After the Pokemon Go community launched a boycott in the form of a Pokemon No day yesterday, Niantic has been quick to respond. Today they've published "A Response To Our Pokémon GO Community", where they've gone over the Pokemon Go community's points, promising some sort of solution from them.
What's in the response?
At first, the response begins with the typical 'we appreciate and hear you' rhetoric, but it quickly becomes more interesting as Niantic starts explaining their reasoning:
Like everyone else around the world, our team has been working very hard to adapt to the global health environment. The recent Exploration Bonus changes we’ve made in the U.S. and New Zealand are designed to restore some of the foundational elements players enjoyed prior to 2020, and reward players once again for moving and exploring. Encouraging people to explore, exercise and safely play together in person remains Niantic’s mission.
This makes sense, and now that the community has come out against the return of the "foundational elements players enjoyed prior to 2020," Niantic is reacting to this criticism. While they say that the physical act of taking walks (no doubt one of the foundational elements they alluded to), Niantic is also continuing to "monitor health and safety guidance related to outdoor activities" as the world continues to grapple with the after-effects of COVID-19.
The biggest concern for the Pokemon Go community--the interaction distance change-- is now being discussed internally and being acted upon:
We are assembling an internal cross-functional team to develop proposals designed to preserve our mission of inspiring people to explore the world together, while also addressing specific concerns that have been raised regarding interaction distance. We will share the findings of this task force by the next in game season change (September 1). As part of this process, we will also be reaching out to community leaders in the coming days to join us in this dialogue.
While this isn't the immediate and decisive action the community was hoping for, this is definitely something to latch onto. We'll have to see how it pans out next month.
For more information, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
