Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Pokemon Go 10-Year Anniversary Retrospective - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

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if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair. Every style, every home. It's Kind of Funnies. Patreon Pledge Month. Support us at patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. We really appreciate it. What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny games cast for Thursday, July 16th, 2026. Of course, I'm your host, Tim Getty's. I'm joined today by a very, very special group of people that I'm so excited to have here. Of course, it's Andrew Goldfarb.

I'm back. It's been a while. He's back, baby. It has been a while. What was the last time? Some Marvel thing. We were just talking with that when I got here. I think I did a screencast about some.

We did, I think we did secret invasion together. Yeah, that might be right. That was rough. But like, there was some good times. No one remembers anything about that. Exactly. And joining us for the very first time, a very special guest. It is Michael Soronka, VP of Product for Pokemon Go.

Welcome, Michael. Thank you. Yeah, very, very excited to be here. I mean, I just want to, off the top, are you coming down off the high from last week and being in Times Square where we defeated Mutu 2? Mega Mutu. I'm honestly still feeling a little bit of the high. I've felt the adrenaline slowly deplete for me over the past week.

week, but I don't know, that whole thing was something two and a half years in the making. And so, well, 10 years in the making, really. 10 years in the making. I mean, even longer, because if you think about the trailer dropped in 2015, even. So, yeah, I don't know. It was a very high high to be coming down from. So I'm maybe about midway. Yeah, I like that.

I like that. Of course, if you're watching live, you can be part of the show by super chatting on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delaney, the Sommatwining, and Lax Nomad. For now, let's bring with the topic of the show. Tots, Tos, Toss, Toss, Toss, Toss. We got to get through that.

Pokemon Go, 10 years. It's been 10 years of Pokemon Go. That is crazy. Goldfarb, what does that mean to you? When did you start playing? I started playing in the beta. Oh, you got access. Yeah, like a month before launch.

Because this is back when you were at IGN. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So I did the beta. while I was the IGN in like a group of four of us. Oh yeah, there's my beta screenshot, which at the time I was so afraid to post because it was like confidential or whatever.

That was my beta character and I got like, we did like coverage of it and I was like, you know what? I could see this game catching on. I think it might do okay. And I never in a trillion years would have expected it to blow up the way it did. I mean, I, this was my beat for my last, you know, what three, yeah, three years of IGN.

So it was like really like I went to multiple Go Fest. You know, I went to Safari Zone. really just got so into it, met a bunch of people I'm still friends with, you know, in the community. It just been kind of a part of my life. It just feels like I was, when we were at the Times Square thing, I was like kind of getting emotional to watch like the full arc of what the game has been. I can't even imagine for you guys. Yeah, I mean, you know, I was standing side by side with people that I've spent the better part of a decade, you know, boiling over this game with.

And then also a bunch of friends in the community, you know, I can look over and, you know, I can look over and see you both there and it's like, I don't know, it really was an emotional experience. I don't know when the last time I've ugly cried like that was, you know, and there were probably too many pictures or videos of me with, you know, that ugly

cry on, but yeah, it was really special. Yeah, definitely. So what is your quick background with Pokemon Go as a player? And then when did you join the team and what have you been doing for them since? Yeah, I joined the team about nine and a half,

years ago. So I wasn't there for the initial launch of the game. But it's been almost a decade working on the game myself. For Pokemon Go for me, I've always been a lifelong fan of the Pokemon IP. I actually lived in Japan when Pokemon Red and Green came out in in Japan as a kid. Yeah, which was like a crazy national phenomenon. Oh yeah. Yeah. And my family happened to move back to the U.S. the same year that Pokemon Red and Blue came out in the U.S. So it was like... You got both ways! Yeah, yeah.

So as a child, I like lived through that experience twice. And it's just always been such a big part of my life. In college, you know, I didn't go out to many parties. Instead, I spent a lot of my time building a Pokemon fan site. I was really into competitive

PVP for the main series. So, you know, when that trailer first dropped in 2015, I think it was, I got chills. And I was joking with friends that I'm going to quit my job and just be a full-time Pokemon trainer. And I think I actually got as close to that as I could have been.

Yeah. So yeah, when the game first launched, I wasn't working at the company at the time. And I just remember it was the first time that as someone who's been a lifelong fan of Pokemon, all of a sudden, everybody that I knew was playing Pokemon Go. and celebrating in this, you know, shared love of something that, you know, for a lot of people,

is their first time experience that IP. For many others, like myself, it was like a dream come true type of moment. And, yeah, I really felt when the game launched that almost like a weird sense of validation, right? Like, prior to Pokemon Go, being a big Pokemon fan was almost something that was like, you don't tell a lot of your friends about it, especially as someone, you know, my early 20s. And at that point, it was like, oh, no, this is pop culture.

Everybody's into this. My parents know about Pokemon Go-Grandparents. Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, I know. Yeah, go to the polls. So, yeah, I don't know. It was fantastic. And then I was fortunate enough

to get an opportunity to work on the game and haven't looked back since. Were you playing day one when it dropped? So technically, my account start date won't have a day one start date. because I was not in a region that had Pokemon Go available.

So, you know, it was like when I came back home, it was like a day or two after the game launched in the U.S. So I feel like a little bit of a fraud, not having that actual day one. Can you actually leave? I imagine Gulf War, after the beta. You were there day one. Yeah, yeah. I think I think I tried to download from the Austin.

Australian App Store. I think I tried to get as well hours ahead, 16 hours ahead or whatever. Yeah, I think I have the day one start date. And being in San Francisco, I mean, what an insane. I just can't, especially coming off the beta where like I already understood what the gameplay was. But it was so chill and there were so few of us that it was like I, I remember my big thing in the beta, I thought it was really interesting. Because, you know, the, the Pocostops had come over from Ingress, I assume. And each had like a lot of information. So I remember being like, oh, there's like a thing. There's like a plaque. IGN office, I never even noticed. I'm learning about the city. And that's what I came away from the beta with. Whereas when the actual game launched, it was like just people screaming,

running down second street trying to get a Charzard or Dragonite or whatever. I mean, I remember, it must be like maybe the second or third day. I walked up in Barkadero. And it was just that surreal moment of like literally everyone around me was playing Pokemon Go. And what was so wild. What was so crazy about that is, so this was a year after we had quit IGN. So we had been firmly kind of funny at the time, which meant we were no longer. at that IGN office and i was so jealous of you because the IGN office was near the embarkedero which is where the formerly diantic offices were and so it very much was like a hub and also it's san francisco one of the biggest cities in the world right by the ballpark right by the

ballpark it's like such a great walking path such a so many poca stops like so much to do and meanwhile we're out near golden gate park where in like in a residential area in the in the original spare bedroom. And it was like me and Greg, and I think Kevin was even into it too, losing our minds. Like, let's go out to play Pokemon. It was like Greg's first time

engaged with Pokemon kind of to your point. And I was living in Dealey City at the time with, uh, were my best friends and his wife. And his wife had never cared about Pokemon at all. And every night we're going out and she's like, like what is this? And it's like,

that's a retata. Like that's a piggy, you know, like learning all of it. But, um, even when we were kind of far from the insanity that was in Barkadero.

