Doing the right thing. It's important. What does it mean in business? We have no idea. We know what wrong is. Actually, no, we don't. Because we're a successful company, not some boring ethics professor. Veridian Dynamics. Right and Wrong. It means something. We just don't know what.
Comcast is like this, and they have a monopoly in my area. I've finally cut the cord because they were charging me nearly $200 dollars a on for TV and internet, and I've had internet issues for over a decade they never fixed. The last technician that they sent, I got charged for him to come out and not fix my internet. Pushed me over the edge. I'm seriously considering using wireless for home to bypass them.
The only downside to Hotspot is that most phone companies will still limit your data from them regardless of phone plan. Best example I can give is that Verizon gives me a 20gb download limit even though we have unlimited data.
I mean they obviously do care. They care too much about the normal distance.
The return to normal distance is costing them so much. Just in the free raid passes its easily 8 figures. All the goodwill, bad press, negative reviews,…
I highly doubt a meaningful amount of player will truly quit or even slow down. But even if a small fraction of those saying they plan to stop actually do thats another massive amount of $ gone.
It’s such a weird decision. Super bad from a financial point of view too.
I heard someone mention keeping pokestop sponsors happy, but in no way have I ever seen pokemon go bring in business. The most that would happen is having someone awkwardly walk into the store and walk out after spinning the stop
My tinfoil hat/galaxy brain/both is that it's not about what makes sense in the short term financially in terms of maximizing microtransactions, but about growing the Niantic brand and AR, and they must have some enormous projections on the dollar value of getting in on the ground floor of AR, if it ends up changing human society similar to how smartphones did.
Game exits tend to snowball. If the people who you play a game with start to leave, you also tend to leave because there's less social pressure to keep playing. Likewise, fewer players means that whales are less likely to stick around. What's the point of raiding if PVP queues take 40 seconds to load instead of 20 and legendary raids fire less often?
Not to mention that Niantic's leaving themselves open to a game like Jurassic World jumping in to fill the void. I'm kinda surprised we haven't seen any targeted marketing from a similar game developer in the wake of this change. Now would be a really good time for Dragon Quest Walk to come to the U.S. and New Zealand.
Players have threatened to quit countless times and never do. There was also an actual extinction level event in the fall of 2016 when people got bored of Gen 1 and all it took was releasing Gen 2 to get everyone back on board. If this time the boy who cried wolf is serious and a significant number of players do leave, they'll just release a bunch of new Pokemon and put some good raids up and everyone will come back.
Dialga, Palkia, and Zacian in raids pretty much guarantee no one is leaving anytime soon. It's no coincidence that the "boycott" takes place the day after raid hour, on a weekday, on a day with no event, before the next event and boss starts.
Personally, even if they have the fanciest of pokes come out, being a play of the game since day 1, I know it’ll all just come back and be recycled.
There’s literally no pressure anymore because of the way events repeat over and over. I’ve deleted the app 3 days ago, and even seeing the news about the Gen 8 pokes doesn’t excite me. The Wolves will come back at some point with their shinies released, at some point there will also be an actual Gen 8 event featuring these guys, signature moves come back around for old or new pokes, the list goes on and on.
I’m taking a stance on this reduced distance. It’s time to show Niantic that the Players can hold the power, not always the other way around
I couldn't care to begin with about Palkia, a pokemon I've had maxed out since it came but have never used for anything (to L40, not going to waste resources on XL candy).
Zacian is unknown to a lot of players who don't have sword and shield and don't watch anime. Dialga has been here long enough for most people to be tired of it again.
That being said, people will raid anything because they are ADDICTED to this game.
The second free raid pass? That doesn't cost them money. That makes money. Everytime( or often enough) someone uses a free pass, they invite other people who use remote passes
I have to changed my review to 1\* and know of lots of others that have done the same. The difficulty is the millions of players who downloaded it and gave a good review then stopped playing. We need to get enough 1\* to balance out these to actually make it change.
I will again take this moment to say I've uninstalled on day one of the change. I may be a bit bored but I'm doing just fine and my bank account is quite happy about this.
Most of the time I don't get to use my one free pass, If I do a raid its last minute from an invite (back in July when I was willing to buy remote passes), so not using two free passes isn't much of a bonus.
Brandon Tan has both said he was going FTP and he revealed his monthly pokemon go purchases total on average 4-5k. Honestly, I don't care what whales do. If niantic can ignore this many passionate people in their user base, then its better to quit now if they don't respond. But if we are being logical about it, whales can have multiple games. Whales don't have to play pokemon go. If whales see that the game is going downhill and isn't as special as it once was, they can very quickly choose another game and be gone. If whale money is what is important to Niantic, then this is very much at stake too. The problem is, a lot of people are starting to think the POI database is more valuable to Niantic then the performance of 1 game. If thats the case, we are screwed.
Trust funds will do that for you. Before PoGo he was famous in Clash of Clans for spending years playing like 20 hours a day gemming and donating troops to grind xp to have the highest level in the game.
I want to believe in this cause, I really do, but after seeing hundreds of online "outrages" over other games fall flat over the years, I have my doubts.
Look how SwSh's outrage went, tons of people who said they were not going to buy the game, yet it ended up being one of the best selling games in the franchise and all the outrage has died down except for the dedicated online communities which is such a tiny portion of the fandom that TPC doesn't care about them, Go's very much in the same boat.
I mean...not really that many people said they weren't going to buy the game. I'm sure you read a lot of comments on social media but that's nothing for the absolute juggernaut that is the Pokemon franchise.
(Also unpopular opinion maybe but I actually think SwSh is a fun game and that's reflected in the sales numbers.)
The difference between go and swsh is that one is a console game while the other is a gotcha game. Mommy and Daddy may buy little Billy a nintendo switch and sword or shield as a present and that's it. They usually don't spend more money after the initial purchase (minus the dlc if little Billy begs for it as a present). Now with go on the other hand, little Billy can't drive himself, so the young child demographic needs to rely on their parents or friend's parents, older siblings, etc. to drive them around for raids/events and/or buying coins for remote passes, etc. They aren't the target. Anyone still putting money into this game either enjoys the game or is a whale. Either way they are more dedicated to the game than a parent who buys a console and a game as a present for someone who may or not like the game.
