Niantic has released a statement over Facebook addressing why they removed Pokemon GO’s tracking system, disabled the use of third-party apps, and that the game will soon come to Brazil.
Over the past weekend the backlash to Pokemon GO has seemed to grow just as fast as the app’s initial popularity. But through it all, which included fans demanding refunds, death threats, and Niantic CEO John Hanke’s Twitter being hacked, the company behind the game, Niantic, stayed silent about all things Pokemon GO.
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That all changed on early Tuesday morning when Niantic finally released an official statement over Pokemon GO‘s Facebook page. It addresses the most recent update that caused a lot of this backlash when the in-game tracking system and third-party tracking apps were disabled. This caused a major aspect of the game, hunting Pokemon, to become next to impossible and mostly guess work, angering fans.
Niantic explains that “[they] have removed the ‘3-step’ display in order to improve upon the underlying design. The original feature, although enjoyed by many, was also confusing and did not meet our underlying product goals. We will keep you posted as we strive to improve this feature.”
When talking about why third-party tracking apps, the most popular of which was Pokevision, were removed, the move was about improving the game as the third-party apps were “interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service for our users and to bring Pokémon GO to users around the world.”
The statement never mentions the players demanding refunds or the recent Twitter hack. But it did give a reason for why there has not been that much communication from Pokemon GO to the public, everybody is too busy working on fixing the game, but now they will work harder at keeping the community informed through social media on what is going on with the game.
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Part of what is keeping everyone involved with Pokemon GO so busy is that they are working hard to expand the game globally. Specifically, the statement mentions Brazil as Olympic athletes who wanted to play Pokemon GO during the Rio Olympics have found that the game does not work in Brazil. However, Niantic provided no details on when Pokemon GO would be coming to Brazil – or any South American country – so the chances of it happening before the Opening Ceremonies on August 5th seems slim to none.
Here is the full statement from Niantic.
It will be interesting to see if Pokemon GO follows through on being more open with its players and if that will do anything to improve the negative reaction the app has recently received. Despite still sitting at the top of both the most downloaded and top grossing charts, Pokemon GO‘s rating has quickly dropped to below two stars.