Pokemon Go trainers upset with expensive Pokemon HOME transfer costs

Pokemon HOME’s connectivity with Pokemon Go has finally arrived but it is the transfer costs that are making the headlines.

Trainers have been waiting for the integration for the majority of 2020 and, finally, it went live on the evening of November 10 (Level 40 trainers only as of writing). This means Pokemon can be transferred from Pokemon Go to Pokemon HOME.

While we knew the connectivity was coming, we didn’t know what the cost of transferring Pokemon would be. Well now we do and trainers are far from impressed.

Pokemon transfer costs

Once your Pokemon HOME is synced with Pokemon Go, you’ll be transferring using GO Transporter device and the energy you have stored up in it.

To begin with you’ll have 10,000 energy and when it dips below this you’ll regain 60 energy per hour. So, if you’re down to zero energy it would take 167 hours (basically a week) to get it back to full charge.

• Read More: When and how Shiny Mew should release in Pokemon Go

Alternatively, you can use your hard-earned PokeCoins. Every 10 energy you regenerate will cost one PokeCoin, which is 1,000 coins to get it back to 10,000 energy.

This is meaningless without knowing the transfer costs, though. They vary from the type of Pokemon, their strength, and whether they are a Shiny. The costs are as follows:

Standard Pokemon

• Base cost: 10
• Shiny +1,990
• CP 1001-2000: +100
• CP 2001+: +300

Legendary Pokemon

• Base cost: 1,000
• Shiny +9,000
• CP 1001-2000: +300
• CP 2001+: +500

Mythical Pokemon

• Base cost: 2,000
• Shiny +8,000
• CP 1001-2000: +500
• CP 2001+: +700

An expensive transfer

Not many trainers will be too upset with the cost of transferring most of your Pokemon. However, when it comes to Legendary, Mythical and Shiny Pokemon the cost increases, quickly.

Transferring a Shiny Legendary or Mythical Pokemon from Go to HOME costs a massive 10,000 energy. This means, without using PokeCoins, you can only transfer one a week!

So, if you have 100 you want to transfer you’ll be waiting for the better part of two years to do so. Even ‘standard’ Pokemon shinies are limited to five a week.

Trainers were unsurprisingly quick to throw the greed accusation at Niantic, the Pokemon Go developers. It even made Niantic a trending term, which was obviously for the wrong reasons.

“The mechanisms behind this are just 100% behind making profit above the user experience. I don’t care whether it’s Niantic or TPC behind it, it’s wrong,” Serebii webmaster, Joe Merrick shared on Twitter.

• Read More: Pokemon Go’s Level 40 level cap could be increased very soon

Many other players echoed Joe’s thoughts but one trainer shared an interesting theory as to why the expensive costs are in place, aside from makPokemon Go’s Level 40 level cap could be increased very sooning money of course.

Fre Cons Bo shared: “From what I see, they are afraid that people will be using this feature to abandon GO. This method basically forces players to still play GO, because it may take them weeks, if not months to transfer all collection (I don’t know how many you can send in full capacity).” It’s an interesting point and there could well be some validity to it.

Some trainers will be hoping Niantic alters these costs but that seems unlikely. They probably put a lot of time into deciding them in the first place, while considering the reaction to them.

There might be an uproar for the moment but that will dampen as time goes on.