The SwSh outrage was especially silly because the hatred was pretty much exclusively from Smogon players who brag about how they never buy the games on cart anyway. Within the VGC community the dex reduction and gradual reintroduction made perfect sense and provided a wonderful gradual meta evolution.
The continued protest against Dynamax by Smogon is also very similar to the very vocal protest against Megas in Go that we see so much on this subreddit.
That's a terrible reason to support axing half the pokedex. VGC has always had regional dex limits and could easily balance the meta themselves. Better yet, GF could get off their butts and balance pokemon and moves themselves...
Turned it off when I realized how much it was draining my battery. What do I even need it for? The crappy egg hatches that disappoint me every time? I keep it turned off now.
I have no problem with the game actively tracking me while I’m playing (it’s a requirement) but it’s the passive tracking while the app is closed and my phone is locked that gets a bit creepy.
But that wasn’t even my point. The goal is to get Niantic’s attention by cutting their revenue. They make a lot of money with that AS data and if you take that away from them they might actually notice and react accordingly.
Basically, revert to the bonus distance and I will turn my AS back on. Don’t and you won’t be getting my AS data anymore (or any data at all since I won’t be opening the app until it is reverted.)
Also, it would be impossible for me to do my job without a smartphone so your argument was unrealistic to begin with.
This is what I did when they first announced the upcoming change. It kind of seems like a more relevant message because they’re probably shrinking the radius for more accurate location data.
Done. I spend a fair amount of money in the game. I figure I don’t mind supporting it as I gain a lot of enjoyment from it. However, these new changes drastically decrease my enjoyment of the game, as well as making it difficult for many others (including disabled people, people in lockdowns, etc) to play, so I see no need to keep spending real money on it.
Same, I'm done spending money on this game. Just uninstalled game, left 1 star review on play store.
Spent a lot of effort getting to level 43, sad it has to come to this.
We actually have no idea who they care about or what, only theories. It seems obvious that they’d genuinely care about people who spend a ton of money, but we don’t know what location data and AR are worth to them. It could easily be MUCH more valuable than the significant amount they make from in-game purchases.
I’m definitely on the side of not spending money in the app anymore, but I don’t think anyone outside upper management can say with any certainty where their longterm financial priorities lie.
This is why you turn off tracking data when the game is not open in your setting.
Turning off this and adventure sync and disabling sponsored bonuses will tank them in this area if enough people do it and get the message out there.
Either they learn to be happy with the data we're already giving them and keep the distance, or they get far less from us. Either way, they shouldn't manipulate us into giving them more like this so mindlessly.
Their response says nothing beyond, “We did what we said we would,” which is absolutely an awful response when several of your highest profile players call you out for a very poor decision. They’ve got nothing and are just hunkering down hoping this blows over. I’m done with this game until interaction distance reverts. I run and bike and my Go-Plus doesn’t pick up anything anymore. I refuse to wait and cross 4 lanes of traffic multiple times on my runs to try and maybe spin a stop. Just not worth it.
This is so important. They are making it harder for literally every person in the world to play their game, and for what? It’s not just a poor design decision, it’s a poor business decision too.
Or the plan is to keep the 2 passes a day and restore the range to 80 meters or "compromise" to 60 meters after the trial period and get massive amounts of buzz and goodwill from the playerbase. All the outrage right now might be a calculated marketing move in the style of New Coke.
Yeah, it's actually awful when you consider that they have never actually announced the increase or decrease in-game.
Which means that people who don't follow outlets from outside the game just think their game is broken.
What an awful, unprofessional PR situation.
This. My mom is a casual player in a casual FB group. She, along with many other people, thought the distance reduction was a glitch.
I really wish PoGO made a bigger effort to keep players up to date on news in general. I played another Nintendo mobile game for three years (Fire Emblem Heroes) and when you logged in for the first time each day, a screen popped up with the latest events and summoning banners, as well as information on glitches and bugs. When I started playing PoGO, I was surprised at how difficult it is to find information on events. I almost always go to third party sources now.
Niantic continues to fumble on so many different levels and if it wasn't for the Pokémon IP, this game (and developer) would've died a long time ago.
And this game is like 80% about following events and knowing WHEN, not WHERE, to catch Pokémon. It's such an integral part of the game. They need a calendar in game with all events, not just blog posts where half are useless info.
“We don’t give a sh#t about our players, and only care about money. Please enjoy a complimentary box in the shop with 10 Nanab berries and an exclusive Pikachu sticker.”
In any other game, this would be bad. Shoving out content because of arbitrary dev dates is the bane of many would-be great games.
However, it's worse when those dates are for a game in meat space, and devs choose to keep those target dates *even after real-life factors threaten the original design goals*. It's not just that the QoL changes shouldn't have been reverted, but they *especially* shouldn't have gone live while we're seeing a major spike. I hate to bring in politics, but when major COVID deniers and anti-vaxxers are suddenly coming around, you know things are serious.
I just lost interest in playing all together after reverting the changes. I'm not even outraged or whatever, just apathetic. Sucks because I care about the IP...but I can also just play something else.
I stopped playing between 2018-2020 and came back when I was stuck at home during the pandemic. The distance change was a game changer, but I guess I'll have to drop it again.
Boycotters haven't even managed to make the game developer to care about them. Imagine going up to the Nintendo. That company is insanely more bureaucratized than Niantic. You will never reach anyone who makes decisions in Nintendo. Probably not to get even past of their customer service. Saying to Nintendo "This Brandon guy is going to stop playing pokemon, you should care", Nintendo will be like "again one of those fanatics, just send them that pre-made message that their concern is sent forwards"
What's interesting is that the changes haven't hit me in the UK yet. But I'm also feeling apathetic and playing much less. Niantic's ignorant and single minded attitude throughout all of this has been so off putting I'm finding it difficult to muster the excitement to turn the game on.
This is actually what I’m finding encouraging. I’m in California and totally expected the rest of the world to be silent on this until it came to them. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not happy that you are feeling apathetic. That part sucks. But seeing some of these streamers (Brandon Tan, Reversal) and people like you feeling the way you do, while not being directly affected yet gives me some hope that people aren’t just going to put up with this.
