Pokémon Unite's In-Game Subscription Service Is Now Live

Yea that’s gonna be a no for me dawg

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....

No. Get out.

So they found a way to cram another monetization method into the game… wonderful.

Doesn't sound much different from the $5 season passes they roll out every 8 weeks.
It doesn't sound too terrible, but it's also not something I'd personally spend money on.

At least all that stuff is just as optional as a BP, even still I wouldn’t be caught dead buying that lol.

Sounds awful, just think in a few months you'd have spent as much as on a complete game or how it's almost the same price as Gamepass but just for one game

At least you called it like it is.

A scheme

I just wanted Roserade

I have all the characters I want, so I'll pass

As long as it remains cosmetic only I have no problem.

Sounds really expensive for trials and a few gems. Not too sure who would buy this considering long time players will have unlocked most of the characters already.

Didn't they do the same thing with Cafe Mix but a little less money? Talk about Poking For Your Money Unite.

At least its all mostly cosmetics and shortcuts to cosmetics, but $9 a month is outrageous. I’m probably never going to go that more in depth with Unite. I was content with the good week I had with it and my friends last year though, but it does feel like it is meant to be predatory the more you play it.

If this subscription was more akin to Fortnite where it also provides the battle/season pass, I would be down. With what is currently on offer.... probably not.

Reminder: no one is forcing anyone to do this.

This seems like Fortnite’s “fortnite club” but without the whole battle pass being included thing

WTF happened to Nintendo being against micro-transactions?
So many games are coming out with all of this extra crap to buy while you are playing a game. This is straight BS.

I decided very early on that I wasn't going to partake in the PokéMOBA, and seeing this further validates my decision.

I had so much fun with this game for about two months. I'm glad I managed to get completely out of it though.

I don't know what a MOBA is. I don't even want to look it up...

I believe that many of those who criticize Pokémon Unite for monetization have no idea about the game or are only criticizing to criticize.

It is true that it is a free to play, however, so far, FAR, all the available Pokémon can be obtained without spending a penny, none!!, and also the objects for battles, all can be obtained without spending anything of money, all it takes is time and patience.

Of course, the real money expense goes for the character's clothing (good looking) and the Pokémon's holowear, however, that is not mandatory to play the game, and if it is required to rank, many people have achieved a better ranking without the need for a holowear.

In short, Pokémon unite is by far, A LOT, one of the few that has monetary predation.

Nah, nope, not for me.

I mean it’s just mainly cosmetics and it’s optional. Which boils down how this game makes money at all in a nutshell since you can get all the actual units free pretty easily. That is adding monetization done right.

You can tell a lot of the comments here never touched Unite as the game itself is actively very pro consumer FTP

@Bearzilla823 This game isn't really being ran by Nintendo.

There's definitely an idea here, but I'm not sure this is it. If you log in for 30 days, you'll have enough for a Tier 2 skin, which costs about $20. So I guess it comes down to what kind of skin they bundle with it. The big value of the Battle Pass is you get a basic skin, premium skin, exclusive cosmetics, & helpful items for a decent price, which appeals to more people. This basically boils down to, 'do you like cosmetics'?

i mean i bought Snoop Dogg for COD so...i guess this is okay?
i dislike stuff that makes you log in for 30 days in a row or you miss what you paid for

$8.99 a MONTH is an insane ask for a single phone game. I can't even imagine.

@Mando44646 any money a month is an insane ask for any phone game

Really really weird comments got their undies in an uproar..it's a pretty simple concept if you don't like it...don't..buy..it?

Whoa look at that, nobody was harmed! There's this exact same type of thing in Fortnite, it's just cosmetic junk, who cares if they pander to the people who like such things?

@HollowSpectre Ah yes full fledged mobile games aren't games because...logic? Wait nope that's a complete lack of logic.

$8.99 a month…no way. Although TBH, I don’t play enough to even warrant $2.99 a month subscription. Most I’d pay is $.99

Fully expected! You get what you don't pay for!! They will slowly continue to make the pass more and more appealing...but only bit by bit to let people get used to each annoyance before introducing the next. It's literally a psychological trap. They introduce this new thing and the hardcore fans rationalize it as "at least it's cosmetics!" And then they toss in a single p2w element "It's not necessary to win games!" And then a bit more until you're missing out on entire features if you aren't subscribed to the service.

Oh and I'm not exaggerating. The example scenario is based on what happened with Fire Emblem heroes and its FEH pass. It WILL get worse.

I play enough that it makes sense for me to do this. It pays for the battle pass and I’ll get some holowear I wouldn’t normally get. So immediate bright side: sleepy baby snorlax.

people gonna sub to this just to play an online game that has no real players in matches lol

Aeos Gems daily is a pretty big deal in this offering, and I can definitely see power users getting their money's worth out of a model like this!

That’s 1200 gems a month, honestly a steal! And this game is NOT pay to win, this subscription is not required for anything, quit complaining and let the people that want it enjoy it.

At this point, why haven’t they just made this a one-off purchasable game?

After Pokémon Shuffle, I’m not touching another F2P game again. Ever.

Don’t get me wrong I like subscription services and it’s a smart way for companies to make money, but $120 a YEAR??? NOPE.

$120 a year. Nintendo = Electronic Arts?

@Rykdrew Tencent.

It's really expensive to be a pokémon fan, isn't it, with all these two versions of the main games, unnecessarily expensive DLC and separate subscription services from NSO, and what have you.

Gotta say, they're pushing me away more and more and more from the fan I once was of the series. I don't even feel like playing pokémon anymore.

Such a shame. I hope the popularity of the series will soon fall flat entirely, not gonna lie. They need to come back down to earth for a wake up call if you ask me.

I hope that this subscription does not sell well so they then decide to roll the season pass into it as well. I would subscribe if they did that.

I’m not gonna touch this one.. who plays this crap anyway?

I hate being right all the time.

This pricing is disgusting. You could waste your money on this or for 1.5 times the price of the monthly fee you could buy Hollow Knight. I know that's not a fair comparison but still ...

@Bearzilla823
TPCI is very different from Nintendo, in spite of Nintendo having a 1/3rd stake.

9.99 could buy you a game rather than a single item. Just saying. Especially if you plan to subscribe for a while you could just buy legends arceus since it’s on sale right now and come out on top in the end. If you like Pokémon play the real games. Not some tencent paywall crap.

I don't care what they put in it, $10 a month is laughably stupid. That's the same price as Spotify premium

Ridiculous price. I'll be curious to see the subscription rate. What was it like Japan? Personally, $3 a month is about right.

Loved this game for a few months then it just got so stale
Glad I never spent any money on it.
A game that relied so heavily on teamwork but limited communication and every lobby was lone wolf selfish team mates, just sets itself up for failure

@Yosher you dont have to buy all of the things.

@Sonos I'm aware.

I'm fine with picking up a cool outfit in f2p games here or there if it's something I REALLY like on a favorite character...but 99% of all of Unites cosmetics are just really dumb or very ugly, usually both.

@Axecon Well I paid $15 for Hollow Knight and got about 25 hours out of it. I spent $0 on Unite and got around 100 hours combined between switch and mobile..so yeah Unite is the better deal, you're right.

Was just a matter of time.

This is a MUCH better deal than buying AEOS gems directly! That's the part people are missing. You only really need the gems if you want extra costumes for your Pokemon. (You can actually still get costumes without it though too.) Anyways, to break it down you get 40 gems a day which is 1,200 hundred for the month. Right now it costs $19.99 to get get 1.200 gems, so $9.99 is half the price, plus it comes with other perks. This really is games as service if you want games with continuous updates. Mario Kart and Smash Bros. seem like the obvious choices to get the service treatment in the future.