I hear that same talk that "game is dying" for like 6 years already, since when Johto update were on nino's hands and he were busy playing poker and spending our money on it, not investing on the game. now that there are ONLY TWO admins working on the game, trying to bring us new stuff when they can, ya all are complaining.
"Ah but the game became pay to win" well, surprise, diamonds always ruled the game, there are players with less time playing than i am and have a shiny collection, or crystal onix and stuff, 2 options: or they donated even their cars on this game, or they caught 23 shinys in 2 years, guess which one is true. But i saw no one complaining about that. When nino supposedly gave the first aero to stik back on the first year of the game, or when Izzy got "magically" his red gyarados, i saw nobody complaining on nino.
Game is still free to play, everything that's available to catch, is there for you to try, few, FEW spawns are paid(which some should be thankful because vivillon and klefki should be event-binded), if you enjoy playing it, diamonds gives you some advantage yes, but they ALWAYS did, didn't started now.
Last lottery were huge, with even an elder charizard and unobtainable shinys for 10k and 2 tickets limit, even with it players cheated, and as Raissa already said, cheaters delayed staff plans on a cool and elaborated event, and they WILL COMPLAIN later that "the event is too generic" and blame staff, but who should be blamed, when there are 2 people trying to give us some fun, and people gets them busy cause they can't read one fucking sentence that it is self-explanatory(or at least ask before buying tickets on 20 chars).
I see no point on complaining when donaters always had a ton of money already, just because a lottery, as of now the selling of tickets is allowed in game. So i assume that players whose complain here won't mind to pay 30~50k to win an exclusive shiny, will they?
And, this lottery is fully optional, staff IS NOT OBLIGATED TO DO LOTTERY'S, what do you think they do with the 20k they got from players last lottery? spend everything on potions at juanito and get high on it? But yet they do lottery for us, and FEW come here and thanks them for that, but on those cases there's a lot of hate on them, and i think that's truly unnecessary, players who came here and asked nicely got a normal answer, jano even made the ticket sell able so those who can't donate but have in game money can participate)
Being thankful for something FREE that staff does to us on a FREE game, doesn't hurt, takes too little of your time, and it is FREE, but shitstorming on 2 people that are trying to do a better game for us, has it's consequences. Nobody likes to work to help a community where there's some people that complain on every step staff takes, without giving a proper complain or elaborating a solution, just "haha pay to win game's dead".
I hope the game keeps alive, i am here for a good part of my life, and i like it a lot, thanks for everyone who made the game alive until now, players, which are the greatest part of this game, and staff members, which put so much effort on keep us here, playing.
peace.