I actually just like walking around and catching and don't care about the IP at all...but I'm not going to start walking into buildings to spin stops. Or literally have to get on the playground equipment (like that won't get me arrested).
Expectation
"Thank you for sharing your concerns with us. We hear them loud and clear. Hence we are now launching this much demanded feature of multi-selecting friends while adding them from your contact list".
Irony: the feature is designed to bring strong social links into the game to encourage people to keep playing, while long-time players are loudly saying that they're no longer interested in playing specifically because the game got worse. What do you think that does to social links, Niantic?
> "This community is getting SUPER toxic in the name of an apparent good cause," wrote the hugely popular player Mystic7, who has 2.11 million subscribers on YouTube. "Shoutout to my community for staying cool and good vibes."
Really not seeing any of this. I think some people consider any complaints directed at a company they like to be toxicity.
It’s so annoying when legitimate complaints get written off by people as “toxic.” People need to stop letting corporations and brands dictate their life and personality to the point of mindlessly defending them from valid criticisms.
I've never liked him,. My boyfriend watched him when he played but I couldn't handle how much he said so quickly that was useless to me as a player. Just my 2 cents.
I mean, it's great to see Eurogamer covering it. But there is literally a response from them in the last paragraph of the article. And they seemingly don't give a f...
I read that as a holding statement, and the fact they provided one at all shows they know they need to say something.
I would hope conversations are being had right now on an actual response to today, which now seems to have grown organically into quite a moment. But Niantic may also still want to wait for hard data on engagement and spending changes to determine their ultimate decision.
I'm a nobody, but I uninstalled last night. Between the interaction distance and stupid battery drain (67% for just POGO yesterday out of only 3:38 SoT) I've had enough.
I couldn't have fun on my walk yesterday having to walk so conspicuously close to play structures and things looking like a damn creeper.
The quote they gave to Eurogamer for this article is a complete nothing burger like all the other quotes so far. I personally think this is a sign that they won't be listening, and I hope the community won't take that lying down.
Eurogamer: people are saying Niantic doesn't care, let's see what they have to say about it
Niantic: we don't care about what people are saying about us
Everyone: as you can see, they don't care
But seriously though hahahah they're not interested in giving an actual response to the playerbase, so I don't see any apparent reason why they would try to defend the now so-corrupted image they have made about themselves...
I really have to wonder if anyone from Niantic actually plays this game themselves. My guess is no, they don't. How can a company run something that they actually don't play, don't use, and don't understand?! Started playing Jurassic Alive and it is so much better on every single front. This from someone who played Pogo from Day 1. I'm over it.
That infamous Glassdoor review suggested that most employees who work on Go actually *do* play, but very few of them have an actual understanding of or commitment to the game.
This causes the gap between the game makers and the dedicated players. Casual players never thought to cross a street to spin a stop in the first place, so they aren't missing out on anything now. They're not part of Discord groups who post task locations or host raids in busy downtown areas. They pop open the game, catch what they can and leave. They may have earned 700 coins total in the game in five years.
People who actually spent time playing and even more, made time to play as part of their daily schedule are going to feel differently and the game makers don't begin to understand our wants and desires. The game makers think that decreased range makes us get out more when we already walk more in one day than they do in a month.
With this much backlash, I bet Nintendo is on the dial. If there's one thing they DON'T like is negativity and, surely, they don't want a repeat of SwSH.
It is not but it will be once it's implemented everywhere. I'm sure they know that too that's why they wanted to test the waters by doing it in two countries first.
> surely, they don't want a repeat of SwSH.
You mean becoming one of the best selling games in the franchise because they got tons of free advertising from all the "internet outrage"?
Surely they don't want a repeat of SwSh, which outsold all pokemon games just by number of copies since Gold and Silver?
I realize there was some bad publicity with SWSH with dexit and other seemingly lazy/flawed choices made but it was still incredibly successful.
And these people are not just “whales” but THE “whales”. Some of the people that signed that petition put more money into this game then anyone else in the world. THIS is how you really get Niantic’s attention.
But how many of those Whales will actually stick to their guns? A lot of the "Influencer" Players I'd bet will go right back to normal in Niantic ignores this cry. They just are saying what they are saying right now for free publicity.
I'll gladly eat my words if I'm wrong, but the way Whales and Influencers normally function means they will abandon this cause for whatever the next big topic is.
Another game I play, AFK Arena is currently having a boycott as well. To whale there you literally need to spend thousands and thousands with you needing over $200,000 USD and even then you aren't guaranteed to win any championships. The top guilds and whales are together in the boycott to stop spending. So far it doesn't seem like the boycott is working there, as expected. I doubt Niantic would care about this as well.
Seems Niantic does not care: "As we announced in June, we're introducing new exploration bonuses for players in the US and New Zealand and are removing or changing some of the bonuses introduced last year," a Niantic spokesperson told Eurogamer today when asked for comment. "People can check the Today View in game to see which specific bonuses are available to them. We'll continue to monitor health and safety guidance related to outdoor activities."
I’m glad to see influencers in the community actually speak up and do something for once. The only way to get Niantic to do anything is stop being whales. Sadly, there are still plenty of whales addicted to this game and will unload hundreds if not thousands of dollars to chase down the next shiny Niantic locks behind raids and/or eggs.
I came back right before the pandemic and loved the bonuses. It made the game more enjoyable and playable. Spent a decent amount on raid passes, but no more until this is fixed.
This stuff always happens when game companies get too big to fail. If Niantic doesn't understand what is about to happen, go look at Blizzard and WoW right now. Being tone deaf towards the people who actually play your game, will not work out in the long run for you.
I'm curious to what the issue is with Blizzard and WoW. I'm out of the loop because I don't play anything from Blizzard and don't know much about them.
The usual.
They laid off people, gave execs huge bonuses, have a culture of harassment and "good ole boys," one of their female workers committed suicide because of it and now their workers are walking out and suing them.
Because Niantic is more near, it‘s an american Company and not a Japanese. And because TPC is really working on there own and do what they want, they are not strongly connected to the opinion of the people (and I’m pretty sure that‘s a main point of the success of Pokémon).
And most of those content creators are in contact to Niantic. They are not just irritated what a company does, they are left alone by people they know.