We're on the streets and we're just seeing people walk and you're like, they're playing Pokemon Go. Yeah. They're playing Pokemon Go. Everyone on this street is playing Pokemon Go, you know? Like, that was something that we all now joke about and look back on us like, man, the closest thing to world peace. Right.

Yeah. I know. I love every time I see one of those tweets because that summer was just like it was the one time everyone felt like United. Yeah. We got a couple of super chats real quick. I want to get to. Science Dog says, Pokemon Go in 2016 gave me some of my favorite memories and

my 20s. I remember playing a show and watching the whole crowd running outside to hunt down rare Pokemon between sets. Great memories. And Samson says, no other games brought me and my friends, old and new, so much joy in such a diverse community, an incredibly special experience, even 10 years later. Here's to 100 more. Go for it, Michael. I really appreciate that. I will say, you know, my experience when the game first came out, as much as I loved it, as someone who was a lifelong Pokemon fan, I actually felt like there's so much more that the game could be. right? I don't know how much you remember about that first, especially the first few months. It was like such a departure from the main series games. It's like you don't battle Pokemon in the wild.

You're just throwing polka balls at things. And what are these gyms? That's very different from like the gym leaders from the main series. And as someone who just had such a deep affinity for this, this franchise, there was almost a little bit of like, are they going to mess this thing up feeling? And it wasn't until months later, maybe even years later, that I personally started to really appreciate a lot of those things about Pokemon Go that, you know, Pokemon Go didn't just do a carbon copy of the main series games and instead created something that anybody could truly come in and enjoy, right? Like, we now pride ourselves on the approachability of the game. as someone who, you know, I'm a new proud father of two. I have a three and a half year old son and my mom is going to turn 70 in a couple weeks. They both play Pokemon Go, you know, like what other game can say that? And so, yeah, it's just been a really interesting personal journey for me,

going from someone who is like, no, we got to change this and create, you know, a real world replica. of the main series games to actually getting this deep appreciation for the style of game that Pokemon Go is. Sometimes I don't even feel like it's a game, right? It's really just a way to help you get outside and explore the world with other people. And I don't know. I feel very fortunate that this is something that I get to work on and, you know, bring joy to millions of people around the world every day.

And it really does in a way that, again, I feel like the majority of people watching this probably can relate to that 2016 moment and then it was like wow i can't believe the game's still going you know like so many people dropped off millions and millions and millions of people play every day still and i mean you have essentially never stopped like you were just there since they would like yeah well i mean i got i had i had kind of i never fully stopped doing like dailies but i think when you were on your level 50 journey you pulled me all the way back again yeah because like i think the first time you guys met was on one of our Embarcadero was. It was. Yeah. Um, because you bought this, it was the story that you bought this jacket and then, my, my journey, the, the summary of it is I went so hard in 2016,

like everyone did, but it was a little bear. And I was like, all right, cool. I'm, I'm, I'm moving on from this. I did get to experience in, I, in 2016, uh, going to Comic Con, which was the first time they released the legendary birds. And, like, that was so cool that I happened to be there and, like, the energy when being in a group that, that, big and like the rumors started of like I think they're dropping the birds today that was the it was the team leaders right the team leaders I was actually there too and this again was before I joined the team and that was definitely like the rumors going around like are they going to release the legendary birds here and then poor john hanky was our CEO at the time yeah I think Pokemon go was not meant to be on hall age uh-huh you know it was kind of like a side panel and because it had this just totally, you know, viral moment when it launched,

I guess the powers that be at San Diego Comic-Con upgraded Pokemon Go to Hall H. And so I think the expectation of Hall H is so crazy is, you know, I'm actually going to go to Comic-Con next week myself. It's a sort of like a mecca for my closest friends and family. We try to go every year together. So we know, like, Hall H is this, you know, it's the... You know what it means. You know what it means.

And I think, you know, they were wholly unprepared for, that expectation of Holly at the time. But it was the big reveal of the team leaders. Yeah, yeah. You know who to this day have their own little fandom. And it's funny because, like, you talk about Pokemon Go when it started, felt like sort of this extension of the main series games. I think what has been really cool is watching it in that first month.

It really did feel like the evolution of that, like, Google Maps thing they had done. Right, yeah. Before that of, like, you know, you're walking around catching Pokemon, and that is the gameplay. Whereas like all these years later, I mean, number one, yeah, the team leaders, Professor Willow, all these things that have felt like the game developed its own personality and its own kind of like carved out part of the Pokemon world on top of, you know, trading, PVP, like all these things that have evolved that, you know, again, we're in that original trailer, part of that original promise, but have made it this really special, like, kind of community thing. Yeah. And so, like, I remember all that going at Comic Con. I remember I was standing outside next to Cliff Blasinski.

and he was like, dude, I think we're getting mulchrist today. It was like that level of just everyone was talking about. But it was around there that I kind of like tapped out for a long period of time. Like every once in a while I'd redownload and just see what was up, but I never stuck with it. And then it was ironically after Scarlett and Violet came out in, what was that the end of 2021, I think? Yeah. And the moment I was playing that game, I was like, for some reason, just I'm so back. I beat every Pokemon game, but that one, I was just, oh my God, I'm obsessed again.

And I red downloaded Pokemon Go and I've played every single day since. Like, that's when I was just like, I'm catching them all. I'm going in. I'm going to do this. And that's when I pulled you back in. You really did. Oh, my God. Yeah.

We were going on like, I would say twice a month. We would walk 10 miles. Oh, yeah. It was an entire day. Poor Gio. I know. Where's my husband? Yeah.

