Last week, Niantic announced it would be increasing Pokémon GO Remote Raid Pass prices and limiting daily participation.
It's not gone down well with the community, and although Niantic has already mentioned how this update will definitely be going ahead on 6th April, the community has now responded on social media with its own hashtag 'HearUsNiantic'.
In a two-part message to Niantic, the Pokémon GO community asks Niantic to reconsider the update as they believe it will "harm" the following players:
- "Rural trainers who lack adequate local community support"
- "Trainers with disabilities who physically cannot get outside to play"
- "Trainers who have severe social anxiety who struggle mentally to get outside to participate in in-person raids
- "Trainers who work night shifts and cannot participate during the day"
- "Single-parent trainers who are managing children, a household and a career with minimal time to spare"
- "And most importantly of all, the Remote Raid changes will limit our global interaction with our trainers who we have developed tight bonds with over the last 3 years."
Many well-known people within the Pokémon community are helping spread the message:
Speaking to Eurogamer recently, Pokémon GO VP Ed Wu mentioned how the change was necessary for the "long term health of the overall game" and Niantic's own principles of encouraging players to get outside and explore the world together.
"The world has largely moved back outdoors and Remote Raid passes have come to dominate the overall experience of playing in a way we never intended. It's become essentially a shortcut to playing the game. We've seen an imbalance because the current price of Remote Raid passes is matched to the Premium Battle Pass which is distorting the game economy, and making the game unsustainable in the long term."