'Pokémon Go' Celebrates Lunar New Year With Limited-Time Event

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, February 18, 2018

"Pokémon Go" jumped right to another annual event, just fresh off wrapping up the Valentine's Day event for the mobile game. Niantic awarded players with special bonuses for capturing a selection of dog-like Pokémon to celebrate the coming of the Year of the Dog for the 2018 Lunar New Year.

"Pokémon Go" players earned three times the usual amount of Stardust since Thursday, Feb. 15, until last Saturday, Feb 17, whenever they successfully capture one of several dog Pokémon in the game.

With the many varieties of canine Pokémon in the game, Niantic has given "Pokémon Go" trainers a rare chance to really stock up on Stardust for the weekend, as the company explained on social media.

"Feeling lucky? Starting today until February 17, Trainers who catch a Poochyena, Growlithe, Snubbull, Eevee, or Electrike will receive bonus Stardust," Niantic explained in their Twitter post last Friday, Feb. 16, before greeting fans and "Pokémon Go" players a happy Lunar New Year.

To improve the chances of trainers to earn the triple Stardust, Niantic has also improved the rates for which the Pokémon listed above will show up. That sort of made up for the very short duration of the event, as Gamespot noted, with the "Pokémon Go" Lunar New Year event only lasting three days, from Feb. 15 to Feb. 17.

The start of this year's Lunar New Year event actually overlapped with the Valentine's Day event, due to Niantic extending the latter by another day to make up for the bout of server problems that have prevented players from logging in.

That means that it's not only the dog Pokémon that spawned more often that weekend, the extra encounters of Luvdiscs and Chanseys had also made an extended stay until Feb. 16.