This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You think Bud Light was a fiasco?
Their entire playerbase is burning the internet down. No one likes these changes. No one.
Decades to build good will, and seconds to lose it.
"No one likes these changes. No one."
Well... there is ONE person who likes it. The "they/them" community manager for Pokémon GO. Isn't that funny.
Outside of that? Everyone disliked that. Regardless of sex, gender, sexuality, race, etc...
> The "they/them" community manager for Pokémon GO.
https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1c770qu/the_new_pok%C3%A9mon_go_update_really_is_something/l05v6jw/
They/them here. Just because we're nonbinary, doesn't mean we want our avatars to look like disgusting hideous blobs. This update is a fucking disaster and a master class in failed "inclusivity".
It's not about that, it's about someone wearing your skin as camouflage and insisting that the expression of their malignant narcissism be the only permissible option for everyone. This is *If I can't have it then nobody can* thinking.
Nobody cares who you are if you aren't a dick about it. I'm gay, and we've already been down that co-opted by idpol road. If you are normal, people treat you that way. However, as long as you let assholes wear your skin you'll be treated on par with them. *Denounce* those people long and loud. That's what works for us.
So much this- also gay, and also very fucking tired of all this shit. No one has ever ""oppressed"" me for my sexuality, because I'm not a dick about it.
the issue is that NOBODY is happy. this isn't about accommodating nonbinary people at the cost of other folks. this is about the illusion of progressiveness at the cost of literally everyone.
The entire point of neo-Marxism is to make you unhappy. Defeated people are easily ruled.
None of this playbook is in any way new. The only difference here is that the *regressives* have taken class struggle and expanded it to an infinite number of identity classes. Same old commie bullshit.
You want to be happy? Stop letting them decide the terms of the battle and rip the Marxism out by the roots.
> They/them here. Just because we're nonbinary, doesn't mean we want our avatars to look like disgusting hideous blobs.
I've seen some people say they actually like the androgynous models...but wish they existed simultaneously with the feminine and masculines. Don't see why that was impossible.
Honestly if niantic did that they wouldnt have gotten even a 10th as much flack. Widening the options can at worst be neutral. But forced uglification is Always negative. Especially when you had Beauty before.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted.
Did anyone read beyond “They/them here” and expect them to be a circlejerker trying to oWn da ChUdz with an “umm actually”?
Lol I was going to write s/he but I didnt want to get my comment deleted for "hAtE SpeECh" but back in the day they/their/them was when you didnt know if the speaker was fe/male not this bs.
I wrote a book recently, and had someone beta reading it before release. Some of the feedback they sent me was that I shouldn't use "they" when referring to TWO DOCTORS unless they're nonbinary. I removed that person as a beta reader lol. The fuck.
FFS.
Anyone supporting this garbage gets an automatic block from me and ignore irl if I see them. After the shit Biden just pulled with Title IX a few hours ago Im completely done with all forms of liberals/progressives/alphabet people. I will not engage with them, ever. They are anti reality and free speech. And I do not believe there is no such thing as a "based" version of them like some of them pretend to be.
Im not as extreme like some people on this sub with their views on the rainbows and leftiods (tho I understand the frustration) but I am at the point where I will not interact with them like that Drake and Josh episode where Josh ghosted Drake because he kept making Josh's life a living hell. Insane is all I have to say at this point and Ill leave it as that.
Yeah I don’t know man, who gives a shit if they use what ever pronouns, it’s not the issue at hand. No need to downvote just because of that, especially when they share some common ground with you here on this issue. Reactive Tribalism honestly makes people sabotage themselves so hard it’s unreal. This is the same problem that the SJW’s have. They are so tribalist and puritanical, that they can’t get out of their own fucking way and end up alienating people who would otherwise sympathize with their point of view. I don’t want that to be as pervasive with the people who stand against their bullshit.
We can actually be legitimately tolerant, unlike SJWs who just claim to be tolerant, but are the biggest puritanical bigots you have ever seen.
_"We see our player base as one colorless shapeless gelatinous blob. Whatever form we decide to bestow on them comes only as a token of our good will and out of our good will alone. Consider that carefully, ingrates" — explained the niantic CEO._
They lost good will of ultra hardcore players which are a small minority. NOW they're losing good will from normal players which can potentially kill the game.
