Pokemon GO's marketing director explains that The Pokemon Company will be mindful of real-world locations not necessarily wanting a PokeStop or Gym at their location.

Pokemon GO has already had a huge influence on the world, despite the fact that it's only been available to the public for a matter of weeks. However, in that brief time, many people have been affected by the presence of PokeStops and Gyms located in businesses and homes, and now The Pokemon Company is acknowledging that it will be more mindful of the real-world effect in the future.

In a recent interview, The Pokemon Company's marketing director J.C. Smith explained that the company is working on a balance between keeping Pokemon GO fun and making it more respectful to business owners and homeowners who have been affected by the presence of PokeStops and Gyms. Although some locations have embraced Pokemon GO by directly advertising to Pokemon trainers or even setting up lures to attract business, not everyone is quite so happy with the game. Niantic and The Pokemon Company have received requests to remove the Pokemon Gyms and PokeStops that are located over the Arlington National Cemetery as well as the Hiroshima Peace Park in Japan, which have seen an unwanted influx of Pokemon GO trainers.

However, despite these upcoming changes, no specific timetable was given regarding the updates to Pokemon GO. This is in keeping with the statements made at the Pokemon GO panel at Comic-Con, where officials stated that their number one priority was rolling out the game in all territories and ironing out the bugs before continuing on to new features and game tweaks. The company did recently roll out an unannounced change to Pokemon spawns in the game, however, so PokeStop and Gym removals could potentially happen any day now.

It's good to know that Niantic and The Pokemon Company are working on ways to remove the hassle of Pokemon GO for people who aren't interested in it. Admittedly, since most of Pokemon GO's geolocation data came directly from the prior Niantic endeavor Ingress, it's unfortunate that some of these locations weren't excluded in the first place. While predicting how a business or homeowner will feel about Pokemon GO may be difficult, it's surprising that the company didn't foresee that visitors to places that are dedicated to victims of the Holocaust or fallen soldiers wouldn't be interested in an increase of foot traffic from gamers hunting for a rare Pokemon.

Pokemon GO didn't have the smoothest start despite its beta phase, but the company is clearly working out the kinks on both the player's side as well as analyzing how it's affecting the real world. With any luck, locations that have requested being removed from the game will see some relief soon.

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Pokemon GO is available now on Android and iOS devices in select areas.

Source: The LA Times