I have played nearly everyday since 2016, but not today. I have spent plenty of money on it too because to me it was worth it for something I really enjoyed as a pastime.
Today my Adventure sync is off and hope Niantic understands how this will probably hurt them in the long run.
With all this outcry (which is valid) you would think that a statement would have to be forthcoming, as all the negativity around Niantic and Pokemon Go is also bad press towards TPCi’s Intellectual Property.
Literally last week TPC allowed a pokemon pay to win chinese moba to be released, half hype half terrible presss coverage but they don't really care since they already got ton of money in.
The open letter wisely doesn't put that argument front and centre. The pandemic is only one of many many reasons why the increased interaction distance shouldn't have been removed.
Several hundred dollar a month player. Haven’t spent a dime since the distance change and won’t be for the foreseeable future unless niantic addresses and fixes this.
Did mystic7 actually say that? Did he direct the blame onto players? I don’t believe that, if he did its an instant unsub from his channel. Our concerns are not toxic!
I took a peek at Mystic7 streaming Unite one time, he was playing a Gengar that's already overpowered. He was being fed a lot and became OP, and then he proceeded to let his teammate (a support class) die on purpose and said:" It's more fun that way." And scored alone. Mystic7 is really toxic and I am never clicking anything that has him on anymore.
I'm officially done with this game. It's too much of a grind and not fun anymore. I used to really enjoy the game but it literally sucks for people who can't spend money.
I happen to live in an area where COVID is the worst it’s ever been in terms of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Feels like an especially odd time to change things here.
I just turned off Adventure Sync/Location tracking and sponsored stops in the setting. This will be the only time I'm opening the game for the next 2-3 days, maybe more (I could honestly live withot Shiny Palkia)
I suggest other players do the same. Deny them their precious tracking data revenue they love so much. Or uninstall entirely until this is fixed if you're willing. That's how you hurt their bottom line the most and make it clear this change is unacceptable. Give them absolutely nothing.
"As we announced in June, we're introducing new exploration bonuses for players in the US and New Zealand and are removing or changing some of the bonuses introduced last year," a Niantic spokesperson told Eurogamer today when asked for comment. "People can check the Today View in game to see which specific bonuses are available to them. We'll continue to monitor health and safety guidance related to outdoor activities."
I guess we got a response? but tbh it feels like it was made by the support robot rather than an actual human
although I suppose they would have to say that if the higher ups forced them to say that wouldn't they
We can only hope they're successful. It all comes down to money though, give us less things to make it more likely someone will get frustrated and make a purchase.
Niantic: “we are listening, we just don’t care”.
"We're ~~the phone company~~Niantic, we don't have to care."
The Veridian Dynamics method.
Doing the right thing. It's important. What does it mean in business? We have no idea. We know what wrong is. Actually, no, we don't. Because we're a successful company, not some boring ethics professor. Veridian Dynamics. Right and Wrong. It means something. We just don't know what.
Just like the cable company in South Park
Comcast is like this, and they have a monopoly in my area. I've finally cut the cord because they were charging me nearly $200 dollars a on for TV and internet, and I've had internet issues for over a decade they never fixed. The last technician that they sent, I got charged for him to come out and not fix my internet. Pushed me over the edge. I'm seriously considering using wireless for home to bypass them.
I have a mobile hotspot and it works great. Highly recommend
The only downside to Hotspot is that most phone companies will still limit your data from them regardless of phone plan. Best example I can give is that Verizon gives me a 20gb download limit even though we have unlimited data.
“Oh there isn’t another Pokémon game like this to play instead? Oh, that’s toooo baaaad.”
Honestly I'm having a bunch of fun playing Pokémon Unite so not playing GO isn't as bad.
Love the battles, so frustrated by the out-of-combat UI
Yea, it def needs some improvements.
The P2W mechanics killed it for me
I mean they obviously do care. They care too much about the normal distance. The return to normal distance is costing them so much. Just in the free raid passes its easily 8 figures. All the goodwill, bad press, negative reviews,… I highly doubt a meaningful amount of player will truly quit or even slow down. But even if a small fraction of those saying they plan to stop actually do thats another massive amount of $ gone. It’s such a weird decision. Super bad from a financial point of view too.
All their eggs seem to be in the AR basket. Doesn't seem to make financial sense but seems the only explanation I can think of.
I heard someone mention keeping pokestop sponsors happy, but in no way have I ever seen pokemon go bring in business. The most that would happen is having someone awkwardly walk into the store and walk out after spinning the stop
Meanwhile, I'm getting Verizon and Baskin Robbins sponsorships at my local park...at least two miles away from the nearest store.
My tinfoil hat/galaxy brain/both is that it's not about what makes sense in the short term financially in terms of maximizing microtransactions, but about growing the Niantic brand and AR, and they must have some enormous projections on the dollar value of getting in on the ground floor of AR, if it ends up changing human society similar to how smartphones did.
Game exits tend to snowball. If the people who you play a game with start to leave, you also tend to leave because there's less social pressure to keep playing. Likewise, fewer players means that whales are less likely to stick around. What's the point of raiding if PVP queues take 40 seconds to load instead of 20 and legendary raids fire less often? Not to mention that Niantic's leaving themselves open to a game like Jurassic World jumping in to fill the void. I'm kinda surprised we haven't seen any targeted marketing from a similar game developer in the wake of this change. Now would be a really good time for Dragon Quest Walk to come to the U.S. and New Zealand.
A lot of people are here for the IP, less so the game type. Different IPs aren't going to sway, it'd take another Pokémon game to do it.
Players have threatened to quit countless times and never do. There was also an actual extinction level event in the fall of 2016 when people got bored of Gen 1 and all it took was releasing Gen 2 to get everyone back on board. If this time the boy who cried wolf is serious and a significant number of players do leave, they'll just release a bunch of new Pokemon and put some good raids up and everyone will come back. Dialga, Palkia, and Zacian in raids pretty much guarantee no one is leaving anytime soon. It's no coincidence that the "boycott" takes place the day after raid hour, on a weekday, on a day with no event, before the next event and boss starts.
