‘Pokemon Go’ Is Officially Joining the Scopely (‘Monopoly Go’) Family, and Players Are Not Happy About It

To this day, I’ll never find the fact that Monopoly was intended as a harsh critique of capitalism not funny. Anyway, the company that created Monopoly Go recently acquired a beast of a property. It’s official: Pokemon Go is leaving Niantic and joining the Scopely family! The official Pokemon Go website made the announcement.

“Pokemon Go will be joining Scopely, a video-game developer and publisher home to a wide range of leading games and talented teams around the world,” the statement reads. “With Scopely’s full commitment, experience and resources, we’re going to make Pokemon Go the very best it can be – with incredible battles for thousands of Trainers at a time at our live events and new ways to connect to your friends and community, all while remaining focused on the excitement and experience of discovering Pokemon in the real world.”

The announcement has been, uh… divisive among Pokemon Go fans. “As someone who plays a scopely game called Marvel Strike Force, expect [Pokemon Go to be] a pay 2 win micro transaction hell where they don’t give a shit about their playerbase,” one upset Redditor commented.

‘pokemon go’ joins scopely to the unhappiness of its players

“Kind of depends on the direction they want to take [Pokemon Go in]. If it’s bringing a healthy amount of money then they might not do anything drastic. If it’s hemorrhaging money then you can probably expect them to monetize everything like they do for Marvel Strike Force. Although with the current state of mobile gaming in general you can probably expect [Pokemon Go to have] some additional monetization even if it is doing well so they can get their ROI, truly sad really.”

…I had to really dig for that “neutral” take, by the way. As for my totally asked-for two cents? Eh. Admittedly, I’ve become desensitized to major acquisitions in the gaming space by now. Pokemon Go never appealed to my sensibilities anyway. Who knows, maybe it won’t be the disaster most players predict it’ll be! In any case, it is what it is. Play it or don’t. Pokemon Go [play something else if it makes you that angry].