She knew where I was. I'm a little thing with Gold Farm. It's happening. No, it was awesome. I mean, that's the thing. I've enjoyed, as somebody stuck with it, all of the little pockets where people came back in. And so, like, one of the big ones was,

Let's Go Pete Chuman Evie coming out, was that 2018, a bunch of people coming back and being like, oh, I can transfer my Pokemon in. So I feel like that was a big surge. And then COVID, like, during lockdown, when you guys added all the little, like, the daily adventure incense,

which I don't think I've ever missed a day of. Or, like, maybe when I'm, like, traveling between time zones. But that stuff, the remote rating all of that like really i would have so many people texting me and be like can you explain what's going on with this like weather system and like all the stuff that's come because there's so much in the game like it took me honestly it took me about a year of hanging out with you that often to fully wrap my head around everything going on the game which is so crazy

from what it originally started as in yeah um in that original trailer from 2015 we see so many ideas and so many concepts that just uh thank you kef for bringing this up yeah yeah there's just so much in this trailer. It spells out the goal. It spells out what Pokemon Go could be. It starts with imagine, right? Like, imagine the Pokemon are in this world and it's like when the game started, that's what it was.

Augmented reality pictures, seeing Charmander next to your car and that was so novel. But then you go through and you start seeing battles, you start seeing trades, you start seeing raids, like you start seeing all these things that over the years, not even that long. It took maybe three, four years to get

to that point of all of those things coming to fruition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the fantasy feels real. And I think actually the moment this game clicked, I would say the most for me.

That original launch weekend was amazing. But the first time I traveled. Yeah. I went to Gamescom in 2016. It was, would have been, what, like six weeks after the game came out. And Kevin,

I have some pictures in there of like me finding Mr. Mime on the radar and then like seeing it on the map and then catching my first one. And that's just like such an amazing, like, can only get this here. It was like, everybody I was with my Jan was like, oh my God, put your phone down.

Jesus, but it was like such a good experience of like I felt like I was out hunting for Pokemon. Like it just felt like such a special thing. And that is so cool. Yeah, the old, the old Pokemon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are just so many like weird little mechanics in the game where it's like just like the core games too.

Or it's like you have to do weird things to evolve Pokemon. Right. Like aren't told to you. You kind of need someone to explain it to you or like you need to find out somehow or just context clues. And like, yeah, the, especially the early days where it was the, not even full 150, but like almost the full 150. And the majority of them were available.

And then it's like, well, if you want a Mr. Mom, you got to go here. And if you want a far fetch, you got to go. Like, what's your far fetch story? Yeah. So I know when you brought up the traveling abroad story, yeah, I, a month after Pokemon Go first came out, I had already caught everything that I could catch in the U.S. And as you mentioned, there are like a couple of Pokemon

that are region exclusive, Australia, you know, Europe, Asia, et cetera. And one of them is far-fetched. And so my wife and I, who's my girlfriend at the time, were planning our first international trip together. We're like, oh, where do we want to go? and I had brought up Hong Kong. And, you know, at the time I didn't share with her, one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Hong Kong

was because I could catch far-fetched in Hong Kong. You can't catch that in the United States. Yes, exactly. And so, you know, one of the days that we were in Hong Kong, I convinced her like, hey, let's spend some time looking for this region-exclusive Pokemon out here. And she's like, oh, okay. she's very new to the Pokemon IP herself.

We spent eight hours in the August heat of Hong Kong walking around looking for far-fetched. You had up on screen earlier that like sightings feature. That was brutally hard to find Pokemon using that at the time. And I remember thinking at one point like, oh, she's going to break up with me after this vacation. Like we've wasted a whole day looking for this Pokemon. But whenever I look at that picture, it's actually one of my favorite pictures of us because I swear to you, the smile on her face is more joyful than on our wedding day.

Right. It's like, and that moment was only possible because Pokemon Go created something that forced you to actually go out and experience the real world, right? We saw so many places over the course of those eight hours that would not have been on a tourist item. but I really felt like gave us a deeper appreciation and understanding for the city. And, you know, we clearly had worked up a sweat. I remember we got Peking Duck afterwards for dinner. And it was like, oh, it was like one of the best meals I've ever had, I think in part because we were so exhausted from the... Bill Picking Duck with some leak. Yes. Oh, my God. I didn't even put that two, two and two together on that one.

But yeah, so that it's like one of these, uh, I don't know, it ended up becoming this like core memory, not just about the game, but like this, my relationship, right, with my wife. And so, you know, I think I mentioned that when I first saw the trailer, that was when I was like, I'm going to be all about this game. I'm going to dedicate so much time in this game. That moment, that day where we spent all day exploring Hong Kong was when I thought to myself, I need to find a way to work on this game. Like this is something that can truly change, you know, not just gaming, but how people interact with each other in the real world. And yeah, again, I feel very fortunate. You know, found that path to the team.

And I've been very happy ever since. What I love about that story is that it's not a unique story. Right. I feel like the majority of people that have dedicated real time to Pokemon Go have some similar story. I know I know I do like I as into it as I got like I was always so impressed with goldfart because to this day you have every single Pokemon available in the game right? I do. Yeah. They keep adding more and that keeps giving you obstacles like they keep dropping regionals and you're like got to talk to someone in Europe.

Got to talk to someone in Australia. But how many Pokemon are currently in your Pokedex? Okay. Yeah. Pull it up and check it out because. Well, I'm going to do a quick fact check on this actually. Yeah. Uh-oh.

To my knowledge, Andrew has never hit legend in Go Battle League. Oh. Oh, are you talking about Pikachu Libra? Yes. I got it. I got it from that one. Oh, right. Yes, yes.

There's like one season we only had to hit. Yeah, so I have my, my ones are our intermission season. That's right. Okay. There's a lot of Pokemon because once you, there's only a certain amount of Pokemon. So to add more Pokemon to the game, they'll do custom Pokemon. If you don't know this, like it'll be like, many oftentimes Pikachu in different hats or

different outfits or sometimes it's like a snorla. or Dragonite or something. And one of the coolest costume Pokemon is Pikachu Libre, which is like a Lucha Libre Pikachu. And the only way to get that is to hit legend in the battle stuff, which is grueling.

And I've tried, you're really, Michael's incredible at PGP, and I've tried, you were like coaching me via DM long season. And I came, I think you were so close.

Yeah, I hit like Ace or whatever the one. Yeah. That was the season I came the closest. Yeah. So I have 951. You had 951. Which I was.

I think is the current. And I'm at 947. Ooh. Which is crazy to think of like, because I remember when I hit like 150 and I was like, dude, I have 150. Like I'm getting it. You're like, that's cute. Yeah.

That's cute. Like, you can do it. You've always been so supportive. But I remember when I started getting around this point that I'm at where it's like, you know, there are only handfuls that I don't have. And I am very. I have notes, apps, I have spreadsheet. Like, it's that type of game.

