The developers of “Pokemon GO” have been hard at work producing new content for the game, and recent reports indicate that a major update is coming up soon, bringing a variety of new features. Gamers have been eager to get some new content in the title for a while now, so the timing seems about right for Nintendo and Niantic.
Hopefully the update will live up to expectations, as the game has been a bit lacking in the content department ever since it came out, according to some players and critics. There was a certain expectation that this would be addressed shortly after the initial launch, but a lot of time went by without any significant updates to the game.
It’s not clear exactly what kinds of features will be added with the upcoming update, and reports vary from one source to another. It does sound like Niantic have been putting a lot of effort in this release however, so it might truly turn out to be something interesting.
Meanwhile, the developers have also been working on other features for the game, most importantly “Nearby Pokemon Tracking”. The new feature is still in a limited phase and was initially only available in San Francisco, with other areas being added slowly.
According to Niantic, they want to properly test and develop the feature before making it available to other parts of the world, so those who live in the area should consider this to be a bit of a public test that they can participate in. And of course, as can be expected from an event like this, there are most likely going to be various bugs and issues.
That’s part of the reason for running this event in the first place, the other important part being that Niantic will want to make sure that their servers can handle the extra load without any problems once the feature has been launched globally.
This is always an issue with a game as major as this, and some experts have even claimed that it would be interesting to see how far Niantic can realistically take its development and the addition of new features before their server capacity starts to be a problem.
It’s hard to tell if that will be an issue anytime soon though, as while the game has been getting new features, its player numbers have been on a decline since it launched. There have been some bumps in the count here and there, but for the most part it looks like people are leaving the platform in large numbers on a regular basis.
This can easily be explained by the bare state of the game, and many players were actually surprised at how little content it offered when it first came out. Progress has been slow and it looks like adding new features is more complicated for Niantic than they initially anticipated, which has reflected poorly on their performance on the market.
At least the studio has one major advantage that can allow them to continue working on the game at a relatively calm and relaxed pace – they don’t have to worry about competition. They are the only company with access to a database like the one they use for the game, and it will take a lot of time and effort for someone else to build something similar. Because of this, no clones of “Pokemon GO” will likely be out for a good while.