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Niantic Labs Explains Shutting Down Pokemon Go Tracking Apps


Pokemon Go players have been experiencing all kinds of issue with the app. The latest update was not the most helpful of all, given that it basically shut down the tracking system of the game.

Worse, developer Niantic Labs has started shutting down the third-party apps that help players track down nearby Pokemon. as it turns out, the developer actually has a logical explanation for why this is happening.

Niantic Labs has taken to the official website to explain the situation. It seems that the third-party apps, while helpful to players, are actually adding to the strain of maintaining Pokemon Go.

"Running a product like Pokemon Go at scale is challenging. Those apps have been amplified by third parties attempting to access our servers in various ways outside of the game itself."

The developer also explained that one of the reasons for the delay of Pokemon Go rollout to Brazil and some parts of Latin America was due to these third-party apps.

"We were delayed in doing that due to aggressive efforts by third parties to access our servers outside of the Pokemon Go game client and our terms of service. We blocked some more of those attempts yesterday."

In the chart seen below, the developer has shown that there was a considerable drop in server resources consumed around the same time that the third-party sources were blocked. Once they had freed the resources, the Latin America launch became possible.

"In addition to hampering our ability to bring Pokémon GO to new markets, dealing with this issue also has opportunity cost. Developers have to spend time controlling this problem vs. building new features. It's worth noting that some of the tools used to access servers to scrape data have also served as platforms for bots and cheating which negatively impact all Trainers."

Niantic Labs does expect that there will still be some tracking apps to pop up in the future. However, it has also firmly stated that they will be continuing the steps to "maintain the stability and integrity of the game"—and that probably is the nicer way of saying, it will continue to block those said attempts.

This is actually an appreciated move on the part of the developer. It's not unusual for fans to become overly vocal and emotional when it comes to the latest games they love, and Pokemon Go is not an exception. It's actually one of the games that proved the hype true.

And this may actually be the first step that the Pokemon Go developer is taking to ensure that communication lines are clearer and more open. Fans have been mad about the fact that Niantic Labs does not seem to be giving updates as frequently as possible, which left a lot of players in the dark.

Pokemon Go is now out for a greater part of the world. It seems that Asia and Africa have the majority of areas still waiting for the game.

Read:Your Pokemon Go 'mon may transform after you caught it.

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