It's been a difficult period for every video game company in recent months to get teams up and running from home. For Niantic, though, it's been even more of a challenge. Not only has it had to make a transition to working from home, but it's also had to rework and update its insanely popular mobile game Pokémon GO so its community could still enjoy it in lockdown.
In a recent interview with Venture Beat, Niantic GM Greg Borrud spoke about how the San Francisco developer was coping with its external work environment and the rapid adjustments it had to make to all of its games, including GO:
It’s been challenging, I’m going to be honest. The first priority was really looking after our employees, making sure that we could safely and properly continue to work and develop our products, while they’re dealing with [wild] stuff. The teams [have been] amazing, both our development team and our cross-functional teams. Then, it was thinking about the products.
When you have these real world games, you have to be able to be really nimble. So, I think the first thing that our teams did, which was just amazing, is that they went in and they did a lot of really quick changes to make sure that people could play from home. That was adjusting spawn rates, the types of things that spawn, [and] the types of activities that you do. Within hours or days, at the most, we were able to make these kinds of rapid changes.
Earlier on in March, Niantic rolled out its first GO update to counter the global pandemic. This included adjustments to habitats (with more pocket monsters appearing in the wild), incense packs lasting longer, and trainers being granted the ability to hatch eggs twice as fast in incubators. PokéStops also began dropping gifts more frequently and certain events were postponed.
More updates followed later on in the same month - with the cancellation of certain events and bundles requiring just one PokéCoin to purchase.
Spending soared from here on out - with Sensor Tower data revealing global player revenue in the game had reached $23 million on the 16th of March (an increase of 66.7% from the previous week). The reason behind it was unsurprisingly tied to the changes encouraging players to stay inside.
More recently in April, Niantic detailed even more changes - such as the stay-at-home remote raid pass, which you can read more about in one of our previous posts.
Have you played Pokémon GO since the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe? Have you spent any money on the game? Leave a comment below.
[source venturebeat.com, via gonintendo.com]
Comments 12
I still log in occasionally. I did the incense community day for abra and caught several shiny. Between buddies getting gifts and the gifts having more items it's pretty easy to play. But the biggest obstacle is not being able to go fight gyms. No gyms means no coins, which were already really scarce being limited to a max of 50 a day, no matter what. (you could take 50 gyms and still only get the 50 coins...)
The remote raid passes are nice - if you have a gym in range and enough people to join it.
And these recent throwback quests would be so much more fun under normal circumstances.
This is not a professional article. A few words from someone and that's it. No interview from other people, no analysis on what exactly has been changed, no asking players how they feel, no pictures from the game to show. Liam, I don't know you. But this is not a professional article.
I've been playing daily, it's actually been a great month for Pokemon go, with all the events and special quests (which aren't super hard to do from home, thankfully). I've even been finding a lot of shiny Pokemon.
...........People still play this?
I started very shortly before lockdown (on Valentines no less) so I have actually played more in lockdown mode than normally.
@Joeynator3000 Well I want those legendaries in Sword and that's the surest way to get them for me.
@Joeynator3000 I'm almost sure I'm people
@SmaggTheSmug now that you mention that, I wonder when will they add go->home transfers. It's been a while and I guess the current situation doesn't help.
Hey @Cosats, I've added a bit more - I hope it provides enough context about what's been happening with GO in recent times.
Whilst I do have to commend them for being able to adapt the game to enable it to be playable from home, I do have to criticise that they haven't done much to enable distance interaction with other players.
Trading has been one of my favourite activities in Pokémon Go, but it's a highly neglected feature these days as they prioritise Go Battle League instead.
I enjoyed meeting up with people for trading sessions, which was partially necessitated due to the 100 meter proximity requirement between trade partners, but they haven't lifted or revised this proximity requirement to enable local communities to continue to engage with each other.
Niantic are missing a part of the player cycle equation here, and by doing so are creating unhappy players who will lose interest in the game.
The cycle being that people catch Pokémon, hold onto them for trading, and transfer them once the trade outcome is undesirable, making room to catch new Pokémon once more.
That is part of the natural progression they introduced when they made it so that trading a Pokémon will re-roll its IVs, and possibly turn lucky with a reduced stardust cost to power up and a guaranteed high IV floor.
i had fun completing my pokedex.
I'm almost done with Gen 3 but i need the 4 regionals
i just don't care to keep going. it has its moments and the Alola Raichu is awesome but it's a grind outside of this current lock down period.
To me, the way to catch a Pokemon is too cumbersome. Since they updated and added grass that makes it even worse. I don't have much use for it. I can't believe I still trade to my Sword. I live in a rural area where not much Pokemon are available.
@biglittlejake ... Grass?
@biglittlejake stop catching in AR mode and you won’t have to place them in grass
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