Yeah. And I'm like hunting for things, searching for things, talking to you. You are constantly like, hey man, I'm going to Japan. I'm going to try to get you this. And you're like, oh, you're going on this trip to Paris? Can you grab me one of these things? That's kind of like such a fun. Like, we've talked more than ever because of Pokemon Go.

Oh, 100%. And it's not just about Pokemon Go. It gets us talking about Marvel movies and just all the things we love. But to bring this back to your story for my honeymoon, one of the five I needed at the time was Halucha. Oh, yeah. And I pitched my wife of like, what about Mexico City? Hell yeah.

She was like, she knew, she knew. And I'm like, let's go. She wanted to go to Mexico City. I mean, it's a great place of honeymoon. It's a great place of honeymoon. I got my halucha. But we had such a good time finding it. Like she loved us just walking into weird places and exploring.

And like, we've used Pokemon Go as that. And like she uses it to get me out of the house. But it's just so funny how like, It really bonds us. And I have pictures of her smiling like that, which is like so silly. And like the amount of times we'll be driving and I get a raid invitation from somebody. And I'm like, I can't be doing this. I'm driving.

This is bad. So I hand my phone to her and she's just tap and tap and tap and tap and tap. I love her so much. Pokemon Go, baby. That's so great. And that's what's amazing too is like, again, that sort of approachability. You know, my son who's three and a half refuses to let me battle team go rocket on my own, right? He wants to do the battles. And it's like, yeah, three and a half year old can defeat

Team Grow Rocket. So, yeah, and I will say, you're talking about how you're already collection complete or close to collection complete. It's something that I've really found fascinating and that I love about this game is even for people who don't have new Pokemon to add to their collection, so much of the game, as we talked about, actually, happens outside of the phone itself. And so the experience that people get, I think you're at first drawn in for the sort of player fantasy of got to catch them all, right?

But as you play this game, I think it starts to build really healthy habits for people, going on daily walks, just getting a breath of fresh air. And I do think at a subconscious level, people might, you know, be, thinking about like I want to, you know, collect all the Pokemon. But I truly do think that subconsciously people recognize that they just feel better

when they play Pokemon Go. I think honestly that plus the communal aspects of it, it's just a deeply human thing to want to be around other people face to face. I think that's what's made the game, you know, stay on the test of time. Like we haven't seen in many other games. Yeah. I mean, that's what we, we walked down in Barcdaro like, so like, and you're totally totally right even though i was complete you weren't and so it became this fun like i remember uh when

you first came back you were like pretty much done with canto but you just needed jinks and we like remember that we like went through we were like okay so like i can put down like a glacial lure and they like might spawn from that right like i didn't have any extra smoochum to trade you so we were like walking by and we found somebody with a smooch him and you traded for it and evolved it was just like and now we're we're friends with them and like they live down in san jose yeah they send us raid invites all the time. It's like these memories that are just like solidified. And, you know, something that we always talk about at kind of funny that makes what we have so special is the community and the fact that like we refer to each other as best friends and the whole thing. It's like a best friend vibe

where the pitch of this company is the moment you leave a movie theater, all you want to do is talk to your friends about what you just saw. Like let's turn that into our jobs. Yeah. And the beautiful thing about that is if you see someone on the street in a kind of funny shirt, you have something to talk to them about. You can walk up to them and be like, what are you playing? And all of a sudden there's a conversation about from like-minded people and it's beautiful. The Pokemon Go community thing

is so awesome because like I keep saying, like in 2016, everyone in the streets were playing. To this day, if you're, like, you might not know it. You might not know it's a community day. But there's events happening constantly. And if you stop and look around a public space, you'll see a phone cord running.

And you'll see someone holding their phone. a certain way. They're playing Pokemon Go. And the more you play, the more you can spot it all out. But what's so cool is like, you can walk up to these people and just be like, we have Pokemon in common. Yeah. Yeah. Pokemon in common. We probably have something else in common. I don't know, this is necessarily the best thing.

Talk to more strangers than ever in my life. And it's all been positive experience. Oh, yeah. At a lot of the Go Fest, you guys have like little signs that you can be like, I'm like trading. This is what I have to offer. This is what I need. And like, I remember the Seattle GoFest,

it was insane how many people I met just from doing that. Like, yeah, it's, there's just something, it's like a really hard thing to explain to people who haven't picked up the game in a long time, but it really has evolved into, like I think you're totally right. I think it is something that's bigger than just looking at your phone.

It is like the people around you and those giant gatherings. And I mean, I've been lucky enough to go to, I went to almost all of the early events. I went to the first like three Go Fest. I went to a couple safari zones. You've got to come out to, you know,

a new live event. I know it's been a couple years. We've been like improving, you know, year after year on this stuff. So, I mean, that is something I want to talk about that, like your background on the team. Yeah. Was live events.

I mean, we started doing like GoFest and all these big things. And it's like that first year of GoFest was like a rough one. I want to talk about GoFest and where it started where it is now. But I want to do that after a quick word, our sponsors. Yep. This week we're sponsored by patreon.com slash kind of funny because it's Patreon Pledge Month. If you enjoyed the crazy amount of SGF coverage we put out in June,

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Conditions apply. Visit scotia bank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. So GoFest. Year one, obviously, it was a huge event where it's like, hey, Pokemon Go has got everyone outside. Let's bring them all together.

This is going to be the best idea ever. Everyone's going to be happy. Is that how it went? I wish, yeah. Yeah, that's how we imagined it would go. I guess a little context for folks. You know, I mentioned my fandom for Pokemon, my whole life. In terms of my career, I spent the better part of my career prior to joining the Pokemon Go team,

putting together events and experiences at PlayStation for about seven years. You know, PSX, rest of the peace. that was one of the greatest of all time. I know, I know. And so I somehow found a way to chat with our CMO at the time. And he was sharing with me that like, they really wanted to double down, triple down on live events for Pokemon Go

because the game is all about getting people together outside and that's just, you know, part and parcel with a live event type experience. So I was hired in April of 27, my first big project was Pokemon GoFest 2017 which was in late July and that was a mad dash to make that happen

you know two and a half months to put together a 20,000 person first time ever experience and I feel like the team really at that time it was so small I was I was like employee number 90 or something like that globally for this massive game everybody came together to make this moment happen. And as soon as the event began, it's like, oh, crap, you know, people can't connect to their cell networks.