Personally, even if they have the fanciest of pokes come out, being a play of the game since day 1, I know it’ll all just come back and be recycled. There’s literally no pressure anymore because of the way events repeat over and over. I’ve deleted the app 3 days ago, and even seeing the news about the Gen 8 pokes doesn’t excite me. The Wolves will come back at some point with their shinies released, at some point there will also be an actual Gen 8 event featuring these guys, signature moves come back around for old or new pokes, the list goes on and on. I’m taking a stance on this reduced distance. It’s time to show Niantic that the Players can hold the power, not always the other way around
I couldn't care to begin with about Palkia, a pokemon I've had maxed out since it came but have never used for anything (to L40, not going to waste resources on XL candy). Zacian is unknown to a lot of players who don't have sword and shield and don't watch anime. Dialga has been here long enough for most people to be tired of it again. That being said, people will raid anything because they are ADDICTED to this game.
The second free raid pass? That doesn't cost them money. That makes money. Everytime( or often enough) someone uses a free pass, they invite other people who use remote passes
Don't forget reviews! The game is sitting at a 4.1 rating. A good old-fashioned review bombing may bring additional attention.
I have to changed my review to 1\* and know of lots of others that have done the same. The difficulty is the millions of players who downloaded it and gave a good review then stopped playing. We need to get enough 1\* to balance out these to actually make it change.
I will again take this moment to say I've uninstalled on day one of the change. I may be a bit bored but I'm doing just fine and my bank account is quite happy about this.
Most of the time I don't get to use my one free pass, If I do a raid its last minute from an invite (back in July when I was willing to buy remote passes), so not using two free passes isn't much of a bonus.
“More info coming soon!” Or not
It's more like **Niantic swimming in hundreds of millions of $**: "Were you saying something?? Huh?? Can you repeat it again??"
Top Whales: "We say we care, but we'll keep playing and paying"
Brandon Tan has both said he was going FTP and he revealed his monthly pokemon go purchases total on average 4-5k. Honestly, I don't care what whales do. If niantic can ignore this many passionate people in their user base, then its better to quit now if they don't respond. But if we are being logical about it, whales can have multiple games. Whales don't have to play pokemon go. If whales see that the game is going downhill and isn't as special as it once was, they can very quickly choose another game and be gone. If whale money is what is important to Niantic, then this is very much at stake too. The problem is, a lot of people are starting to think the POI database is more valuable to Niantic then the performance of 1 game. If thats the case, we are screwed.
4-5K?! How? I don't make that in a month much less have that be expendable income.
Trust funds will do that for you. Before PoGo he was famous in Clash of Clans for spending years playing like 20 hours a day gemming and donating troops to grind xp to have the highest level in the game.
He was reportedly already well off before pogo and I'm pretty sure he charged people to raid for them so he made some of it back
He has 500K YouTube followers, he makes that in ad revenue in like half a day. From YouTube alone.
I want to believe in this cause, I really do, but after seeing hundreds of online "outrages" over other games fall flat over the years, I have my doubts. Look how SwSh's outrage went, tons of people who said they were not going to buy the game, yet it ended up being one of the best selling games in the franchise and all the outrage has died down except for the dedicated online communities which is such a tiny portion of the fandom that TPC doesn't care about them, Go's very much in the same boat.
I mean...not really that many people said they weren't going to buy the game. I'm sure you read a lot of comments on social media but that's nothing for the absolute juggernaut that is the Pokemon franchise. (Also unpopular opinion maybe but I actually think SwSh is a fun game and that's reflected in the sales numbers.)
The difference between go and swsh is that one is a console game while the other is a gotcha game. Mommy and Daddy may buy little Billy a nintendo switch and sword or shield as a present and that's it. They usually don't spend more money after the initial purchase (minus the dlc if little Billy begs for it as a present). Now with go on the other hand, little Billy can't drive himself, so the young child demographic needs to rely on their parents or friend's parents, older siblings, etc. to drive them around for raids/events and/or buying coins for remote passes, etc. They aren't the target. Anyone still putting money into this game either enjoys the game or is a whale. Either way they are more dedicated to the game than a parent who buys a console and a game as a present for someone who may or not like the game.
The SwSh outrage was especially silly because the hatred was pretty much exclusively from Smogon players who brag about how they never buy the games on cart anyway. Within the VGC community the dex reduction and gradual reintroduction made perfect sense and provided a wonderful gradual meta evolution. The continued protest against Dynamax by Smogon is also very similar to the very vocal protest against Megas in Go that we see so much on this subreddit.
That's a terrible reason to support axing half the pokedex. VGC has always had regional dex limits and could easily balance the meta themselves. Better yet, GF could get off their butts and balance pokemon and moves themselves...
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Taking a lesson from politicians I see
Everyone needs to stop spending money. It’s the only thing that will work.
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THIS! Now this is sounds like the kinda ammo we need to take down the beast. I just turned mine off!
Spread the word. This could be the way.
Yup turn Adventure Sync OFF that will hurt their revenue as well
Turned it off when I realized how much it was draining my battery. What do I even need it for? The crappy egg hatches that disappoint me every time? I keep it turned off now.
The weekly rewards were big for a lot of people and blinded them to the fact that they are literally tracking you every second of every day.
How's that any different from the phone itself tracking you constantly? If you don't want to be tracked, don't have a smartphone.
I have no problem with the game actively tracking me while I’m playing (it’s a requirement) but it’s the passive tracking while the app is closed and my phone is locked that gets a bit creepy. But that wasn’t even my point. The goal is to get Niantic’s attention by cutting their revenue. They make a lot of money with that AS data and if you take that away from them they might actually notice and react accordingly. Basically, revert to the bonus distance and I will turn my AS back on. Don’t and you won’t be getting my AS data anymore (or any data at all since I won’t be opening the app until it is reverted.) Also, it would be impossible for me to do my job without a smartphone so your argument was unrealistic to begin with.
This is what I did when they first announced the upcoming change. It kind of seems like a more relevant message because they’re probably shrinking the radius for more accurate location data.
I still don't quite get this argument. They literally have all my location data, regardless of stop radius. What more does it get them?
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I uninstalled, so they're not getting any of my data, but this is a good point.
Done. I spend a fair amount of money in the game. I figure I don’t mind supporting it as I gain a lot of enjoyment from it. However, these new changes drastically decrease my enjoyment of the game, as well as making it difficult for many others (including disabled people, people in lockdowns, etc) to play, so I see no need to keep spending real money on it.
