Almost one year ago, the Pokemon GOÂ community rallied around #PokemonNO, a movement spawned from players who knew #HearUsNiantic would fall on deaf ears. Well, not totally deaf, as Niantic did cave into concerns about how badly the spin radius nerf hurt the entire community. But Niantic’s overall response to the boycott proved that it’s willing to disappoint and alienate its own playerbase while killing profits.
Among Niantic’s various promises to do better in the future was a promise to begin publishing developer diaries to increase communication with the playerbase. I think it’s fair to say that the company has failed in that mission; Niantic mostly limits its communications to tech websites and streamers with little real connection to the POGO community, and most of the diaries have been overt self-promotion rather than community outreach, to the point that we stopped covering them.
The first two dev diaries were such blatant advertisements that I nearly skipped the third dev diary, which was nearly a proper post but was still so niche that even my local community leaders largely ignored it. When the following diaries returned to their advertising format, we stopped covering them; the constant barrage of ads is not worth hardcore POGO players’ time, let alone the general multiplayer gaming community’s here on MOP.
To be clear, I’m not saying POGO is a bad game. It’s not. Stripped of most of the post-Gen 3 content, including the addition of friends, PvP, and trading at the tail end of its release, the game motivated people to go walk outside, gather for raids, and occasionally explore. Being Pokemon meant those things made it easier to meet meatspace players and form communities, which when combined with its simple playstyle made it feel like an easier MMOARG to recommend than Orna: The GPS RPG.
I don’t think 99% of the playerbase, including me, would keep playing POGO if it weren’t a Pokemon game, but the connections to the main series along with some connections to motivate exercise are great. The social aspects are fairly lacking outside of raiding and trades (especially with so many multi-accounters, which Niantic does nothing about), but not altogether gone.
No, Pokemon GO’s biggest enemy is Niantic itself. Consider the recent Mega Gyarados Raid Day event. Starting with the PR announcement we reported, Niantic bungled, telling press there would be field quests and a collection quest when those were tied to a broader event occurring in the event week the Raid Day took place.
It’s also important to note that very few people were excited about Mega Gyarados Day. When Niantic admitted to screwing up the event in early time zones by launching too early and thus making the event six hours (up from three), many people on social media chimed in about how they weren’t excited about the event at all. Here’s a prime example:
Extension of a raid day no one asked for, while ignoring it's player base begging for extending CD back to 6 hours. Coupled with the changes to boxes and their prices, I'd say @PokemonGoApp is actively trying to kill itself. Can't even fix its constantly broken game.
— Arizz 🔥 (@Arizira) October 7, 2022
While we noted that Mega Gyarados is one of the best Mega Pokemon to invest in, it’s also kind of boring. Magikarp was actually the first shiny. It’s already had a Community Day and was in a wrap-up event back in 2020, though the Mega Raid event did not feature its CD move, making the day’s shinies less than ideal. Its Mega is also old, having been released all the way back in February 2021. The only reason to really give it a raid day is because, frankly, the Mega Evolution system sucks. It’s not that it’s not rewarding; it’s just that it rewards far too much for something people simply don’t enjoy. In fact, none of my friends who needed Mega Energy for Gyarados noticed the event or came out for it.
Extending the event, in fact, made that worse. If you have a group of reliable friends, you were probably fine, but those of us in large city-wide or multi-zip-code groups rely on adhering to start times and meeting points. From there, you essentially find people moving at your pace and go forward. But when you have less than 24 hours’ notice, you may be locked into something else. Arriving to an event late is like arriving to your guild’s raid late: Everyone’s already started, bosses may be dead, and the game will lock people out of being able to help you. Add in the fact that you need to drive to a physical location for the event (unless you pay for passes during an event that gives you free ones) and this makes things very messy.
To note, Niantic had also bungled the event rewards in general. Whether or not people will get a refund or whatever feels irrelevant at this point because, as someone who has been failed by Niantic almost constantly for the past year, I don’t want reimbursement; I just want things to function as advertised. What makes this raid day disappointing is the fact that two basic features – start time and energy rewards – were busted, and it encroached on the time a new legendary shiny was released.
It’s not just that the two events shouldn’t have taken place on the same day, nor that the lesser event shouldn’t have been allowed to take up more time than the one people were looking forward to. It’s the fact that Niantic’s inability to deal with bugs properly combined with poor communication essentially left people socially stranded. As I’ve previously argued, Community Days are more of an alone together activity, while raids are the most community-driven activities, even if they require little to no real coordination.
So when Niantic screwed up the times, it screwed over many of its players who rely on large, popular groups to bring people to certain areas at certain times. This is darkly humorous, as it’s exactly why Community Day hours were reduced, which again require no other players to be around but is 100% something needed for a raid event. The area I went to, which I previously noted is known by people in multiple nearby towns as the place to find other players, was essentially dead. I had to rely on a personal list of high-spenders I keep who tend to accept raid invites whenever they’re near their phone. In short, I relied more on non-local players than local players for a raid event, which is traditionally an event that can be used to bring the community out and together.
Now that may seem like a poor reaction to a bug, but as always, that’s not the whole story. The event ended on paper at 5pm, but in actuality it ended at 7 p.m. See, Gyarados raid spawns all ended at 5 p.m., but players could still receive the free Daily passes (five for the event, and two to three for their normal, daily use) until 7 p.m., which could have motivated people to come out. I ended up using only six of the eight raid passes possible, not by choice but because Niantic didn’t follow-through with its original communications, and I got that many only because players discovered the secret extension.
I know not all my friends would have been able to come out, but a few might have been able to had the hours been properly communicated. Again, bugs happen. Niantic chose to leave the bugs as is and force the entire playerbase to suffer, even though other MMOARG companies with much smaller budgets actually test their builds before pushing them out, such as Orna, a far smaller game with a far smaller staff. But Niantic also then either created a second bug or forgot to communicate the cut-off for receiving raid passes.
Players already know Niantic completely skipped its August Dev Diary. It owes the community that and an October one, but hopes are low. Unofficially (and please don’t harass the help), the game’s Community Manager has said that the August Dev Diary (at the least) has been delayed because of staffing issues. But I don’t buy that.
While that may be a factor, I also want to note that many major corporations have release schedules, not just for their product but for PR and Marketing. One would hope dev diaries would also be on that list, especially bimonthly ones that are supposed to be fixing the company’s image of ignoring its playerbase. Bugs happen, but those shouldn’t interfere with out-of-game communication about the game as a whole, nor the release of new information.
To be clear, I’m not blaming this on the CM, as their Gen Con work was expertly managed. No, as I’ve mentioned previously, Niantic as a company has a strange habit of making professionals seem like interns. I’m once again blaming the top Niantic brass. The problem starts at the top and persists to the bottom, flowing like an avalanche of sludge that even the best employees are unable to combat.
I don’t expect much to change on Niantic’s end, but I do wonder at what point players will give up. As noted, I’ve already professionally cut down on coverage and personally stopped all spending outside of events I cover for this site. As friends disappear, my playtime may be cut as well. In fact, it’s already dropped not only thanks to competition but other non-communicated nerfs, such as legendary encounters in the game’s PvP rewards. Between the loss of trust, falling profits, and announcements of new games being flooded with negativity, one really has to wonder at what point Niantic leaders will realize it needs to change.
Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!