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Niantic CEO John Hanke has expressed their dislike of third party apps, saying “they might find in the future that those things may not work.” This morning I woke up to find that PokeVision has been (hopefully temporarily) shut down, as the latest update prevents third party requests for location data. There’s no point looking for PokeVision alternatives as their method of requesting data has been fundamentally cut off.
What really annoys me is that Hanke appears to believe that third party applications “take the fun out of the game”.
Let’s get something very clear you incompetent crumpled up paper ball, wandering around blind for 3 hours is not fun. The point of the game is to be able to track down and catch pokemon, which you have systematically withdrawn from users since the launch of the beta. As the game has progressed, you have removed features to the extent that the game is now unplayable within its original boundaries.Â
The cynic in me believes that this is to sell lures and incense. But what they don’t appear to comprehend is that by removing tracking tools they are going to alienate the two groups of their audience which is most inclined to spend money - young professionals with a job and disposable incomes, and the obsessive natures which would have downloaded the APK and seen the features when the application was first released in their country. Children are a solid market initially, but they are also easily bored and distracted. If they can’t get that feedback with catches, and the occasional rares, they will stop using the application.
But let’s be very clear about something.
PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO USE POKEVISION.
PEOPLE WANT TO BE ABLE TO TRACK POKEMON IN-APP.
IF YOU MADE THE GAME WORK AS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO ORIGINALLY INSTEAD OF REMOVING FEATURES, YOU WOULD NOT HAVE TO BATTLE WITH A TIDAL WAVE OF APPS DESIGNED TO FIX YOUR SHIT.
So they cut off Pokevision, while simultaneously removing any chance of tracking pokemon in-app. And then they say this is to prevent cheating?
You know the kind of cheating which is REALLY fundamentally against the gaming concept? People who spoof their locations to get to better locations. These people are not leaving their house, engaging with the community, and they can farm rares etc, they are not really tracking at all. Has the update addressed this? Not at all. In fact, with this new update in place, I would say that spoofing is about to increase dramatically because they’ve removed the motivation to leave the house and walk/run somewhere to a rare! Spoofers don’t need lures or incense either!
Honestly.
Don’t even get me started on the removal of Nice! Great! Excellent! bonuses and the curveball update making it essentially impossible without AR.
