TRAINER'S EYE #34 - "Creator Series" ft. Ken Pescatore from Pokemon Professor Network

In this Pokemon interview, we are joined by Ken Pescatore, a Pokemon GO trainer from New Jersey and the founder of the Pokemon Professor Network.

Ken Pescatore is a prominent figure in the Pokemon GO community, known for his passion for Pokemon GO and podcasting. In this episode of ATPT, he talks about his experience with the game, his love for podcasting, and the origins of The Pokemon Professor Network and Lured Up from the Gotta Watch'em All podcast with his co-host and long time friend Adam Tuttle.

Ken Pescatore shares how he got involved with the Pokemon community, and how his interest in podcasts led him to start shows like Gotta Watch 'Em All and Lured Up, which transitioned toward The Pokemon Professor Network.

As a content creator, Ken Pescatore talks about his experience working with Niantic and attending events like GoFest Seattle. He also offers insight into the challenges and rewards of creating content in the Pokemon community, and the importance of building a community.

Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!

Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
"Pokemon Red and Blue Theme (Summertime Remix)" by The Greatest Bits
"Game Over" by Danijel Zambo
"Trapped in a Pokeball (Trap/Drum & Bass Remix) by Gamechops
"Malie City" (Chill Trap Remix) by Gamechops
"Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix)" by Tetracase
"Podcast Better" ft. Ken Pescatore

Connect with Ken Pescatore: Website | Twitter | Linktree

Transcript

David Hernandez: 0:23

Let's see what we have today. Already purified him. Already have the shiny Della Bird. Yeah, that was last week. They're finally back. What's going on? Pokemon Good. Trainers welcome. Welcome to episode 35 of As the Pickleball Turns the podcast for. The stories are real and people still play this. Lured up as part of the, today is Wednesday, April 19th. I'm your host, David Hernandez. Join, joined by my co-host, Dukes and Layla. Say hello, y'all. Dang it. I need to fix this stupid thing. Podcasts are a digital form of content able to be downloaded from the internet. Podcasts are to radio to what YouTube eventually became for television. The earliest implementation of podcasting can be found back in September of 2000, when a manufacturer named i2Go offered a service where users could download news stories for listening on either a PC or MP3 player. This service was quickly defunct in 2001, but it was the early stages of what would later become the phenomenal podcast landscape we know today. The discussion and content within a podcast can range from carefully scripted to completely improvised. Within the Pokemon Go community, there are different types of podcasts with different styles and banter between co-host. There are some who cover generic news, some who cover P V P and some who do a bit of both. We are a very niche community and most of us do podcasting outta passion and it hopefully shows through the content we present every time we release an episode. This passion is what led my guest to podcasting. He's the founder of the Pokemon Professor Network. From Red Bank, New Jersey, here's his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is. Ken Pescatore. Today I'm joined by Ken Pescatore. Now Ken, I really didn't know the best way to introduce you because you're a lot of things, for anybody who's familiar with the Pokemon Go podcast scene, or even just the Pokemon Go Community on Twitter, you're a very familiar name. You know, you're the co-host of Lured Up! You're the co-host of Gotta Watch'em All. You're the founder of the Pokemon Professor Network. For your local community, you're the owner of the New Jersey Go Battle League. That's a lot of titles. And to your son, you're also a father. But however people may know you, they know you as Kim Pescatore, and I just wanna welcome you to the show.

Ken Pescatore: 4:14

Thanks, that was, that was an incredible introduction. No, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and I, I dig the format, so I'm, I'm really looking forward to chatting.

David Hernandez: 4:22

Definitely and the whole point of As The Pokeball Turns and the Trainer's Eye series is try to understand, you know, how did this all start? Like how did the game of Pokemon GO bring us to where we are today? So I gotta ask when did you first start playing Pokemon Go?

Ken Pescatore: 4:34

So, interestingly enough, I was well aware of the game coming to the iOS store you know, I was playing on iPhone. I was kind of waiting for it, the days leading up to it, I was following the people in Australia that were playing in the beta. So we were just waiting for the news to drop and I remember this so incredibly vividly. It was, you know, July 6th, 2016 when the game first came out, I was actually moderating a Twitch chat for Nintendo Wire, which is an amazing Nintendo website that are friends of mine from back in the day. So they were doing like a Mario Kart tournament or something like that and I was just helping them out in the chat. And I remember everyone started popping off saying, Pokemon GO's out, Pokemon GO's out! And I immediately, you know, tried to get my phone while I was still moderating the chat and you know, holding up to my mod duties. And I couldn't get into the game on day one, now because I have a history with Pokemon and you know, tracking competitive and all that kind of stuff, I had a Pokemon Trainer club account. We had no idea on day one that ultimately you'd be able to log in with different login methods. We didn't know that. So I'm like, I need this to be connected to my Pokemon Trainer Club account cuz all of my in-person T C G stuff, like everything's tracked there. So the servers were so beat up that launch night for the trainer club account holders, that I couldn't get in. So I tried and tried and tried literally all night. I think it was around 2:30 AM that I actually was able to get into the game initially, set up my account and do all that stuff. While I tried my hardest to get in on July 6th, I was unsuccessful, so I'm a, I'm a July 7th, day one player, a couple hours after the day one. So I was really, really, really hyped on this game, right up to its launch.

David Hernandez: 6:19

You're bringing back 2017 Go Fest vibes for me. So I understand the struggle of not being able to log-in. So Do you remember the places where people went, where you stayed at the time? Like what was the hotspot?

Ken Pescatore: 6:30

Hundred percent. So we, we immediately found a group and I, I really gotta give it to the local community leaders in the Jersey Shore area because they mobilized very quickly and probably within a month or two of the game being out there was Facebook groups. We had adopted Discord very, very early. There was stuff happening with the community almost immediately. So we were able to kind of like organize early groups to kind of figure out what this game was all about, meet people and do all this stuff. So for me, I live in Long Branch, New Jersey, so I'm literally looking at the ocean right now. I'm, on the ocean, literally

David Hernandez: 7:08

Jealous!

Ken Pescatore: 7:09

It's, dude, it's amazing. So about 20, 25 minutes south of where I am is a town called Belmar, New Jersey. It's like a beach town, party town. There was this park, now, for whatever reason, this park became like the Pokemon Go hotspot. There was three memorial benches that were three Pokestops in this park, so this was called the Three Benches, that was like the name of this place. Everyone in the Jersey shore knew about it and you could go there any night of the week. Every parking spot was filled, there was just, it was like this little tiny triangle park right on the beach on Ocean Avenue. And there was nothing to the park, it was a small patch of grass, there was like this little hill and three benches with three stops and this was just, I just remember it so vividly, like just driving down Ocean Ave to get to Belmar and in the distance, see the stops lured up. You know, as we were rolling into town and it's like,"ah, yeah, people are there," you know, it's like, I just remember that feeling so well. But ultimately Redbank, the city of Redbank, the downtown, because of it having an established ingress community, it was pretty fleshed out already. So Redbank as a town, became kind of the mecca of the greater community. And that's still where I play every day today.

