Are Pokemon GO servers down (December 26)? Possible reason, fixes, and more

Mere hours after the Christmas holiday, disaster struck the Pokemon GO playerbase. The servers for the popular mobile game appear to have gone offline for an indefinite amount of time. So far, Niantic has been silent regarding this problem, but players across the globe are reporting issues logging into their accounts.

Online games such as Niantic's geocaching title experience server issues from time to time. Whether it be internal matters, maintenance, or another hiccup in the connection, these problems can pop up every now and then.

But what can players assume about this issue? When can they expect Pokemon GO to return online? While nothing has been stated, we can make general assumptions and predict when everything will be resolved.

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Pokemon GO: Servers down for unknown reason

Official artwork for Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic)

So far, not even Niantic's official customer support account has commented on the server issue. According to popular server status sites like Cmmcd, DownDetector, and ServicesDown, these issues appear to have been occurring around 12 pm and persisting for the last three hours.

It is unknown what could be causing such an issue. Players may assume it is down for maintenance. However, it would be industry practice for Niantic to reveal that Pokemon GO will be down long before the issue occurs. As such, this appears to be a random outage.

Given how popular and profitable Pokemon GO is for Niantic and The Pokemon Company, it would be fair to assume that this issue will be fixed within the next couple of hours. If the problem persists, Niantic's social media accounts for the game and customer support will address this issue.

With players growing increasingly concerned about the problem, the radio silence from Niantic has put many trainers off. However, given the abundance of players reporting their issues, developers may quickly try and offer a fix. With the sheer number of trainers out of commission, the company may even give out a free gift box for the inconvenience.

With all the winter festivities players are missing out on following the drop of Pokemon GO's Winter Holiday Part 2 event, Niantic may consider extending the proceedings by a day. After all, it would be unfair for them to miss out on the event’s exclusive costumed Pokemon.

Overall, this issue with the servers is a mystery to be sure. With standard practice maintenance out of the way and no formal response from Niantic, players are left hoping this is just a case of a common yet unfortunate server hiccup. Given how Niantic has handled such issues with Pokemon GO in the past, it can be assumed that this will be fixed shortly.