As we mentioned in our monthly Pokemon Go event round-up for April, the game recently introduced new avatars on April 17th, despite lots of negative feedback during the testing phase on live servers in select parts of the world. Complaints included major clipping issues, models having long arms with huge hands, chunky unfeminine models, only having feminine faces, a lack of bald options (beyond the bug displayed in the header), only androgynous characters being possible, and more. Some are upset enough that they’re covering up characters’ faces with masks and bodies with onesies, like the Gengar-dressed avatars in the header.
Admittedly, there are some pluses (beyond the bald bug). Clothing is no longer gender-locked, and while the game previously lacked hair options, Niantic did ensure that there were hair styles for a diverse audience (though said hair options do have clipping issues and some users argue they’re not very good). Unfortunately, there are also missing items including those which were previously purchased, costing players coins and real cash.
Eventually, Community Manager Kestrel started taking constructive feedback on a now mention-only-locked tweet, and Pokemon Go Hub claims that an anonymous employee is taking their reader feedback seriously enough to forward it to the Product Team. That last bit seems to indicate that like many POGO issues, the marketing department has far too much involvement in actual game development.
On a related note, Niantic has some more upcoming events that mostly seem to be driven by marketing decisions. We don’t have full details yet, but what we do know is that many of the upcoming “features” have not met with the approval of testers. The biomes are coming on Earth Day, April 22nd, which one tester noted has increased their battery usage. This looks to be in direct conflict with Niantic’s previous efforts of using Earth Day to get people involved, which seems like it’s an even worse outcome than just being a boring event.
4/22 Update: One of our favorite PvP analysts, JRESeawolf, recently got some information from a person familiar with Niantic’s private feedback server. While it could be read similar to Glassdoor or Trustpilot reviews, it is a reminder that Niantic is actually testing (some) stuff before it’s public and getting feedback, they just choose not to act on it.