David Hernandez: 8:22

So basically three benches was the starting point, but eventually y'all transitioned towards the downtown area

Ken Pescatore: 8:26

Yeah, and that's where, because the three benches was a small, little isolated place. People would come, people would travel, it was amazing, but you couldn't accommodate, more than 50, 60 people like we would be spilling into the street. When the scene started growing and you know, we needed things to do cuz we couldn't just stand in the middle of a park all day, that's when we migrated to Redbank and Asbury Park, these are the surrounding towns that started building like really strong on the ground PGO communities, raid trains, all that stuff we adopted.... man, it was, it was Meowth bot in Discord back in the day, that was like what we had originally used. MeowthBot, that's Foley Oley as the, as a creator of that, I actually had him on Lured Up way early, super early in the show's history. And I mean, it was amazing, people were using Discord to communicate and organize raids and none of this was remote, so it was like everything was, just car fu. We would have literally have trains of, of cars just going from raid to raids to raid, it was, it was amazing. But yeah, this whole Jersey Shore area has been a really awesome, I'm very fortunate to live in this spot because there's so many like diehard community leaders that are right outta this immediate area.

David Hernandez: 9:33

Now you mentioned that you used to meet up back before when the game first started. Now this is before Raids before PVP. So were y'all just meeting just for meetups or just to coordinate times y'all were gonna be at the park or,

Ken Pescatore: 9:43

yeah, just to play. We were big fans of walking and playing, so we would literally just get a mob scene together and just kind of walk the board, you know, we're on the beach, man, so it's like we are just like, yeah, let's come on, let's walk the boardwalk. So that just became like the thing and, uh, we would all just hang out and, talk shop and the majority of people that were playing were Pokemon fans prior to PGO, so it was like they had an affinity to everything that was going on, they had a speaking knowledge of what was going on. Because of like this overwhelming kind of madness that was Pokemon go back in the day, we had this incredibly diverse group, so we would start to bring in people of all ages and cultures and backgrounds and gaming prowess, like all this stuff. And we had this core, really diehard Pokemon group, which is so great that I still play with these people today. But they were very welcoming and it was so great to see these communities being built kind of from the ground up and yeah, no raids, no pvp, like, no, it was just, just for fun, like, it was just because of the craze. And we just all wanted to share that crazy passion with each other. When you mix that with something like an amazing downtown, like Asbury Park, New Jersey, or Redbank, New Jersey, it becomes, you know, it becomes an event and that's how we handled it and how we built up the communities locally.

David Hernandez: 10:55

You said that people who were familiar with Pokemon went to Pokemon Go. What about you? Like, what was your experience with Pokemon?

Ken Pescatore: 11:01

So I'm an O.G. I was, into the Japanese TCG cards prior to the American stuff being released here. At the time this was being released, I actually worked for Wizards of the Coast at a brick and mortar Wizards of the Coast Store. So I was kind of a T C G guy doing different card games and miniature based war games and stuff like that. I was super aware of, Pokemon coming and we had, Japanese cards like around us. So when the TCG first came over, I was heavily involved in that probably within three to six months of the game making it here on the TCG side. This is when like Red and Blue were dropping and you could bring your, Gameboys to Toys"R"Us with your link cable, get your Mew, all that kind of thing. I never really give the full backstory on this, but I kind of weezled my way into, being connected to TPC to kind of host these events for Pokemon and like, I would go to Toys"R"Us' and set up shop and, you know, give out promo cards, like, it was like super early on and I was able to kind of like weasel my way into that, this was like the proto Pokemon professor program back in the day, so, I mean, I've been doing organized Pokemon Go stuff since it hit the U.S.

David Hernandez: 12:09

Wow. So basically you really are day, you're day negative one cuz you did it even before that us...

Ken Pescatore: 12:15

And I'm an old man, you know, so I'm definitely like, the oldest dude around in the, in the PGO scene for the most part. So it's like when, Pokemon franchise came to the States, you know, I'm already in college, you know what I mean? I'm outta high school, you know, so I'm, I'm grown. I had that adult money, so it was just like, you know, every penny I've had, I just bought T c G cards and like, you know, it was wild. But yeah, I've been, kind of connected to this franchise and it's been part of my culture and my bloodline since the very beginning.

David Hernandez: 12:43

And that's pretty interesting cuz most of the people who I've met who were around your age at the time, like 18 to 22, Pokemon was kind of beyond them at that point. You're like, one of the few people I've met who actually embraced it at that age.

Ken Pescatore: 12:55

Well, you know, I, I grew up watching anime, so I was like a GURPS and Robotech kind of guy, and that turned into like a Kira and some of the more Japanese stylized stuff and I started getting into like Cowboy Bebop. That kind of transformed into more of, I don't wanna say kid content, but I started watching more like whimsical anime. It went from like this super serious, mech based stuff and guns and all this stuff. And I started watching more kind of GB style anime and then when the Pokemon Anime came here, it was just like, that like kind of fell into my lap. So I was just like, this is perfect. So it was, I had the anime going, I had the TCG stuff going like, I love that the franchise, I could kind of you know experience it in a bunch of different mediums. The multi-medium aspect of it was super compelling to me, and I think that's kind of what really kept me connected to the franchise was I was able to connect with it in so many different, ways

David Hernandez: 13:50

Do you have a particular favorite Pokemon?

Ken Pescatore: 13:52

So this has changed over time, but I would say up until about three years ago, my entire Pokemon career, I was a Geodude guy. I mean like hardcore Geodude. Geodude card collections, Geodude plushes, Geodude toys, like Geod dude to the death. Slowly but surely Magikarp has edged out Geodude and I never thought it would happen. My last name, is an Italian last name. It's means fisherman, right? So growing up, my nickname was"Kenny The fish, like, they called me the fish. So Magikarp, I don't know, every time I would see it, I would give it the side eye and it just like kind of flop in there, all useless and that was compelling. And then the fact that it could, you know, evolve into this giant beast to throw down if it needs to I was like,"yo, I like your style Magikarp." and dude, before I knew it, I'm like waving the Magikarp flag over the Geodude flag. I'm like, how did this happen?

David Hernandez: 14:44

But Geodude sounds like it might be number two?

Ken Pescatore: 14:46

A hundred percent. So Magikarp, Geodude for, life. You know, and it's hard not to fall into the, Hey, I'm an old man, I'm a gen one, you know what I mean? But cuz like, I like Koffing too, you know what I mean? Like, I'm a big C like, coughing is like a, a, a close third. Of course I like Pokemon from every generation, but because of, you know, how passionate I was from the beginning, I do have a real strong connection to Kanto.

David Hernandez: 15:08

I mean, that's how it was for me too, cuz my favorite one's Art Kuno and I can't not let it be, not number one, I have too many memories with it. It's forever gonna be my number one..

Ken Pescatore: 15:16

Yeah, it happens. and then a dude and then it can change cuz I thought that was like, I was like, ride or die for Geodude, I was like, yo, you're my boy to the death. And it, yeah, it just, it just snuck up on me one day and I was just like, oh, what's up Magikarp? So you never know.

David Hernandez: 15:30

So going back to Pokemon Go, like what was your way to play?

