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Niantic promises to make Pokémon Go less troublesome for homeowners

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Niantic is seeking approval for a settlement to the lawsuits filed by angry homeowners who claimed that Pokémon Go encouraged players to trespass on their properties.

Pokémon Go soared to massive popularity shortly after it launched in July 2016, reaching 500 million downloads as soon as September of that year. There were several consequences to the game’s massive popularity though, one of which was its effect on homeowners.

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Within weeks of Pokémon Go‘s launch, homeowners filed lawsuits against Niantic, as hordes of players trespassed on private properties to catch Pokémon and gain access to the mobile game’s PokéStops and gyms.

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In the proposed settlement to the lawsuits, Niantic will implement several new features and restrictions to Pokémon Go‘s PokéStops and gyms. Homeowners already have the capability to request for the removal of PokéStops and gyms on their properties, but under the settlement, Niantic promises to resolve matters within 15 days, as well as maintain a database of complaints to avoid poor placements of the PokéStops and gyms. Owners of single-family residential properties will be granted rights of removal within 40 meters of their homes.

Niantic also said that if the app detects a raid of over 10 players, it will display a warning message to remind the gamers to be courteous and respectful of surroundings. It will also maintain a method for authorities of public places such as parks to request for operating hours to be honored.

Nearly three years after launch, Pokémon Go remains popular, but nowhere near the level that generated the crowds that prompted the lawsuits from affected homeowners. The settlement, and the promises that Niantic made for its improvement, will be important for the future of the mobile game.

Niantic is not a stranger to lawsuits, as it also dealt with the legal action against its infamously unsuccessful Pokémon GO Fest in Chicago in July 2017. The event was supposed to be a massive celebration of Pokémon Go in its first year, but it did not go very well due to poor connectivity in Grant Park that rendered the game almost unplayable. Niantic issued full refunds to the tickets to the event, and eventually settled a lawsuit to pay almost $1.6 million to reimburse the other expenses of attendees.

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Aaron Mamiit
Aaron Mamiit
Contributor
Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…
NBA All-World aims to replicate Pokémon Go’s success starting today
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Niantic launched NBA All-World, its basketball-themed, location-based mobile game, on iOS and Android today. Ahead of this release, Digital Trends attended a presentation to learn more about how the sports AR title works.
If you've played any of Niantic's games before, many elements of NBA All-World will feel quite familiar. The mobile game tracks players' location and encourages them to explore. While doing so, players will find Drop Zones that grant them new gear. Niantic says Drop Zones will often be placed near real-world counterparts, so players can find money near a bank or shoes near a shoe store. 
There will also be Player Encounters, where they can face off against current NBA athletes. Niantic tells Digital Trends that classic athletes aren't currently in the game, but feels that idea "is a good one." 

In Player Encounters, users face off against athletes in one of four minigames: 3-Point Shootout, Beat the Clock, Around the World, and First-to-Five. While they feature some impressive and realistic animation for a mobile game, Niantic says these minigames only use simple swipe controls because the studio wanted to make something that is easy to play while someone is walking around their neighborhood. If a user wins a Player Encounter, they can recruit that athlete to their team, customize them with items found at Drop Zones, and upgrade them by playing with them. Players can also challenge players they already recruited again to earn more currency. 
The title also includes "Rule the Court" neighborhood leaderboards, many of which are placed at real-world basketball courts, where players can compete for the highest score. Currently, there are no player-versus-player elements in NBA All-World, although Niantic understands players like competitive modes in their sports games and may add them in the future. In fact, many features are still in the pipeline for post-launch updates, including Niantic's trademark AR support. Early in the second quarter of 2023, Niantic plans on adding AR support to NBA All-World to enhance the loot drops from Drop Zones to make it look like they're happening in the real world.
One thing that will be in the game at launch is microtransactions, which Niantic says will be similar to the ones available in its other games and allow players to increase their athletes' stats with Offense, Defense, and Fitness boosts. 
Despite the undeniable success of Pokémon Go, Niantic has never been able to completely replicate its success with games like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite or Pikmin Bloom. However, the studio seems confident that basketball has the global mass appeal to make NBA All-World another massive hit for the company. The early footage we saw of the game does leave us optimistic for NBA All-World's prospects, but we'll ultimately have to wait and see if the game will make it past its rookie season. 
NBA All-World is available now for iOS and Android.

