Pokemon Goreverse these changes and admit defeat
In case you missed it,Niantic made another decision that’s been unpopular with thePokemon Gocommunity, which has been a trend since the game came into being. The team is up-charging for remote raids, and will limit the amount of times you can partake in them. It’s one of a series of reversals that gave folks hope thatPokemon Gowould improve before a core feature was rug-pulled.
That was weeks ago.Speaking to Dot Esports, several team members have finally responded to the backlash. Michael Steranka,Pokemon Godirector, started off by saying that they’ve “taken note” of the backlash and that it’s “hard to ignore.” Steranka is personally tagged in some of these tweets, and likeDestinydeveloper Bungie often says before they immediately announce that they’re not reversing a bad decision, they are “reading everything.”
As for the heart of the matter, Steranka has this to say:
“That was like a very, very painful decision to make even for me. But when we look at sort of the overall health of the game, and the type of behaviors that remote raid passes were introducing, it just really didn’t align with the kind of experience we were trying to create”
John Funtanilla,Pokemon Gosenior producer, “echoed” the sentiments, stating: “There’s a lot of Michael [Steranka]s on this team, everyone’s playing the game, everyone, you know, like, wants to do remote raids, but we kind of have to understand, what we feel is best for the player experience.”
So that’s it, then I guess! No surprise there.
This isn’t the first timePokemon Gohas been in the hotseat
I’ve had issues with the wayPokemon Gohas been maintained for many years, and this sort of hardline stance on rug-pulling a previously-useful feature is not new. The company has also been struggling with juggling multiple projects, pumping out AR games like Telltale cranked out episodic adventures before their downfall. The company keeps chasingPokemon Goby cloning it with limited success, all while making their marquee product worse.
It’s a bold strategy, let’s see if it pays off!
