A new survey reveals that the number of gamers actively playing Pokemon GO has been gradually falling ever since the three-step Pokemon Tracker bug began.

Pokemon GO has experienced remarkable success in a short amount of time, with over 75 million downloads in less than a month since its release. However, the game's popularity seems to have taken a serious hit due to the notorious three-step bug.

According to data released by SurveyMonkey, Pokemon GO peaked in popularity on July 14th, and has been seeing a drop in users ever since. While it's fairly normal for gamers to grow tired of a game after the initial novelty wears off, the peak day for the game's popularity is one day before the three-step bug began. The drop-off in players since implies that gamers have been discouraged by the three-step bug, as it seriously affects the ability to hunt nearby Pokemon.

For those who haven't heard, the three-step bug is a problem that's affecting the Pokemon GO Pokemon Tracker. The Pokemon Tracker is the icon in the lower right-hand corner of the main screen that allows gamers to view what Pokemon are nearby them. Below each nearby Pokemon is a display of footprints that indicates how far away the Pokemon is from the player, ranging from 1-3 footprints. Unfortunately, the number of footprints displayed has been inaccurate since July 15th, and Niantic and The Pokemon Company haven't found a fix yet.

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That isn't to say that the two companies are ignoring the problem, however. The most recent Pokemon GO update has removed the footsteps from the Pokemon Tracker entirely. The list of nearby Pokemon is still accessible, but there's no further detail provided on how far away a Pokemon is from the trainer. It remains to be seen if this will irritate players further, or if gamers have already given up on the Pokemon Tracker and won't be seriously affected by the change either way. In either case, it's unlikely that the removal of the footsteps is considered to be a fix, and is instead probably a temporary solution to cover up a feature that isn't working as designed.

Some have been outspoken in their belief that Pokemon GO needs new features as soon as possible in order to stay fresh. While new features will be welcomed by players, it would be a good idea for Niantic and The Pokemon Company to iron out existing bugs and to plan carefully to prevent future updates from introducing new glitches that make game features not work as they were intended to.

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Pokemon GO is out now in select areas for Android and iOS devices.

Source: Twitter