Ken Pescatore: 15:34

It was definitely travel, so it was, for me, I was very compelled to build the community, right? Like I was super into meeting new people, finding the community leaders, connecting with them directly and saying like,"Hey, what's going on in your community? What's going on with your player base? what are their behaviors?" So what I would make a habit of doing is kind of through Facebook groups or through Discords, finding these community leaders from different parts of New Jersey and spending time with them. So it was like, I would go, as far down south, like at, to Atlantic City, New Jersey, I would go west towards Philadelphia, and I also have like a close connection to the Philadelphia group. You know, New Jersey's the best dude, it's the armpit of America for sure. It's like disgusting, dirty, and smelly, but yes, that's why I love it. But I'm at the beach and an hour I could be in Atlantic City or an hour, two hours. I could be in Atlantic City and an hour I could be in Philly, an hour I could be in New York City. I got mountains, I got ghettos, I got suburbs, I got hills, you know, I got everything. That's why I love Jersey. Of course, the New York scene was outta control. That was the mecca, so, I grew up spending a ton of time hanging out in New York City. So, you know, I would meet the community leaders in New York City. I remember like, it was so crazy in New York, there was like tours where you would go to New York City and be like, Hey, it's a bus tour. We'll show you the sites. And it's like, there was like companies that were like advertising on Facebook organizing, like Pokemon Go Walking tour. It was like, it was crazy. What I loved to do was go to new places, infiltrate their communities, and just see what was different, like what people were doing, how they were behaving, how they connected to the game, and just kind of trying to get a little snapshot of these different pockets of Pokemon Go players, that was always so intriguing to me. So that's how I approached it, I would just, weekend warrior style travel as far as I could in the weekend, meet a new community and get down with them on, you know, on a foot grind. It was great.

David Hernandez: 17:22

Was it just for you to just find a way to get connected with the communities or just for you to just test out how it was different from one place to the other?

Ken Pescatore: 17:28

Well, I always knew that I wanted to do stuff organized in the game with the community. So it was super important for me to understand how communities operated, how they communicated, how, they worked together, what made them angry at each other, what made them able to, you know, have a good vibe, like all that stuff was super intriguing. So I approached it like that and met all these different people, so that way when I would have my own events that I was hosting or doing, I could be like, Hey, Philly group, why don't you come out?" Or"Hey, south Jersey group, you should come out." And, you know, that really worked well when, you know, once I started doing like organized pvp, like in-person PVP stuff.

David Hernandez: 18:05

And eventually that led you to start the, New Jersey Go Battle Discord, right?

Ken Pescatore: 18:09

Yeah, you know, it's funny, it, it was originally called New Jersey Silver Arena. Yeah. This was, well, well before GBL you know what I mean? We didn't know GBL was gonna be a thing.

David Hernandez: 18:17

Right.

Ken Pescatore: 18:18

But, from knowing these community leaders, we were able to isolate the battlers, right? When PVP first became a thing and the Silph Arena was first fired up, it was pretty easy to find the people that were interested in PVP cuz you definitely had your Gymmers, you definitely had, you know, your grinders, and then you had your PVP obsessed people and you didn't need a lot of them, you just needed consistency out of them. So we had these discords, like the red bank Discord, 900 people, the Freehold jersey Discord, like 800 people, like these huge discords and it's like,"yo, I just gotta find eight to 16 people from each of these different discords and see if I could get them to do some organized in-person battles." and that's really how it started because I knew those community leaders, they would give me access to their discords, I was able to start up channels in the Discord to promote the events. And before I knew it, I was doing three to four organized in-person PVP Silph tournaments for four different communities in the Jersey Shore. And you know, some days I would do three communities in one day, I'd like get up and we'd have like one in early in the morning, we'd do a breakfast thing, do a tournament for three or four hours, I would drive an hour out to the next community, host their tournament, and then drive to Redbank and we'd do it at night, you know, do it all night long. it was awesome! Because that started picking up steam, I was like, yo, we need a way that we can communicate better and be unified here in the state of New Jersey because there's such a network of PVP people. Cause I would start to see people from town a going to town B'S tournaments and like, you know, completely throwing everybody off, they're like,"whoa, who's this person?" you know, they don't realize they've won the last four tournaments in their town. So it became this really cool like inter town rivalry and that's why we, we just had to create the New Jersey Go Battle League Discord because we wanted a way that people that were from all these different isolated town Discords could communicate with each other through PVP. So they all came together for New Jersey Go Battle League. It was awesome.

David Hernandez: 20:14

It's interesting cuz that's similar to what I had to do here in the DFW metroplex. We're very spread out here and I didn't do it for pvp, but I did it for a way for people to get connected, you know, this is before remote raids and everything. There's so many discords on the Silph map, right? And what I would have to do, people wouldn't know where to go. They would just look for downtown, they would miss out on the other discords. Right. And I did the same thing you did to where I infiltrated basically every single discord, like I'm, I'm maxed out on Discords. I can have, yes, because I've been so many. But I did that so that way I can kind of have a pulse on where people can go. Where could they go to get connected with other Pokemon Go players? Because if you weren't connected with other people, part of the game was kind of left out, which was rating the PVP aspect, you know, etc. But if you can get connected with community, then for me, in my opinion, the game has much more of a better experience when it's with other people. And it's like what you did, like, you had to kind of search around and try to figure out like, where's everybody at and what is, and it was great to be able to connect people that way and be able to connected within their own area.

Ken Pescatore: 21:13

Yeah. And it's also really exciting to motivate people to be excited, right? Like motivation breeds motivation, excitement breeds excitement. So you would have these hyper passionate and competitive people kind of coming together. 30 minutes early and just having a good time hanging out, talking, doing the tournament, and then all going out to eat afterwards, like it just became this real close, tight-knit group of friends. That was great because they would go from town to town and they would come in groups. So you'd have like the red bank group and then all of a sudden 10 people from the Freehold Discord show up and it's like, yeah. You know, it becomes a thing. So it was it. It was a very cool, very, very cool network and man, I miss those days for sure. Pandemic ruined everything. We're building. We're building back up. We're building back up. We're trying.

David Hernandez: 22:01

I agree, cuz I miss those. I talked to some of my friends and we kind of missed those days to where we could kind of go around different areas and see different people and they all intersect in some ways, right? Eventually, you know, we'll get to that point again someday in the future, but man, those are good times.

Ken Pescatore: 22:16

For sure, for sure. It's gonna take effort and it's like, you know, a lot of those people that were doing it back in the day and really putting in the effort and putting in the hours, you know, they, they're just not around anymore, so the people that are still here need to step up and we need to recruit new people to kind of fill in all those other roles. And I'm hyper confident. I'm, I'm a, forever optimist, right? I'm always trying to find ways to be thankful and grateful and resourceful and selfless, it's like, what can I do to make this work for the community? You know, I see all the writing on the wall that there is still a demand for community in this game and slowly but surely I see it recovering and, it's very promising.

David Hernandez: 22:53

I always see it as, cuz you know, a lot of people will say like, all this game's always done. And I'm like, they've been saying that since 2016. Right? They've been saying the world's gonna end since it existed.

