The HearUsNiantic pokemon go The movement has been growing in recent weeks due to Niantic’s lack of response to its community. Some fans have said they feel ignored, undervalued, and pushed out of a game they want to love but can’t do anything about. This has led to a lot of gamers expressing their frustration and, above all, worrying about the future of their beloved mobile game.
So far, Niantic has been mostly silent on any responses to this trend. But in an interview on May 15 with pokemon go Director Michael Steranka and Senior Producer John Fontanella, Dot Esports asked about HearUsNiantic’s social media trend which has been heating up over the past few weeks. Major points of contention in the community movement stem from the messy decisions to cap remote raid pass on April 6, as well as a glut of changes made to the game that have reversed several systems introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed players to participate. without having to travel as much.
Related: Niantic is doubling down on remote raid changes with the new pokemon go Shadow raids feature
Niantic’s response to the HearUsNiantic motion
While Niantic has been virtually silent about the movement, Steranka and Funtanilla have been candid about their views regarding both the community backlash and what part of the team felt it was. When asked for comment regarding both HearUsNiantic’s direction and remote raid lane changes, Steranka had to say:
Yeah, we definitely noticed, you know, it’s hard to ignore, right? Like, I personally get tagged a lot in a lot of these tweets. So we read everything, we see everything, it’s one of those things we never want to come out And answering a couple of calls like that, unless we actually have something to show for.And for us going into the remainder of this year, we really feel like actions will speak louder than words.
And we’ve worked hard as a development team to put together a huge list of new features, which we hope players will enjoy throughout this year. So, you know, personally, it’s true, like, I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing remote raids more than 99 percent of your readers, right?
This was a very painful decision to make even for me. But when we look at kind of the overall health of the game, and the kind of behaviors that remote raid lanes offer, it really doesn’t align with the kind of experience we were trying to create. And I can honestly say, even for me personally, it’s become kind of an unhealthy way to get involved in the game, right? I’d kind of throw money at Poké Coins so I could, you know, spam Legendary Raids as much as possible.
And we’re talking about Legendary Pokemon who are supposed to be an epic compendium of all, you know, Pokemon content. And that’s something gamers including myself do over a dozen times a day to some people over 100 times a day. And that’s something we’ve really let go of for far too long and ultimately needed a course correction.
So again, a very painful decision that we didn’t take lightly. But it’s something we felt was essential to the continuity of the game and to ensure we never really compromise on our mission.
So yeah, we have no plans to directly deal with any of HearUsNiantic’s matters lately, because we’ll stick to the decision that’s been made. But instead, we hope that the players will see a lot of hard work that the team has put into this game over the past year because I think what we’ve come out with in 2023, people will really be blown away.”
Michael Steranka, pokemon go exit
Then Fontanella’s own thoughts followed:
“I’d like to add one thing…just to reiterate Michael’s feeling about joining this team is, you know, like, everybody’s so passionate about the game. And I feel sometimes that’s a miss, that we’re confident in our decision. And like, I’m basically what we want to do is what Michael Ho says we really want our actions to speak louder than words. But everyone loved that. There’s a lot of Michaels on this team, everyone plays the game, everyone, you know, wants to do remote raids, but we kind of have to understand, what We feel it is the best for player experience.
I really want that. I’m excited, it’s like leveling up everyone on the team by leaps and bounds. This is something we see every day. Everyone lives and breathes this game.”
John Fontanella pokemon go Great product
It remains to be seen if the broader team at Niantic will also address the issues fans have been asking about, but Niantic seems certain what it’s doing is right to the company’s core mission and won’t reverse recent changes anytime soon.
Correction May 18 9:22 am CT scanTo quote Michael Steranka, an earlier version of this article incorrectly used the phrase Poké Points instead of Poké Coins when talking about the amount of currency used in the game. We are sorry for this error.
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