TL;DR: New content is needed soon, because Niantic is running out of new top dogs that outclass previous Pokemon. Outclassing previous Pokemon "artificially" is bad too, because it undermines the player's efforts with other Pokemon by making them irrelevant. If Niantic doesn't add new content and just releases "subpar" Pokemon with no use, well… Look at the reaction to Kalos Tour.
1. Introduction of the problem
As you might have figured out after reading the comic, Niantic/Scopely has reached kind of a tight spot when it comes to the new content featured at the big events.
In the past few years, Niantic has REALLY cranked up the Power Creep game, starting with Mega Rayquaza in 2023. We are reaching a critical point where they have introduced so many super strong Pokemon that they make 99% of the other Pokemon obsolete and uninteresting for any situation. They still have a couple of those super strong Pokemon left like Mega Mewtwo that will likely appear at the GO Fest, Arceus and Ultra Necrozma before even the franchise runs out of ridiculously strong Pokemon, but after that… Where do we GO from there?
2. What if Niantic just keeps going with the current "philosophy"?
This will work just fine for a year or so, maybe a bit longer before the reality starts to REALLY hit the playerbase. It'll take a few Fests/Tours/Wild Areas before the trend starts to become visible for the average casual players.
We are currently witnessing the playerbase's reaction to an annual big event that offers something else than new, top tier strong Pokemon. I'm a "professional cynic" so it's nothing new to see me addressing the flaws, but go to any social media platform that discusses Kalos Tour, and you can get a more objective view of how the fanbase is reacting to this kind of situation.
They can try to make the content interesting by increasing the difficulty to match the Power Creep by requiring more and more people to participate in the battles. However, I'm yet to see a person who thinks it is fun or exciting to go through a hard battle, only to get a Pokemon that is outclassed by other Pokemon on the day of its release. Furthermore, I have seen countless players who get absolutely devastated because they simply can't even participate (or have to pay a lot of money to join Remotely).
They can give artificial power boosts beyond their actual stats, to new Pokemon to make them relevant strength-wise and become the new strongest thing. This is called "Power Creep", and anyone who has played a live service game with uncontrolled "Power Creep" knows how bad things get when the situation escalates: numbers grow too large to be even exciting anymore and all your effort and existing Pokemon become irrelevant when the next top dog is released.
Sure, they can keep GOing this direction, but I'm seriously worried about the future of the game if this is what they decide to do.
3. So what SHOULD they do?
As addressed in the picture, they really should "re-invent the wheel" in some way. Or at least add extra hoops to the gameplay loop.
What I mean by this is that maybe the Pokemon's usability shouldn't be measured strictly on how much damage they do in Raids when you mindlessly tap away.
If they added new content that isn't directly tied to the big annual event, but where the spoils of attending the event would be useful, it could ignite the motivation of the playerbase to keep on GOing.
As an example of such content, look at the Battle Frontier from Pokemon Emerald: it is an endgame area with many different battling facilities where the player battles an endless horde of increasingly tougher opponents, and tries to reach milestones by beating enough opponents in a row. This is basically endless content where the player can try to beat their previous record by getting better and building stronger teams. The Facilities offer different rulesets for battles, so a single super strong Pokemon isn't the go-to option in every situation. This is a key part of making the content interesting: it offers space for Pokemon with different strengths to shine.
In this scenario Niantic could offer Pokemon from big annual events that don't outclass everything that currently exists, but aren't 💀 on arrival either because something that exists is just better.
Ideally, this would secure the future of big annual events that the players are looking forward to, while it also wouldn't threaten the game balance when Niantic desperately tries to make things interesting by adding escalating Power Creep.
by Entire_Pineapple4732