"Great job, Niantic": Pokemon GO community speaks out against the new Master Raid Box 

Paid content has been problematic with Pokemon GO's community for some time, especially after Niantic changed prices for Pokecoins. The controversy appears to have continued with the introduction of the Master Raid Box, which doesn't seem to have quite the substance that it used to for its considerably large price.

A recent Reddit post by the user Horror_ad_2920 used a meme to point out the math behind the most recent Pokemon GO item box. They pointed out that before Niantic's Pokecoin price adjustments, boxes were cheaper and also featured many more items.

While many players still pour plenty of real-world money into the mobile title, there's no denying that items and bundles have become more expensive, and the community isn't quite happy with that. One user talked about how they used to purchase incubators regularly, but don't do so anymore:

Pokemon community member angry about Niantic's price changes (Image via Reddit)

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Pokemon GO Redditors react to the Master Raid Box's pricing

In response to Horror_ad_2920's Pokemon GO subreddit post, players dropped their comments below signaling their dissatisfaction with Niantic's Pokecoin price changes. Many items and bundles increased in Pokecoin price, and some of the latter very clearly hold fewer items than they did previously. Inflation has been brought up time and time again among members of the community.

This kind of player apathy could spell trouble for Pokemon GO in the long term where profits are concerned. If gamers aren't willing to pay for Pokecoins, Niantic's income will surely take a hit.

Sure, trainers can protect gyms for their teams and collect Pokecoins, but coin collection is capped. It can take an excessive amount of time to grind coins through the conventional method to receive enough for even one Master Raid Box.

While there's no doubt that a small faction of players still spend a large amount of money on microtransactions in Pokemon GO, fewer trainers playing the game means less data that can be collected by Niantic for its sponsors. Surely, some community members don't care much about this fact, but it's another factor that can cause problems for the developer's bottom line.

It's certainly no secret that most mobile games make most of their money off of 1% of playerbases spending exorbitant sums of money on microtransactions. It may be due to this reason as to why Niantic seems to disregard the large amounts of feedback they've received on social media from concerned fans.

As a corporate entity, Niantic has to strike a tenuous balance between player engagement, enjoyment, and acquiescing sponsors and brand partners.

Unfortunately, there's no real way to measure the number of fans that are currently disgruntled with Pokemon GO's coin price increases, and it's possible they're in the minority compared to the game's community at large. This may be why Niantic hasn't changed course in recent months despite consecutive bouts of criticism.

However, if players continue to be upset by Niantic's current content and business model, the negativity may snowball into a much larger problem for the developers.

Perhaps Niantic will pay closer attention to player complaints in the future, but previous months have shown no indication of doing so. It's unclear as to whether this is a wise decision for the Pokemon GO developers, but as long as they stay the course, trainers will continue to point out their criticisms.