The recently-proposed changes to Remote Raid Passes announced by the Pokémon GO Team at Niantic have sparked outrage among the fanbase, prompting the #HearUsNiantic movement.
The official blog post made last Thursday from Pokémon GO announcing that they were going to be changing Remote Raid Passes by making them more expensive and making them less accessible was almost immediately met with dissent from the Pokémon GO community.
In short, the changes to Remote Raid Passes limit the amount of times players can use their pass, which essentially allows them to participate in Raids without going to the Gym hosting the raid, meaning they can use this Pokémon GO feature whilst not being at the in-person site where it takes place. In addition, it also increased how expensive they are with in-game currency, which is already difficult enough to attain.
What is the likely implication from Niantic, through these changes, is that people are abusing this feature and are not keeping with the game's original ideology of promoting community and bringing Pokémon into the real world, as opposed to keeping it contained to just the various consoles the main-series games release on, like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet for the Nintendo Switch, released last year.
The short-term public response primarily included significant concern that Pokémon GO would be shutting down, but this was quickly disproven due to factors that would suggest that the game is expected to keep running, at least through the rest of this year, but these concerns quickly grew into a larger commentary on the game as a whole.
#HearUsNiantic
However, because of this implication, the Pokémon GO Community is quickly taking to social media to declare that these changes are going to be unhealthy for the game in the long run and the Pokémon GO Team is grossly misunderstanding why these changes are harmful.
The fundamental message of the #HearUsNiantic movement is that the developers of Pokémon GO do not listen to the community and routinely make decisions over the health of the game without asking players what they think, just announcing the changes are coming and then launching the changes.
"We, as a whole, feel unheard," Joe Merrick said in a tweet addressed as "The Pokémon GO Community." "Our needs are not taken into proper consideration."
The tweet, embedded below, elaborates on the movements main points, as well as detailing some of the people most affected by this change, including, but not limited to, players with social anxiety, players who have mobility-related disabilities and single-parent players, to name just a few. But, obviously this does not take into account all players who will be disadvantaged due to this change.
"Young kids are also affected," Twitter user @PieTheUnepicGuy said in a tweet, replying to the aforementioned post, "[They] can't go outside by themselves or drive somewhere, so Remote Raids really helped [them] too."
Overall, the #HearUsNiantic movement campaign helps address a consistent problem with their games; the lack of consultation with fans before making game-altering decisions. Even though they try to do "balancing acts" with their changes, by both giving and taking, what they take ultimately proves a lot more damaging.
"There was a promise of more transparency between Niantic and the players, and more ways to listen but it doesn't feel like that has truly happened." said Twitter user @JoeMerrick. "I love Pokémon GO. Please stop ruining it."
This article was originally published on dbltap as #HearUsNiantic Movement Asks Developer to Revert Pokemon GO Remote Raid Pass Changes.