It's, it's, you know, bogging up our servers. We had this awesome experience planned where, you know, we were going to release legendary raids for the first time ever. And we couldn't do that, you know. And instead, what we had were people who came in. from all around the world, you know, shouting, chanting,

like, fix your game, you know, to folks on stage. I feel so bad for, yeah. Yeah, you know,

we had hired some, uh, YouTubers and whatnot to come help, uh, host the event. And I, like, I felt so bad for them.

Just like being in front of all, all the players like that. And, um, and our CEO again, John Hanky at the time. Yes, this one.

Oh, God. I cringe. I cringe, I cringe looking at this. Yeah. Um, um,

and, And of course, I think the worst decision we made with this event was, we're like, this would be a great idea to live stream our first ever GoFest. And so everything is totally, you know, just going downhill. And it's being live streamed for everybody around the world to see. I think a bunch of, you know, press was picking up on this. I was getting text messages from people that I hadn't heard from in years. Like, hey, man, I'm seeing this thing about Pokemon.

and GoFest, isn't that like, you know, your job? You know, like, are you okay over there? Are you okay? Yeah, that's like the last thing you want to be bogged down with while you're trying to firefight this experience. I mean, being on the ground as media was also crazy because it was like one by one, it was like, hey, that interview you had is canceled. Like, hey, you actually can't talk to it.

Like, it was just like, yeah. We had sent only me. Like, we had no camera person there or anything. And so as stuff started falling apart, suddenly interested I-chan was like, what is happening on the ground? And Kevin, I have the headline in my article in there that, like, it did redeem itself, which I hope it didn't get better. Yeah. It was a crazy day.

I can't even imagine for you. It was nuts. And, you know, this is something where we had, before the event started, we had talked to all the major cell providers and, you know, let them know about this event that we're putting on 20,000 people coming together in Grant Park. And they, you know, kind of like laughed at us, right? They're like, we just did the Obama inauguration, 150,000 people in the same. place, you'll be totally fine. But we were sort of trailblazing at this time, right? Nobody else was putting together a hyper-dense player experience like this

that required such a tight connection for that experience to actually manifest. And, you know, there's a big difference between if you go to Beyonce concert and you have slow cell service, you know, it's like, okay, I'll upload that video when I get home versus if you go to a GoFest and you have slow cell service like that is the event right yeah um so yeah thankfully you know as Andrew mentioned like we were able to figure things out over the course of the day and we said you know what we're just going to release everybody into the entire city of Chicago we're going to have uh those awesome legendary raids that we had planned going on all weekend all night I do think it was one of those moments where um

When I talked to players who were there in person about what their experience was in hindsight, right? It's like that was really, really, really frustrating, really, really tough. But the aftermath of everybody exploring Chicago together was the epitome of the Pokemon Go experience, right? And, you know, I always tell people, I should have been fired from that, right? that was my big project. Two and a half months in, it's easy to scapegoat someone and be like, sorry, not working out, you know,

thank you, but no thanks. But instead, it's one of the things that I've really loved about being able to work on this game is the team on Pokemon Go, we don't point fingers, right? And instead of trying to think about, you know, who's to blame for this disaster of an event,

everybody, when that wrapped up, said, let's go do a quick offsite. We're going to hunker down. We're going to figure out what went wrong. And we got to figure this out because we have this event taking place three weeks later in Yokohama, Japan. And we got to do it right. And so, yeah, we figured out the event in Yokohama was awesome. I think there were something like three million people came through over the course of 10 days,

which is just insane to think about. And, you know, we've then taken those lessons and committed to continuously improving on these live event experiences. Because we do think that when Pokemon Go is experienced at its best, it's in those moments where you can go to a new place that you might have never been to before. You're with thousands of other people who are loving the, you know, same thing that you enjoy. And you're, you know, working up a sweat together as you explore. Yeah. And it's like you guys really, I mean, I think what you accomplished in a year from GoFest 2017 to 18 and then onward was actually crazy because like, you know, we're talking about the end of 2017 when everybody got to just go outside and do raids. And it was like such a great example of the community coming together.

But then by 2018, which is also in Chicago, you know, return the same place. We had to go back. You guys had figured out that it's like, yeah, you have to spread it out across the whole city. I remember the difference in that year, 2017 felt like chaos. 18 I remember like going on big walks with a bunch of the the the the YouTubers and like hanging out and like it really it would it kind of I feel like as much as 2017 was obviously the first one 2018 felt like the blueprint for what is now yes Yes you know was that

A happy accident or was that a backup plan like the how bad day one went of the first go fest where it's like the plan was like the plan was to have everyone here in the park And it's like okay this isn't working and then you're like all right let's go into Chicago was that a y'all be like we made the wrong call this always should have been this way. Can we get gyms and raids going on everywhere? Or was that a, okay, this didn't work. Let's go to Plan B. I wish I could tell you we had time

to even come up with a Plan B before that event. So the team was problem solving on the fly and you know, figuring out like what's actually causing this? Okay, there's a ton of congestion of everybody in this spot. And I still remember at the time too, we were taking such a traditional

approach to live events. The whole park was fenced off. You had to go through like security gates to get in, show your proof of ticket. But anyone who plays Pokemon Go knows that that's not how you play the game. You need to be able to like free flow in and out of places, you know, and move around. And so we literally sent,

we like corralled people into this place where like you literally couldn't play. And so, yeah, over the course of the day, we said, okay, here's what we're going to do. we didn't really even have the right tools and technology at the time to easily make that citywide gameplay happen. So it had to like manually get spun up over the course of that day. And thankfully that the team was able to work under pressure like that. And, you know, we can look back, I think now and, you know, kind of, I don't know if I'd say fully fondly, but I do think that that post

daytime experience was something that we're proud of. It's cool that it seems like it was kind of an accident and a forced solution that became the blueprint for what these events are now that are now not to undersell this at all. These events are not just in Chicago

once a year. This is like multiple times a year around the world there are either go fest or safari zones or go tour wild area. We just announced yesterday we're taking Go Wild area, not to plug things, but we're doing our first Go Wild area in Mexico, you know, and the same weekend as it's going to take place in Japan as well. But yeah, this is something that we really want to continue to invest in and grow.

We've ever since that first GoFest in 2017, we've had an average of 400,000 players attend an in-person event every year since, you know. And that's including during the pandemic where that average. got brought down quite a bit because we couldn't have, you know, in-person events. So, yeah, and this year we shattered all of our own records across the different GoFest in Tokyo, Chicago and Copenhagen. So I do think it's something that we as a team are getting better and better at doing, but also our player community is starting to really recognize and love that aspect of the game because it's not something that you can experience with any other game.

