In a shocking development, Niantic, the inventor of the super hit video game "Pokemon Go," has shut down the tracking apps that helped players find the creatures in the location-based augmented reality game. The ban has caused a furor among fans and they are mighty miffed with the game developer's actions.
Niantic has cut down access to Pokevision and other tracking apps that helped display the locations of the critters with accuracy. Pokevision announced earlier that for the time being they would no longer offer their services to the players and also made the reason behind such a clear decision. They mentioned that they are doing so out of a desire to follow Niantic and Nintendo's wishes, Motherboard reported.
Yesterday, players also received a new update, which did away with the footsteps mechanic that signaled an alert to the players about the distance where monsters were spawning. Although the mechanic was not very helpful, players had an option in the form of these tracking apps, but now they are defunct and it is causing a major pain to the game aficionados.
Players are up in arms against Niantic as hundreds took to Twitter to pour their outrage. Many felt cheated, with one user saying that such tools were the need of the hour as spawns are way too random and appear in very inconvenient locations.
It is worth mentioning here that earlier in the week, Niantic CEO John Hanke had said that he was not a fan of such tools and that players might find in the future that these aids do not work. He also said that they take the fun out of the game, and referred to the hacks as "cheating and spoofing," according to Attack of the Fanboy.
Well, he might be right, but it is also true that the in-game feature, which helped players locate the creatures, was not working well due to technical glitches, leading to the major shortcoming. It was this very shortcoming that led to the entry of these tracking apps or sites.
However, with the ban in place, it looks like Niantic is killing a groovy game, which is, ironically, its own creation.
The following video talks about "Pokemon Go" tips: