The Pokémon Go datamining group, Pokeminers, has been hard at work going through the latest APK, which seemed to be full of errors that hopefully won’t come over when Niantic officially releases the update. It’s not all bugs though. One of the biggest changes the team uncovered from the latest update is Pokémon contests. This activity rewards Pokémon with notable ribbons from the main series, which could make a Pokémon’s height and size matter rather than just being a notification after you catch it.
The team did not uncover how this system would work, but they have a general outline, leaving plenty to infer, given how previous systems work in Pokémon Go.
Again, we don’t know exactly how all of this will work, but based on the code, there are going to be multiple types of Pokémon contests. These contests might occur daily, every few days, or only appear once during a season. Each contest will have distinct guidelines that players need to meet, meaning having a wide variety of Pokémon will be good to win multiple contests. A player can only submit one Pokémon per contest, but it looks like someone can simultaneously participate in several contests, which appear at PokéStops or Gyms.
A Pokémon contest will remain for a set amount before a winner is announced. Supposedly, when you leave a Pokémon at that contest, another player has to come in and submit one of their Pokémon in an attempt to beat your Pokémon’s stats. These are not traditional battles, focusing instead on appearance stats, such as size and weight. The winner of the contest will earn multiple rewards.
These could be fun, engaging activities for Pokémon Go players to participate in outside the traditional battles. We do not have an official comment or announcement from Niantic about Pokémon contests, so take everything here with a hefty grain of salt. If it all comes together, we’ll have something fun to look forward to in the next few months.
