Niantic Disables Pokemon GO Tracking, Shuts Down Third-Party Tracking Sites

[Elijin]

Correction: Yours is based upon the removal of broken and bugged features and the shutdown of third party software that allowed for cheating.

How is sharing information on a large scale like this in an AR game cheating? Its like saying when the world was being explored, cartographers who co-operated across the globe to create the most accurate world map they could, instead of everyone using only their personal experience and map, cheated. The game is inherently social, and meant to mimic the idea of pokemon being part of our world. Organising and tracking is essentially a given in that scenario.

I'm baffled by the idea of an AR game that has almost immediately turned around and said 'What? No, you aren't meant to play this as a community and share information, you're meant to horde your rare finds and discover everything first hand!'

 

[Quellist]

Right now i'm so glad i never started playing this mess because i'd be raging hard if i did, as it is i can sit back, eat popcorn and watch the haters and the fanbois tearing chunks out of each other.

Life is good

 

[Elijin]

Sorry, a terrible analogy does not change the fact that a third party product that makes a game drastically easier is considered cheating.

Is this like a dark souls generation 'git gud' thing?

An AR game is going to be incredibly social. Any incredibly social game is going to include wide scale co-operation. That scaled co-operation is going to make the game easier. As the game is bigger, how much easier will scale up with it. Pok?mon Go has been a sensation so far.
If your stance here is 'something outside the game made the game easier' is cheating... well at least I know furthering the conversation has no merit, as you're missing the point of an AR game.

 

[Elijin]

By your definition, a gameshark isn't cheating, because it's just cooperation between one person and another. See the glaring problem in your logic?

Niantic's data is intended to be used for appropriate Pokestop, Gym and Pokemon placement, in order to stop Pokemon from being placed in places like the middle of the ocean, or dark alleys. It's not intended for a third party entity to use it in order to create what would essentially be considered "a map hack" in any other game.

I'm obviously misunderstanding the context here, (which I did question in my first post) because I was of the understanding that these third party websites were compiling user data from millions of users reporting what they found, when they found it and where they found it to create algorithm maps to find pokemon with.

Which is pretty wildly different from directly interfacing with the software and lifting the data.

Which if this is the case, this whole argument could have been ended pretty quickly by you saying 'They're not users sharing information they're directly using the server information in real time.' As it is, I've clearly been arguing that an AR will result in user co-operation which will result in this sort of map being organically created, and you've been telling me that's cheating.

Obviously on very different pages here.

 

[Maze1125]

Yes they have, they absolutely have.

They have shut down ALL tracking for the game. In the game AND out of it.

Every single action they have taken is indicating that they intend to remove tracking from the game. If they intend otherwise then why don't they say so?

It would take a single tweet "Hey, don't worry, tracking wasn't working so we removed it but we fully intend to add it back once we get it working!"

But that haven't even done that.

Your argument is based upon nothing but hope and good will, mine is based upon what the company is actually doing.

Correction: Yours is based upon the removal of broken and bugged features and the shutdown of third party software that allowed for cheating.

That's not a correction. That's a best a clarification.
Those two things are what the company is doing, which is precisely what I said.

My argument is based on what the company is doing.

 

[bluegate]

Simple solution to fix the distance tracker; LET THE CLIENT ( phone ) CALCULATE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN ITSELF AND POKEMON'S LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES, EASY...

I never understood why they had to calculate this on their servers anyway. The formula for calculating distance between two geographical points isn't complicated or resource intensive. Niantic's paranoid attitude towards Client-Server relations is breaking up their own application.

 

[Elijin]

I don't know I'd agree with the example, as that's a hyper competitive game, whereas pokemon go has almost no player interactions...

But anyway, the thing I was referring to was a website I read about, which did....exactly what I said. And that's what I thought we were talking about. A user made 'I found this' x 100000000000 detailed gps map with time datapoints.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I've always found the comeback of "people using Poke-vision are lazy cheaters" to be grasping at straws, defending the game for bad design decisions for I don't know, blind nostalgia.

The one weekend when I really used Pokevision, I went into the city center (Melbourne CBD to everybody at home) as the place where I live is damn near desolate (Pokemon Go's contempt for rural players is already well established) and went to the local gardens by the river to catch Seels that were consistently showing up on Pokevision. That day I walked 17 kilometers. I would run across the bridges and to one side of the garden to the other to go after ones I really wanted to catch.

