Pokemon Go Roundup - Euro Expansion, Sponsored Locations and more!

Published: July 13, 2016 11:25 PM /

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pokemon go fire

Pokemon Go has been taking over the Earth and the internet in recent days and more information about Nintendo and Niantic's smash hit keeps coming out! Rather than bombard you with a horde of stories, we're going to run down the most noteworthy things in the world of Pokemon Go today in this roundup!

Rollout Resumed!

The biggest news is after halting their international expansion due to server issues, Niantic has resumed rolling out Pokemon Go in new locations. While it was only a single new country today, this represents a resumption of their global rollout plan and should mark a decrease in coming days to risky sideloading activities. Germany was the lucky nation today that got to go hunting the now-digitized pocket monsters.

https://twitter.com/PokemonGoApp/status/753151215630974976

Pokemon Go updates fix account scope

One of the odder things that happened on launch was that Pokemon Go on iOS had a larger than necessary google account permission scope. While this didn't happen on Android, iOS permissions theoretically gave Niantic permission to read your emails and more. That was quickly fixed, however, along with an issue with the Pokemon Trainer Club login that was causing trouble. 

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/752927263524401152

Pokemon Go Cheating has Consequences

Pokemon Go has brought out a lot of ideas such as skateboarding, drone use and more, but while those ideas are considered fine - GPS spoofing is not. Many test subjects tried it out and posted the soft ban results on Reddit and it essentially comes down to three things:

  1. Pokestops won't sell you items
  2. Gyms won't let you battle
  3. Pokemon will run away whenever you try to catch them

This is a soft ban however, and generally only lasts an hour, although some do report longer times. While many of these users were trying to simply get further than they otherwise would, rural users may have had a valid reason to use it with the reports of a lack of Pokestops and Gyms in their regions.

Sponsored Locations Are on The Way

In a case that everyone saw coming, Niantic is going to be announcing sponsored locations for Pokemon Go in the future. This would presumably work similar to how they do it with Ingress where companies can pay to ensure that their location is a special one. An example of this is that McDonalds could pay an amount and have all McDonald's restaurants be Gyms or Pokestops to help drive business.

Pokemon Go Raises Nintendo's Market Value sharply

While we expect to see more information on this tomorrow, as of yesterday at close, Pokemon Go had helped Nintendo raise its market value by about $10 billion dollars since launch, with its share price rising 60 percent over the same period. Nintendo only makes a portion of what Pokemon Go makes, as they own a third of The Pokemon Company and an undisclosed amount in Niantic. The large income the game is generating is therefore only part of what is causing the large market value and share price spikes. What is really pushing it forward as well is the boost in confidence in the appetite there is on the mobile market for Nintendo IPs and the potential profitability for games like Fire Emblem mobile and Animal Crossing mobile.

Pokemon Go Causing Some Locations Frustration

While Pokemon Go is becoming a sensation, it isn't appropriate for everywhere, according to the Holocaust Museum. They said after having visitors having their eyes on the game wasn't appropriate for the location and that they are looking for ways to have the location removed from the game. Exasperating the issue to some extent, is that the Holocaust Museum is a Pokecenter, as well.

An unconfirmed report going around is that there was a sighting of Koffing at the Holocaust Museum which would be in particular bad taste. While the image was taken down from Imgur, thus the lack of confirmation, it was on the internet long enough to be saved - assuming it wasn't a photoshop job.

Koffing

Safety Warnings Abound

Many police forces are issuing warnings over Pokemon Go - namely to not "catch and drive", to not trespass, and to not go out overly late at night. It reached a high enough level that the National Safety Council pitched in with an official press release urging pedestrians to exercise caution while playing, and drivers to not play while driving. This comes not too long after Pokemon Go was allegedly used by a group of Armed Robbers to help locate potential targets by going to areas where lures were deployed.

Many Police stations, while advising caution, also try to strike a bit of a light-hearted tone as well. The following is one of the many, and this is from Duvall where they asked players to not creep around so much, and expressed something akin to disbelief at having to ask the general public to not chase imaginary creatures behind the police station at night.

Pokemon Go Duvall


That's the wrap up for today, and while there's a ton of minor stories we're passing up on this should have you up to date on the biggest Pokemon Go news. If you are looking at the game, check out our review and Beginner's Guides about it to learn more. 

What are your favorite Pokemon Go stories? Share them in the comments below!

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Don Parsons
| Senior Writer

A longtime lover of speculative fiction, in almost all its forms, Don joined TechRaptor in 2014 on a whim sending in an application as he was looking for… More about Don