Pokémon Go Director Clears Up Major Concerns After Scopely Deal
Pokémon Go’s director has spoken up to reassure fans that they don’t need to stress over big changes coming to the game after Niantic sold it to Scopely.
When Pokémon Go first dropped in 2016, it completely took over. Now, nearly a decade later, even though players have had their fair share of complaints, the game still has a solid, dedicated fanbase.
So, when the news broke that Niantic was selling Pokémon Go, along with other games under its division, to Scopely, a lot of players immediately started worrying about what that meant for the future of the game.
One of the biggest concerns was about microtransactions and ads. Would Scopely start flooding the game with them? Well, Pokémon Go’s director has officially spoken up to clear the air.
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Pokémon Go Director Promises “No Obtrusive Ads” After Scopely Takeover
In an interview with Polygon, senior product director Michael Steranka addressed all the major concerns that players have been buzzing about. One of the big questions was whether Scopely would start throwing in “obtrusive ads” that mess up the game experience. His response? A flat-out no.
“If there’s one takeaway that I would love for people to have from this conversation, it’s that definitively no, that is not happening in Pokémon Go — not now, not ever,” Steranka said.
He explained that Scopely understands how unique Pokémon Go is and that messing with what already makes it a hit would be a bad move.
“So yeah, absolutely not. We will not be building into our games any type of obtrusive ads or anything like that. I just really want to reiterate Scopely as a company, the way that they operate is they give all of their teams the agency to make the decisions that are right for their games,” he said. He also made it clear that ads like that “would never be right” for Pokémon Go.
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No Privacy Issues Either, Says Director
Aside from ads, another major concern was privacy. Players worried that their data might be sold to third parties, but Steranka shut that down real quick.
“We do not sell player data to third parties, full stop,” he stated.
He clarified that the only location data used is what’s needed to run the game, and it’s all stored on U.S.-based servers. Plus, the team follows “all of the incredibly strict regulatory best practices to protect that data” as much as possible.
So, for now, it looks like Pokémon Go fans don’t have to worry too much about drastic changes under Scopely. The game is still in the hands of the same developers, and they seem committed to keeping it as it is.
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