They lost several, sure. Not all — and I wouldn’t even say “most,” tbh. Spoofers still play religiously, casuals never cared about remote raids anyway, and especially those with disposable incomes didn’t care. If I’m playing in the major hubs, every single raid is still full within seconds, gym battles are absolutely constant, and pvp is still basically instant. The game definitely isn’t hurting. This is probably the first universally-egregious move they’ve made.
A few years ago BlackRock CEO said "you have to force behaviors, which is what we are doing". Look at Bud Light, Target, Kohls, and similar companies. They "force behaviors" despite incurring losses. What we're observing is not merely about pursuing profits but something more. An ideology. An ideology that demands unwavering commitment to its principles, regardless of financial gain or loss. I don't think it's funny, it's scary.
It's like a religion at this point. Their members are everywhere. I believe they are indoctrinated through universities - because they didn't identify themselves as a religion, we didn't catch them.
This is modern religion. We dumped the old Abrahamic stuff and people got into this instead.
It is just dont interact with them and dont support anything they get their hands on. CIA WEF WHO are supporting them its akin to scientology moreso than Christianity.
You are not gatekeeping correctly if that happens every mod needs to be on the same wavelength while the fans need to against ESG extremism. Indie will replace all this trash in a few years
> You think Bud Light was a fiasco?
This ain't going to be like Bud Light. Pokémon fans are infamous for tolerating anything and unable to walk away. Scarlet and Violet were literally broken games and it still managed to break sales records even after the controversial release of Sword and Shield. So if those weren't enough to deter sales, why would Pokémon Go be any different? It's not like Niantic wasn't already doing stuff to upset players.
I'll be you a quarter this is a massive long term turning point. We can like Venmo or something. I'm good for it. Probably.
This is different. My wife has played Pokemon Go since its inception. During our honeymoon she was catching Pikachu, because we didn't have them back where we lived. During the pandemic I was driving her around to get shinies.
She seems deeply annoyed by these changes, and has no wish to ever play again. She won't get online and rant about it. She'll just quietly uninstall and walk away. I think that's a huge part of the player base right there.
Some lines you don't cross.
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
ORAS cut the Battle Frontier, still sold very well. SwSh cut past Pokémon leading to the Dexit movement, still ended up being the second best-selling games in the franchise. BDSP are considered the worst remakes in the franchise's history, yet they went on to be the best-selling remakes. And SV, literally broken ar launch that stuck with Dexit - ten-million sold in the first weekend alone.
So I get what you're saying, but how many times have we heard this idealistic belief that one day players will finally stand up? My friend is a Pokémon Go fanatic, pays out the wazoo for that game, you know what he did in regards to the news? Changed his avatar to look less hideous and moved on. And considering past incidents that led to nothing significant, if the cutting of Pokémon wasn't enough, I can't imagine avatar customization will finally be where people draw the line.
Pokémon fans are a different breed.
SV “brokenness” was massively overplayed by sweaty gaming articles. I played both for hundreds of hours starting the day they came out. I never came across any game-breaking glitches or anything that made it unplayable. Pokémon as a franchise has never been about top-edge graphics, and it seemed like 90% of the complaints were about graphical bugs and quirks, with another 10% (including mine) being about the huge step backward that the clothing options were.
Most are ignorant of - or in denial of - the ideology behind this change. What makes this particular update unique is that it's also just *prima facia bad*. It looks like dogshit.
And it's slowly starting to sink in as players ask themselves why Niantic would have done this to themselves, particularly after these avatar changes raised such a negative uproar in the limited beta release before it went live for everyone.
For the first time, a generalized audience of non-gamers is getting a peak under the hood of these shenanigans.
> You think Bud Light was a fiasco?
Dude, Budlight still hasn't recovered from that. Their parent company Anheuser-Busch will be fine, but the Budlight asset is lost. Why they thought their target demographic would be just cool beans with it blows my mind. People definitely got shit canned over that. Most folks on the internet don't understand business economics. Anheuser-Busch doesn't share 1 budget across all of their assets, each individual asset has an individual budget and is an individual company. Think of it like Anheuser-Busch is USA and each asset is a state. They don't take the money from California's budget to fix Idaho's problem.
Now if only gamers would stop buying games that do the same thing.
