Recently change Pokémon GO Controversy continues. Incense’s nerf, and Community Day halving, signals once again that Niantic wants the mobile game to return to its pre-pandemic form, before some of its audiences are ready. We talked to POGOLive games director, Michael Steranka, to ask why the studio was trying to get people to gather when the number of covid-19 cases spiked, about those changes to Incense, and whether Pokémon GO are there any plans to better accommodate players with disabilities.
April’s Community Day, centered around the newly added Stufful, will only last three hours: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., your local time. That’s half the time that the monthly event has been going on for the past two years, a decision announced via Pokémon GO developer Niantic as a means to turn this day into a better opportunity for players to “play together and connect outside”. This, they claim, is driven by their research which shows that only 5% of players are engaged for more than 3 hours anyway. I start by asking Michael Steranka, definitely not similar three o’clock?
Steranka told us over a Zoom call. Sitting in a gray room, the only detail visible is a graffitied orange beam erected to his left, the game’s live director and original creator of Community Day, whose Christ-like hair and beard stand out. And like J-man, he’s shown to enjoy people gathering in public. Talking about how people have chosen three hours or less of the day, he explains that this is – from Niantic’s point of view – the problem.
“It’s really one of those issues where we feel that way, because you know, Community Day as it’s supposed to be is to really get everyone out at once.” Steranka’s goal is to see Pokémon GO goes back to its original roots, a game where people meet outside, move around, and seek out their local community of players. He wants to see what he calls “organic discovery of the players around you,” explaining that in the game’s early days, this was how people made new friends.
Pokémon GO definitely difficulty find your way back to the early days. Since March 2020, the game has been forced to make some fundamental changes to the way it works, as global audiences, who are facing the pandemic, suddenly cannot easily (or safely ) out to play. To maintain their player base, some quick and clever changes were made to allow the game to be much easier to play while still at home.
But Niantic really do not want Pokémon GO become a game that everyone can play at home. Last September saw the attempt to be abandoned quickly (though not nearly fast enough) to reverse some of those changes, as the developer inexplicably tried to bring the player to the public because the Delta variant was at its deadly peak. Now, when the Omicron count is getting extremely high (albeit much less lethal), it is happening again. The timing feels… odd.
Steranka adds the familiar prefix that they “encourage players to follow local rules and regulations” and do what is best for them in their local environment. However, he insists, “it’s not something we’re trying to police on our side.” Instead, he notes that they rely on their players to make sensible choices, and that if people want to, the game is still completely playable.
So what To be where Niantic cuts Community Day in half? Especially with the reaction to the news not so positive. Here, Steranka lays out the three stated pillars of Niantic. “The first is exploration, the second is exercise, and the third is real-world social interactions. As for what we’ve achieved, we really intend to build on that. ”
It seems important to the company that their games maintain this USP, that they are marked off from other mobile games by this roaming fee. “It’s something that really means a lot to us,” adds Steranka, “We really want players to have that sense of their local community and create a connection — and a strength.” relationship — because we really feel that’s what sets our product apart from any game out there. ”
While it’s hard not to doubt the profit motive to make these changes urgently, I have no doubt that the Incense nerf hasn’t helped Niantic make any extra money. This month’s change-over shows that the buyable Incense generates only one encounter every five minutes when at rest, down from one minute in the past two years.
Steranka laughs: “It’s certainly not to generate more revenue on Incense,”. “We are generating less revenue, because the item is less useful, right?” Again, the rationale given is to go back to those pillars, in this case the first two, exploration and training. “We never wanted Pokémon GO becomes a product that you can fully complete and enjoy from your couch. And the fact of the matter is, with the power of Incense, fixed players could already do that, right? ”
But cut it down to one Thursday Powerful, no in-game warnings? “Balancing everything is always a difficult balancing act,” admits Steranka. “What we really want to lean heavily on is to make sure that the reward in motion is stronger than ever. So we make sure players get as many encounters in motion as possible. We’ve also reduced the distance you need to travel to trigger that moving bonus. “
In a desire to show how pandemic changes will remain, such as the removal of the walking requirement to participate in the GO Battle League and the addition of daily fieldwork, Steranka has gone as far as calling the Incense change before it was “break the game. ”
I’m back to the point that, all of this being accepted, these changes have yet to be communicated to the players. Millions of people have started playing the game over the past two years, many of them children then old enough to play, and for them the game has always been. Can Niantic see that not announcing these reversals, and assuming the audience all remember what it used to be, would create a very negative reaction?
Acknowledging the problem, Steranka once again went back to the stated core Niantic principles. He explained that he’s personally “quite excited” to reintroduce the original gameplay, “because those players haven’t experienced Community Day like they did before the pandemic.” His enthusiasm proved very genuine. “I really believe that’s the best three hours you can get in this game. And longtime players will confirm it. The lesson that I hope everyone will take is, put your skepticism on hold until you actually experience this for yourself. “
I can’t help thinking, throughout all this, of people for whom this is not a simple choice. In two years, Pokémon GO is already a game that you can almost play without having to walk anywhere. So, for players with a physical disability who have started competing at any time since March 2020, their full participation is coming to an abrupt end.
“Yes,” said Steranka, “that is clearly the most challenging question, and we talk about it all the time here at Niantic.” He went on to add that “the full loop of games that can be played from home goes against a lot of our core tenets as a company”. Approaching this idea from a couple of different angles, and again concluding that making “real world exploration” games is where they excel, but not to mention the disabled players they think a lot of. about it. I hit that point. Is there any plan, given the amount of thought that has gone into it?
“There is nothing that I can share today.” It’s a phrase that game journalists hear a lot of when talking to developers, but think optimistically, it’s usually deployed when there are We plans, but the studio is following strict directives to keep them in place. Steranka adds, “But we’re discussing it, and that’s where, as I mentioned, we’re looking at new features and what doesn’t work in that regard.”
As for the future, Steranka talked about plans for more city-specific community events to appear in the game. Niantic plans to “identify locations around the world where we can provide some Pokémon GO swag,” again through a desire to score real-world social interactions. He also teased that this summer’s annual GO Fest event will get players excited, but said more details will be revealed soon.
Aside from asking him to extend the PokéStop distance from 80 to 81 meters, so I could spin the nearest stop without going outside, that’s where it all ended. And having struggled with poor communication, the risk of covid and the apparent lack of support for the recently joined disabled players, I suddenly and very unprofessionally thank Steranka for helping to create a The game – for all its twists and turns – has given me and my stepson some incredibly important happy times outdoors during the worst of the pandemic.
I think it’s about Pokémon GO, the reason it maintains such a large and regular audience nearly six years after its debut. That outdoor content, even if it doesn’t have “community-based social interaction”, To be is really important to what makes the game stand out, even if it hurts when the convenience of pandemic changes is taken away. It’s a pity that Niantic seems to need to take a lesson in communication over and over again, but I have to admit that I am looking forward to those moments when I see a group of adults in the park, staring at their phones for a while. circle, and then smile at each other when we realize we’re all doing the same odd thing.
