Pokémon GO Players Vow To Quit Over Major Possible Change

Not that the Pokémon GO developers haven’t made questionable decisions in the past, but a new leak has the fandom fuming and almost ready to stop playing the game altogether.

A popular Pokémon GO creator spotted a hint that Scopely is potentially planning to remove the coin-earning mechanic from Gyms. So, players may no longer be able to earn free PokéCoins, which they currently can by leaving their Pokémon to defend Gyms. This is the only way to earn free PokéCoins regularly, so it’s a pretty crucial feature for most players, especially those who don’t want to spend real money.

If you’ve filled out a recent survey about the Gym experience, you’ve probably noticed a suspicious question asking, “If you could no longer earn PokéCoins from Gyms, how would that affect your Gym interactions?” Well, this doesn’t confirm Scopely’s intentions at all, since there’s been no official announcement. But it’s alarming, to say the least. Besides this survey question, there have reportedly been data-mining reports regarding the same too, so it’s easy to see where the panic is coming from.

Needless to say, Pokémon GO players are absolutely against the idea and have made their opinions known across online communities. “I would honestly quit playing. Aside from the remote raid passes we get daily, that is the way I do raids. I can’t put much money, if any, into the game,” one X user wrote.

“If anything, coin rewards need to be increased,” another X user shared. “I spent 120 days in a gym…my reward 50 coins. All other gyms combined in the same 120-day period got me less than 300 coins. You should automatically get rewarded 50 coins every 24 hours. They can keep the cap at 50 total per day.”

This discussion wasn’t limited to the creator’s post on X, though. A Reddit post highlighted the leak too, attracting comments from several angry players. “If they remove coins from Gyms, I’m quitting the game, and I’m sure a lot of others will too. It would be the PokéStop situation from 2021 all over again. People would be quitting in mass and leaving bad reviews and forcing them to change it back,” one frustrated player’s comment read.

All that said, Scopely hasn’t confirmed such a change, so it may not be worth all the headache at this point. “Why do people always jump to the worst conclusions before we have the facts? Let’s have some faith in good changes,” one player on X said. In fact, some players are optimistic that the developers may incorporate changes to make the experience even better. “I’d welcome a new Gym system. It’s currently boring and repetitive. I took the survey, though, and made it clear that the only positive change is to make it easier to earn coins (as if they’d do that, but it’s worth a try), and I encourage everyone to do the same,” one comment on Reddit read.

At the time of writing, the survey is no longer accepting responses, but we’re sure the community has managed to make it clear to Scopely that they wouldn’t want such a change in Pokémon GO—at any cost.