Pokémon GO Strips Away Stay-At-Home Safety Features In The Middle Of A Pandemic

Encouraged to walk could include inside in place or on a treadmill, which is fine for egg hatching, but isn’t fine for incense.

Niantic have been making bad decisions for some time now. Another reason why I stopped playing!

This is an rather dumb decision, and it won't even effect me that badly compared to others

well i guess we still have remote raid pa- remote raid passes gone

Niantic being bad guys isn’t a plot twist- we knew this

I thought people were being encouraged to take walks in the open air during the pandemic?

In my country (Netherlands) they are undoing some stuff because more and more people get Covid.

Meanwhile Niantic thinks "pandemic is over"

Idiots.

@chardir

Meanwhile I need to work at home again because my government announced that because more and more people get infected again, they need to thighten the rules back because of that.

Also they say to stay at home AS MUCH as possible again.

Same in a lot of other countries, Niantic is being stupid here.

It's an odd move. I can see why people are annoyed.

Personally, I've found what hatches from eggs are usually not worth the hassle. The "Dragon" week showed that in an amazing way. Either the stats are poor or I got Tepig for the hundredth time. I think I've had one shiny and one max IV Pokémon hatch since the game started.

Good that some it the other benefits are now permanent such as the daily bonuses and remote raid passes.

@ComicVoice No that wouldn't work. The walking is done by your GPS position, checking at regular intervals and then the distance between calculated. It doesn't measure actual steps, there is no pedometer.

@Ogbert Adventure Sync. It’s uses your devices step tracking. I’ve hatched many eggs after jogging on the spot

Niantic are just about to launch an event where you need to hatch as many eggs as you can to find Pokémon in special outfits on 02/10/2020. I do wonder if this might relate to egg distances doubling & putting more pressure on people to buy premium incubators.. one of Niantics favourite ways of milking money.

I have a feeling Niantic is doing this due to GO-to-Home Pokemon transfers happening before the end of the year and TPC wanting to keep the main game as sane as possible, the amount of Legendaries people might transfer from Go could be a possible problem.

That said I'm more inclined to believe that this is about money if anything.

We’re officially in this phase now
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8CTeLy3Ujxc
These companies don’t care about us

kinda agree with the players, it is a strange move.

I stopped playing this last year as I wasn't enjoying the grind anymore.

@Collette because the UK is the only place with covid.

200,000+ deaths and rising here in the US, deaths are not "still low".

Imagine supporting corporate greed over human lives, bootlicker.

While I was expecting some of these perks to stop eventually, I agree; this is WAY too soon.

And this happened on the very week that the death toll reached 1 million worldwide. What's they're doing? Celebrating?

While I also think it's questionable to remove it, I don't agree with going after the company with pitchforks. At the end of the day the responsibility lies within the consumer. If you need a textbox in a video game to tell you not to wander the street during a pandemic, I don't even know what to say anymore. This year has shown how freaking irresponsible people are in general.

It would happen sooner or later anyway, these features must have cut in some way into Niantic's profits, after all.

I think their reason for these changes is because their biggest market is the Asian countries who are doing fairly well at knocking back COVID19

@ComicVoice oh good point I forgot that feature. Although isn't it locked to a certain level?

Still I don't think it's their intention and it all seems rather irresponsible.

Whose side are they on COVID’s? This is absolutely ghoulish of them.

This is the same game that placed Pokemon in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone for people to go capture. Meanwhile, Niantic's parent company Google closed their offices "at least until" next July for safety..... Corporate disconnect at its finest.

@Ogbert maybe it’s locked, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t walk around enough to notice . But workouts do hatch eggs. Doesn’t help incense though and indeed, their intent is to milk more money since all these restrictions may have reduced some purchases (yet I think they reported record profits!)

The only issue I have with this is the incense... it's people who are stuck inside that need the spawns to be boosted, not those who are walking around... they're doing the exact opposite to what needs to be done there.

I find this interesting because, if I remember correctly, Niantic was doing well financially with the game during the implemented changes. It has to be connected with the new event or whatever that is...

On that note, my kids and I won't be playing I guess because we don't do a lot outside at the moment due to where we live and having comorbidities (asthma). We really got back into it during the pandemic and, I'll admit we spent way too much getting remote raid passes. Oh well...

Pokémon truly is going downhill.

Pokémon GOodbye.

Considering that some of Go's fans have had to have Niantic tell them not to do such glaringly obvious things as do not drive and play, trespassing is bad, and pay attention to where you're walking, this doesn't bother me. How about using some common sense of your own people? Common sense isn't in short supply, but the folks who use it sure are.

Not sure how walking around is going to kill someone or give them COVID. Is there anyone on this site that actually understands how this spreads? Fresh air and exercise is the best medicine. Not to mention that the mortality rate of this is infinitesimal. (I have had one family member die from it too, so don’t pretend I don’t understand it or have not been impacted by it). Get out and exercise and get fresh air and stop letting people scare you. Personally, I would be more in an uproar (as someone mentioned above) that this system works against people who struggle to walk or have a disability (which I also have been impacted in my family with). They already struggle enough with their disability and miss out on games like this, but they just go play Pokémon on their systems. Not huge fans of mobile games anyway.