Yeah. When it's like I think that we are sort of spoiled by playing in San Francisco, which is obviously a gigantic, you know, like we really can go out in a random weekend and especially like a community day or something, let alone a Go Fest. And it's like there are going to be hundreds, if not even thousands of people around playing. But for people from a really rural place, be able to go to go to these Go Fest. And especially now that they're in, you know, multiple countries. I think it's awesome. I think it's just such a really, like until you do it, it's such a hard thing to explain how different it makes the game. to just have everybody around you playing. Yeah. Actually, something that we try to do for all of our new hires on the team is fly them out to one of these events because that, you know,

different experience that you mentioned as a player, we feel that as people who work on this game as well. That's where you can truly see firsthand the impact that you're making on people's lives. And when we talk to people who work on Pokemon Go, it's almost like a before GoFest or before live event and after live event experience for them, right?

It's like, this is just a regular job, doing, you know, like, yeah, making a cool game, but, you know, it's a job. And then after you attend one of these events and, you know, we make our employees, like, go like front of house, staffing, like doing the tech support or, you know, like talking to people face to face.

After they staff one of those events, I think people truly understand, you know, how special this game is. And it's like we are making such a positive impact on people's lives through, you know, this humble, mobile free-to-play game. You go for it. Well, I was going to ask, like, as so the game now, I mean, we mentioned earlier compared to what it was at launch, right? We've gotten, you know, slowly but surely, we got, you know, appraising. We got, you know, evolving how gym battles worked. We eventually got trading and rating and all these things.

we, you know, mega is about Dynamax, all this stuff's been introduced. Like, at this point, as you are catching up to the feature set of the main series, do you,

like, I know you probably can't say here specifically, but like, do you have, like a vision of like, like, how you want the game to keep evolving? Or have you finally reached a point

where you can just kind of maintain, like, what it is? Well, we, I mean, we're a very ambitious team, I would say. So we definitely don't ever want to be in a place

where we're just like, I don't know, in sort of like, sustain mode for Pokemon Go. We view this as something it sounds cheesy. I think I've said this in other interviews before, but we truly do refer to

Pokemon Go as a forever game. And we don't think that it can be a forever game if it stays stagnant, right? So I'd say about two and a half years ago when we first started planning out our 10 year anniversary, inclusive of the, you know, the Times Square experience that

we put together, that's when we started to look back at that launch trailer and say, hmm, we've actually ticked a lot of the boxes on here. We should start thinking about the next decade of the game. And so, yeah, there's been a lot of thought into how the game's going to continue to evolve from here. I can't share specifics, of course, but I will say three of the areas that we're focused on, not all of the areas, but three of the ones that we've talked about a lot over the past couple years are number one. We do want to continue investing in community, right?

I think that that, as we said, is something that makes this game really unique and special. And while I feel really proud of how incredible the community already is, I do think that there's more that we can do there. In particular, I feel like gyms are a little bit underutilized in the game right now. Or, you know, we haven't given enough attention to gyms over the past years for how prominent they are on the map. And so we do think gyms are a really interesting way that we can continue to engage communities. And so we're going to be looking at that as something to adjust and update over the next 10 years.

That's exciting because I do not. Like gyms are just like, for sure. I wish I cared. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know.

I sometimes feel like if it weren't for the free polka coins that you got from gyms, I don't know if people would be engaging in it very often. And so we want to fix that. The second area that we've been thinking a lot about, also related to what we were chatting about a lot today, is this notion of core memories. And I think Pokemon Go has the opportunity to help create core memories for people when they play this game, right? Something about that combination of a Pokemon and a place and the people that you're with, when I scroll through the Pokemon I've caught, I can vividly remember, you know, where I was. was, you know, especially if it was like on vacation or something. And again, something that's so unique, but not something that we do very intentionally in the game. And we don't celebrate it, I think, as much as we could. So we're going to be thinking a lot about how do we enable more

core memories like that New York experience, you know, all the different live events that we do, and how do we celebrate core memories more in the game itself. And then the third area that I can share today. It's something that's near and dear to me, which is around being maybe the only truly multi-generational game in existence, right? As I shared, you know, my mom who's almost 70, my son who's three and a half years old, all three of us will play Pokemon Go. And when you go to an event like Go Fest or if you're out playing in Community Day, you'll often see families playing together like this. And I do think that's something really special.

Again, it's something that we sort of organically happened upon by having this approachable game. But we want to do more to actually think about what it means to be a multi-generational game and enable multi-generational play in a more intentional way. So, yeah, the next decade is a long time. There's a lot that we're hoping to build and add to the game. but those are three areas at least that are kind of, you know, in the back of my head of what we should be focusing on. I love that so much.

And I mean, those are great paths to go down. And it's true, like how often we see entire families and how often we see very old couples, you know, without kids, without it just like walking around playing. And it's like, it is, it's so fun that Pokemon Go was Pokemon's Nintendo Wii moment. Right. Where it really kind of took this thing everyone loves, but really made it that everyone. Right. Yeah. So that's cool. But the amount of families and you tell them the story about your son, it's like, I have a six-month-old daughter. I can't. Congratulations. I thank you. And I just can't wait for the adventures. We're going to go on with this. And to see so many of my friends like Greg with his son, Ben, who's five, like they play Pokemon Go all the time. And I'm also a hundred now. Right. Things like that. It's like very, very cool that the accessibility to it all, the ease of use and the satisfaction and fun that you get from catching a poker. and that stress of seeing the Pokemon go back.

Yeah. Yeah. We all know that we grew up in the video games. And it's like that that those core memories can be something that simple, you know? Yeah. When it's, it's interesting because like, I think in the main games, it really is, it's like, of course you're like excited to get a legendary or a shiny or whatever. But it's like it's true that like some of my favorite in my entire collection of 10 years of playing this game, some of my favorite Pokemon, it's like a random like a BRARA. Right.

It has no, when you just look at it, you're like, who cares. But like, it's about the moment of like who I was with and when I caught it and what that trip was. It's like, for sure. And that I think gets really special. Yeah, yeah. There was this trend a couple years ago within the Japanese Pokemon Go community where they were posting on Twitter like your top five Pokemon. And so you can, you know, you can tag your Pokemon. And so everybody posted a screenshot of their top five.

