Niantic is again to their previous methods

As a day one Pokemon Go participant, I’m no stranger to witnessing Niantic making unhealthy decisions firsthand. However this specific alternative (along with a few of their design philosophies throughout lockdown) actually takes the cake; particularly with making an allowance for all of their previous errors. Briefly, they’re retooling the distant raid operate: one of many extra attention-grabbing endgame actions for hardcore gamers. And that very same participant base has…ideas.

What’s Pokemon Go altering in 2023 that pissed individuals off?

In a weblog on March 30, Niantic defined a number of the upcoming modifications to distant raids:

• Distant raids are getting dearer (195 Pokecoins for a single raid go)
• Distant raids can solely be performed 5 instances per day per participant

So why does this matter? Properly, as is the case with many issues Pokemon Go associated, the studio (and The Pokemon Firm) giveth and taketh away. Distant raids, a function added late within the recreation’s lifecycle in 2020, allowed of us to have interaction in raid battles (one of many few significant issues to do) remotely. Not solely was this convenient for people who didn’t go away their house; it was a boon for individuals who couldn’t go away their house for a wide range of causes, and it was an effective way to maintain the group alive and kicking in rural areas.

Niantic all the time promised that “particulars associated to this function could change within the upcoming weeks or months,” and for Pokemon Go followers, that disclaimer was an ill-portent they hoped would by no means come to go. But it surely did, and plenty of distinguished members of the group spoke up about this, together with Joe Merrick of Serebii.web fame, and different Pokemon teams like PokeJungle. The Pokemon Go subreddit can be ablaze (what is that this, a Bungie recreation?!).

The massive concern with the group is that Niantic is making an attempt to slowly part out the distant raid function to get individuals exterior extra usually: which is able to enable them to trace their location information. However as Niantic has discovered time and time once more, it’s actually arduous to place that genie again within the bottle.

That is their official assertion on the modifications, which they seemingly knew would go poorly:

“We plan to maintain Distant Raid Passes as a part of Pokemon GO. Nevertheless, we consider this variation is important for the long-term well being of the sport, and we don’t make it evenly. We really feel it is a obligatory step towards our purpose of preserving and bettering the distinctive expertise of taking part in Pokemon GO—a recreation we hope you proceed to get pleasure from lengthy into the longer term.”

Properly, we’ll see about that final bit! Niantic is known for reverting insurance policies after an outcry, but when they actually attempt to low-or-high-key part out distant raid passes over time, it received’t go properly.