Ken Pescatore: 23:01

Sure. Y2k

David Hernandez: 23:03

I always see it that, I see it more of a changing of the guard, you know, the game's six or seven years old at this point. People who've been around a longer, you know, things change. You know, six is a years is a long time. Like you, I see it more as we're in transition a little bit. You've got some people who have been around since day one who are still around. You've got some people who fell off and you've, what I'm waiting for is seeing who's gonna be the new blood, who comes in and continues to pass on what the old guard did. At least my

Ken Pescatore: 23:26

Dude, i, I love campfire for that because I'm very gym territorial. I'll sweep through Redbank, you know, after midnight when everybody's asleep and paint the town red, right, you know, for valor. As I'm clearing out these gyms, I would see level 20 trainers, level 30 trainers, and I'm like, I love that because that shows you there's new people that are playing and they're excited about gyms. Like the most of the old school people, man, they like, they hate gyms, they resent gyms like they want nothing to do with it. Adam co-host Lured up, says, I could go by a gym and five of them could be completely depleted of health and one of them has a full heart. He goes, I'm not touching the gym like people are so lazy, like they just don't do gym. So seeing the new blood in there, it's amazing and you know what, that's why I love campfire because there could be a raid popping off. I start a raid, you know, light the flare, go into the flare chat, I would have no way of knowing anyone's around me because I don't see anyone I know. And then all of a sudden someone pops up like, Hey, I got three people. When do you want to drop? And it's like, wait, where are you? Who are you? Like, what's going on here? And they're like, they were all like level twenties and stuff like that. And they're like, yeah, we come from out of town. We come to Redbank to play. They never listen to a podcast, they don't watch any YouTubers, they're not on Twitter, they just played through the game and campfire. I was like, this is bizarre.

David Hernandez: 24:43

It blows your mind!

Ken Pescatore: 24:44

dude. It was like a bazaar world. It was, I go there, this is like an an untainted PGO player. You know what I mean? Like it was, I was like, this is amazing and those are the people that, some of the old school heads, you know, need to direct traffic a little bit and be like, Hey, this is what would work If you're interested in building a community, here's some stuff we've learned over the last, you know, six, seven years that will probably work today and get those people fired up about it cuz they have that energy of just finding the game. You know, think of the excitement we had when we first started playing the game. You know, there's people experiencing the game for the first time in 2023. It's like, how do we capture that intensity, that excitement, and unleash it back into the community? Because that's the fire that we had back in the day and that's how we were able to build, you know, what we did through Facebook and Discord and all this stuff. Cuz we were excited. You know, now everyone's just lazy, lazy bones. Get off your button on skin. I get so fired up, dude. I'm sorry. Don't breathe.

David Hernandez: 25:36

No, I mean, I agree. Cause so I run, a Facebook group and before I was the same way, like you said, like we all should have this and this, you know, the game circles about how I experienced it. Right? Not realizing what you just said, there are people who come to this game even now and the game is brand new. What they've seen right now is what they've experienced. And I enjoy seeing that because for me and you, we started day one. We started with the bare bones, no raids, no bonuses and all that. These guys are coming in, they have all this stuff to them. They don't know like maybe a Trainer Tips or a Mystic seven, they don't even know the Silph Road exists. They just know what they've experienced with the game and it's interesting and it's exciting, but it's, it's just a different world that for me, it's foreign.

Ken Pescatore: 26:17

You know, it, it's funny that you mentioned the Silk Road. I've been doing these community day meetups, You know, prior to GoFest, Niantic was hosting their actual in-person Community day events where they would have a physical presence. You know, now we have the ambassador, kind of isolated little pockets, but Pre-Go Fest this year, there was Niantic sponsored events at different locations, and I was hosting the New York City ones for a while. And I mean, dude, it was insane, like, through the course of the Community Day. And some of them were, were six hours, some of them were three hours, whatever, but it turned into, you know, anywhere between like three and 600 people coming out. It would blow my mind and I'm getting in front of so many new people, it was amazing. And I would always use the Silph Road as kind of my temperature check. If I was talking to people about the game, I'll be like, Hey, you wanna do a Silph Handshake? And it's like, there's gonna be the people that are like, yes, what's your code? Like, they immediately know what self road is. And then you have the people that are like, what is Silph Road? And it's like, all right, this is a newbie. You know what I mean? So it's like that. It's just funny that you mentioned that because Yeah, it's, that excitement, those new people, they're everywhere and the longevity of this game requires new players. Of course, the old school heads, of course, the core players that are still, you know, spending and playing and putting, you know, do I get my screen time report on iOS? And it's like, you went down 20% this week, you only averaged 15 hours of screen time today. You know, it's like, dude, my game is open like that, that's it's open all day. Like, I did not turn it off. And, yeah, how can that new generation, that new blood, you know, they're just so pure, it's like, it's like if I was a vampire, it's like their pure blood. It's like, ah, I feel the energy. It's great. I love it.

David Hernandez: 27:56

Now you mentioned how you were hosting an event. Do you remember what your first Niantic Live event you ever attended?

Ken Pescatore: 28:01

This was an interesting one and for a bunch of reasons. So the first event I did in person for PGO was called Philly Free Streets. And this was an event that was not a Niantic creative event. This was an event that Philadelphia would throw every year that Niantic happened to be at. And when I say happened to be at, I mean, they had one little 10 by 10 pop-up tent, they were giving out posters, like that was the extent of it. But the community, because we were lunatics, mobilized, and I remember seeing the articles in the newspapers after the event. They said that attendance of the event was 25 times the previous year because the PGO people came out. This is right at like Liberty Bell, like beautiful historic Philadelphia. There were people everywhere, GoFest levels of people in Philadelphia. The town did not know what was going on because we were just all there playing Pokemon Go and it as if it was a Pokemon Go exclusive event, and it totally wasn't, it was just the night Foundation, like they did a couple of these events where they're just like, they're a sponsor and, but we turned it into like this madness PGO event and there was thousands and thousands and thousands of people on Philadelphia. So here's a funny little backstory, what made this event special for me was this was the first time I ever met Adam, my co-host, in person. We had a relationship digitally for, you know, as co-hosts with each other for probably a, a year, a year and a half maybe. But I knew Adam for maybe two or three years before that through a different gaming venture that I was a part of. So I knew Adam digitally for like four years before I met him the first time in Person. And Philly Free Streets was the first time I ever met him in person. So it was a very important event for Adam and I, it was great, we talked about that event all the time, it was, it was nuts.

David Hernandez: 29:46

Awesome. Now, you've also been to Go Fest and most notably in Seattle, you hosted the, Pub Crawl. What was that experience like for you just going in as a content creator?

Ken Pescatore: 29:55

Uh, dude, it was one of the, uh, the best times of my life was Seattle. I had so much fun. We had hosted events at 2018 and 2019 Chicago Go Fests that were ramping up over the years. In 2018, we had rented a bar out that could probably hold about 60 people maybe, We did it with Pokemon Go Radio, the Pokemon Go podcast, these are other older Pokemon Go shows from the space. Chris from GO Cast was there they had just recorded episode one from Go Cast. And they were just sitting at the bar, they didn't know anybody, it was the funniest thing, they were so cute. And there was about 50 50 people there. 2019 Go Fest, we got another bar, Monk's Pub, that we probably had about a hundred people, 120 people kind of in and out, we did a livestream, PVP tournament, creators coming through all night. It was nuts. Pandemic happens. No Go Fest for the next two years leading up to Seattle, we were like, yo, we gotta do something big. So I reached out to the other podcast cuz like instead of a meetup, we called it the Mareep up. This was like our thing, we did all the podcasts would work together. Dude, we have shirts from 2018, uh, 2019 Go Fest that has Mareep drinking a beer.