And then, you know, sort of an explanation of why those Pokemon were in their top five. And I ended up doing that myself because it's like, that's a fun, you know, experience to just, like think through. And you're right. The, the Pokemon that I ended up having on my top five, yes, there's some that are my favorite Pokemon. But there are lots that, like, I honestly wouldn't care about outside of Pokemon Go. But I have these visceral memories of like when I caught that Pokemon and the people that I was with. And yeah, so. Yeah. You think, dude. Right. So anyways, I really, you know, as we look to the next 10 years, I want us to lean into what makes us special and unique and um and double down on on those things because uh yeah it is a really

unique game and you know in many ways like i said not even a game yeah but i think that there's a lot more to to come i just never in my life would have thought i would care about conkledur and manas wine but like there are two Pokemon that i've had for so long and like there's some of my strongest ones like i've taken down so many raids with these guys it's like just weird connection yes yeah it's so cool and i earlier we're talking about my jacket but like Like that I have such a core memory that is like more than a memory. It's like a core era of my like grind to level 50. Yeah.

And in game, you get this jacket like that I'm wearing right now in the game once you hit level 50. And I, you could buy it at the Pokemon Center.com or whatever. So I bought the jacket because I was scared it might go away one day. Yeah. I'm a big bomber jacket. It looks good. It looks like. And so I bought the jacket, but I told everybody on Games Daily.

I'm like, I'm not going to wear the jacket until I hit level 50. And it took me almost two years to pull that off. Like grinding with you so often. And then when it happened, it happened to be at a Go Fest. We weren't at the actual. That's where we met for the first time. It was. Yes, it was.

It was just a Go Fest global. So we were just doing it in San Francisco. And Greg Miller was nice enough to throw me a parade for that reason and that reason alone. But what was so cool is, yeah, like Goldfarb got to put my jacket on. Yeah, that's right. Like inadvertently because it just like you couldn't find it scrolling. Yeah. And then we got it in the game and I put it on it just like that was just such a fun moment

Now I have this physical thing that like reminds me of like one of my greatest gaming triumphs and yet you're not at level 80 yet Feels like you should get total 80 before the end of the year I hit level 50 and that happens and then within a year after that we get a level jump I think it was like a couple months a couple months now now that the p or the the the top is level 80 yeah and you can no longer get this jacket in the game So I did it. I accomplished what I needed to do. I would have been heartbroken. Well, I remember, like, that was when we met for the first time. And, you know, you were telling me about your journey to level 50.

It must have like, oh, no. In the back of my mind, I was like, hmm, yeah, we have level 80 coming up. Yeah, you're a level 80 now. I am. I hit it pretty fast. Like, I lucked out because, like, for people don't know, to hit, it's not just like getting the XP. You have to, like, complete special tasks at each level. and there's a lot of walking.

And I got so lucky that I was on vacation for each of the steps where I needed to walk. So I was just like naturally walking a ton. But no, it was a grind. I loved it. It feels good to be back at 80. I mean, it was funny because when he was hitting 50, I was like,

I was ever fully lapsed, but I was playing a lot less. And I was like, man, if they ever raise the level cap again, like you'll probably make it before I do at this point. And then that wasn't true because I'm so back into it now. I'm like, well, never mind.

Well, you have a six month old. do you think there's like there's like a new parent nerf you know and in Pokemon go and i my wife wouldn't agree with that now i have an excuse like daily incense i put her in the stroller and i just walk and yeah it's awesome but yeah and you know hey i'm not slouching i'm about it 76 all right like we're we're getting there a little by the end of the year that's good progress yeah we get these platinum trophies or platinum it's it's we'll see i got i got a lot ahead of me but i can't wait it's going to be so much fun. But, actually, funny story on your, on your level 50 and the parade and everything.

I don't even know if you guys knew this, but Greg Miller did reach out to us. I didn't know. At that time. I actually hate hearing this. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, sorry Greg for, I don't know if you ever expected this to be public information. But he asked us if we could, as a joke, just bump his account to level 50 before you. He would do that.

I really appreciate it. You know, I know. We got your back though. You know, it's, yeah, I couldn't, couldn't quite pull the trigger on that one. I don't know if you know this, but Greg has spent the last two years campaigning that he's kind of funny's number one Pokemon fan. Never pairing at all. Me, since day one devoting my life. But, you know, he also is just the biggest thorn in my, my side.

God, that is, that is so, so funny. I want to talk about Times Square because last week, we got to experience. I mean, just peak. Like we got to experience something that was so incredibly special. Thank you so much for inviting us out there. But to celebrate 10 years of Pokemon Go, we've been saying this throughout this episode, but everything that initial 2015 trailer has happened to some extent.

The one thing that didn't was the giant Mutu raid in Times Square. Kev, can you go back to the original trailer? the first trailer I go to the end like the last third of this so here we have you know just people rushing to Times Square as MUTU comes down and everyone's

rating together to face off and you know catch the MUTU and it ends they catch the MUTU and that's great that entire experience was recreated so now Kevin you can go back to the videos you had thank you so much almost to perfection like so many of the visuals were the exact same

It started off with the actual original trailer being shown and kind of given a history. And before it gets to the Mutu part, everything in Times Square goes black. Yeah. What did you feel in that moment? I can't remember the last time I've like ugly cried like that, you know, it really was an emotional experience. And actually, we ended up flying out a couple members of the original Pokemon Go launch team, you know, who have since, you know, moved on to other projects and whatnot, because we did know that that was going to be just this very special moment,

especially for people that have, like, poured so much of their blood, sweat and tears into, you know, making this game a reality. And so, yeah, it was a very touching moment to just, like, look around see so many people that, you know, have spent countless hours with, finally pull something like this off. And, you know, this project, when I said, you know, we've been talking about the next 10 years for the last two and a half years, that's also when we kick this project off. So, you know, we said, okay, what will it take for us to actually have thousands of players in the same raid instance in Times Square together? For, you know, diehard players of Pokemon Go, who have been to a lot of our live events, you might have noticed that over the past,

two and a half years, every live event, we've dropped a, you know, surprise rate at the end where we've, like, tested the limits of how many people in the lobby, you know, we can facilitate. Sometimes those have toppled over. I still remember, like, this was probably in 2024. Our goal was to get 60 people. We're like, if we can get 60 people in the lobby, that'll be a huge win. And to go from that to, you know, over a thousand players. Yeah. See this number go up. Go. Yeah. Right. This moment, well, I'm getting chills right now. Yeah. But it was insane, man.

We had little, like, we were staying there. We were like, well, they're not going to take over all the screens. Like, there's no way. Yeah. Maybe, because there was one that's like, LED video wall cube kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll do just that. Yeah.