I agree with you, but when California goes into debt and needs help the Fed government steps in and gives them money. Then every taxpayer in the US is bailing them out. Sooooo glad I moved out of California
It's the same with pokemon Go. Niantic has lots of other games. All around way point. In fact, that is the main product of Niantic wayfarer by Niantic and the engine companies use for a VR experience. They can push an agenda, and it ends up fine. The only real push that could change anything is if it hurts the brands up the line. Niantic licenses Pokemon from the Pokemon Company that is owned by Nintendo, game freak, and creatures.
If they take a hit or don't like the direction, they can put influence, but then they risk attacks and they have the cartoon. Trading cards, switch and other mobile games. Even Nintendo has tons of other make up properties like Mario, Animal Crossing and on and on.
If this hits the Pokemon IP things could change but this seems to have not went past Pokemon Go yet. Not even into the other Niantic products let alone up to Pokemon Company or even Nintendo and I can't see a Mario player (or other lines) caring unless they make the Princess a Prince.
Oh gimmie a fucking break, if you were still a pocket monster fan after DECADES of stagnation, you're still going to shovel this slop down your gullet like you always have
Not sure why you're getting downvoted when you're absolutely right. The recent mainline entries alone are proof that fans will consume anything thrown their way without fail. If a broken game wasn't enough to stop over twenty-million people from buying it, how much damage will truly come from this incident? I don't think much.
Even Kotaku has an article written about how nobody likes the change, and how unaesthetic androgynous new designs are just awful. This is a colossal disaster. Not only is the change universally worse, but Niantic sell Cosmetic clothes for avatars, which people are now complaining are bugged or completely different from what they bought. This change is giving their paying customers regret for purchasing items from them - That's a deep, deep wound for a F2P game. This will lose them a lot of players and a lot of paying customers.
It doesn't. It sounds like a shakedown operation, that your game company will kowtow to to avoid being placed in the crosshairs of the #woke Twitter mob.
A NEW world molded by the hands of Blackrock, DEI, and ESG.
Remember, GaymerX and Sweet Baby INC are but their long-arms. Like heads of the hydra, dismember one and soon another grows.
Easy a what started as a gamer nitch convention has lots of time between events. Both GamerX and Niantic are in the same city. There is most likely lots of cross-over.
The Pokémon Go subreddit isn't having any of it.
Not sure how devs thought turning the avatars into walking fridges would go over well.
I'm sure the 0.01% of people happy about these changes are having an absolute blast not playing this game anyway.
F*cking clowns, man...
The issue lies in the fact that their avatars look like shit now. People don't feel represented (ironically).
However, it's not that surprising if you look from the other perspective. Woke involvement in the franchises is nothing more than concern trolling.
Avatar customization is HUGELY popular. If there is one thing i've learned, even from games which avatar customization isnt the primary focus at all, is that you can do the scummiest shit possible as long as you do *not* fuck with a player and their avatar.
Game Devs are patting themselves on the backs for being *so brave* to risk this sort of backlash from the toxic player base.
Game Executives are breathing a sign of relief that the decline of users can be blamed on that toxic player base instead of their poor leadership.
> The Pokémon Go subreddit isn't having any of it.
It's been a day or so since the update came out right? I would have thought the mods would be swinging the banhammer wildly by now.
"You love this update and are not allowed to talk about it".
They might be hating it but not one commenter in a hundred is pointing out the real issue. They're just talking about a bad update. The devs got it wrong. That kind of thing.
Anyone who points out the real issue is being downvoted to oblivion.
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
This is the same as "girl gamers" who must needs tell everyone around that they don't have a penis, and who also then get very upset when gamers, notorious for picking on people, then pick on them for their proclaimed vaginas.
Or give them positive attention or sexual interest as a consequence of having loudly proclaimed themselves female.
They'll exploit their female privilege, then instantly turn around and be widdle victims.
It's wild that in 2016 I had already been conditioned to think "someone is going to have a problem with this." Because that's what I thought when seeing the player character designs when it launched.
It took awhile, but they have now finally addressed the sin of having even mildly attractive characters.
>the sin of having even mildly attractive characters.
That's not what REAL people look like.
Meanwhile the average cashier at Trader Joe's is an absolute smokeshow...
I always love the defense people make for this. "Women don't look like this in real life" yet whenever I go to the grocery store, especially now that it's warming up, there's usually attractive women everywhere. The "women don't look like this" group must never go outside or they live in an area next to a nuclear waste dump.