I know that there's quite a few people that are all well and good to wander aimlessly like a bunch of zombies, but I and quite a few other people like having goals and destinations. If I wanted to wander around aimlessly with a battery hungry app running at all times, I'd leave the flashlight on.

 

[Zendariel]

As a non player, I have questions about the third party shutdown.

Whats the monetization / microtransaction side of the game entail?
Does showing the locations, spawn times and spawn duration windows undermine that monetization?

Because as someone watching from the sidelines, when you remove a community tool which amounts to (and I could be wrong, or thinking of a different site here) users effectively sharing information for a better experience...I assume its making your microtransactions redundant/limited in appeal, so you're killing it off.

Chipping in here, microtransactions in pokemon go include pokeballs, experience boosts, way to hatch multiple pokemon eggs at once, increasing pokemon and item storage and two ways to lure pokemon. Only the last ones could really be undermined by these sites that locate the pokemon for you and even then not that much.

Following is based on my understanding and might contain inaccuracies. The two ways to lure pokemon do not move them closer, but instead spawn new pokemon to the world. First of these spawns pokemon at your location and i think only the person using this kind of lure sees those pokemon. The other kind of lure spawns pokemon to a pokestop and these spawn for everyone nearby. The spawns seem to be somewhat random so it does not really help find the nearby rare pokemon, but may help find some completely different pokemon.


On the general topic.
I've yet to experience the tracking as I only started playing when it officially released on my area(Finland) and the feature was already broken. But i hope they reintroduce it at some point. Someone on this thread said the closest pokemon is seen on the top left of the list which is something that I've been speculating but have not been sure of. If it turns out to be true it would already be helpful.

I would not mind if there was a site that showed the tracking similarly to what is in the game but I personally considered pokevision to be a bit too powerful to use so I chose not to check it out. I was close but felt it would undermine my enjoyment of the app so I have no firsthand experience with the sites. I think niantic was a bit too harsh in closing these sites as they do help people and some get more enjoyment playing that way, but it's also a somewhat competitive experience so it probably was a little too helpful and could unbalance the game.

 

[Maze1125]

Yes they have, they absolutely have.

They have shut down ALL tracking for the game. In the game AND out of it.

Every single action they have taken is indicating that they intend to remove tracking from the game. If they intend otherwise then why don't they say so?

It would take a single tweet "Hey, don't worry, tracking wasn't working so we removed it but we fully intend to add it back once we get it working!"

But that haven't even done that.

Your argument is based upon nothing but hope and good will, mine is based upon what the company is actually doing.

Correction: Yours is based upon the removal of broken and bugged features and the shutdown of third party software that allowed for cheating.

That's not a correction. That's a best a clarification.
Those two things are what the company is doing, which is precisely what I said.

My argument is based on what the company is doing.

No, it was a correction. What you stated is not at all what I stated. You made a butchery of their actions and intentions to try and rationalize your point, which is a baseless claim.

Removal of a feature that doesn't work + shutting down third party sites used for cheating =/= taking actions to remove all tracking.

It's pretty pathetic how you're willing to distort reality to prove your point.

What's happening is BOTH.

The bugged feature was the tracking feature.
The third party sites used for cheating were tracking sites.

The fact you can describe them one ways DOES NOT make the other way of describing them wrong.

In one swoop they shut down ALL tracking for the game. That is pretty telling.

Certainly there are other reasons behind this but if they didn't intend to shut down tracking completely and it was just a coincidence that it's all happened at the same time then why haven't they said something?

 

[Yopaz]

You mean Pokemon GO right?

Nintendo doesn't own Pokemon or Pokemon GO. They just own a little over 30% of The Pokemon Company, who owns the IP.

Yeah, but the Wall Street thing is referring to the sudden spike when Pokemon GO came out I assume? Rather than throwing a tantrum that they realised the Pokemon Company was its own thing at some point I'm unaware of.