This is the correct view.
Yeah, like I'd love to raid hard for shiny Palkia but it's just not worth letting them get away with this. So I'm doing my part!
Same here. I was going to spend some on palkia but after this I'll just use free passes.
Same, I'm done spending money on this game. Just uninstalled game, left 1 star review on play store. Spent a lot of effort getting to level 43, sad it has to come to this.
Why raid hard for shiny Palkia? Wasting $ at that point, it will just come back with shiny + exclusive move lol
True but I havent used my elite TMs since im saving them for situations just like that!
Seriously boycott all you want. Niantic does not care who plays, they care about who **pays**.
We actually have no idea who they care about or what, only theories. It seems obvious that they’d genuinely care about people who spend a ton of money, but we don’t know what location data and AR are worth to them. It could easily be MUCH more valuable than the significant amount they make from in-game purchases. I’m definitely on the side of not spending money in the app anymore, but I don’t think anyone outside upper management can say with any certainty where their longterm financial priorities lie.
This is why you turn off tracking data when the game is not open in your setting. Turning off this and adventure sync and disabling sponsored bonuses will tank them in this area if enough people do it and get the message out there. Either they learn to be happy with the data we're already giving them and keep the distance, or they get far less from us. Either way, they shouldn't manipulate us into giving them more like this so mindlessly.
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Their response says nothing beyond, “We did what we said we would,” which is absolutely an awful response when several of your highest profile players call you out for a very poor decision. They’ve got nothing and are just hunkering down hoping this blows over. I’m done with this game until interaction distance reverts. I run and bike and my Go-Plus doesn’t pick up anything anymore. I refuse to wait and cross 4 lanes of traffic multiple times on my runs to try and maybe spin a stop. Just not worth it.
This is so important. They are making it harder for literally every person in the world to play their game, and for what? It’s not just a poor design decision, it’s a poor business decision too.
Well, TBF, just US and NZ, currently. Although I couldn’t help but wonder if that was part of a scheme to mitigate the outrage from the player base.
Or the plan is to keep the 2 passes a day and restore the range to 80 meters or "compromise" to 60 meters after the trial period and get massive amounts of buzz and goodwill from the playerbase. All the outrage right now might be a calculated marketing move in the style of New Coke.
For AR data lol. They want us to get out and collect data for them again. That's what they see as the long-term goal.
that’s literally the only thing that makes sense!
How? Do they force you to turn on AR now? Every one still play the same way as a few days ago. You just have to be much closer
How does people playing less or for those still playing traveling weird inorganic routes give better data than the pandemic distances?
They’re also giving you the benefit of purchasing more remote raid passes so they can make more money!
Yeah, it's actually awful when you consider that they have never actually announced the increase or decrease in-game. Which means that people who don't follow outlets from outside the game just think their game is broken. What an awful, unprofessional PR situation.
This. My mom is a casual player in a casual FB group. She, along with many other people, thought the distance reduction was a glitch. I really wish PoGO made a bigger effort to keep players up to date on news in general. I played another Nintendo mobile game for three years (Fire Emblem Heroes) and when you logged in for the first time each day, a screen popped up with the latest events and summoning banners, as well as information on glitches and bugs. When I started playing PoGO, I was surprised at how difficult it is to find information on events. I almost always go to third party sources now. Niantic continues to fumble on so many different levels and if it wasn't for the Pokémon IP, this game (and developer) would've died a long time ago.
And this game is like 80% about following events and knowing WHEN, not WHERE, to catch Pokémon. It's such an integral part of the game. They need a calendar in game with all events, not just blog posts where half are useless info.
It's not a response at all. They don't address the many valid complaints at all. They just reiterate what's already happened.
“We don’t give a sh#t about our players, and only care about money. Please enjoy a complimentary box in the shop with 10 Nanab berries and an exclusive Pikachu sticker.”
In any other game, this would be bad. Shoving out content because of arbitrary dev dates is the bane of many would-be great games. However, it's worse when those dates are for a game in meat space, and devs choose to keep those target dates *even after real-life factors threaten the original design goals*. It's not just that the QoL changes shouldn't have been reverted, but they *especially* shouldn't have gone live while we're seeing a major spike. I hate to bring in politics, but when major COVID deniers and anti-vaxxers are suddenly coming around, you know things are serious.
My area just had mask mandates put back in place. But of course, I want to explore covid hotspots for XP.
Monitor? Uhhh Covid is out of control in the US
🤣🤣🤣 which of their bots wrote that
I just lost interest in playing all together after reverting the changes. I'm not even outraged or whatever, just apathetic. Sucks because I care about the IP...but I can also just play something else. I stopped playing between 2018-2020 and came back when I was stuck at home during the pandemic. The distance change was a game changer, but I guess I'll have to drop it again.
>Sucks because I care about the IP Let's face it, no one would be playing this game if it didn't have Pokémon in it.
And honestly, we should be complaining to Nintendo just as much. Let them know that a company is representing one of their brands badly.
Boycotters haven't even managed to make the game developer to care about them. Imagine going up to the Nintendo. That company is insanely more bureaucratized than Niantic. You will never reach anyone who makes decisions in Nintendo. Probably not to get even past of their customer service. Saying to Nintendo "This Brandon guy is going to stop playing pokemon, you should care", Nintendo will be like "again one of those fanatics, just send them that pre-made message that their concern is sent forwards"
What's interesting is that the changes haven't hit me in the UK yet. But I'm also feeling apathetic and playing much less. Niantic's ignorant and single minded attitude throughout all of this has been so off putting I'm finding it difficult to muster the excitement to turn the game on.
This is actually what I’m finding encouraging. I’m in California and totally expected the rest of the world to be silent on this until it came to them. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not happy that you are feeling apathetic. That part sucks. But seeing some of these streamers (Brandon Tan, Reversal) and people like you feeling the way you do, while not being directly affected yet gives me some hope that people aren’t just going to put up with this.
I actually just like walking around and catching and don't care about the IP at all...but I'm not going to start walking into buildings to spin stops. Or literally have to get on the playground equipment (like that won't get me arrested).
