Pokémon GO is one of the most significant cultural phenomena of our time. Parks and walking trails have more traffic than ever before as millions of consumers around the globe head outside in hopes of completing a Pokémon collection. Unsurprisingly, it has crushed records, from mobile downloads to in-app purchases within a week.
Although it's experienced monumental success, Pokémon GO has serious, potentially disqualifying issues. These issues are revealing themselves more as time goes on, putting the game's long-term viability in question.
So what are these issues? Let's talk about them below.
Leveling Up Is A Bad Thing
Pokémon GO is more a quest of leveling rather than Pokémon collection. As you level up you gain access to rarer Pokémon, and those you find will be much stronger, effectively rendering your work during the first few dozen hours as trivial. Naturally, you'll feel compelled to make leveling your primary goal until the day that you reach the game's level cap of 40.
Unfortunately, as you level up the game becomes much less fun to play. Combined with the natural effects of you having a diminishing pool of new Pokémon to find is the issue that Pokémon become much more difficult to catch. It's normal for players at level 20 or above to need three or more Poké Balls to catch even the most common Pokémon, from the low-value Rattata to the universally-hated Zubat.
The game provides you will Razz Berries and more potent Poké Balls as you level, but these items are in such paltry quantities that you'll want to save them for your encounters with rare Pokémon like Gyarados or Dragonair.
Over time most players learn to combat this by simply skipping low-quality Pokémon, and instead only engaging Pokémon with better rarities. The issue with this is it makes leveling slower, as the abudant Pokémon that once provided you with small but consistent burst of experience are no longer attractive.
For players who aren't careful about this, running out of Poké Balls is a very real concern. Alongside skipping common Pokémon it's important to camp areas with multiple Pokéstop locations and/or purchase Poké Balls from the in-game store. Nothing is worse than encountering a Charizard when you have no Poké Balls left.
Nearby Is Broken
One of the neatest features of Pokémon GO is the Nearby menu. What this does is allow you to see which Pokémon are readily available near your location, and triangulate them based on the distance value shown within the menu.
The problem is that the feature simply doesn't work most of the time. Players have reported what's known as the "three step bug" where the game shows all Pokémon on the menu as being a fair distance from them, and not updating as they get closer to their location.
This is a heartbreaking problem since triangulating the position of Pokémon is one of the game's greatest features. It's one of the best ways that the game replicates the sense of adventure and Pokémon gathering of the handheld games, where physically moving to the right spot was an important element of Pokémon gathering strategy.
This feature was intended to encourage walking. Since it doesn't work properly, the only incentive left is to hatch eggs.
Server Instability
The only thing worse than playing a broken, incomplete game is not being able to play it at all. It's common in Pokémon GO for players to head out to catch Pokémon only to find themselves unable to connect to the servers. This makes the game completely unplayable, which is a huge bummer when you're out and about, and wish that you were at the very least logging steps for your Pokémon eggs.
Take for example my trip down to San Diego last week. I was excited to arrive at a new area and see what Pokémon inhabited the city. Unbeknownst to me, I would never be able to connect to the servers despite having 4G and WiFi connections. This was over a six-hour period and was never resolved no matter how many times I tried.
Although my experience was frustrating, perhaps the worst example of this is when players meet up for events. There have been hundreds of events hosted during the past month that have looked to bring Pokémon GO players together at pre-determined locales, only to find out that the servers are down and the game unavailable. What a buzzkill.
While these issues plague the experience, especially on weekends when players want to enjoy the game the most, Niantic has continued to release the game to new territories. This has placed further strain on the servers making it more unreliable than ever.
Niantic Doesn't Communicate
The issues outlined above wouldn't be so bad if we knew that they are being addressed, and when we can expect fixes. Unfortunately, the development team behind Pokémon GO, Niantic, has been silent for weeks.
In this day and age, developer communication is critically important. Renowned studios, from Blizzard Entertainment to Naughty Dog, have learned that consumers appreciate being informed about what the team is working on and what their perspective is on the state of affairs. It has become an industry standard for developers to have some form of communication channel with their players, especially in the case of games that make millions of dollars. However, Niantic appears to have no interest in this style of development and post-launch support.
Asking Niantic to hire a Community Manager and communicate with the Pokémon GO playerbase isn't asking for too much, especially given the amount of money the company is making. We're talking about the highest-grossing mobile game in existence right now, one that drives over $1.6 million in revenue each day.
The scary thing is Niantic has a long history of having poor communication. During the past three years it has managed Ingress, its first game release, like a tight-lipped dinosaur. Frankly, I have no hope for Niantic ever changing this, especially being that it published the game in partnership with Nintendo, another company that has no idea how to effectively speak to consumers.
It's Not A Very Good Game Anyway
Let's be real here, Pokémon GO is not a good game by any stretch of the imagination even when it is working. It hardly resembles the handheld games that fans have come to love over the years. It's no wonder why it has a 68 Metascore even when it's a free game.
For one, the battle system is awful. It boils down to swiping left or right on the screen when it flashes, denoting an incoming attack, and then tapping on the screen to counter-attack. The only element beyond this is holding a finger on the screen once you've charged up enough energy to use an special attack. You'd think Niantic would have been able to develop something with more heart given the tactical depth of other Pokémon titles.
Made worse, you can't battle through conventional means. Currently, the only option for enjoying the potential of your Pokémon is to head to a Gym and battle A.I. controlled monsters who are defending the position.
There are a lot of functionally inconvenient elements of the game, too. Take for example how you have to keep the game and mobile screen on in order to play. While going for a walk you can't just put the phone in your pocket and wait for it to vibrate telling you that a Pokémon is nearby. The only way you'll ever be able to do that is with the game's $34.99 peripheral called the Pokémon GO Plus. As such, mobile phone batteries are being obliterated by the on-screen time.
It's just not a very fun game. The reason it's so popular is entirely because of how it delivers augmented reality, encouraging a "get out and play" playstyle, which it should be commended for. I can't help but wonder what games of this type in the future will be capable of when given appropriate development time.
