Dutch authorities are taking Pokémon GO creator Niantic to court after the popularity of the game has caused hordes of players to descend on protected beaches at Kijkduin, South Holland in the Netherlands.
Dubbed the Pokémon capital of the Netherlands, Kijkduin is home to many rare 'mon and this has predictably led to thousands of hunters arriving at the site and putting the protected dunes in danger.
The authorities in question want to prevent Pokémon from appearing in protected areas from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM. This falls short of a total ban, as players could still visit the area in the daytime and catch monsters.
However, initial attempts to make contact with Niantic in August were ignored, hence the decision to take the developer to court. The hearing is scheduled for October 11th in The Hague.
A spokesperson for The Hague authorities told The Guardian:
We had no other choice. Kijkduin will remain an attractive place for Pokémon hunters, but there will be less trouble for the residents and the damage to protected areas will be limited.
Niantic has received other requests for monsters to be removed and Pokéstops to be relocated - the Hiroshima and Berlin Holocaust memorials have since vanished from the game, for example.
Ironically, a seaside town in the UK was recently criticized for not offering enough Pokémon. Seems Niantic can't win.
[source theguardian.com]
Comments 41
Why do people care more about a Pokémon spinoff game than a nature reserve? (And some people have been spending $100+, I'm sure, which they could use on other, better games!)
"We had no other choice."
Pure and utter hogwash.
This is getting ridiculous...wait it has already been ridiculous! It's a game people. The company may share some responsibility but ultimately it's the users that are doing these things. Get better security if it's that big of a problem or ban smart phones!
So lame.but Pokemon go is the most popular app/game I've ever seen since the new days
Just remove the area and call it a day Niantic.
A good idea that simply doesn't work in real life.
The rarity of most decent Pokémon (basically anything other than Pidgeys and Weedles), the problem with limited inventory and the candy/CP system just made me quit this game. It became pointless after a few weeks.
Niantic simply doesn't care about making this game better.
This is old too.
You forgot to say that The authorities of The Hague themselves decided it would be the pokemon capital, because they thought it was great for sales, they even placed a sign saying pokemon capital in Kijkduin, so they could've seen this coming.
If they don't want people to play it at those times, then just make a sign to say that people cannot play on their Mobile phones around those times.
People still play this game???
I really don't get why Niantic does not simply hire someone to handle the communication. Having someone to handle their twitter/email/facebook page would save both a lot of time and a lot of trouble.
I'm guessing they probably only tried to get in contact with Niantic through their regular support system, which has a pretty massive backlog at the moment (they only got back to me a week or so ago about an issue I had on the day it was released here)... I'm sure there are other, more direct routes they could have taken to get in touch with them without having to take them to court (I doubt they even tried to send a regular letter, which would probably have been enough).
This will just blow over in no time anyway... now that Niantic are aware of it, I'm sure they'll agree to the request and the court case will be withdrawn.
Niantic need to show some moral responsibility and be more considerate with regards to the popularity of their app. This doesn't make me want to play Pokemon Go.
As someone from the Netherlands, I will admit that the situation in Kijkduin was getting out of hand. However, these are some very drastic measures for an issue that could've easily been solved another way.
Also, I should mention that Pokémon GO is still met with some amount of unfair hostility from some people here. I was sitting near a PokéStop recently, and two men walked by and literally said this "Ugh, another one catching Pokémon. All these kids just sitting outside, it's awful."
I mentioned this on Twitter, but could I politely request for this picture to be changed as soon as possible? It shows two Pokémon from unreleased games, for which I (and others) have been trying to go spoiler-free. Nintendo Life has, up until now, been very good at this sort of thing, which is why I still check them out in this season. There are thousands of beach-related Poképics out there that don't spoil upcoming games.
So let me get this straight, the place that dubbed themselves the Pokémon capital of the Netherlands with a Pikachu sign set up to show it (surprised NL didn't use that image), is now taking Niantic to court because they can't govern/control their own hyped up popularity? I don't think I can comment on that without breaking a community rule on netiquette
Granted Central Park is still crowd, it have been pretty civil (even with the rare run). With that said I never stayed pass 10pm. Common sense will tell you not to stay in a large park after dark, you never know what can happen.