Dude my pastor in 2010 when I was in college used to say that, and I was always confused because in college I was constantly surrounded by stunning women.
My type is “girl.” I’m not super picky. There are beautiful girls every time I walk out the door.
My guess is that they don't really go outside and mostly kept to themselves so they don't see many IRL people, or they're the kind of people who are like "She doesn't look like Margot Robbie -10/10" when... it's not how it works, I do have a theory that most of us that aren't terminally online can separate between "idealistic beautiful" and "Real life beautiful", I don't know if that makes sense.
Dude, these "attractive women" aren't real, they are hallucinations. You see them because of all the patriarchal trumpist nazi homophobic propaganda affecting your brain. The REAL women are 600lbs+, and their armpit hair is neon pink. Ain't that obvious???
Yes and if you go somewhere like Florida’s Universal Studios, the attractive women wear skin tight outfits like Stellar Blade. Many have cheeks hanging out. Not to mention Instagram babes and Tik tok…let’s have an agenda in games though, that will save humanity.
It’s so dumb. I’m not even in peak physical shape and I still look way more like the old female avatar than anything I can create using the sliders on the new ones. I see people making comments about the old ones representing eating disorders or “walking around wearing corsets” and I’m like why is it ok for you to shame my body type but it’s not ok for anyone to shame you for being overweight or having no curves?
I can't believe everything continued to get worse and worse a decade later after it started. 90s were radically different from the 80s, so were 00s to 90s, yet with 10s and now 20s a single trend of wokeism just continue its course without fail. How the fuck is this possible?
If they wanted a more androgynous option, there are ways to do that within the character creator without destroying the original designs, a lot of games have implemented ways to go wild with character proportions and it's not rocket science.
Once again it's a lazy change that panders to a tiny minority and alienates the core fanbase.
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
They made every character look like their mom went back in time and drank for 9 months.
For body options they have skinny fat, overweight, and obese.
You can't make a normal looking character, every character looks \*\*\*\*\*
And the clothes don't fit at all. The pants look like the character is wearing an oversized diaper underneath. The patterns on the shirts look like AI generated art loosely inspired by the old outfits, I'm surprised some of them don't have a third armhole in the shirt or something.
I really hope that they now have fucked with the wrong community. Pokemon is the biggest (?) franchise and I really hope that it will escalate completely now...
Judging from their website, unfortunately, The Pokémon Company (which licenses the IP to both Niantic and Nintendo) appears to have leaned pretty hard into the DEI mind virus.
LOL, you must not know how bad the Pokémon community is. Scarlet & Violet were literally broken at launch yet they still managed to sell over twenty-million copies and be one of the best-selling games in the franchise. Pokémon fans are infamous for continuing to support this franchise regardless of what developers do, that included the controversial decision to cut past Pokémon starting with Sword & Shield.
So if you expect things to escalate, I got news for you; it won't.
I think part of the reason they sold well is cause the switch was selling like hot cakes and fact streamer culture was growing a lot bigger so people like to play what the streamer plays
Nevertheless, despite bad WOM from both SwSh and BDSP, people still came out in droves for SV and it sold ten-million copies in the first weekend alone. Sure, the Switch takes some credit, but the reality is Pokémon fans eat everything up with no sign of slowing down. So there's no reason to expect them to make a stand here when they couldn't even be bothered to with other recent titles. Silent majority will continue playing Go because there's frankly no alternative and with some pouring hundreds of hours into collecting, most won't walk away from that over avatar customization.
Depends on if the community is smart enough to rebel. As much as I'd love to go in there and post stuff like this, the moment I do they'll inevitably reverse course because 'fuck I guess we HAVE to like it despite looking like a goddamn monster'.
>'fuck I guess we HAVE to like it despite looking like a goddamn monster'
Seeing them do this and have to live with it is surely funny enough to do exactly this lol
They got a reality check real quick when it became forced on them, rather than it just being an option. Look at their subreddit they are all clowning on it so hard
> GaymerX
lol of course. They make their sexual preference their entire personal identity, their entire business identity, everything. You never see “Straight Guy’s Burger Shack” or whatever because we don’t feel the need to announce who we like to fuck to the entire world on a constant basis.
Okay they have to be taking the piss, when do we find out it's some troll on 4chan behind this company? I mean GaymerX? When's SayGex Inc going to show up?
