Pokemon Go gift event brings bonuses and frustration

Paul Cot

Rewards are currently plentiful in Pokemon Go, following Niantic’s announcement of a gift event. While this a good chance to stock up on everything from Poke balls to potions – it may take a while to do so.

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Gift event duration and features

The event runs for two weeks from August 5 to August 19 – meaning it is live now – and features the following:

  • All Eggs received from Gifts during the event will require only 2 km to hatch and look like 2 km Eggs, but don’t worry, Trainers! The Pokémon that hatch from them will be ones that normally appear in 7 km Eggs, regardless of whether you incubate or hatch them during or after the event.
  • For the duration of the event, the number of Gifts you can open daily will increase to 30.
  • For the duration of the event, the number of Gifts you can carry in your inventory will increase to 20.
  • If you’re lucky, you may hatch a Shiny Bonsly!

You may be limited by your bag storage, so it may be worthwhile to increase it by purchasing extra bag storage for 200 PokeCoins. This will increase your bag by 50 each time.

Pokemon GoPokemon Go gifts contain random items from Poke balls to potions…
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What Pokemon can you hatch and which can be shiny?

The Pokemon you can hatch as a result of this event are as follows:

  • Sandshrew (Shiny)
  • Vulpix (Shiny)
  • Diglett (Shiny)
  • Meowth (Shiny)
  • Geodude (Shiny)
  • Grimer (Shiny)
  • Pichu (Shiny)
  • Cleffa (Shiny)
  • Igglybuff (Shiny)
  • Togepi (Shiny)
  • Tyrogue
  • Smoochum (Shiny)
  • Elekid (Shiny)
  • Magby (Shiny)
  • Azurill (Shiny)
  • Wynaut (Shiny)
  • Budew (Shiny)
  • Chingling
  • Bonsly (Shiny, new)
  • Happiny
  • Munchlax
  • Riolu
  • Mantyke

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Why the frustration then?

A lot of Pokemon Go trainers are excited at the chance of being able to open gifts in abundance. However, other trainers have highlighted the tedious process of opening lots of gifts.

Every time you open a gift it takes several seconds to do so. Now, when you extrapolate that for up to 30 times, the frustration becomes understandable. One person commented with a potential way to speed things up: “Just click x after you click open and it’ll go faster.”

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It will be interesting to see whether Niantic offer a bulk opening feature in a future Pokemon Go update, but for now it will have to be done one at a time.

The event runs until August 19, so you’ll want to make the most of the new features before it ends, even if the opening process can be tedious.