Niantic #PokemonGO
why are there no pokémon to catch in this 3 mile line. come on guys— mav3r1ck (@Mav_r1k) July 22, 2017
It went so badly, restitution was announced immediately:
Due to degraded experience on overtaxed cell networks, Niantic will be offering full refunds to GO Fest ticket holders + $100 in PokeCoins.
— The Silph Road (@TheSilphRoad) July 22, 2017
The main takeaway, though: this many people are still this enthusiastic about Pokemon Go? That’s not a judgment, people should like what they like, but it’s just weird when a fad takes over everything and then recedes yet still holds this big of an influence.
[Kotaku]