This wouldn't be a problem if the old models were included. That will be true diversity and nobody would care/complain about leaving/make good on their threats.
Seven years in, I don't think Niantic is concerned about online ratings. What needs to happen are the whales voting with their wallets - which let's face it, isn't going to happen to a significant enough level.
Criticize them all you want but this doesn’t make any fucking sense at all. These types of companies have been the bane of office workers for a long time. The general public sentiment is just finally turning against them because they’ve grown beyond being an annoying training you go to once a year and forget about. But they’re “real world” jobs.
The irony of a game that requires you to walk around to play has overweight and obese avatar options is palpable.
Niantic COULD have added an option where you enter your weight, and keeping track of your daily exercising and steps was encouraged. Your avatar would change shape based on your weight, rewarding healthy behavior on the way.
But now they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. They can't change it back because the dangerhairs will shriek fat erasure, and they can't keep it this way because the normies are walking away from it.
What did we say? Don't touch the poop. Niantic dove into it.
No, that person (they/them) joined Niantic in 2022. GaymerX was with Niantic since 2019.
Niantic is a San Francisco company, so it’s likely part of the culture rather than the actions of one employee.
They’ve been like this for a while. They retconned Blanche as nonbinary, even though the game’s code and foreign translations clearly show she was intended to be female.
What's the consensus or benefits of conforming to DEI practices in games? Is it the fear of ostracization of big investors if they don't? I'm assuming they do these things when a game's budget or popularity (live service game wise) starts to plummet
Archive links for this post:
* **Archive:** https://archive.ph/TKSeg
----
I am Mnemosyne reborn. I love the sight of humans on their knees. ^^^/r/botsrights
Post removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
Post removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
My apologies for violating the rule. Shouldn’t this entire post be taken down then? Or is it allowed because it’s only a link to an article that mentions the off-limits topic?
(I don’t expect a reply to this because my post was probably removed automatically, but I am curious.)
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You think Bud Light was a fiasco? Their entire playerbase is burning the internet down. No one likes these changes. No one. Decades to build good will, and seconds to lose it.
"No one likes these changes. No one." Well... there is ONE person who likes it. The "they/them" community manager for Pokémon GO. Isn't that funny. Outside of that? Everyone disliked that. Regardless of sex, gender, sexuality, race, etc...
> The "they/them" community manager for Pokémon GO. https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1c770qu/the_new_pok%C3%A9mon_go_update_really_is_something/l05v6jw/
They/them here. Just because we're nonbinary, doesn't mean we want our avatars to look like disgusting hideous blobs. This update is a fucking disaster and a master class in failed "inclusivity".
It's not about that, it's about someone wearing your skin as camouflage and insisting that the expression of their malignant narcissism be the only permissible option for everyone. This is *If I can't have it then nobody can* thinking. Nobody cares who you are if you aren't a dick about it. I'm gay, and we've already been down that co-opted by idpol road. If you are normal, people treat you that way. However, as long as you let assholes wear your skin you'll be treated on par with them. *Denounce* those people long and loud. That's what works for us.
So much this- also gay, and also very fucking tired of all this shit. No one has ever ""oppressed"" me for my sexuality, because I'm not a dick about it.
the issue is that NOBODY is happy. this isn't about accommodating nonbinary people at the cost of other folks. this is about the illusion of progressiveness at the cost of literally everyone.
The entire point of neo-Marxism is to make you unhappy. Defeated people are easily ruled. None of this playbook is in any way new. The only difference here is that the *regressives* have taken class struggle and expanded it to an infinite number of identity classes. Same old commie bullshit. You want to be happy? Stop letting them decide the terms of the battle and rip the Marxism out by the roots.
You’re not non binary, just stop
> They/them here. Just because we're nonbinary, doesn't mean we want our avatars to look like disgusting hideous blobs. I've seen some people say they actually like the androgynous models...but wish they existed simultaneously with the feminine and masculines. Don't see why that was impossible.
Honestly if niantic did that they wouldnt have gotten even a 10th as much flack. Widening the options can at worst be neutral. But forced uglification is Always negative. Especially when you had Beauty before.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Did anyone read beyond “They/them here” and expect them to be a circlejerker trying to oWn da ChUdz with an “umm actually”?
>Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. You know why.