David Hernandez: 31:09

Really?

Ken Pescatore: 31:10

I find that shirt. Where the hell is that shirt? I haven't seen that in so long. Uh, it's a great T-shirt. But I was like, yeah, we need to do something big. So I'm very close and very good friends with, Chris from Go Cast, so, you know, we talk privately all the time. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Are you gonna host anything? And now their audience definitely has skewed younger as time has gone on. Which is amazing because they do stuff that Lured Up can't, so I, I love them for that. And I was just like, yo, we're you want to get a bar again this year? This was, you know, as we're leading into Seattle, and he's like, I don't know if that's kind of on brand for us anymore, you know, to do the bar thing. I'm like, all right, so I have the green light to do whatever the hell I want. He's just like, yeah, I think we're out. So it's like, all right, cool. I couldn't find one spot that was big enough to kind of hold the amount of people I was expecting, which was about a hundred. I was like, if I could get a hundred people together, I'd be really happy. Something I've always wanted to do in Redbank, I always wanted to do a pub crawl in Redbank. I'm like, yeah, I don't know this neighborhood. I don't know these bars. dude, I don't even drink. I was like, I'm gonna host the pump crawl. So shout out to Alfindeol, who's a Seattle local and he's a real good guy and I was like, dude, I need help finding some locations, you know, some spots. He kind of guided me to this one neighborhood in the downtown. He's like, this will be a really cool area, don't do it over here, there's like a music festival going on, the streets are blocked off. I go, you have to be over here. Thank God he told me that. I started calling the bars and I'm like,"Hey, you guys aware of Pokemon Go?" This is probably, I don't know, at least a month and a half, two months before Go Fest. So I called the bars and I'm like, are you aware that, you know, there's something coming? And they had no idea, they didn't know what Go Fest was, I was like, well, you're gonna have about 20, 25,000 people coming into Seattle, and they're all thirsty. I go, so I'm, I'm, I wanna hold an event. I'm gonna be doing this pub crawl. Do you wanna be a part of it? I called about 10 or 12 bars that are all within, like this four block radius in this one neighborhood of downtown Seattle. Six or seven of them were like on board immediately, they were like, yes. The others were like, I don't know how big of a group? And as soon as they gave any sign of weakness, like any sign of like hesitation, I was like, Nope, you're out. I wanted the places that were like, yes, yes, yes. You know, as we get closer, as we get closer, I do the right thing. I do my diligence. I, I contact the owner. I'm like, just letting you know this is what's happening, this is the numbers that we could expect. And then when Seattle hit, man, that night could not have gone any better. It was the greatest night ever, it was so great. The first place that we were at served food, and it's like, yo, I talked to the manager ahead of time, like the whole nine yard deal, they were not ready for us because we started off with like 70 people, like right out of the gate. That chef was losing it, it was just like, people were like, people were like, I ordered a hamburger like two hours ago. And we had about, I think when we left the first location we had, we hit seven locations total. When we left the first location we had between 16 and 70 people, which was amazing. And when we got to the second place, it was like there was an army waiting for us. We got there and the place was packed already. So it was like already filled with people. The Incensed guys were there, so they had like their whole community there, and they picked up the pub crawl from that point on. As soon as we saw the Incensed guys, I mean, the night got crazy from there. And it was just amazing, we stayed at every, you know, I'm like a lunatic. I got like, I'm like the dude running around with like a pencil and a clipboard. I'm trying to get, you know, wrangle everybody, like everyone's getting rowdy, everyone's trashed. The bars were close to each other, so it would be like, literally I would like wave people down and be like, five minutes we're rolling out, you know? And then I would run to the next bar and I'd be like, there's a storm coming. And I try to give them a heads up. And it's like, then from around the corner you'd see like an angry mob of like a hundred people, like just barreling through downtown. Yeah.

David Hernandez: 35:04

Like the podcast are coming. The podcast are coming.

Ken Pescatore: 35:06

It, it was so good, man. It was so fun. I think we had six people that made it successfully from the first pub to the last pub. It was an amazing night and here one little side anecdote that I'll, I'll tell about this Pub Crawl because it was just such a legendary night. So the one place we went to was like, it had an arcade, it had like pinball machines and ski ball and stuff. I'm doing the thing where I'm Paul Revere, right? Like, I, I run forward to let them know like,"Hey, in five minutes my group will be here. Remember we talked", you know, and a lot of the places were like,"who are you?" and I'm like, oh. I was like, I, I'll show you the receipts if you want. I go, but just letting you know there's a hundred people about to blow this bar up. And as I'm walking up to this arcade bar, All of the high end Niantic staff is walking out. So it's like Michael Steranka, it's like a bunch of engineers, a bunch of the producers. So I'm like, you know, talking shop with them. He was just like, you know, they were having a good time too, so they were partying. He's just like,"yo, take this." And he gives me like a bag of quarters I guess, that they like didn't use. So it was like, it was the funniest thing because he was just like,"what are you doing here?" I go,"just wait, you'll hear them in about a second!" And second later you see this huge mob, turn the corner. He goes,"oh my God, they're coming here?" He is like,"we gotta get outta here." And he gives me the bag of quarters and I remember just like throwing the quarters like a mad man at people just going Niantic quarters, Niantic quarter. Dude, that night was so good. It was an epic legendary night. I can't wait till GoFest next year. I don't know how I'm gonna one up it, but it's on! Wherever Go Fest is, there's gonna be some major shenanigans happening because of Lured Up. So stay tuned!

David Hernandez: 36:45

Oh, without a doubt. Now, if somebody was listening and they were kind of on the fence about going to like a Go Fest or going to like an Niantic Live event, what would you tell them?

Ken Pescatore: 36:53

If you want to experience this game at a deeper level, a live event of that magnitude, because there's safari zones, there's little installations and then there's Go Fest, right? If you can make it to a Go Fest, that's like the pinnacle of live event experience. There's no other feeling, there's no other way to experience this game that gives you the same rush, the same feeling, the same vibe, the same, dopamine, serotonin cocktail than a giant IRL event, like Go Fest. So, yeah, I mean, if you can make it out to one, I don't know anyone that's ever been like, yeah man, I went to Go Fest and it was terrible. Like, no, I don't know anyone that's ever said that. So everyone I've ever talked to that is gone. It's been like this, you know. religious experience.

David Hernandez: 37:33

Now you've alluded to obviously, well pretty much everybody knows, you host a podcast, you host several podcasts. And one question I wanted to ask, like, why podcasting?

