Pokémon Go(ne): What’s happened to tracking Pokemon?

Over the weekend Pokémon Go received an update that among a bunch of smaller fixes actually removed some functionality from the game. That functionality was is commonly referred to as the ‘footsteps’ system in the nearby Pokémon tab, it’s now been removed.

The footsteps system hasn’t worked in some weeks, at launch however it showed 1-3 ‘footsteps’ below nearby Pokémon and when you moved around the fewer steps that showed, the closer you were to that Pokémon. Great in theory but for the past two or so weeks it hasn’t been working at all, instead just showing three footsteps all the time – broken.

Whatever the reason it was broken it didn’t matter, a lot of players instead decided to use third party trackers like Pokevision, Pokewhere and other web and app based trackers. These trackers offered more than just ‘footprints’ system and instead offered exactly searchable locations for Pokémon. Not only that you could see long some Pokémon were spawning for, some even worked passively to notify you of close Pokémon.

Well that’s all changed.

Not only has Niantic removed the footsteps system from the game (more so because they can’t get it working rather than removing tracking) but it also appears, Niantic (or Nintendo) have put the kibosh on the whole external tracker thing. One by one and little by little these trackers were blocked by Niantic or closed down and turned off manually by their developers – likely due to the threat of legal action.

Whether or not you agree with these sites, they were filling in a hole for the game. Even in the mainline Pokémon games you can ‘track’ Pokémon through the Pokedex. It’s not as accurate as these trackers even as useful as the nearby feature (when it worked). The real problem, for us and for Niantic is that this update hit the same time as they decided to crack down on these services.

App updates don’t just magically happen, they take time to develop, be tested and pass QA and unfortunately Niantic sticking to its ‘agile’ update schedule managed to push this update and the removal of the footsteps system the same time as they pushed sites like Pokevision to shut down. Not a good look.

Add to the fact that the company, outside of some its employees is sticking very much to a ‘Nintendo’ model of publicity – don’t say anything  – you can see why some people are angry. With 80 million players the most vocal, the most hardcore are rightfully upset. At the moment there’s no way to effectively track Pokemon, if you live in a city you’re fine but outside of the city – well you’re flying blind.

I personally spent an entire day on the weekend using Pokevision to walk over 15kms with a bunch of friends and family, we caught tons of Pokemon and ran (waddled) to spots where rarer Pokemon were spawning, it still would have been fun with just the nearby system working but with nothing – you have nothing to go on. I’m sure many people this past weekend did the same.

So what’s the solution here? Obviously we can’t go back to the way it was. The radar sites are unlikely to come back, whether it was a moral – thou shalt not track Pokemon in this way – thing that killed them or a technical burden, they’re likely dead – at least in the short term. Unfortunately for Niantic, unless it has a fix for the footstep system waiting in the wings it could be a painful two weeks while we wait for the next update.

There’s also the Pokemon Go Plus situation here, the band which would have passively tracked Pokemon for you has been delayed two months. Originally it should have been out now – the same time as this update. Co-incidence? We’re not sure, but it would have been a nice way to sell bands right?

Whatever the case Niantic, Nintendo – somebody – has to move quickly here. You might have 80 million players but the passionate ones are going to be the most vocal. The dream of tracking sites is probably dead, so there has to be another solution and fast. The mobile gaming world moves fast, if you’re not on top of things and open about it – it’ll leave you behind as quick as it came into being.

There’s still fun to be had with Pokemon Go without external trackers (remember three weeks ago?), but there needs to be something better than what’s currently on offer.

Let us know what you think of the changes in the comments, we know it’s not going to be pleasant – but be nice!