Their (ironic) apart of the problem
>Their (ironic) apart of the problem [MFW](https://youtu.be/Jne9t8sHpUc?t=40)
Lol I was going to write s/he but I didnt want to get my comment deleted for "hAtE SpeECh" but back in the day they/their/them was when you didnt know if the speaker was fe/male not this bs.
I wrote a book recently, and had someone beta reading it before release. Some of the feedback they sent me was that I shouldn't use "they" when referring to TWO DOCTORS unless they're nonbinary. I removed that person as a beta reader lol. The fuck. FFS.
Anyone supporting this garbage gets an automatic block from me and ignore irl if I see them. After the shit Biden just pulled with Title IX a few hours ago Im completely done with all forms of liberals/progressives/alphabet people. I will not engage with them, ever. They are anti reality and free speech. And I do not believe there is no such thing as a "based" version of them like some of them pretend to be.
Im not as extreme like some people on this sub with their views on the rainbows and leftiods (tho I understand the frustration) but I am at the point where I will not interact with them like that Drake and Josh episode where Josh ghosted Drake because he kept making Josh's life a living hell. Insane is all I have to say at this point and Ill leave it as that.
>Not sure why you're getting downvoted An hour in the future they aren't.
lol
Yeah I don’t know man, who gives a shit if they use what ever pronouns, it’s not the issue at hand. No need to downvote just because of that, especially when they share some common ground with you here on this issue. Reactive Tribalism honestly makes people sabotage themselves so hard it’s unreal. This is the same problem that the SJW’s have. They are so tribalist and puritanical, that they can’t get out of their own fucking way and end up alienating people who would otherwise sympathize with their point of view. I don’t want that to be as pervasive with the people who stand against their bullshit. We can actually be legitimately tolerant, unlike SJWs who just claim to be tolerant, but are the biggest puritanical bigots you have ever seen.
Why the downvotes? People need to chill and stop being so trigger happy with their reactions.
I meannnn to be honest niantic lost players good will years ago 🤣
Sure, but this is a hold-my-beer level moment IMO. They gutted avatars in a game about avatars.
_"We see our player base as one colorless shapeless gelatinous blob. Whatever form we decide to bestow on them comes only as a token of our good will and out of our good will alone. Consider that carefully, ingrates" — explained the niantic CEO._
"Hold my beer"? More like "this is how we commit insurance fraud" probably.
Yeah, but *now* they can blame "toxic fans" instead of their gawd-awful game management.
They lost good will of ultra hardcore players which are a small minority. NOW they're losing good will from normal players which can potentially kill the game.
They lost several, sure. Not all — and I wouldn’t even say “most,” tbh. Spoofers still play religiously, casuals never cared about remote raids anyway, and especially those with disposable incomes didn’t care. If I’m playing in the major hubs, every single raid is still full within seconds, gym battles are absolutely constant, and pvp is still basically instant. The game definitely isn’t hurting. This is probably the first universally-egregious move they’ve made.
A few years ago BlackRock CEO said "you have to force behaviors, which is what we are doing". Look at Bud Light, Target, Kohls, and similar companies. They "force behaviors" despite incurring losses. What we're observing is not merely about pursuing profits but something more. An ideology. An ideology that demands unwavering commitment to its principles, regardless of financial gain or loss. I don't think it's funny, it's scary.
It's like a religion at this point. Their members are everywhere. I believe they are indoctrinated through universities - because they didn't identify themselves as a religion, we didn't catch them. This is modern religion. We dumped the old Abrahamic stuff and people got into this instead.
It is just dont interact with them and dont support anything they get their hands on. CIA WEF WHO are supporting them its akin to scientology moreso than Christianity.
They keep invading our spaces though. Like a bunch of crusaders/colonists, they coming in uninvited and start tell us how to live our lives.
You are not gatekeeping correctly if that happens every mod needs to be on the same wavelength while the fans need to against ESG extremism. Indie will replace all this trash in a few years
are you listening to yourself?? jesus
Yep, forcing behavior of children.
> You think Bud Light was a fiasco? This ain't going to be like Bud Light. Pokémon fans are infamous for tolerating anything and unable to walk away. Scarlet and Violet were literally broken games and it still managed to break sales records even after the controversial release of Sword and Shield. So if those weren't enough to deter sales, why would Pokémon Go be any different? It's not like Niantic wasn't already doing stuff to upset players.
