I just got back from PAX West in Seattle, after not having attended the event since (oh God) 2019. I would characterize this year’s event as…sedate. There were far more merchandise booths taking up far more space than ever, seemingly fewer games overall, and certainly fewer large booths from big publishers. Bandai Namco, Sega, NIS, Konami and a few other major Japanese publishers all came out with some pretty solid showings and cool booths, but other than them it seemed a far quieter show than I remember it.
Some of that, I think, was due to the absence of the big three: With the exception of a few ID@Xbox games at a satellite event, Sony, Nintendo, and Xbox were not present at all. Nintendo’s absence was particularly notable, given that their U.S. HQ is basically right next door and they almost always show up to this thing with something pretty fun. But Nintendo’s absence was also noteworthy due to Nintendo simultaneously not being totally absent from the show floor. There was one Nintendo property that was everywhere at PAX for seemingly no real reason: Pikmin.
Specifically, Pikmin Bloom was at PAX. Pikmin Bloom is a 2021 game originally developed by Niantic and since handed off to Scopely in 2025 along with the rest of Niantic’s gaming arm. As you might expect, it’s a location-based game not unlike Pokémon GO, but to me at least, it’s far easier to keep up with because it’s focused more on just getting steps in rather than visiting specific locations in the world. Pikmin Bloom encourages you to go on walks, with steps letting you grow more Pikmin for your squad and plant flowers around the map, which in turn leads to other rewards. The main goal of this game, I’ve found, is to get as many Pikmin wearing as many different funny hats as possible.
I played a lot of Pikmin Bloom when it first came out, but eventually dropped it when I stopped working in an office and commuting to work every day, as I wasn’t getting in steps and distance like I used to. I felt nothing about this decision; I was under the impression that hardly anyone who had played Pikmin Bloom at launch was sticking with it. It seemed like yet another ill-advised Pokémon GO spin-off, doomed to the same fates as Monster Hunter Now, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and (woof) the very overly-monetized Peridot. If you had told me, before PAX, that Pikmin Bloom had already been quietly shut down, I would have believed you.
But nope! For some reason, Scopely went hard on Pikmin Bloom for PAX West. For one, the company bought out loads of ads all over Seattle ahead of the event. I chatted with several Seattle-based friends at PAX who told me the ads were a recent addition. I saw them on passing buses and all over multiple lightrail stations. The Westlake lightrail station, which is closest to PAX West, was covered in them: walls, floor, and stairs. It was seriously like someone was terrified that passersby wouldn’t see them if they didn’t put at least one in every cardinal direction.
There was also a booth at PAX West for Pikmin Bloom where folks were passing out little paper Pikmin crowns for people to wear, which lots of attendees were happily donning. The result of this was that Pikmin were everywhere at PAX West. You couldn’t look at any section of the crowd without seeing little Pikmin hats. It was, to me, the most consistently noticeable game property anywhere at or around PAX this year, and Nintendo didn’t even need its own booth or anything.
Why all the Pikmin Bloom? I have no idea. You could get a special PAX West-themed Pikmin just for being at the show, but I didn’t see any other particular reason to be so aggressively advertising the game five years after its release. There was an in-game event themed around (I think) Oktoberfest featuring Pikmin with sausage-shaped hats and the collection of pretzels for some reason, but it didn’t seem any more notable than any other seasonal event. Why spend this much money on ads for a five-year-old mobile game, even one that has inexplicably been generating more money each year since launch?
My galaxy-brain theory is that Nintendo is gearing up for a different Pikmin-themed announcement, and got Scopely on board to make sure Pikmin were on everyone’s mind. There’s a Direct tomorrow, so who knows? Regardless of the reasoning, I have to admit that they got me. I reinstalled the game. It’s come a long way since I last played in 2023; it has quite a few more things to do and collect. The silly Pikmin hats have only gotten cuter, which is the most important bit.
So congrats to Nintendo on having the most effective advertising at PAX. It didn’t even have to show up.
