5 negative Pokemon GO changes Niantic made in 2022

Pokemon GO's developers have been through fire several times in 2022. From controversial changes to discontinuing several in-game items, the community has seen many changes. While there have been some positive alterations, the negative ones tend to stick out the most.

Fans have faced different issues related to the platform and are still sticking with it in the hopes of positive development. Many debates have occurred in the community focusing on these decisions, with some directly calling out the developers.

Most of these negative changes were seen as negligence on the developers' part. A few of the most impactful of these that Pokemon GO players have had to go through are mentioned below.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer's views.

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5 Pokemon GO changes that incurred the community's wrath in 2022

1) 3-hour Community Days

Niantic brought back the three-hour Community Days in Pokemon GO. This received major backlash from the fanbase as the longer six-hour duration was swapped with a measly runtime of three hours.

Since Community Days are once-a-month events, this change turned off many players that lead busy lives and cannot accommodate the game in their schedules. Many fans are yet to participate even once in these Community Day events due to ongoing work on Saturdays.

Players tried multiple times to voice their concerns, and they unanimously asked the Niantic developers to make it into six hours again. However, the response was a statement claiming that less than five percent of players played longer than three hours. The reply is still mocked, with many thinking the developers are out of touch with the community.

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2) Nerfed Incense

Niantic decided to nerf Pokemon GO's Incense in March 2022. These items attracted one creature every minute, but that number decreased to one critter every five minutes.

This was one of the most negative changes the game went through recently. It drastically diminished the rate of shiny encounters and the chances of encountering a phone several times. Many trainers were seen protesting against this decision in the community.

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3) Increased coin prices

Pokemon GO announced a hike in coin prices in October 2022. Players experienced the increased cost of in-game currency due to App Store price tiers' changes. This directly affected rural and casual players, and the news wasn't welcomed in the community.

The increase in price for mobile app microtransactions affected players who used Euro currencies as well as select countries like Chile, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, and Vietnam. These areas were the ones that suffered the most cause of this in-game inflation.

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4) Hiked prices of boxes, removing and changing in-game content

The developers incurred wrath for silently removing and changing in-game content. Players saw everything the removal of free Remote Raid passes to special events. Weekly boxes vanished slowly from the platform over time as well. In-game box prices also hiked to an all-time high this year.

One of the most expensive boxes, the Ultra Box, costs 3300 Poke Coins, which is amazingly high. Such uninformed changes were a regular occurrence throughout the entire year of 2022.

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5) PvP lag

PvP battles in Pokemon GO are also bugged by some serious issues. From matchup lags to random crashes that force players to restart the app, the community has seen a lot of problems during PvP gameplay.

Trainers face problems with moves, like Fast Attacks preventing Charge Attacks from working properly. Sometimes fighters from both sides tend to faint, and there still isn't a tie. These bugs were set to be fixed by the developers in 2022, but Pokemon GO players are still undergoing issues during gameplay.