Sustainability Week is over, so I will give it a grade like I have the last few events. I will highlight the good, bad, and ugly.
Good: I like that Grimer was a co-feature. Grimer is a favorite of mine, especially Muk. I was glad to see, even though I don’t quite get why Grimer is a part of this week. I guess because it is sludge and drinks wastewater (according to the Pokedex).
Good: Seeing Trubbish out was also good… especially since it is a 750 Stardust per catch Pokemon. I guess the idea is pick up the trash for Sustainability Week?
Good: I liked the Collection Challenge. They are always fun and the XP reward was AMAZING.
Bad: The spotlight on only Grass types was a bit short sighted to me. I understand that most people associate Earth Day with grass, and greening but Water, Flying, Ground, and Bug types could have easily taken a co-feature role as a part of Sustainability Week to me. All of nature should be celebrated and these are the other top nature types. Spring already seems to bring out a lot of the Grass type already and with the Snivvy (Grass) CD recently and the two Grass types as the Mega Raids (Venusaur and Abomasnow), it seems to me that Grass has already had a high spotlight lately. This is not too bad, just something I would have liked to have seen.
So to me, Gameplay is a definite A… the “Bad” really isn’t too bad, but I would have liked to have seen some more diversity of the Sustainability Week featured Pokemon. Only for that reason does Gameplay not get an “A+”
VERY UGLY: The real life Sustainability Challenge was very poorly thought out. There were lots of problems with this.
The results were known on Earth Day itself – a Friday. The tweet said that as of just before Midnight on the 23rd GMT the results were finished. For me, that would be just before 8 PM (Eastern Daylight) and just before 5 PM on the West Coast of the US. Most other places to the east it was overnight hours. Yes, there are some Earth Day celebrations on the day itself, but I would imagine most of them were during this past weekend. Many Trainers, myself included, could not participate in any efforts since the only days for this were weekdays. I would have attempted to do something on Sunday based on the three big things that were discussed on the Niantic blog under Small Actions Add up to Big Change, which is the 2nd page to look at after the in game news. Saturday would not have been a good day. for me. I would have considered picking up some trash somewhere or maybe planting something . The other was volunteer time, which I did not consider due to personal reasons. These things all take time and quite frankly, after work does not afford a whole lot of time for most Trainers (myself included) to do something to help the cause. Of course, I did not know all of the “rules”…
The “rules” and the statement that something simple could have been done was buried even further as well. From the game, Trainers had to hit the news section, then go to the game blog, then to the Niantic Blog, then another site (Sustainability Campaign) just to get the mechanics and “rules” of the campaign. Only there would Trainers (and Ingress players) learn that simpler tasks like taking on a DIY repair task (I would think installing a lower flow shower head would count), or building a bee hotel (or similar structure for wild animals I guess) for those who are handy, making a donation to a cause (either fiscal or physical) or buying reusable bags/water bottle were mentioned as acceptable for the campaign. Only there the “this is how we count your contribution” was spelled out and how you knew how to participate. I can imagine there were some trainers who don’t use social media or did not know how to participate who would have added their contributions. However, navigating 4 separate pages was frustrating just to learn the “rules”. If the “rules” were spelled out on the original link from the News (Pokemon Go blog), I would imagine that the participation rate would have been much higher. I know I would have gladly bought a couple reusable bags for the cause and/or show myself using them at the store had I known and it been spelled out for me clearly.
I won’t even go into the “prize” we “won” since 1873 people participated and Niantic committed to plant trees to get to 2500 (627). Let’s just say that it did not much for me at all. If the challenge went on through the weekend and would have been awarded this coming Saturday or Sunday with the trio coming out, that would have been much more enticing.
So overall, the Real Life Sustainability Challenge gets a solid Needs Substantial Improvement. Hopefully they will learn from this and next year will promote the event better and make it much easier to participate in. Even the smallest changes make impact… let’s celebrate those as well.
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