Pokémon Go developer Niantic has published a frank blog post in the wake of last month’s enormous community upset.
Earlier this week, Niantic dramatically U-turned on players’ main sticking point – the removal of increased interaction radius in the game implemented at the start of the pandemic. Now, it has promised further changes in how it interacts with fans.
“We’ve been listening to player feedback and also set up four roundtable conversations where I spoke with over 30 community leaders from around the world (thank you all for your participation!)” the game’s executive producer Steve Wang wrote. “The two main themes we heard were: The 80m interaction radius for PokéStops and Gyms has been an incredibly positive quality of life improvement over the past year and a half. Niantic has a lot of room to grow when it comes to communication with our players.”
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It’s notable – and unusual – this blog comes directly from a named member of Niantic staff. It was also made highly visible, popping up in-app for all players to see upon loading the game.
The post includes more detail on how Niantic views in-game locations as ways to “nudge Trainers to get outside”, and that it will develop new ideas to “motivate and reward Trainers for exploring and exercising in the real world” while maintaining the game’s now permanently-extended interaction radius.
Niantic also admits it “went through a rough learning experience recently” when its planned removal of pandemic bonuses in New Zealand had to be quickly scrapped after the country went into a new lockdown.
“This experience taught us that we are not going to be able to effectively adjust the experience on a country-by-country basis in real-time,” Wang wrote. Pokémon Go will now offer all gameplay bonuses at a global level, tied to in-game seasons.