Gyms and Pokestops are mysteriously disappearing from Pokemon GO and some players believe they know the cause. AR Mapping was recently introduced into Pokemon GO as a new form of tech for the mobile game. Users believe the new integration is causing glitches and bugs.

The tech involves scanning existing Pokestops, but that feature might be leading to some of those scanned locations leaving the virtual map entirely. When players scan Pokestops in any given day, they receive a new type of field research task that involves going to a separate Pokestop. With Pokemon GO introducing a new Holiday event, the game is seeing an increase in people carrying out these tasks.

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During the Holiday Raid, Pokemon GO players see top-notch rewards, such as rare candies. Unfortunately, it appears when users finish the tasks for the bonus rewards, they have an unexpected effect. Some users are reporting scanning Pokestops causes developer, Niantic to delete them. A poster on Reddit, CurlyHairedKid claimed it's because Niantic thinks some of the scanned Pokestops are either faked, or located in the wrong place. In other words, the company is trying to fix a problem that may not actually exist.

"I just had a fair bit of gyms and stops removed from my area and my local Discord group is reporting the same thing en-masse" the user wrote. "Niantic is using the players to do their own legwork in determining a Stop/Gym's validity, and then using it against us." It's not clear whether Niantic is indeed confused and deleting stops incorrectly. Some of the deleted Pokemon GO stops have been around for years.

The Reddit user further posited the reason Niantic is deleting the Pokestops is because they want to make the game harder. It's not clear exactly why, after all these years the company would decide to do that. Pokemon GO saw its highest earnings ever in 2020, despite requirements over the summer that kept people mostly indoors. Niantic changed up the way people played in order to accommodate "stay at home" orders across the country.

The company also added new content over the last few months. That included bringing iconic villains Jessie and James into Pokemon GO. With all that work going into making the game more popular to a larger audience, it strikes many as odd Niantic would be "sabotaging" players. The removal of Pokestops and gyms means it's that much harder to advance or evolve. That, in turn leads to more people putting the game down and moving onto something else.

Pokemon GO is available on Android and iOS.

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