Three Reasons Why Pokemon Go is a Total Disaster, and Two Reasons Why it Could Still be Great
Pokemon Go, by all accounts has been a cultural phenomenon. In under a month, millions have downloaded the app and have frantically been on the hunt to collect them all. In that time players have been stabbed, robbed, found dead bodies, fallen in love, increased exercise, increased retail and restaurant business, quit their jobs, you name it and Pokemon Go has probably played a part in it. But one thing that has consistently been a pervasive problem is this: Pokemon Go actually kind of sucks. This is no way a fault of the concept, in fact it’s directly placed on the mistakes made by Niantic and their general attitude towards the community.
Can this be fixed? Absolutely. Let me lay out exactly what the problem is, and why Pokemon Go could still be a ground breaking experience.
Over Promising and Under Delivering
Anyone remember the teaser trailer for Pokemon Go? In case you’ve forgotten what was first promised to the world, here’s the trailer:
That trailer still gives me goosebumps. A game that brings the entire experience of Pokemon right to the outside world. Hunting, trading, battling and teaming up for epic takedowns, now that’s a game I want to play. But as with most game trailers, what we were promised and what was delivered have been two entirely different experiences.
The current iteration of Pokemon Go feels like a cheap knock off of the original concept. No trading, no battling, no epic events in a month of being released. While Niantic has said these features are coming, they haven’t outlined when or what they would look like, so for now we are stuck wandering around catching the same Pokemon over and over again, fighting gyms that are consistently guarded by the same Pokemon. Things need to change fast before they start losing the interest of players who simply don’t have enough to do. And that’s not to mention the day one problems associated with the network and glitches. Which leads to my next point…
Fixing the Wrong Issues
Pokemon Go is a bug ridden mess (and I’m not talking about weedles and caterpie). From day one there have been log in problems, network issues and constant app freezes. Niantic has said they are working hard at addressing these problems, BUT in the meantime they’ve managed to fix several other issues that either no one was asking for or fixed them in the wrong way entirely.
Take for example the bug commonly known as the “three step glitch”. There used to be a time where you could track nearby Pokemon by looking at the steps under their profile, which would help you determine how close you were (one step meant closer, three meant further away). Players were able to roam around to effectively track certain types, but a glitch rendered all Pokemon at three steps. How does Niantic fix the issue? By removing the steps entirely; Pokemon hunting is a crapshoot now, nowhere near precise. On top of that, they’ve also shut down third-party sites that helped players locate Pokemon in their areas.
But that being said, let’s address the “issues” Niantic has fixed:
- Even the most basic Pokemon are harder to catch, meaning more Pokeballs wasted on Pidgeys and more incentive to pay for replacements
- Delaying the scanning rate from five seconds to ten seconds, meaning players on bikes or buses basically have no shot at finding Pokemon
- Removing glitched legendary Pokemon that appeared in Ohio from users accounts
- Changing the stats on several commonly used Pokemon, causing thousands of players to have wasted time and resources on nerfed creatures
Clearly Niantic is prioritizing some aspects over others, but that leads to my third and final issue…
Keeping Your Community in the Dark
Niantic has done a horrible job of communicating with their community. For weeks the company simply said nothing about bugs or updates, leaving the community to deal with these issues on their own. That’s part of the reason why third-party tracking sites popped up in the first place.
Granted the company has started being more vocal, especially around these most recent updates, but the reality is they simply aren’t engaged with their community which could lead to a huge backlash and mass exodus of the platform. This is clearly a community with a passionate fan base, and it’s not that hard to stay connected and engaged with a fan base that is crying out for any sort of information.
Niantic needs to start taking players a little more seriously and communicating where things are going. Players are already angry over the most recent changes, and I expect more will continue to come.
Click on through to Page 2 to find out how Pokemon Go can be great.