Niantic on Tuesday announced the conclusion of its multi-week efforts to remedy the issues caused by a buggy Pokemon GO event from October, but some players aren't happy with the outcome. While the broken Pokemon GO Zorua event that started it all has since been repeated, a portion of the player base has now taken online to mock what they deem to be underwhelming compensation for the ordeal.
Niantic managed to add Zorua to Pokemon GO on October 28, three days following its glitched first attempt at debuting the tricky fox. The issue with the first event was that its spawned Zoruas were inheriting the stats and movesets of whatever creatures they were replacing during the Spotlight Hour. This prompted the developers to cancel that entire portion of the event, in addition to preventing the already caught Zoruas from being used in the GO Battle League, traded, or sent to Pokemon HOME. Naturally, this frustrated some of the players who already got their hands on the creatures.
Niantic yesterday confirmed that it managed to fix the issue with stats and movesets, in addition to announcing a virtual apology in the form of a single Star Piece, 20 Poke Balls, and one Lure Module, to be issued to all players. While a number of fans on social media seemed appreciative of the fact that everyone has received some recompense, others chose to mock the contents of the apology box. "They give out make up [sic] items like they pay for them personally," one Pokemon GO player wrote on Reddit, whereas other mildly facetious reactions to the announcement described the compensation as "wrapping paper" and "useless."
Looking at some of the currently most popular mobile games on the market, it would seem that minimal recompense for technical issues is far from unusual. It was only a few days ago that some Diablo Immortal fans angry about clan bug compensation took to social media to voice their displeasure about a similar situation. And while Niantic's compensation packages are rarely generous, the Pokemon GO developer at least has a decent track record with issuing them for even the smallest of issues.
Naturally, many players would prefer a polished gaming experience over a constant influx of apologies, no matter how sincere. Especially given how Pokemon GO has a long history of technical issues going all the way back to its 2016 debut when Niantic struggled to keep the game's servers online due to its overwhelming popularity.
And while the studio is still generating hundreds of millions in revenue on a yearly basis, it has arguably been losing momentum ever since Pokemon GO crossed $1 billion in annual revenue in 2020. This year, industry watchers expect the game to generate around half that figure.
Pokemon GO is available now on Android and iOS.
Source: Reddit