"Is the recent EX Wave a way of getting casuals back into the game?"

#PokemonGO: What I immediately noticed today when I received the EX Raid Pass was that I got a push-notification on my phone. I have asked multiple people who have received EX Raid passes before this wave and it never seemed to happen before today.Now here‘s my theory that I would like to discuss with you guys: People posting on TSR about their EX Invites are the vast minority of the total „60 million“ players of Pokemon Go that were reached shortly after the release, if I remember correctly. The game had its peak during that summer and a second peak last summer. Most of the „remote“ EX Invites that I‘ve heard of are from raids that took place during last summer. But my friends are all hardcore players and hearing it from them skews the point of view a little bit. Because with every EX Raid invite at a gym that didn‘t have to be triggered there will be additional 15-20 (or more) invites going out to local players there who might not even know what an EX Raid is. I received an invite for my hometown. I have not raided or interacted at that gym once, apart from spinning it once or twice while walking past during Summer 2017. While this seems odd to me and many others, we have to take a look at it from a local players perspective: Timmy has started the game sometime during the hype and played occasionally. Maybe he even plays every now and then but not regularly for sure. He doesn‘t spend any money on Raid Passes or is trying to get invited to an EX Raid - because he doesn‘t know they exist. Tonight Timmy sat on the sofa and „bing!“ got a notification of Pokemon Go. He‘s invited to a special kind of raid at a gym near his house that he raided at (or even just spun) a while ago. (Because casuals usually wouldn’t play while on holiday I guess, that‘s why it would be in closer proximity.) He‘s interested and maybe reads up on it and oh my god it‘s Mewtwo! After the EX Raid - successfull or not - some players will be hooked on trying to get Mewtwo for sure and long story short - I think that‘s exactly what Niantic wants to achieve with this wave of Invites. It‘s sad for many of us who can‘t attend these raids and as ever so often Niantics decisions don‘t make any sense to many dedicated players. I guess what I‘m trying to say is that we need to see these kinds of things from a different perspective and I think that it kinda fits in with recent reports about promo-code emails etc. to try and get casuals back into the game.My two (salty) cents.Excited to hear what you think about that theory. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2nHQW5r