It's been a full month since the Pokémon GO craze began. During that time despite a multitude of issues challenging the game, developer Niantic hasn't made a single public statement. This lack of communication has resulted in widespread backlash from fans, in addition to hacking of the CEO's Twitter account. That all changes today.
A public statement has been issued by Niantic on the official Pokémon GO Facebook account. The statement provides a brief reason for why the 3-step system was recently removed, and expression of stress from overtime work which is said to have resulted in lack of communication.
It reads:
As many of you know, we recently made some changes to Pokémon GO.
– We have removed the ‘3-step’ display in order to improve upon the underlying design. The original feature, although enjoyed by many, was also confusing and did not meet our underlying product goals. We will keep you posted as we strive to improve this feature.
– We have limited access by third-party services which were interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service for our users and to bring Pokémon GO to users around the world. The large number of users has made the roll-out of Pokémon GO around the world an… interesting… challenge. And we aren’t done yet! Yes, Brazil, we want to bring the game to you (and many other countries where it is not yet available).
We have read your posts and emails and we hear the frustration from folks in places where we haven’t launched yet, and from those of you who miss these features. We want you to know that we have been working crazy hours to keep the game running as we continue to launch globally. If you haven’t heard us Tweeting much it’s because we’ve been heads down working on the game. But we’ll do our best going forward to keep you posted on what’s going on.
Be safe, be nice to your fellow trainers, and keep on exploring.
The Pokémon GO team
The post has been liked by more than 4,000 people during the past hour, and several open letters have been published in the comments. In general, customers are looking for more consistent communication, and see this as a great start.
However, even communication doesn't fix bugs. The complexity of Pokémon GO makes it a significant technological challenge to support, and its game systems have been compromised by infrastructural issues. But underneath it is a charming game with tremendous potential if given enough support. We'll have to see how Niantic performs during the next month as player activity continues to decrease to haveany idea of how it will look in the long-term future.