This is an absolutely terrible decision that should be reversed immediately.

@ComicVoice
How would it know you are on a treadmill?

@NEStalgia They spawn randomly everywhere. There are less habitable places where they spawn. Just use common sense.

@PBandSmelly adventure sync is basically using your phone / smart watch / etc and just takes in your steps and extrapolates a distance based on those rather than a gps based distance.

I'd have understood if they changed this in the summer, but we're heading to winter and this pandemic is creeping up in numbers again. So makes little sense now to be changing things.

@JohnBlackstar if you don’t know how Pokémon go really works don’t comment. Walking around your house or the block is not really a great way to play and the only way to really prosper in go is going places and being in crowded areas, which increases covid risk. A lot of people are working and schooling from home and rarely going out so getting rid of features that allow you to play from home are ludicrous. It’s like asking people to put themselves in a possibly bad situation. What makes it worse is that the features they are nerfing weren’t that great in the first place but the game is an absolute coaster if they’re gone

@Jimez obviously they couldn't care less if they're responsible for people even kids getting sick and even dying all they care about are their profits. I would be very shocked if this doesn't cause problems between them and Gamefreak.

@strictlystyles I do understand how it works. You can play the game without going to crowded places. It is time to get out and get some fresh air and leave the home.

@JohnBlackstar you don’t understand how it really works and affects players. The only way to efficiently play is by finding nests and large groups of Pokémon and by being around gyms and/or cities. Being around All those things increases the likelihood of a covid infection. Just walking and “getting air”not going to do it for most players. These changes they are making are just alienating people who’s lives aren’t setup to be as active as they were. A lot of people are going to be screws come the next community day and that’s where I think the real complaints may start

Another dumb decision made by Niantic/TPC, what a surprise

@strictlystyles I will admit that our differing outlooks on this might be due to the fact that not many people play in my area or the nests are numerous and will not cause any pileups (Live in a top 5 metropolitan city in USA). Although the COVID fear doesn’t equal up when you look at the mortality rates and hospitalizations. At some point you have to get out and live your life, or be happy staying home and missing out. I’m ready to live life and not be concerned about me and my family’s underlying conditions that could lead to issues. I do live in a community where we have 80+ age walking around and doing life without masks. It is a good thing to see.

It's certainly odd timing. But with all the political pressure and propaganda to go back to business as usual in the US where Niantic is based, I am not surprised.

If you're not in the US you probably don't realize just how common the "Pandemic is fake, it's all lies to destroy God-king Trump!" People really are.

While I lived in Japan, I thought the media was over hyping these crazy people, but after moving back to the US I realized that, no, they were understating it.

@JohnBlackstar getting covid is not the problem. The problem is when you get it and become a carrier that may kill others. When one person gets covid the entire family gets it. This is the reason people should not be going out if they don’t need to. This mostly is for the United States who is doing everything wrong. If you’re in some other better faring countries who are seeing a decline I can under but this is still a worldwide pandemic that is not ending any time soon. Niantic asking people to put themselves in a situation where they can not only spread the virus but also catch it is just tone deaf.

That curve lacks logical sense, these cases are suppossed to be on a historically low by this point. That's why they're removing some of these features, they know we're progressing if you don't believe all these questionable stadistics.
Maybe ignorance is indeed bliss.
And I don't think community trust is not really being damaged, it's just an desperate exaggeration. I'm only focusing on getting that special Melmetal.

Niantic new low

It is not just a USA thing - people are realizing worldwide just how over the top the reaction has been to this illness. Don’t just follow the narrative you watch on your TV, but speak with people in the field and seeing this first hand. I work for a worldwide company and am in meetings about this on almost a daily basis and get to see what is truly happening worldwide. A lot of you have bought into the false narratives. Keep wearing your masks and staying indoors and let the rest of the world get on. Read through true reports and numbers and not the fake narrative presented by governments and media. No, I am not a Trump supporter, I am someone who believes in data and truth.

To put in perspective - United Nations estimates that 9,125,000 people die a year by starving. So if we all really care about people dying (like everyone pretends they do) then we would be doing something to stop the true killer of our time.

@chardir not every country is the same.

My family in Manila, Philippines have not been allowed out of their apartment apart from to buy groceries for 4 months. They can’t even go for a walk around their building.

In Israel right now they are on total lockdown and can’t walk 100 meters from their homes.

Many other countries are close to entering a second lockdown and each country has different rules.

Where I live, in an English village in the countryside, we are totally fine walking every day during lockdown and my son could play this every day without trouble. But this is a global app that should be thinking globally.

@colmtheperson Actually USA is #1 in player spending with 35%. Japan is #2 and Germany is #3.

@jimtendog "...let's force normality back into our lives at the risk of the vulnerable."