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Learning moves in Pokémon games usually revolves around leveling up and evolving your trusty monsters. At certain levels, they will gain the ability to learn a new move but can only know so many at one time. There are some moves that are special, though, and can be given to Pokémon without them needing to level up. Technical Machines, or TMs, have been in Pokémon titles since the first-generation games Red and Blue. They are back for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but with a twist.

The new method for acquiring TMs in Scarlet and Violet is called the TM Machine. Ignoring the redundancy of the name, this is a very crucial tool for trainers to get very familiar with on their adventures. It is the only way to give certain moves to your team and keep them in tip-top shape. There are hundreds of TMs in Scarlet and Violet, but if you don't master the TM Machine, you'll never get any of them. Here's a full breakdown of how it works.

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Nintendo’s mobile games don’t get enough credit. While Nintendo had some undeniable hits like Pokémon Go and Fire Emblem Heroes, many consider the rest of its mobile efforts fairly underwhelming and even somewhat disappointing for a video game company of Nintendo’s stature. While nothing ever quite reached the high bar Pokémon Go set in 2016, Nintendo’s mobile games are a bit more influential than they get credit for.
Over the past few years, games like Pokémon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have built upon their mobile counterparts. Then, during the September 13 Nintendo Direct, Fire Emblem Engage’s announcement and main gimmick cemented that Nintendo isn’t just viewing mobile games as a mostly failed side experiment. While they might not be the most successful games out there, their DNA is creeping into the Nintendo Switch’s bestselling titles.
Mediocre mobile returns
Nintendo’s mobile gaming efforts kicked off in the mid-2010s. Niantic created the AR game Pokemon Go, which quickly became a smashing success in 2016. In the six years since, the game has generated around 678 million installs and $6 billion in player spending, according to data from Sensor Tower.
While working with Niantic proved fruitful for The Pokemon Company, Nintendo partnered with DeNA for most of its initial mobile games. Unfortunately, none of these quite reached the heights analysts and Nintendo expected. Super Mario Run was a smash hit at launch but failed to sustain much interest and consistent revenue, so it’s considered a disappointment by Nintendo.
Meanwhile, other games like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, Dr. Mario World, and Dragalia Lost launched, and while they’ve still made lots of money for Nintendo, most haven't matched the success of the most popular mobile titles. The biggest exception to this is Fire Emblem Heroes, a gacha game where players can summon classic Fire Emblem characters. It’s had over $1 billion in player spending alone as of June 2022 and is Nintendo’s “flagship title on the [mobile} platform,” according to Sensor Tower.
More recently, Nintendo tried to recapture the success of Pokemon Go with Niantic’s Pikmin Bloom, although that game has reportedly disappointed as well. Overall, it’s understandable why some people are surprised to see only a couple of surefire mobile hits from a company with the pedigree of Nintendo and consider it a side venture that never realized its full potential. If you look closely at the console games in these series that Nintendo put out since, though, it isn’t ignoring everything learned while making mobile games.
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Nintendo has the masterful ability to find the strongest elements of an idea, draw those out, and then expand upon them to create something uniquely memorable. We’ve seen it do this time and time again with subsequent entries of its flagship series, but it’s a mindset it has applied to its mobile games upon closer inspection.
As far back as 2018, Pokemon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee recognized the charm of not needing to battle a Pokemon to capture it, and incorporated that into a traditional RPG experience. More recently, items and mechanics like gardening and cooking from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp made their way into Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was able to revive its live service offerings by repurposing the best tracks and assets from Mario Kart Tour.
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Before the announcement of Pikmin 4, Shigeru Miyamoto also took a lot of time to highlight Pikmin Bloom. While we don’t know much about Pikmin 4’s gameplay, Nintendo could find some aspects of that game’s exploratory experience, weekly challenges, or something I’m not even thinking of to freshen up the next mainline game. The same could even happen with Super Mario Run the next time Nintendo decides to make a 2D Mario game.
While watching Fire Emblem Engage’s reveal during the latest Nintendo Direct, it became clear that Nintendo’s mobile games have quietly become influential forces in the company's console games. Nintendo has slowly plucked the best ideas out of them and brought them into Switch games without extra monetization. While the future is cloudy for Nintendo's seemingly stalled mobile push, I hope the company can still find a place for its games on mobile, using the platform as a space to experiment with its beloved series.

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