Ken Pescatore: 37:41

That's a good question. So, in my younger days I was a touring musician. So I played music, I toured for, I don't know, a long time. You know, from the time I got outta high school till probably 2010 or so, I was playing music. Doing that kind of made it impossible to start a family properly and, you know, do all that. So I had to give up the music to kind of settle down. And I settled down, and doing so, I kind of lost this creative mojo. Right? And, I felt like I was severely backed up. I had like this creative blockage. I was like, I need a way that I can get out my creative energy, but not have to invest thousands into equipment, not have to go to the rehearsal studio three nights a week plus tour. I don't wanna have to have like all this equipment that's so loud, I go,"well, what can I do?" Now, I was a very early adopter of podcasts as a listener. I listened to the NERD podcast probably, I don't know, it might have been like 2009 or something like that, maybe. Or it was like, I've been listening to podcasts for a long time. So as a consumer, I just love the podcast format. I grew up listening to Howard Stern, I still listen to Howard Stern every day of my life. The style of skip based stuff and character development, and that narrative was always very important to me. So I was like,"all right, I think I could do podcasting. I go, because once my family is asleep, then I could just go into the closet or go in the basement and do podcasting." I go, this works out. That's really the reason I decided to get into podcasting actually creating, because it was a nominal investment. I already had a computer. You know, I bought a hundred dollars, you know, blue snowball mic and free Audacity software, and that was it, I was off to the races, and that was the main reason. It was because I could do it at home when everyone was sleeping. I wouldn't have to leave, I wouldn't have to go out. It would be non-intrusive to my family and my day-to-day, and it just worked for my schedule. You know, fast forward to today and I wish I still had that flexibility. It's like, now this is, it's all consuming.

David Hernandez: 39:47

It's like you go deeper and deeper the longer you stay in it, it sounds like.

Ken Pescatore: 39:50

Dude, I've got to the point where I punch in and out. So I keep track of my time and there's been some weeks where, I've clocked more hours and Pokemon stuff than I have in my full-time job. So I'm, I'm, uh, I'm very dedicated, dedicated to the craft right now. Yeah, it's, it's wild but it's also like this weird, cathartic thing because, just like we play the game to feel this amazing feeling of being a Pokemon trainer, you know, and you have this moment where like the game just takes you away. You know, I feel that way with, podcasting, I just love the format so much, and delving into audio. Like I said, I was in a band, I went to audio engineering school in New York City like I, I was into audio my whole life. Being able to record something, edit something, produce something, master something, publish something, syndicate something like that's from my laptop, like from, you know, where am in my underwear, sitting in my basement, you know, It felt very empowering to me and it was just like, yeah, this format is amazing.

David Hernandez: 40:48

That's how I felt. With podcasting, it's a little bit more easier cause you only deal with audio. But I've also learned to embrace like, how can I make the show better? what can I do differently? You know, how can I promote it better? It sounds like work but for me, it's never really felt like work and that's the best part is like, you've gotta learn to embrace the creative process, the entire thing. If you don't like it, it's gonna show to your audience.

Ken Pescatore: 41:07

Well, and that, that's what's exciting about podcasts too. I mean, there could be, and I, I'll call these guys out, the old Pokemon Go radio guys, my buddies, right? I remember they would, yeah, I would hear them. I would listen to their show religiously. I love their show. And they would always complain about the editing process, you know, and how it's so rough. When I started lured up, I mean, when I said I would edit, I was spending five hours of edit on a one hour show. I remember I was a guest on Pokemon Go Radio, right? And we recorded, I sent them my files. The show is supposed to come out a couple days later, so a couple days goes by and I think it was Salt reaches out to me, he's like,"yo, you never sent your file." I go,"yeah, I did, dude. I sent it on the", I pulled up the email on this date, blah, blah, blah. He's like, resend me the file. I gotta do the edit. I sent him the file. Within 10 minutes, the episode is published. I'm like, yo, you didn't edit anything, dude. So, but that's the beauty of it like, you can record it and hit publish, or you can record it and cannonball into the editing process and, go through that whole thing and then publish it. So the range of styles of production of podcasts is so varied. It's just so accessible for people to get into. I just love the process of editing. I don't like that it takes up, a third of my life, but I do love doing it.

David Hernandez: 42:20

I know you talked earlier about Adam, y'all met through another podcast, project y'all did. Was it something different from Lured Up, I assume?

Ken Pescatore: 42:27

Yeah. completely different. So we were very passionate about a style of console gaming called Toys to Life. Toys to Life Gaming was like the franchises were like Skylanders or Disney, Infiniti. There was Lego dimensions, the Amibo, Nintendo Amibo, where there would be like a physical toy that had an nfc connections that you can connect this physical toy to a game and unlock different things. It was like all this stuff. So we, we were obsessed with Toys to Life gaming. There was a podcast called Toys for Games that was the biggest Toys to Life podcast out. They had a very, very strong and healthy community and I was the community manager for that community. Adam was a very rabid fan of that podcast, so I knew him as a community member of that podcast because I was running the Facebook group, I was running the socials. I was doing all the emails that would come in from the listeners, like, so I saw Adam's name come up constantly, constantly, constantly and he was always posting Pokemon stuff. When I started with Gotta Watch'em all, that was the first podcast we did about the anime, this was before PGO even came out and the first couple episodes of Gotta Watch'em All were Bonus episodes on the Toys for Games podcast feed. So they were just like little side bonus episodes. The original host of Toys for Games ended up being the original host of the Special Conditions podcast, TCG podcast, that came full circle, we brought him back in. But when I needed a co-host, I was like, yo, I, I, I know someone who's creative and passionate about Pokemon and that was Adam, simply because he was constantly posting in our Facebook group and was always posting Delibird stuff, I was like, this guy loves Pokemon. And I reached out to him and I was like, Hey man, you wanna do a podcast? And like, I think he responded in like three seconds. He was just like, yes, I'm in. I just remember that email like, yes, I'm in. I was like, yeah, I got my guy. I got my guy. Adam has been my, my Rock. I love that dude to death.

David Hernandez: 44:21

What's interesting that you said that is, that's how Lured Up also started because Lured Up started as a off branch from the Gotta Watch'em all.

Ken Pescatore: 44:28

Yeah!

David Hernandez: 44:28

I remember you started Gotta Watch'em all and then you had the first, I believe, 20 episodes of Lured Up. I think it was like a different segment at the time.

Ken Pescatore: 44:35

It was a segment, yeah, and then it became, its own like on Gotta Watch'em all, we we had like a Lured Up segment and that show did pretty well for what it was, but we really started noticing an uptick of people and interaction and engagement because of Lured Up. And then that was like, all right, well maybe we should spin this off to its own thing. And then that's when we broke it off, gave it its own feed, and then Lured Up was off to the races.

David Hernandez: 44:58

Now for those who go back and listen your first two episodes were actually guest appearances from Pokemon Go Radio, which is Salt and Nar. And the other one was, I guess they, I couldn't find'em anymore. They were like the Go, it's not Go cast, but Pokemon GoCast...

Ken Pescatore: 45:10

They were Pokemon Go Cast. Just talking about these guys the other day, this was my favorite Pokemon Go podcast, they were so good, exceptionally talented, they do horror movie podcasts now, but they're very, very talented podcasters and there was a three of'em and they would all podcasts from the same space. They had a very great high chemistry, really good dynamic, but outta the gate, I knew that I wanted to work with other creators because again, I wanted to put out that philosophy of just kind of infiltrating into different communities and how better to do that than to just get in front of those audiences by pushing my way to the front line.