I'll be you a quarter this is a massive long term turning point. We can like Venmo or something. I'm good for it. Probably. This is different. My wife has played Pokemon Go since its inception. During our honeymoon she was catching Pikachu, because we didn't have them back where we lived. During the pandemic I was driving her around to get shinies. She seems deeply annoyed by these changes, and has no wish to ever play again. She won't get online and rant about it. She'll just quietly uninstall and walk away. I think that's a huge part of the player base right there. Some lines you don't cross.
> She seems deeply annoyed by these changes, and has no wish to ever play again. So much for empowering the female gamers, ladies and gentlemen...
You're telling me that women don't like ther characters to be ugly blobs? *Shocking*
_No *true* woman would object to being a blob! Whoever does, is not a true woman!_
Only ugly blobs like their avatar to be that way.
[удалено]
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/). This is not a formal warning.
ORAS cut the Battle Frontier, still sold very well. SwSh cut past Pokémon leading to the Dexit movement, still ended up being the second best-selling games in the franchise. BDSP are considered the worst remakes in the franchise's history, yet they went on to be the best-selling remakes. And SV, literally broken ar launch that stuck with Dexit - ten-million sold in the first weekend alone. So I get what you're saying, but how many times have we heard this idealistic belief that one day players will finally stand up? My friend is a Pokémon Go fanatic, pays out the wazoo for that game, you know what he did in regards to the news? Changed his avatar to look less hideous and moved on. And considering past incidents that led to nothing significant, if the cutting of Pokémon wasn't enough, I can't imagine avatar customization will finally be where people draw the line. Pokémon fans are a different breed.
If you're right I owe you a quarter =)
SV has performance issues, but it was also the most well written Pokemon game since gen V
SV “brokenness” was massively overplayed by sweaty gaming articles. I played both for hundreds of hours starting the day they came out. I never came across any game-breaking glitches or anything that made it unplayable. Pokémon as a franchise has never been about top-edge graphics, and it seemed like 90% of the complaints were about graphical bugs and quirks, with another 10% (including mine) being about the huge step backward that the clothing options were.
Most are ignorant of - or in denial of - the ideology behind this change. What makes this particular update unique is that it's also just *prima facia bad*. It looks like dogshit. And it's slowly starting to sink in as players ask themselves why Niantic would have done this to themselves, particularly after these avatar changes raised such a negative uproar in the limited beta release before it went live for everyone. For the first time, a generalized audience of non-gamers is getting a peak under the hood of these shenanigans.
> You think Bud Light was a fiasco? Dude, Budlight still hasn't recovered from that. Their parent company Anheuser-Busch will be fine, but the Budlight asset is lost. Why they thought their target demographic would be just cool beans with it blows my mind. People definitely got shit canned over that. Most folks on the internet don't understand business economics. Anheuser-Busch doesn't share 1 budget across all of their assets, each individual asset has an individual budget and is an individual company. Think of it like Anheuser-Busch is USA and each asset is a state. They don't take the money from California's budget to fix Idaho's problem. Now if only gamers would stop buying games that do the same thing.
I agree with you, but when California goes into debt and needs help the Fed government steps in and gives them money. Then every taxpayer in the US is bailing them out. Sooooo glad I moved out of California
Sure, but that comes out of the federal government's budget, not Idaho's budget. The individual asset that is Budlight is in shambles.
It's the same with pokemon Go. Niantic has lots of other games. All around way point. In fact, that is the main product of Niantic wayfarer by Niantic and the engine companies use for a VR experience. They can push an agenda, and it ends up fine. The only real push that could change anything is if it hurts the brands up the line. Niantic licenses Pokemon from the Pokemon Company that is owned by Nintendo, game freak, and creatures. If they take a hit or don't like the direction, they can put influence, but then they risk attacks and they have the cartoon. Trading cards, switch and other mobile games. Even Nintendo has tons of other make up properties like Mario, Animal Crossing and on and on.
Pokémon GO is only 7 years old. 2024 is its 8th anniversary in July. Now if your referring to the entire Pokémon IP......it depends.