No, they recreated the original. Look at you two. He's there. So cool. Yeah, it was, it was a dream come true moment for sure. And I can't stress enough how challenging this was. You mentioned all the different screens. Each of those screens are actually privately owned by, you know, like a different group.

So we had to coordinate and negotiate and, you know, stick the landing. There was a moment less than a year ago where we thought we were going to have to pull the plug on this project because guess what else is happening in July of 2026, the World Cup, right? And so, you know, all the folks that we were working with in New York and Times Square were telling us like, hey, I don't think we can make this happen. There's too much risk with the World Cup happening around the same time. And then one day, you know, we got a call that was like, okay, there's one day in July that, you know, we could do this on. And it was the Thursday of last week. And we're like, we'll take it. We'll take it. We'll, you know, whatever we can get. And so, yeah, I can't express enough how thankful I am for the incredible team that worked on this. They've worked tirelessly over the past two and a half years to make this this thing a reality. And, yeah, it was a really emotional moment, I think, for folks. Even for us. I mean, oh, my God.

Like, so looking at this, to explain it just a little bit more for maybe some people that, like, aren't familiar with the game. Like, you, for raids, you're all joining together into a lobby and then you face off against a legendary or stronger Pokemon and you're all working together. But what was so special about this is we all joined the lobby together to take down this mute you. And we start seeing a bunch of trainer avatars with their poker. like pop up all around. Those are real avatars of the people that were in attendance. Really? Yes.

That's insane. Yeah. Like it's just so cool. Like they're all there and then we see eventually there's a screen of like when the battle starts. Pokemon battle music's playing all over time square. Yeah. And we're seeing everyone's Pokemon on the walls as their HP goes down. Mutes who's flying around like I forget what was called psycho cutting.

Yeah. Like all the different video walls and like just messing the Pokemon up. But then there's this amazing moment where there's, uh, there's this thing called Unity Raids. Is that what it's called? That is, yeah. Unity raids where to get to the final moments, like the strong Pokemon,

they'll put up a shield. And you all need to work together to take down the shield. And the way that works in real life is people in a space together need to all raise their phones up. And it is so Dragon Ball, you know, just like,

spirit of ball. Like, let's do this together. And to experience that, all of us, like, me and you were next to each other and thousands of people. But like, we're next to each other.

other both on the brink of tears like i mean shaking it was crazy i we were joking because like the marriott marquis right there and i was like someone in their hotel room's like literally what is happening outside right now uh because it was it was like i think being around you know a bunch of the the the youtubeers influencers were were out there too and being around people that like i've known playing this game for going on eight nine years yeah on top of you i talk about it with basically every day yeah wild it was um really really cool to see you guys did an amazing job with it i think you know coming from that GoFest experience right what a flex nine years later to just show how things have evolved and like what you guys are capable of pulling off now yeah yeah

and what's crazy too is like seeing these videos obviously it looks cool they do not do a good job of capturing like what it was because being in it it felt like when it went black everything was dark and then we were surrounded by Pokemon it's impossible to capture that on video because the video you're seeing the light from two blocks down right yeah yeah there it was it was so different. There is a video that I want to show you guys that I found on TikTok of somebody that I think got the closest to capturing the feeling of the event. Kev, it's the video that I slacked to assets. It's the TikTok that has a text on it that says in 2015, the first trailer. And if possible I'd like to watch this one with audio. Because I just, I want people to kind of get a better sense of the emotion that we were

experiencing there. Because yeah, like you were saying, it's like people that you've known for 10 years, but like so many people I've known just from watching. You know what I mean? Like the amount of people

that I got to meet and be like, dude, I watch your videos constantly talking about Pokemon Go. It was very cool. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, we definitely had,

you know, YouTubers and whatnot there. But I think what was also really special was we invited every community ambassador from New York to then pull in their community to that experience as well.

And so, you know, these are people that have spent so much time helping organize meetups and whatnot. And so to be able to let them experience that, I think, was also something that I was very touched by. It was amazing. And I think, like, people, you know, I have seen frustration online that it was a small event. Right. And I get it. I think, like, people might not realize how small time square is. Like, it's, like, such a, like, like, it looks gigantic and it's iconic for what it is.

But, like, the number of people that can physically fit there. on top of making it happen. There was no more room. Yeah, like I'm sure logistically, like, even with self-service and everything you guys always have to consider, I just don't know how it could have been bigger, you know. No, totally. And, you know, we always, for these events,

are thinking first and foremost about physical safety of people. And so we really had to be careful with this and work very closely with the folks who manage the time score area. And that's also a big reason why we couldn't even announce this because they're like, if you let people know, like it's going to be a safety hazard out here. So I know and maybe that we ended up like playing to our favor in terms of it being this awesome surprise moment for people that were there.

But truly we were not even allowed to talk about this publicly. Wow. Until it happened. So yeah. So we had this video. Ready, Kev? It's one minute. Let's go.

The screen is all saying gotchas. Yeah, yeah. He pops out. Yeah, yeah. Come on, man. That's what it's all about. Yeah. Yeah, it was really cool.

I think it really does kind of prove what this game can be, you know, with, and like, you talk about what the next 10 years of it can be. Like, I love to think like, okay, so this one did have to be small based on the, you know, the confines of it. But like, you know, in another five years or 10 years, like, how much bigger can it be? Yeah. And, you know, I think that's my promise to folks. I've seen, you know, some of the frustration from people online as well who were not able to

to join in on that. And I can totally empathize with that. But the thing that I'm committed to is I want to bring that type of an epic core memory experience to as many of our players all around the world as possible. So, you know, if you missed on this one, keep an eye out. We're going to keep on trying to push the boundaries and do epic stuff in a way that only Pokemon Go can. That's awesome.

Yeah. Man, what a special game, you know? Yeah. What a special community. Like so many amazing moments and so many more to come. Thank you both. So much for joining me today. Michael,

do you have any final words to say? You know, I'm sure folks are tuning in, have played Pokemon Go at least at some point over the last 10 years or maybe like, you know, you two have played a lot over the last 10 years. So I think the thing that I want to say is thank you. I really think that the community is what makes this game as special as it is.

and we wouldn't be able to do epic things like this if we didn't have such a, you know, just diehard fan base. And so huge, huge thank you. And also I hope you join us for the next decade because there's more things to come. Yeah. Awesome stuff, man.

Stay tuned to kind of funny for way more on Pokemon Go because me and Goldfired will always be here. We'll never stop talking about it. We'll be yapping until the end. No, for sure. But thank you both so much for joining me today. Stay tuned. We still have a lot more fun content today.

Until next time, love you all. Goodbye.