David Hernandez: 45:47

Definitely. And when I listened to those episodes, I heard like part of what Lured Up is to where y'all go into like different topics, like y'all do the Poker Bear stuff. And then I heard the Creator series side of it to where when y'all had the guest over, y'all talked about podcasting a little bit and then of course they were kind of used into the show. And I gotta ask, like at the time when you had that vision for Lured Up and when it started, do you think you've lived up to what you thought the show could become or do you think you're still trying to get there?

Ken Pescatore: 46:11

Well, we're still trying to get there because I, I'd always wanted to do video and I always wanted the show to be live. Being parents and working full-time jobs and just having, you know, a little bit of a crazy life, it was a lot harder to kind of just say,"Hey, we're gonna be a streamer now." you know, it's like you got a lot of young creators out there that have the flexibility to be like, yeah, I'm gonna stream for 12 hours today. It's like, we can't do that. But that was always the goal. Mm-hmm. Was how can we become streamers? how can we stream our show? How can we do the audio thing, but also have a video component to it? And that's always been the grind, that's always been the grind over the last five years. So it's finally here. It's finally happened. Now, we've done video stuff before, we've had like, some of the early round tables I did and creator series that I did were video, so, I mean, I've worked with video before, but I always wanted to show to have this video dynamic to it. I'd say the original vision for what we had is just about there, it's just gonna be a matter of me clicking a button that says stream rather than record.

David Hernandez: 47:10

Without a doubt. And that's always been the biggest challenge for every podcast is how do we break into YouTube basically, because unfortunately, you know, audio, it doesn't work, do well too much on YouTube with its visual platform and trying to find how we can change our content to be able to meet the YouTube's community, I guess

Ken Pescatore: 47:24

Yeah, I mean we we're lucky now because we have some pretty significant big budget shows that have done it really well like Joe Rogan or Impulsive, like I know, love or hate them, they do what they do very well. So we, you have these shows that you could look at and say like, yes, this is how I'd like to execute my show. Doesn't matter what the subject matter is, but when you look at the cameras and the mics and the audio quality and the VI video fidelity and like all that stuff, it's like, yeah, how do I capture that in the Pokemon space? You know, we would see a lot of these vloggers that have this super high cinematography and super high, you know, video production, but they were making this produced content. It's like, all right, well how can we do this, but flip a podcast on its head to bring that same level of video production, you know, high quality experience to the podcast format, so yeah, it's, it's a, it's a huge challenge because one, it's still a new thing and two in the Pokemon space, there's really not much of that going on, so it's difficult.

David Hernandez: 48:19

Now, obviously there's a whole bunch of other podcasts around that have popped up since you started. You know, what advice would you give to the young ones who've are just freshly starting out? What would you tell them?

Ken Pescatore: 48:29

When you're guess getting started, like episodes, like one through, you know, zero through 10, like if you're at that stage, the most important lesson is just publish it. Doesn't matter how it sounds, it doesn't matter the quality of the content, None of that matters. The thing that matters is just putting out content. So if you're that early in the process or you're thinking about getting started, just do it. Hit record, hit publish, boom, send it out, just goodbye. Like that the most important thing. And then, you know, if you're a podcaster that maybe has 20 to a hundred episodes, you know, that's when you gotta start to understand where you fit in the pie, because what makes the Pokemon Go Podcast space so amazing. Because you have all these different shows, we're all covering the same game, right? We're all talking about the same game, but we're all kind of speaking to a different discipline of the game or a different culture that plays the game. And doing that gives everyone room to breathe and expand and all that kind of stuff. So once you get the technical prowess under your belt, which usually happens around like episode 25 or something like that, you know, you feel like, all right, I kind of know what I'm doing, you know, with audio. Once you get to that point, it's like, all right, well now how can I develop my message to make this message unique to me because why would they listen to me if the message I'm trying to say is the same as the guy down the street, right? Like, what can make my message different? And being able to find that voice is the most crucial thing, not just in Pokemon Go, but in any kind of podcasting space. It's like how can you have your own voice? You know, if you're in that stage where you have the technical stuff behind you and you wanna like start developing an audience, it's just, yeah, what can I do different and what can I be known for that can be unique to me? And then how can I double down on that, you know, week after week.

David Hernandez: 50:10

When you look at the Pokemon Go community as a whole, what role do you think podcasters can have that help benefit the community?

Ken Pescatore: 50:17

So, there's a lot here. This is a good one. I, I love this topic because, I love Pokemon Go YouTube videos. I love it. I love watching content, I love watching JTValor videos, I love seeing him fail and be miserable for not catching shiny. He's like, I, I find so much joy in his pain, but I also like the, like high cinematography of a Trainer Tips video or a travel video, something like that or like the comedy of a Zoe or a Kriket video like there, there's so much good stuff out there.

David Hernandez: 50:43

Right.

Ken Pescatore: 50:43

But then there's also those same YouTubers who are just sitting in front of their desk, like rattling off the news and it's like, yeah, this is why I listen to podcasts, because I want this information, but I don't want it as dry as a saltine cracker coming from Trainer Tips telling me about an event. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's like, dude, go to Japan, I'm in. You know, show me that, show me those temples, bro. Like, I'm, I'm all good. Podcasts have a way that can make mundane things exciting because they do it through the spirit of conversation. And that's the magic of a podcast, right? We can deliver information, technical know-how, passion and, personality in a way that connects with someone at a kind of human to human level. There's a lot more of a connection between a podcast maker and a podcast listener than say, a video maker and a video watcher. We play this position where we can become like a partner. You're going out to grind? Take me with you, you know, I'll accompany you on this journey. You know, I've always had this thing from the beginning, this hashtag you know, listen while you play, it's like your eyes are busy, your hands are busy when you're playing the game, but your ears are free. So why not double down on your, you know, Pokemon nerdom and listen to a podcast when you play? And I think that that's something that stands out that podcasts can do that a video format can't do. It's like, remember in the beginning people were like walking into lakes and walking into traffic cuz they weren't paying attention to their surroundings. You know what I'm saying? You gotta look out, you gotta make sure you don't like stepping dog poop or something. Clog up your ears, not your eyes, so that's an important thing that podcasts can do that others can't. But again, it's about that humility, the humanity, I wanna, I wanna hang out with you, so you know, it creates that vibe that, I think it's a more personal way to get your information. So I think that's important.

David Hernandez: 52:22

So as, as a long time content creator, you're also work closely with Niantic. So you from anybody knows Niantic better than we do. From your standpoint, what's a big misconception people have about Niantic?

