Unspoken Pokemon Go Gym “rule” leaves players infuriated
NianticThere has been a longstanding unspoken rule in Pokemon Go regarding Gym etiquette, but a hostile encounter with another trainer has revealed that not everyone believes in it.
Gyms are the only free-to-play method to earn PokeCoins in Pokemon Go. Each day, a trainer can earn up to 50 PokeCoins, requiring a total of eight hours of Gym time.
However, PokeCoins are only received after your Pokemon is knocked out of a Gym. This created a culture where players are encouraged to only knock each other’s Pokemon out after this period to maximize PokeCoin gains.
However, this is far from universal, with one upset Pokemon Go player sharing on Reddit, “Just got told that it’s ‘bad manners’ to take a gym from someone without waiting 8 hours,” before later expressing, “You have no right to complain when someone plays the game and you are not ‘owed’ time in a gym.”
The post then detailed an encounter where OP knocked out another player’s Pokemon from the Gym, leading to that trainer telling them “You have to let everyone get their coins!” – to which the original user asked, “Oh, is that only a rule for me, not for you?”
This remark upset the other player who accused the poster of being “extremely rude,” going as far as to insist that as a high-level player, the user who shared the post doesn’t need to use Gyms anymore.
The community was quick to rally around the post, with some of the most upvoted replies including, “That’s the entire reason for gyms isn’t it? To defeat and replace??” as well as, “I cannot understand the sentiment of having to wait. If I see a gym I can attack while I’m out walking, of course I will attack it, if I feel like it.”
Others questioned the confronting trainer’s attitude: “Some people seriously need to touch grass. I’d report him. That’s a blatant violation of the TOS,” referencing Pokemon Go’s community guidelines, which explicitly lists harassing others as a bannable offense.
Interestingly, some players disagreed with the post’s larger sentiment, replying: “I wouldn’t call it bad manners. But I do tend to check how long someone’s been on a gym before I kick them out,” and, “You stopped them from getting their coins, so they did the same thing to you. It’s very simple and makes the game worse for everyone.”
The unspoken Gym rule continues to prove divisive, with many Pokemon Go players agreeing that it’s fine to take Gyms whenever, but others believing it is better to wait. Unless Niantic updates how Gyms work in the future, it’s unlikely this fierce debate will end anytime soon.