One of the biggest improvements to Pokemon GO in its second and third years has been the improvement in social features. When the game started trainers were pretty much on their own. Sure, you could eventually battle next to each other in Gyms and at Raids, but there was no real player to player interaction. All of that changed when Friends, Gifting, and Trading rolled out and things have only gotten better since then with the addition of Trainer Battles. Unfortunately, the game's youngest players have been locked out of these social features for safety concerns.
In usual Nintendo property fashion, Pokemon GO and Niantic do not want young players interacting with other individuals or putting themselves in danger. To protect the game's youngest players from those risks, Pokemon GO just didn't allow players younger than 13 to access any of the social features like Gifting or PvP Battles. Luckily, that is finally changing.
A new update from Niantic Support confirms that there is now a way for parents to allow their children to enable the Pokemon GO social features. It's pretty straightforward, but does require that the account is using Niantic Kids or Pokémon Trainer Club (PTC). Assuming you're a parent who has the account setup that way, here what it takes to enable social features...
"If your child logs into Pokémon GO using Niantic Kids or Pokémon Trainer Club (PTC), you can opt into enabling social features such as Friends, Gifting, and Trading and Trainer Battles for your child in either the Niantic Kids Parent Portal or Pokémon Trainer Club website. You can also revoke your child’s access to these features at any time.
If you enable social features on your child’s account, your child’s friends will see your child's Trainer profile and limited information about the location where your child initially collected Pokémon or Gifts. When your child makes new friends, you will receive a digest email listing the new friendships your child has made that day."
This feature would've been nice a year ago, but the community will definitely take it now. Not being able to participate in the social aspect of the game killed a lot of the fun for some of the younger audience, so having the option for parents to enable and disable these features as needed seems like a great improvement.
Be sure to check back in the near future for more Pokemon GO strategy guides, news, and updates. Until then, good luck out there, trainers!
Pokemon GO is available now in select regions on Android and iOS devices.
Source: Niantic Support