We recently wrote about Niantic launching Pokemon GO in Latin America to coincide with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It turns out there’s a little bit more data to study about that launch, with Niantic ready now to answer those who spoke vehemently against their blocking of Pokemon tracker apps.
Niantic has come out with a server data chart that shows a massive drop in server queries starting around August 3. Niantic says that this is the result of them blocking “third parties [trying] to access our servers outside of the Pokemon GO game client and our terms of service,” which is basically pointing to third party Pokemon tracker apps and web clients. Niantic says that freeing those resources made it possible for them to launch the game in Latin America.
Of course, Niantic says that it’s not just about the tracker apps. The company has been target to hackers “attempting to break into systems, hijack social media accounts, and even bring down the service.” The augmented reality game company is trying to tell players out there that it is indeed difficult to keep running the game, and the third party apps and hackers are not helping at all.
Lastly, Niantic has confirmed that they have heard the complaints about the “Pokemon nearby” feature in the game that seems to not be working as intended. It’s good that they will be trying to fix this feature soon. So hold on to your hats, trainers. There’s still hope for this game yet.
SOURCE: Niantic
That’s also the graph that shows the user dropoff once the ability to track was disabled.
Yep, this is bad journalism — and bad practice by Niantic. Tying the third-party issue to the release issue is faulty causation. I can tell you the number of people actually playing Pokemon Go where I live dropped by the same amount as the chart with the crackdown on the third-party sites as well. Bringing the game online in Latin America is just a ploy to ease the negative press caused by poor programming and company leadership decisions.