In July 2017, Niantic went for an ambitious outdoor festival to celebrate the amazing and record-breaking first year of the Pokemon GO augmented reality game. It was held in Chicago’s Grant Park and was set up to attract 20,000 Pokemon GO trainers for an exciting day of capturing rare Pokemon and basically filling up your Pokedex with lots and lots of Pokemon. This was the idea, but it turned into a veritable disaster for Niantic, and now the company is settling over USD$1.5 million for costs that people incurred going to the venue and participating in the failed festival.
Pokemon GO Fest 2017 failed horribly. Niantic was not able to anticipate the stress of thousands of players logging on to the game at the same time. The network connectivity was bad, and the game was wobbly. By the time Niantic CEO John Hanke took the stage, the people were angry. Niantic had the good sense to refund everybody the cost of their tickets (around USD$20), plus USD$100 in in-game currency, along with a legendary Pokemon in-game. But that wasn’t enough, and people sued.
A class action suit was brought against Niantic, to make the company cover the expenses of people surrounding the festival – hotel costs, transportation, car mileage and rentals, toll fees, and the like – and Niantic is going to settle the case. This will cost them around $1,575,000 dollars, including lawyers’ fees.
The court ruling said that a website for the settlement should be up by May 25, 2018, and an email sent to the attendees to let them know. The ruling has a few catches, like those claiming part of the settlement will need to have checked in to GO Fest through the game, and anyone claiming more than USD$107 in expenses will need to present receipts.
VIA: Tech Crunch
