Long-requested features for Pokémon Go are in the works, and chief among them is trading Pokémon. But players stuck in smaller towns who are eager to fill out their Pokédex will likely remain out of luck, senior product manager Tatsuo Nomura told Polygon at this week’s Game Developers Conference.
“[Trading] won’t be through the internet,” he said of the mechanic, which remains in development and heavily under wraps. “You shouldn’t be able to exchange your Pokémon with someone who is 100 miles away from you. ... The person needs to be in your proximity.”
Players interacting in real life remains the utmost priority for Niantic, even if that comes at the expense of more isolated players’ Pokédexes. Even as the core mechanics continue to change and expand, Pokémon Go is still about getting players together in person. That’s not just Niantic’s vision for the mobile game, Nomura said, it’s how the developer defines its overall purpose.
“I wasn’t really thinking of trading as a way to solve the local area spawn issue,” Nomura said, elaborating on the developer’s intent for the feature. “That was more, we have a couple Pokémon that only spawn in a couple regions, and that was the hope, that some Pokémon you have to know someone or find someone who lives in certain regions and meet and exchange.
“We don’t want to just have that be an online game that you can just exchange virtually.”
Even so, Nomura referred to Pokémon Go as a massively multiplayer game. The label is fitting, however, when considering how many groups of people went out and played the game together when it launched last summer. Although Pokémon pub crawls and huge social gatherings died down as the weather changed, Niantic is hoping that events like these crop up again — and those types of events are where players should look for trading opportunities.
Still, rural Pokémon trainers may be disappointed by this. Nomura explained that Niantic has continued to improve the small town experience, however, so that those areas are less barren than they were when Pokémon Go launched.
“The last couple of months, we updated our data set so that hiking trails that are more often found in local areas have more Pokémon,” he said. Players have picked up on the change in spawn rates, and Niantic regularly launches in-game promotions that make it easier to find Pokémon across regions.
Soon, Niantic will again open up new landmark submissions for Ingress, the company’s early augmented reality game that lends its location data for Pokémon Go’s own places of interests. Partnerships with Sprint and Starbucks have also led to thousands more PokéStops. Both should lead to more chances to collect the game’s increasing number of Pokémon.
Trading remains an important piece of the catch-’em-all part of Pokémon Go, though. Nomura recognizes just how much weight the feature holds for hardcore players.
“We’re still trying to come up with an answer [to trading] that makes sense so it doesn’t kill the game,” he said. “If we fail this, we can easily kill the game.”
Expect Niantic to implement trading sometime later this year, once the developer is confident it has the feature right.
Comments
I don’t play much of Pokemon go, but I sense that allowing online trades would quickly lead to people abusing the system to trade pokemon to other people. Introduces all sorts of avoidable challenges to the developer, but may not provide the most desirable experience for players.
Tough to balance.
By Lerkero on 03.01.17 10:57pm
This I think is the most insulting quote of the article.
I suppose we’re out of luck if we’re not millionaires or have millionaire jet-setter friends who happen to play Pokémon Go.
Regional Pokémon is a stupid idea and they need to get rid of it. It reeks of social stratification and class divide.
By orangesquidge on 03.02.17 7:50am
maybe it’s just me, but I don’t actually want to meet strangers in person to trade pokemon. I’d much rather do it over the internet. Or, here’s an idea, allow both (like an actual pokemon game).
This seems like them once again trying really hard to differentiate themselves from the brand, whether they know it or not. That may make sense for gen 1 & 2 pokemon, but I’ve been exclusively trading them over the internet for the last few 3DS games.
It’s also a bit weird since pokemon in GO are so disposable to begin with. A high CP or pokemon is going to need to be fed a lot of stardust and candy to keep up with you as you level up. So if it’s so rare as to require you to trade for it, then you’re probably not going to have a lot of that particular candy to begin with. If it’s fairly common, then getting one with good stats is just a matter of time and you’ll always have plenty of candy for it, so the trade isn’t that important.
When you think about it, trading really only makes sense for the region exclusives… and that’s exactly what they’re going to miss out on.
I don’t think you care at this point. You’ve been working on this for over a year and you don’t have an answer yet? Enjoy your money, hope Ingress 2.0 is great, and maybe this will last long enough for us to get another generation or two.
By Higher_Ground on 03.02.17 9:25am
IDK, for once I think I actually agree.
I mean, the game is certainly too limited outside of cities, but that doesn’t mean trading is the way to fix that. It’s the spawning that needs fixing..
By yossarian729 on 03.02.17 11:11am
It’s weird that Niantic keeps calling this an MMO, but it’s not really jiving with the MMO crowds, and I don’t think Niantic’s reaching out to MMO players. Raph Koster (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Crowfall) just defended the game again but it’s enough to spark discussions on what is and isn’t an MMO.
By Dengar on 03.02.17 11:51am
The biggest problem of the game are the cheaters. The persons who play from home, behind a computer or use spoofing on there phone. Each day I see gyms being attacked and there isn’t anyone around.
Gym play isn’t fun anymore 70% of the gyms here are filled with cheaters. They are at home and go from gym to gym there. That why you see the same names in many gyms and that ’s why so many people stop to play! This isnt a fair competition.
So come on Niantic please fix this problem. It can t be hard to see how somebody goes on the internet and attacks gyms. They don ’t use there mobile network for example, they are on there wifi, or on there home network each time.
By kollie on 03.04.17 9:24am