Imagine, if you would, 589 Magikarp. Just in a room, flopping around. Disgusting, I know. Now imagine 589 million Magikarp. The latter number is the total, to-the-minute (or at least to-the-day) number of Magikarp captured in Pokémon Go throughout its recent Water Festival event, according to a recent tweet from the game's Twitter account.
The tweet isn't completely arbitrary, nor are the Magikarp. As we posted about previously, shiny Pokémon have found their way to Go. As such, it seems reasonable to assume that this overwhelming surge in Magikarp hunting is largely born from players' desire to get their hands on a shiny variant and subsequently evolve it into a fabled Red Gyarados (ie shiny Gyarados). At least, its the best explanation I can come up with.
Pokémon Go's Water Festival has officially concluded, but as has been pointed out, coveted Golden Magikarp are still out there. Of course, if you don't feel like discarding endless amounts of useless Magikarp in search of a golden Willy Wonka variant, you could always just grab a 3DS, Powersaves, and Pokémon Sun and Moon and aquire one the old-fashioned cheater way. It's not the most honest route, but nobody has to know.
