Fans of Pokemon GO seem to be dropping their allegiance to the mobile game by the truckload lately. Developer Niantic hasn’t done much to stem the tide. With all the missteps Niantic has already committed, one would think that they would go out of their way to play nice. Nope.
The latest set of gaffes begins on August 1st, when a new patch rolled in for both iOS and Android. Did this patch finally bring back the tracking feature everyone was pining about? Nope, it just adds “performance improvement in Pokemon details and list screens.” Sounds innocuous enough…until players started complaining that it was suddenly harder to find or catch Pokemon.
Players began to notice that it took way more Pokeballs to catch Pokemon, even low-CP ones. Also, the higher their CP was, they more likely they’d escape. This immediately set off conspiracy theories about Niantic doing it on purpose. “They want you to buy more Pokeballs!” I’ll admit, it does smell a bit fishy.
Also, it seems Niantic has changed how often the game scans for new monsters. They increased the time from 5 to 10 seconds. This seems to have been done to make it harder to find Pokemon while driving, which makes some sense. However, this also seems to be affecting people who are riding bike, which set off more angry barks.
iOS players got an extra gift from the patch: the Battery Saver feature has disappeared. This, however, has been explained by Niantic. “We had removed this feature as several users were experiencing it to be buggy, but we are fairly confident that a fix for this should roll out within the next several days.”
Obviously, this patch hasn’t helped Pokemon GO’s standing in the public eye. Of course, things weren’t done.
The same day, Reddit started to explode after multiple pictures surfaced of an Ohio Pokemon GO player who had captured Articuno, a Legendary Pokemon. The person claimed she received Articuno FROM NIANTIC as an apology for an issue she reported via email. She wouldn’t verify the email, which only fueled the fires of conspiracy.
Niantic, however, admitted to GameSpot that some Legendary Pokemon did find their way to users. Their response, while harsh, seems necessary.
“We recently noticed that a few Legendary Pokemon got into a few accounts when they shouldn’t have,” Niantic said. “To preserve the game’s integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the legendary Pokemon from the Trainers’ accounts.”
The thought of Niantic pulling Pokemon from players’ Pokedexes is definitely not something that gives me the warm fuzzies. But I do at least appreciate the fact that Niantic has at lease SOME sense of fair play. So…all’s well and good, right? Well, not for the players who lost their Legendaries, but for the populace as a whole. Maybe not.
It’s beginning to seem to some, myself included, that Pokemon GO has become too big for Niantic to handle easily. While the game is undoubtedly fun, it has been plagued by problems since day one. First, the game released with little to no instructions, forcing players to figure everything out. Next were the server problems that lasted a week, far too long nowadays. Then there was the three-step glitch for the Pokemon tracking, which still hasn’t been resolved. Combined with the tracking issues is Niantic’s shutdown of third-party trackers, Pokemon GO is considered by many to be unplayable. Now the latest patch makes Pokemon harder to catch.
Worse still has been Niantic’s lack of communication with the Pokemon GO community. From the time the three-step glitch until after Pokevision was shut down, Niantic was mum. Only after the Twitterverse lathered itself up into a thick froth did they even release a statement. That is a cardinal sin.
Niantic has since been more chatty, but they don’t seem to be engendering too much confidence.
“We have been working long hours to fix many other bugs and bring some exciting new features to Pokémon GO in the future. However, next up for us is the continued roll-out of Pokémon GO to more countries around the world.”
Things aren’t getting better for Niantic. According to Polygon, a New Jersey man has filed a class-action suit against Niantic, essentially accusing the developer of trespassing. He alleges Niantic placed PokeStops and gyms on private property without the owners’ consent. The class-action status means that other disgruntled property owners can jump on and set a legal precedent about how digital games represent private property.
Hopefully, Niantic will get everything in order and restore peoples’ faith in Pokemon GO. My kids still love the game, but even my son is beginning to chafe. “If I don’t know where the Pokemon are, how the fuck am I supposed to catch them?”
Good point. Join the chorus line, son.