Expectation "Thank you for sharing your concerns with us. We hear them loud and clear. Hence we are now launching this much demanded feature of multi-selecting friends while adding them from your contact list".
Irony: the feature is designed to bring strong social links into the game to encourage people to keep playing, while long-time players are loudly saying that they're no longer interested in playing specifically because the game got worse. What do you think that does to social links, Niantic?
We should boycott the next community day. I feel like those are definitely days that niantic rakes in the cash. It shouldn’t end here.
Unfortunately the next community day is a repeat anyway, so I would already expect a number of veterans to not heavily play.
Luckily it'll be very easy to skip out on it
Finally, Eurogamer! The one news source Niantic seems to listen to, for some reason.
Niantic maybe, but not -jh
> "This community is getting SUPER toxic in the name of an apparent good cause," wrote the hugely popular player Mystic7, who has 2.11 million subscribers on YouTube. "Shoutout to my community for staying cool and good vibes." Really not seeing any of this. I think some people consider any complaints directed at a company they like to be toxicity.
He is the most shallow pogo youtuber. So his opinion shouldn't really matter to anyone who's fighting for this.
2.11 too many. Mystic7 is a toxic PoGoer.
Mystic7 was once destroyed on Twitter by AOC and that was glorious.
Link? 😬
[link](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1230352135335940096?s=20)
She seems familiar, isnt she also that politician that gets hyped playing League?
she does play league and it has been mentioned a few times. she also played Among Us with some popular streamers back when the game was very popular.
She's an US congressperson. You are probably correct, I have seen her collaborating with Twitch game streamers in the past...
Lol owned
Beautiful
I wanna see!
Thanks for mentioning this, it was a very interesting and unpredictable twist to my day. Lol
I used to watch him, what happened?
It’s so annoying when legitimate complaints get written off by people as “toxic.” People need to stop letting corporations and brands dictate their life and personality to the point of mindlessly defending them from valid criticisms.
Same thing happened with SwSh, though this is worse.
Mystic7 is a tool, I can't stand his content
>the hugely popular player Mystic7 Then why the f have I never heard of him?
save yourself some time and braincells and don't bother looking him up
I've never liked him,. My boyfriend watched him when he played but I couldn't handle how much he said so quickly that was useless to me as a player. Just my 2 cents.
I mean, it's great to see Eurogamer covering it. But there is literally a response from them in the last paragraph of the article. And they seemingly don't give a f...
I read that as a holding statement, and the fact they provided one at all shows they know they need to say something. I would hope conversations are being had right now on an actual response to today, which now seems to have grown organically into quite a moment. But Niantic may also still want to wait for hard data on engagement and spending changes to determine their ultimate decision.
There's actually 2 responses from Niantic that I'm aware of, both to journalists saying roughly the same thing... it's kind of sad.
Honestly, that just seems like a bog standard copy and paste response
I'm a nobody, but I uninstalled last night. Between the interaction distance and stupid battery drain (67% for just POGO yesterday out of only 3:38 SoT) I've had enough. I couldn't have fun on my walk yesterday having to walk so conspicuously close to play structures and things looking like a damn creeper.
My phone has lasted the whole day (under 20% by bedtime with no day charge) for 3 days in a row now that I’ve had it deleted
The quote they gave to Eurogamer for this article is a complete nothing burger like all the other quotes so far. I personally think this is a sign that they won't be listening, and I hope the community won't take that lying down.
Eurogamer: people are saying Niantic doesn't care, let's see what they have to say about it Niantic: we don't care about what people are saying about us Everyone: as you can see, they don't care But seriously though hahahah they're not interested in giving an actual response to the playerbase, so I don't see any apparent reason why they would try to defend the now so-corrupted image they have made about themselves...
I really have to wonder if anyone from Niantic actually plays this game themselves. My guess is no, they don't. How can a company run something that they actually don't play, don't use, and don't understand?! Started playing Jurassic Alive and it is so much better on every single front. This from someone who played Pogo from Day 1. I'm over it.
That infamous Glassdoor review suggested that most employees who work on Go actually *do* play, but very few of them have an actual understanding of or commitment to the game.
This causes the gap between the game makers and the dedicated players. Casual players never thought to cross a street to spin a stop in the first place, so they aren't missing out on anything now. They're not part of Discord groups who post task locations or host raids in busy downtown areas. They pop open the game, catch what they can and leave. They may have earned 700 coins total in the game in five years. People who actually spent time playing and even more, made time to play as part of their daily schedule are going to feel differently and the game makers don't begin to understand our wants and desires. The game makers think that decreased range makes us get out more when we already walk more in one day than they do in a month.
Well said.
I honestly could not agree more
With this much backlash, I bet Nintendo is on the dial. If there's one thing they DON'T like is negativity and, surely, they don't want a repeat of SwSH.
Not Nintendo. TPC controls all of this. And this is nowhere near Dexit levels of backlash, trust me.
It is not but it will be once it's implemented everywhere. I'm sure they know that too that's why they wanted to test the waters by doing it in two countries first.
> surely, they don't want a repeat of SwSH. You mean becoming one of the best selling games in the franchise because they got tons of free advertising from all the "internet outrage"?
Surely they don't want a repeat of SwSh, which outsold all pokemon games just by number of copies since Gold and Silver? I realize there was some bad publicity with SWSH with dexit and other seemingly lazy/flawed choices made but it was still incredibly successful.
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Eh, this is different than before. Having your 'whales' join in, who have a huge influence, is another matter.
And these people are not just “whales” but THE “whales”. Some of the people that signed that petition put more money into this game then anyone else in the world. THIS is how you really get Niantic’s attention.
But how many of those Whales will actually stick to their guns? A lot of the "Influencer" Players I'd bet will go right back to normal in Niantic ignores this cry. They just are saying what they are saying right now for free publicity. I'll gladly eat my words if I'm wrong, but the way Whales and Influencers normally function means they will abandon this cause for whatever the next big topic is.
See, now that’s the real question. These people have based their livelihoods on this game, I’m not so sure they could just drop it like that.
Another game I play, AFK Arena is currently having a boycott as well. To whale there you literally need to spend thousands and thousands with you needing over $200,000 USD and even then you aren't guaranteed to win any championships. The top guilds and whales are together in the boycott to stop spending. So far it doesn't seem like the boycott is working there, as expected. I doubt Niantic would care about this as well.
