According to Niantic’s explanation for shutting down Pokemon Go trackers, the “seemingly innocuous sites and apps” were adversely affecting the company’s “ability to deliver the game to new and existing players”.
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Game developer, Niantic Labs, accidentally made Articuno, one of the three legendary birds in the “Pokemon” franchise, available on the company’s highly successful augmented reality mobile gaming application, “Pokemon Go”.
Ever since it was released in July, Pokemon GO has been subject to numerous cheaters and Global Positioning System spoofs, which have affected the game’s servers and have derailed the enjoyment of many fans who simply wanted to play the game. Some tracking apps reportedly allow several players to track Pokemons via the game’s API data, which is supposedly not allowed.
Niantic Games has not given any comments on the shutdown of “Pokemon Go” tracking apps and in-app purchase refunds. Most recently, the app was rolled out to the Latin America market, which Niantic claims wouldn’t have been possible if the third-party activity was allowed to continue. “To preserve the game’s integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the legendary Pokemon from the Trainers’ accounts”, the statement continued. The chart below shows the drop in server resources consumed when we blocked scrapers.
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Many had assumed that Niantic’s motivation for going after third party clients was simply that they did not want anyone experiencing the game in a way that they didn’t intend, but this new statement makes clear that the primary motivation seems to be an attempt to ease the stress on the severs. “There is a range of motives here from blatant commercial ventures to enthusiastic fans but the negative impact on game resources is the same”. Niantic acknowledged that they’ve heard the feedback about the ‘nearby feature, ‘ and are now working on implementing a solution.