People who are vulnerable know who they are and can take the necessary precautions. There's no need for the rest of us to cower at home and wear masks in the open air like fools.

@jimtendog Or a tin foil mask. LOL

Probably because no one is listening to the rules anymore anyways lol.

@Kienda Thankfully the east coast of Canada segregated ourselves from the rest of the country and we now have one of the lowest infection rate in the world and we have had a normal spring/summer, no restrictions on visiting people, we have to wear masks in stores but that is it. We all locked down for the first bit and then re-opened back up to the other surrounding provinces.

@jimtendog “tin foil hat comment”? Saying that vulnerable people should keep safe and others should live their lives? This is exactly how people have been living their lives since the dawn of time. I was born with hypertension and so I have had to make choices in my life that most people do not since I was little. I have to choose for myself what I do in a time like this. That choice is my own. My neighbor’s kids should not be forced in lock down at their house or not allowed to see their friends because I might get sick. I can easily stay at home and protect myself if I need to. Even with hypertension my mortality rate with COVID is around .000003%. I’ll take that risk at times.

@Ogbert Actually there is this Pokémon Go feature called Adventure Sync that uses the pedometer. It was introduced back in 2018.

On a different note I can still play at home just fine because my house is in range of both a Poké Stop and gym.

@boywundr I have asthma too so I feel ya. I’m just incredibly lucky that I literally live in range of a Stop that can be spun from the comfort of my own home. Same for the gym which is a real gym irl lol... But not everyone has my luck of living near “free items and coins”. I live in a small town with a big player base for it’s size. I live in an area with a lot of Trump supporters but everyone I have seen are using masks so it’s safer here than places where people aren’t masking. But yeah being asthmatic makes using masks difficult and I find myself having to lift my mask up to breath (but I do so when there isn’t any other person near me and more than double the distance they recommend).

@Thoughts To be fair we still don't know if Dynamax Adventures have a 1-per-player cap on Legendaries or if they can be farmed like current Max Raids.

Don't forget that certain Event-only Pokemon like Darkrai have been made as 5-star Raids in the past.

@RabidPikachu You're lucky! Hehe, I wish I had a stop and gym that close!

I totally understand the use of the mask with asthma. It's good to hear that you're staying safe and doing ok.

@jimtendog We are just on opposite sides of the fence. My mom who has lung cancer (not from smoking) knows that her days are numbered (she is in her 80’s) and she has a sickness that most people don’t survive. She is getting out and living life. No mask or anything. She doesn’t live in fear of this. Her mortality rate in USA based on cases is around 16%. The problem is that there are way more people infected than what we have tracked in our cases. Some estimates show that case counts are 50% greater than what has been tracked which would bring her mortality rate closer to 10% if infected. Chances are she has already been infected and survived because my dad was exposed to COVID repeatedly at the beginning of the year because of connections with people in China. At some point people have to make their own choices of what is right for them. If you live in fear then stay home, but let my mom enjoy her life and the people around her living life too are ok with what comes next for them also. No one is holding a gun to her 80 year old friends to socialize with her. They take that risk willingly because they love each other and are happy to be part of this world and all of the trouble that can come with it.

I mean - what comes next? If you have AIDS you can’t leave your home because your blood could infect someone? If you have MRSA you are quarantined forever because you could cause fatalities? Illnesses have been spreading all around you - who gets the safety card to go around freely? Who gets to decide what that threshold is? Any illness my mom encounters could end her life at her age and her stage of cancer. Everyone should just have to stay home to protect her I guess.

Ok so I went to put in a couple of 5 K eggs in the incubator earlier today and I still have half the hatch distance at 2.5 K. I must be really lucky.

As long as people are taking the social distancing precautions let people enjoy getting some fresh air. I have asthma but even I need some “outside time” at least once a day. I keep my distance from other people. I have had 2 tests that have been negative since my asthma and allergies can mimic mild COVID-19 symptoms. I wash my hands and I always carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer for myself and my daughter who I do take to the park to play Pokémon Go. We both mask and wash hands or sanitize after using the equipment there. I also wipe down the swings with Lysol wipes because I don’t want to spread germs. There haven’t been any cases in my area yet.

Even "social distancing" isn't necessary for casual interactions with the public. Your chances of catching the China flu simply walking past an infected person are effectively zero. It takes several minutes of face-to-face interaction with a symptomatic person to spread the disease. Also, trying to stop microscopic viruses with ordinary cloth is like trying to keep flies out of your house with chicken wire. Personally, I refuse to live in fear.

My personal favorite is restaurants where people walk in with a mask and then sit down and take it off thinking that being in a sitting position has effectively made sickness stop spreading. Also places where people walk around in a a mask that is gaping open at the nose, sides of face, and chin and assume it is somehow protecting them or others. Also where do you think all of those “COVID germs” go inside your mask (even if it flush with your face)? They build up and seep through the mask. They are microscopic - cloth is not keeping them in, especially after they have built up inside your mask for 5 or more minutes.