In Pokémon GO, fans are excited: Will Pokémon Go really become a paid service starting in August?
We received three messages from excited fans within an hour. Apparently, there is currently a rumor circulating that Pokémon GO will soon cost €12.99 per month. Developer Niantic is thrilled that their game is doing so well, but the current free-to-play phase is only temporary. This is just the trial month. Soon, they will switch to a subscription model..
Whether we at Mein MMO have heard something about this, people are asking visibly frightened and wounded, why they only know about this shocking news from Facebook and not from sites like ours.
As the origin of the news, we were able to identify an article from the well-known German satire site “Der Postillion”: So there is nothing to this news; rather, it is meant to be funny and provoke thought through exaggeration. For example, about the issues of blindly signing terms and conditions that no one reads.
Money is supposedly needed to pay motorcycle riders to release Pokémon
For some experienced internet users, the report is likely to be immediately recognizable as satire. At the latest when it is mentioned that Niantic needs money to pay “Pokémon distributors” who ride around on motorcycles releasing Pokémon.
But some of the younger Pokémon fans are probably not so familiar with the concept of satire, and when the information comes second-hand and looks seemingly official, especially when it is greatly abbreviated, confusion arises. We hope to clarify this with this article, although addressing satire often feels like spoiling jokes.
Even some gaming magazines sometimes fall for a clever satire, as the news, where a man sues NCSoft because his relationship with a virtual cat ruined his life, made medium waves.
