Pokemon GO director shares harassment faced over Remote Raid changes and #HearUsNiantic

Pokemon GO director, Michael Steranka, took to Twitter on May 23, 2023, to share some unfortunate responses that he received from an account on the internet. This was after he shared the company's vision for the game going ahead in a recent interview. That entailed retaining the changes to the use of Remote Raid Passes implemented recently.

The company, in general, and its known faces, such as Steranka, had been facing backlash from the majority of Pokemon GO players worldwide. This is because of their unilateral decision to reduce Remote Raiding and subsequently ignoring all attempts by the community to engage in dialogue regarding the matter. This led to #HearUsNiantic trending on social media.

The movement gained massive traction on platforms like Twitter and Reddit, where Pokemon GO community members went up in hoards to express their displeasure. Amidst those, some broke the basic lines of civility and went on to insult Steranka's family, including his newborn child.

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Pokemon GO director opens up about online harassment over his response to the #HearUsNiantic movement and more

In a tweet dated May 23, 2023, Pokemon GO Director Michael Steranka shared screenshots of comments from an account named Nicholas Herr (@NickHerrInParis). These comments were in reference to Steranka's wife and newborn child, at whom the commenter was hurling insults to show his unhappiness about the changes to Remote Raids.

The comments made misogynistic comments about Steranka's wife, besides wishing ill upon his newborn son. Steranka blocked the account and shared the incident with the community.

Along with this, he also revealed that he had personally taken note of the frustration about the policy changes in-game. He stated that the company was "thinking of ways to address many of the valid concerns without sacrificing on our (Ninantic's) mission and vision for Pokemon GO."

He further added that he was "hoping to chat with more players around the world to gather feedback and also help better communicate what we’ve been up to and why" in an attempt to understand the community better and vice versa.

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Pokemon GO community shows solidarity with game director Steranka while making a stand for the game

Many players came out to show their support for what Steranka had to say about the Nicholas Herr incident condemning such behavior. They also pointed out that the #HearUsNiantic movement doesn't consider that person part of their cause and strongly discourages others from subscribing to such inappropriate and violent means of communication.

Besides supporting Steranka during his crisis, they also responded to the latter part of his tweet, where he spoke about the AR title. They said that they still disagreed with how the game they love is shaping out and would help out by providing feedback whenever the company asked for it.

The incident was rather unpleasant and unwarranted. But one takeaway from this is that the community is clear about its stand, which calls for inclusion and access and will not have negative forces like Nicholas Herr deter its cause.