In July of 2017, Niantic organized a festival in Chicago’s Grant Park celebrating its game, Pokemon GO. The festival had promised players that they would be able to meet fellow Pokemon Trainers and catch new and rare Pokemon. The festival was supposed to celebrate the game's first birthday, but this did not go as planned and Niantic is now set to pay the price.

Pokemon GO Fest suffered many data connectivity issues and massive logistical issues within Pokemon GO, even before the gates to the festival opened. This caused major frustration for the players that went (or traveled long distances to attend) and some players even sued. When these lawsuits and other complaints started to roll in, Niantic was quick to refund players their admission ticket and give players $100 worth of in-game currency, but this wasn’t enough for some players that flew across the country to get to the festival.

Niantic is in the process of settling a class action lawsuit paying out $1,575,000 to reimburse players for some of the costs along the way to the festival. These costs could have included hotel stays, flights, parking fees, tolls, etc. In a document found in the Chicago Court System, an official website for the settlement should be up and running by May 25, 2018 and attendees will be sent an email to let them know if they will be able to claim any money from the settlement.

There are some stipulations with this, however; players who are wishing to claim money from this settlement must have checked into GO Fest through the game. One can assume that this is to deter people who sold their ticket for a high markup, thus giving them no more profit and only giving money back to the players who were actually there. Another stipulation is that players claiming any more than $107 in these expenses will need to have receipts confirming what they spent.

If there is any money left after players have made their claims and all of the extra fees have been paid, the aforementioned documents stated that the remaining balance will be donated to the Illinois Bar Foundation and the nonprofit organization Chicago Run. The document even specifically states, “In no event will money revert back to Niantic.”

With more and more additions to Pokemon GO like the latest update allowing players to catch a Shiny Murkrow, players have seen the game blossom since its release and since GO Fest in 2017. Maybe if Niantic were to host GO Fest or another festival again, it could have more success, but players more than likely won’t have an event like this from Niantic themselves, especially after this huge lawsuit and payout. However, players can keep their fingers crossed in the hopes of an event bigger and better-prepared for than GO Fest in the future, but until that happens, players will just have to settle for catching them all without a festival to help them meet other Trainers.

Pokemon GO is available now for Android and iOS devices.

Source: TechCrunch