This is ridiculous.
Here's what intelligent people would do.
Fine the people for not giving a crap and trespassing where they shouldn't. Then ask Niantic to simply remove that area from the app.
Blame the people who really TOO HYPED with Pokemon things until they lose their rational thinking. They just have less self-control attitude.
It's been all over news feeds about people coming onto other's private property at all hours of the night, getting mugged and just about anything else you can mention. It's not the game's fault, but there should be a way for people to remove their locations if they want to. Other than that, it's the people that are out at this time, which most of them are grown adults???? Authorities don't have the time to patrol the same areas over and over again at all times of the day and night and it's taking them away from any real crime that could take place, but there can always be curfews for certain areas or 'putting banned or private property' signs up. Some businesses actually like the attention (look at Target and Gamestop), but for the ones that don't...let them remove their locations!
@Anti-Matter Did you see the person here in the US that stepped right out onto a busy freeway, never paid attention and got struck and killed by a truck? People really are morons!
@Tempestryke I think intelligence is being forgotten in the world...they could always do another thing that everyone seems to be doing recently...suing!
@Yorumi
Spending taxpayer money to keep hoardes of geeks out of protected areas/memorial sites < having the game makers simply remove the location from the game
There's a war memorial site in my city that is constantly covered with cigarette butts and garbage now, just because a bunch of geeks like to camp out there overnight. People with the city requested it to be removed months ago and it has yet to happen.
tldr: how about instead of expecting cities to pay extra money to police these areas, just remove the damn spot from the game in a timely manner
I'm against Niantic when it comes to their response time to pioke locations.
Complaints range from "Get off my lawn" to "Get out of our protected wildlife preserve" and I think the entire range has a legitimate gripe. Like it or not, most people are jerks. And especially with a game like this then I've seen so much complete disrespect for boundaries and property.
People in the comments dismiss it as nothing but in the bigger picture then this kind of invasion is very short sighted and Niantic needs to have a better response team to handle complaints.
'Tis Niantic's creed. Minimum effort for maximum money. If you want to contact them about a legitimate concern, seems you're out of luck. I can't believe they didn't even respond to them.
@JLPick
Gosh...!
That was worse than I thought...
@Balladeer In today's world that just isn't the case. Sad to say but it's true, the only way is to go dark months before a game is released.
@Yorumi
By-law officers do go to the park, but it's very hard to fine/ticket people when they drop a cigarette butt or a bottle on the ground. especially if it is happening overnight. Is the city responsible for paying thousands of dollars a week of taxpayer money to police a bunch of slobs?
If Nicantic would just hire some staff to deal with these complaints in a timely matter and remove these spots from the game asap, there would be no issues.
The dumb game created this problem so why should it be the municipalities responsibility to eat the costs? It doesn't make sense.
If pokemon were slightly less rare, then hordes of people catching an elusive pokemon wouldn't be as much of a problem.
Sounds like they just want some of that Pokemon Dough!
Lemming people.
@JLPick
Pity ain't it?
@Yorumi
To be fair, Humanity has been blaming each other for their own stupidity since....the caveman days probably.
it's the individual's fault, not Niantic.
@LegendOfPokemon
You know a game is overdone when they make a song about it. Seriously.
@crimsontadpoles
People would still whine for more.
@Yorumi
Yeah, no kidding. Honestly it almost seems ADULTS are playing it more than kids (at least where I live, in the prairies). This whole game is just overdone.
@Tempestryke Got that right!
It begins. On the one hand, this is reasonable. On the other, it's now only a matter of time before schools, private areas etc. start to make the same request and the game becomes restricted to only public areas, stores and parks.
This is amusing.
Good that they take them to court. They have asked Niantic time and time again to do something, and they did nothing. Or Niantic is to busy with the other complaints, its a big world after all.
But on a very important sidenote: Things escalated AFTER a certain dutch political party promoted the place as a Pokemon hotspot, so its not all Niantics fault!
Jesus the hype behind this game is long over. By the time this hits court nobody will be going to the beach anyway.
To those doubting the lawsuit's likelihood of success, remember that radio/tv shows have been held responsible for accidents caused when they announced free giveaways for a limited time to the first X people who could reach a certain location.
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