Ken Pescatore: 52:34

Well, that they're human. It's very easy for the community to just think Niantic is like this machine, an inanimate machine that just churns out content and doesn't care about anything but money, like they just like a backwards ATM, right? They're just taking money in. The main thing that I've learned over the years, and I started working with Niantic, Funny story, weezled my way into 2018 Go Fest by lying and saying, I had like a magazine and I needed press credentials and all that kind of, I was a hustler, bro, couldn't stop me. Like I had no audience at that point, like I had the smallest little show and I was just like, just like, yeah, I'm gonna be, uh, sending two correspondence out to Chicago to cover the event. where do they need to go to check in for press credentials? They're like,"don't worry Mr. Pescatore, we'll send you those via mail." I was like,"yes, I'm in." I've worked with Niantic for a while, so, I've been very fortunate to meet many people in person and many, many, many people digitally. When you learn that there's humans behind every decision and every action and every feeling, and they all are so passionate about the game and they play the game, I love that one too. It's like no one at Niantic even plays this game. It's like,"bro, Just love to hate people." Everyone that I've met and I've met people that aren't even on the Pokemon Go team, that are huge Pokemon Go fans, but everyone I've met that's on the Pokemon Go team is an avid player of this game. Passionate. I've got, I don't know, 30 Niantic on my friends list, and it's like all hours of the day getting raids, seeing campfire posts go up, like they are players, they are trainers. They play the hell out of this game and they care just as much as we do about this game and it's very easy to, to kill the messenger. And I think that's what happens a lot of time with, you know, the social media sentiment or anything like that, it's real easy to just beat them up or, poke fun, I mean, but when you realize that yeah, the, these are people and they, they really do care, it kind of changes perspective. It really, it's an equalizer.

David Hernandez: 54:30

It's easier to see them as a full on business and not realizing that there's a lot of people behind that business that really try to make this game work. And, you know, of course Niantic makes their mistakes here and there, but we all do.

Ken Pescatore: 54:40

and it's interesting too, man, because it's like, this is not a Niantic property. The, the thing that, that a lot of people take for granted and I remember like seeing tweets like, man, Niantic really made a ugly shiny here. It's like, bro, you know, come on But people don't realize that Niantic is the developer here, and this is a licensing deal with Pokemon. And of course there's this heavy duty partnerships and all that stuff, but there's a lot of wheels in motion that no one will ever see, myself included, like there's just so many moving parts here that it's not as easy as we would want it to like we make the joke that there's just like the big red fix it button. It's just like, oh my God, PVP is broken. It's like, Ugh, relax, don't worry. I'll just press the fix it button. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, hold on, let me press the, I'll repair this forever button. Like, no, it doesn't work like that. Takes me 30 seconds to draft a tweet, right? So if I stubbed my toe, I could be like,"ah, I stubbed my toe! This is what happened!" And I could tell the whole world what happened. Something happens in Pokemon Go. Yeah, it would take 30 seconds to draft that tweet, but guess what? It doesn't take 30 seconds to approve that tweet to translate it into 80 languages to this, that. There's so much that goes on You know, there's, there's humanity happening behind the scenes at Niantic and not just like green ones and zeros dripping from the ceiling.

David Hernandez: 55:54

So you've been part of the Pokemon Group community for Finns day one, obviously, you know, you've done podcasting, you've done the whole setup of the community. What's your biggest concern with the game moving forward?

Ken Pescatore: 56:05

Well, we're gonna hit that point where we'll catch up with the release of Pokemon and there'll be no new Pokemon to release. I remember back in the day, we would always talk about it as like the PGO doomsday clock, like, right, like when the parody between the main series and PGO and there's nothing new that can be released in PGO and then it's really gonna be left up to its own devices to keep players around and attract new players. So that's my concern, well, what happens when we reach that point? Because right now new Pokemon equals content, new Pokemon fuel events.

David Hernandez: 56:36

You don't think we're there now?

Ken Pescatore: 56:37

No, because we're still getting new Pokemon released into the game and New Shinies released into the game. Like we're, we're still seeing, you know, we could still have Paldean Pokemon come into the game, there's plenty of Pokemon, hundreds of Pokemon that haven't been released yet in Pokemon Go. Once we reach that point though, they're not gonna be there to fuel a new event or a new shiny or whatever, cuz we're just gonna get caught up, so from, from the games perspective, that's a big concern because they're gonna really have to figure out how they can keep the game moving forward and attract new players when they don't have that carrot of the new Pokemon to dangle in front of players. I think that what Niantic has on its side here is the fact that there's such a tech forward company and they're developing these AR technologies, they're developing mixed reality technologies, and they have this vision, which was been their vision from the beginning of mapping the world right of, of AR mapping and scanning the world and rebuilding this ar 3D mapped world soup to nuts, a full meshed overlay network of the world. When that stuff starts to really get hold, and we're already seeing it. We're already seeing it with the stuff from the eighth wall. We're seeing it with the Wayfarer app and doing realtime 3D mapping with your device, with the VPN or the VPS and being able to, to create isolated game boards. There's a lot that's happening from a technology perspective that Niantic is driving right now, that if they somehow figure out a way to make that connected to their properties, Pokemon included, it'll be a game changer because they're leading the way, they're pioneers of this tech. You know, they could be the first to do something and Pokemon could be, the vessel.

David Hernandez: 58:14

Well, Ken, you've been a lovely guest to have very insightful about just with everything Pokemon and even podcasting. And I have one last question before we close this taco stand. With everything you've done, the start of the PPN, the start of Lured Up, your, involvement with trying to develop a community in New Jersey. What do you consider your biggest accomplishment when it comes to Pokemon Go?

Ken Pescatore: 58:32

Whew. That, that's a great question. That's a heavy question. You know, I think it's really bringing podcasting to non podcast people within Pokemon. This community loves content and 99.999% of them love video content. Right? And 1% of them are like, yeah, I like podcasts, or I listen to cereal, or, you know, they, they just, there's been so many people that have listened to their first podcast because of Lured Up. And that to me is like one, I'm super proud of that because I've learned about that being the case many times over, and I'm such a fan and advocate of the podcast platform that being able to be a catalyst for someone to get into podcasting where it's like, you know, I've heard so many times, oh yeah, you're the only podcast I listen to. And then all of a sudden it's like, now they're listening to two pod, two Pokemon Go podcasts. Now they're listening to a, a comedy podcast or a sports podcast, or a movie podcast. That kind of connection of being able to bring podcasts to people that would normally not ever interact with podcasts. Definitely my most proud kind of, accomplishment within this space is just bringing podcasts to new people

David Hernandez: 59:40

For sure. And If you host a podcast, check out his appearance on Podcast Better because Ken goes into way more detail about what that looks like than what he talked about here on this show. Unfortunately, I'm not that kind of show, but go listen to that. It's very informative about how to engage people who don't have familiar with podcasting, and I'll make sure maybe link it in the description.

Ken Pescatore: 1:00:00

That's awesome. Thank you.

David Hernandez: 1:00:02

Definitely. But Ken, that's the show. If people wanted to check out your content, where can they go check you out? By all means, please plug away.

Ken Pescatore: 1:00:08

So just check out pokemonprofessor.com. From there you can connect with all the individual shows, you can connect with New Jersey Go Battle League, and you know, of course we have a full suite of social media accounts across multiple shows. There's a lot going on, we just expanded with standalone social media for Special Conditions, Wayspotters just launched on Instagram. There's a lot going on, we're really spreading our wings. So Pokemonprofessor.com is the hub for all of that, all of our shows, all of our links, merch, Patreon, any way you wanna support us, all through Pokemon professor.com. So yeah, check that out,

David Hernandez: 1:00:43

Cool beans! And I'll make sure to include links to everything that he said in the description of today's episode. Thank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you wanna support the show, consider becoming a Patreon by going to patreon.com/asthePokeballTurns or by sharing the podcast with your friends and family. And I'll see you next time. Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.