There was a sharp increase in the Nintendo share prices. Nintendo made an announcement that they did not expect to get much money from Pokemon Go as that was a property of Niantic in collaboration with the Pokemon Company of which they own 32% and the stock prices had a sharp decrease.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/25/nintendo-pokemon-go-shares-stock-fall/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-25/nintendo-set-to-plunge-after-saying-pokemon-go-s-impact-limited
I'm not an expert on stock trading, but it still seems that their stock prices are far better than they were prior to the release of Pokemon Go. Don't take my word for it though, I have never taken a single class in economics.

So, this sounds like the game is just utterly broken right now. Can someone tell someone who is unable to play how this actually affects playing it?

They'll reintroduce tracking soon, especially with how many people are whining about it. But there is literally no reason for entitled fans to be so aggressive towards Niantic.

I didn't know wanting a game to work was considered entitled. I mean, there are actual paying customers to my understanding so I think there is some degree of rightful entitlement.

Well, it's not much more broken than it was prior to the update. The tracking feature was partially working, you could choose to track a certain Pokemon and get a green circle around the marker when you were moving in the correct direction, but it was not very good. I tried to track Pokemon using this and I have mainly found them by random when I knew that there was cause to look. The only difference is that the third party applications that allowed us to track monsters accurately don't work now. Personally I think they should have fixed the tracking feature before doing this to avoid people getting pissed. I still enjoy it though. It's a good excuse to walk places I normally don't walk, nut I really hope they get their shit together.

 

[Kahani]

Yeah, but the Wall Street thing is referring to the sudden spike when Pokemon GO came out I assume? Rather than throwing a tantrum that they realised the Pokemon Company was its own thing at some point I'm unaware of.

No, he's referring to the fact that Nintendo stock dropped by the largest amount allowed by the Tokyo stock market in one day (18%), in their biggest fall for nearly three decades, after Nintendo pointed out that they didn't actually own Pokemon and, more importantly, didn't expect its success to significantly affect their earnings. Their stock has dropped a further 10% in the week since. That still leaves them around 50% higher than they were to start with, but seems to demonstrate just how little the idiots gambling on the market actually understood about the situation - Nintendo shares shot up a ridiculous amount because people thought they were suddenly going to make tons of money, and then shot back down when told that wasn't actually the case.

 

[Maze1125]

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdXoLMWCRWI

 

[Maze1125]

It's pretty pathetic how you're willing to distort reality to prove your point.

What's happening is BOTH.

The bugged feature was the tracking feature.
The third party sites used for cheating were tracking sites.

The fact you can describe them one ways DOES NOT make the other way of describing them wrong.

In one swoop they shut down ALL tracking for the game. That is pretty telling.

Certainly there are other reasons behind this but if they didn't intend to shut down tracking completely and it was just a coincidence that it's all happened at the same time then why haven't they said something?

I've never distorted anything. I've stated exactly what happened and their intentions.

Intent and reasoning are the key factors here. Removing a feature that doesn't work, and closing down sites that allow for cheating are nowhere near the same ballpark as removing a feature and closing down helpful third party sites.

Besides:

"We have removed the '3-step' display in order to improve upon the underlying design,"

Yes, NOW they've said something. That doesn't change the fact that for days they hadn't and left everyone in the dark.

Dear lord man, don't just take terrible customer survive up the arse defending them with every breath. There was absolutely no reason they couldn't have just told us IN THE FIRST PLACE.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Yeah, but the Wall Street thing is referring to the sudden spike when Pokemon GO came out I assume? Rather than throwing a tantrum that they realised the Pokemon Company was its own thing at some point I'm unaware of.

No, he's referring to the fact that Nintendo stock dropped by the largest amount allowed by the Tokyo stock market in one day (18%), in their biggest fall for nearly three decades, after Nintendo pointed out that they didn't actually own Pokemon and, more importantly, didn't expect its success to significantly affect their earnings. Their stock has dropped a further 10% in the week since. That still leaves them around 50% higher than they were to start with, but seems to demonstrate just how little the idiots gambling on the market actually understood about the situation - Nintendo shares shot up a ridiculous amount because people thought they were suddenly going to make tons of money, and then shot back down when told that wasn't actually the case.

So was this in the 90's? Because I assumed it was referring to the one in July when Pokemon Go was launched but you said that isn't what he's referring to (genuine question, as I assumed that was the event)