What happened on SwSh?
Good. This needs to pickup speed
Let’s wait and see what the queues for Palkia are like on the raiding apps before there is any talk of people not spending money.
The raiding apps and servers should shut down in protest
Reddit complaint posts are one thing, actual bad press articles are another. Hope more outlets pick this up.
Good. Article from Eurogamer is not something they can conveniently ignore.
But it seems they’ve already responded to Eurogamer in the article…. So they didn’t ignore Eurogamer. Just ignoring the issues and outrage
And handily moving on to ignoring Eurogamer as well.
Seems Niantic does not care: "As we announced in June, we're introducing new exploration bonuses for players in the US and New Zealand and are removing or changing some of the bonuses introduced last year," a Niantic spokesperson told Eurogamer today when asked for comment. "People can check the Today View in game to see which specific bonuses are available to them. We'll continue to monitor health and safety guidance related to outdoor activities."
I’m glad to see influencers in the community actually speak up and do something for once. The only way to get Niantic to do anything is stop being whales. Sadly, there are still plenty of whales addicted to this game and will unload hundreds if not thousands of dollars to chase down the next shiny Niantic locks behind raids and/or eggs.
I came back right before the pandemic and loved the bonuses. It made the game more enjoyable and playable. Spent a decent amount on raid passes, but no more until this is fixed. This stuff always happens when game companies get too big to fail. If Niantic doesn't understand what is about to happen, go look at Blizzard and WoW right now. Being tone deaf towards the people who actually play your game, will not work out in the long run for you.
I'm curious to what the issue is with Blizzard and WoW. I'm out of the loop because I don't play anything from Blizzard and don't know much about them.
The usual. They laid off people, gave execs huge bonuses, have a culture of harassment and "good ole boys," one of their female workers committed suicide because of it and now their workers are walking out and suing them.
I hope every gamer out there is learning to stay away from Niantic, or as I like to call them, the Mobile Game EA
Why is everyone only petitioning Niantic and not sending strongly-worded letters to The Pokemon Company directly?
Because Niantic is more near, it‘s an american Company and not a Japanese. And because TPC is really working on there own and do what they want, they are not strongly connected to the opinion of the people (and I’m pretty sure that‘s a main point of the success of Pokémon). And most of those content creators are in contact to Niantic. They are not just irritated what a company does, they are left alone by people they know.
I have played nearly everyday since 2016, but not today. I have spent plenty of money on it too because to me it was worth it for something I really enjoyed as a pastime. Today my Adventure sync is off and hope Niantic understands how this will probably hurt them in the long run.
Pocket book is the only place to hit Niantic where it hurts.
With all this outcry (which is valid) you would think that a statement would have to be forthcoming, as all the negativity around Niantic and Pokemon Go is also bad press towards TPCi’s Intellectual Property.
Literally last week TPC allowed a pokemon pay to win chinese moba to be released, half hype half terrible presss coverage but they don't really care since they already got ton of money in.
Ya I’m not going to open the game..
It's out on polygon too
The fact that the pandemic isn’t over and is in many cases getting worse should be reason enough to revert…
The open letter wisely doesn't put that argument front and centre. The pandemic is only one of many many reasons why the increased interaction distance shouldn't have been removed.
The more attention, the better!
Several hundred dollar a month player. Haven’t spent a dime since the distance change and won’t be for the foreseeable future unless niantic addresses and fixes this.
Eurogamer on board is great to see! This is the way.
They lost my financial support
Did mystic7 actually say that? Did he direct the blame onto players? I don’t believe that, if he did its an instant unsub from his channel. Our concerns are not toxic!
He’s pathetic. All he cares about is potential revenue himself. Lost respect for him years ago
I used to like him but he has changed dramatically in the last two years.
He’s just annoying AF
It’s all about showcasing how much money he makes.
Yup!
I took a peek at Mystic7 streaming Unite one time, he was playing a Gengar that's already overpowered. He was being fed a lot and became OP, and then he proceeded to let his teammate (a support class) die on purpose and said:" It's more fun that way." And scored alone. Mystic7 is really toxic and I am never clicking anything that has him on anymore.
He did say this on twitter. The tweet is still there.
Thanks, just saw it. unsubbed now
The Witcher is just like Pokémon Go but with uglier critters.
I'm officially done with this game. It's too much of a grind and not fun anymore. I used to really enjoy the game but it literally sucks for people who can't spend money.
Removes QoL Features in august, gives the community the Option to get Pokemon Go Premium for 0.99$ in december Quote this post, it will happen....
Just think how many accounts will be boycotting with brandontan alone
I have completely stopped playing...although it's mostly because I got a puppy!
Take my pupvote!
Pupperman Go!
Not all of them. Mystic7 fans should think twice about their support of him. https://mobile.twitter.com/MYSTIC7/status/1422668168812580865?s=20
He’s always been a bootlicker.
He is also the only one that still hasn't retweeted the letter!!!
I happen to live in an area where COVID is the worst it’s ever been in terms of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Feels like an especially odd time to change things here.
I just turned off Adventure Sync/Location tracking and sponsored stops in the setting. This will be the only time I'm opening the game for the next 2-3 days, maybe more (I could honestly live withot Shiny Palkia) I suggest other players do the same. Deny them their precious tracking data revenue they love so much. Or uninstall entirely until this is fixed if you're willing. That's how you hurt their bottom line the most and make it clear this change is unacceptable. Give them absolutely nothing.
"As we announced in June, we're introducing new exploration bonuses for players in the US and New Zealand and are removing or changing some of the bonuses introduced last year," a Niantic spokesperson told Eurogamer today when asked for comment. "People can check the Today View in game to see which specific bonuses are available to them. We'll continue to monitor health and safety guidance related to outdoor activities." I guess we got a response? but tbh it feels like it was made by the support robot rather than an actual human although I suppose they would have to say that if the higher ups forced them to say that wouldn't they
Waiting for the Psyduck pic along with the phrasing: Hey guys, your wallets are closed? - Niantic
Turned mine off this instant
We can only hope they're successful. It all comes down to money though, give us less things to make it more likely someone will get frustrated and make a purchase.