How Niantic Hosted 2M Players In Yokohama By Learning From Pokémon GO Fest's Mistakes

While we sit here debating the merits of upcoming exclusive raids and whether or not Legendary fatigue is real, Pokémon GO did manage to have its biggest, most rewarding, most successful live event to date in Yokohama, Japan this past week.

Last month, things could not have gone worse in Chicago during Pokémon GO Fest, where the enthusiastic crowds quickly soured as they reached Grant Park to find long lines and the game only rarely working throughout the day.

Yokohama was a different story. The lengthy event, which had rare spawns, shiny Pikachus and new raid bosses, culminated in a massive stadium gathering for the release of Mewtwo, which was given away for free to players if they could beat it, thanks to Chicago’s auto-catch system being in place. Two million people participated in the event, by the end.

It was a far cry from GO Fest, and should hint at future live events where the game suffers from fewer technical difficulties.

So, what changed? I recently spoke with Niantic who laid out exactly what they did to make Yokohama run much more smoothly than GO Fest. Here’s what they said:

• Niantic had all of the major Japanese carriers on notice and they turned out in force to keep the data flowing and keep Trainers happy.
• Niantic designed an event that spanned the entire island around the Pikachu Outbreak event (Pokémon GO Park) and the nearby city (more than 4 sq km), allowing the hordes of Pokémon GO players to circulate through Parks and other interesting areas.
• Niantic carefully distributed spawns of special Pokémon such as Unown, Shiny Pikachu, Chansey and Larvitar across the area so that Trainers were incentivized to capture and move through the greater festival area rather than staying in a single location.
• Niantic designed a tightly scripted finale event (Pokémon GO Stadium) where thousands of the luckiest Trainers were able to battle together to catch the famous Legendary Pokémon Mewtwo in a festive finale with fireworks and a giant projection of Mewtwo. Special work was done to segment the servers for this finale raid to enable the best play experience.

In short, a larger location (Grant Park was a relatively tiny space compared to the Yokohama zone), better coordination with cell carriers and extra care given to the servers so they could handle the load made it work.