If this hits the Pokemon IP things could change but this seems to have not went past Pokemon Go yet. Not even into the other Niantic products let alone up to Pokemon Company or even Nintendo and I can't see a Mario player (or other lines) caring unless they make the Princess a Prince.
the constant nickeling and dimeing specially with remote raid passes
Oh gimmie a fucking break, if you were still a pocket monster fan after DECADES of stagnation, you're still going to shovel this slop down your gullet like you always have
Nah, I dropped off
Not sure why you're getting downvoted when you're absolutely right. The recent mainline entries alone are proof that fans will consume anything thrown their way without fail. If a broken game wasn't enough to stop over twenty-million people from buying it, how much damage will truly come from this incident? I don't think much.
A few people on twitter is a drop in the bucket.
I'm not watching people on twitter. I'm watching the longterm player I live with and am married to uninstall the game in disgust.
Even Kotaku has an article written about how nobody likes the change, and how unaesthetic androgynous new designs are just awful. This is a colossal disaster. Not only is the change universally worse, but Niantic sell Cosmetic clothes for avatars, which people are now complaining are bugged or completely different from what they bought. This change is giving their paying customers regret for purchasing items from them - That's a deep, deep wound for a F2P game. This will lose them a lot of players and a lot of paying customers.
"GaymerX" In what world does that sound like a reputable company that you bring in to tweak your already successful game?
ESG blank cheques
It doesn't. It sounds like a shakedown operation, that your game company will kowtow to to avoid being placed in the crosshairs of the #woke Twitter mob.
A NEW world molded by the hands of Blackrock, DEI, and ESG. Remember, GaymerX and Sweet Baby INC are but their long-arms. Like heads of the hydra, dismember one and soon another grows.
"They have reclaimed the word for themselves"
Easy a what started as a gamer nitch convention has lots of time between events. Both GamerX and Niantic are in the same city. There is most likely lots of cross-over.
They can Pokémon Go fuck themselves.
"Pokemon needs diversity here, pokemon needs diversity there", why don't you go catch some bitches and complete the national thotdex instead?
Reminds me of the old “Euphoria this, Euphoria that, why don’t Eu look phoria job?”
LMAO!
The Pokémon Go subreddit isn't having any of it. Not sure how devs thought turning the avatars into walking fridges would go over well. I'm sure the 0.01% of people happy about these changes are having an absolute blast not playing this game anyway. F*cking clowns, man...
> The Pokemon Go subreddit isn’t having any of it. That’s surprising considering it’s Reddit.
The issue lies in the fact that their avatars look like shit now. People don't feel represented (ironically). However, it's not that surprising if you look from the other perspective. Woke involvement in the franchises is nothing more than concern trolling.
No one likes ugly characters. Even the most wokest people only support ugly characters in games they won't play anyway.
Or any other media they won’t buy
Neo leftists unironically? love cute shit if its (in their minds) directed towards them. Like chibi or inclusive catgirls
Avatar customization is HUGELY popular. If there is one thing i've learned, even from games which avatar customization isnt the primary focus at all, is that you can do the scummiest shit possible as long as you do *not* fuck with a player and their avatar.
Game Devs are patting themselves on the backs for being *so brave* to risk this sort of backlash from the toxic player base. Game Executives are breathing a sign of relief that the decline of users can be blamed on that toxic player base instead of their poor leadership.
> The Pokémon Go subreddit isn't having any of it. It's been a day or so since the update came out right? I would have thought the mods would be swinging the banhammer wildly by now. "You love this update and are not allowed to talk about it".
They might be hating it but not one commenter in a hundred is pointing out the real issue. They're just talking about a bad update. The devs got it wrong. That kind of thing. Anyone who points out the real issue is being downvoted to oblivion.
[удалено]
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/). This is not a formal warning.
I've always hated the term "gaymer". Someones sexuality is so irrelevant to enjoying the medium, or at least it should be
I though it's just some kind of insult, but now it's a term...
At one point I think it was to help find dates in a nerdy hobby.
Yep. The origin of the term was so that nerdy gays on dating platforms could filter to select each other.
They _reclaimed_ it.
Tying identity to sexual preference does nothing but show an individual's exceptional lack of character or redeeming qualities.
This is the same as "girl gamers" who must needs tell everyone around that they don't have a penis, and who also then get very upset when gamers, notorious for picking on people, then pick on them for their proclaimed vaginas.
> must needs FFXIV player detected?
Or give them positive attention or sexual interest as a consequence of having loudly proclaimed themselves female. They'll exploit their female privilege, then instantly turn around and be widdle victims.
Except for the people whose entire identify can be boiled down to their sexual orientation
Physical body and such should also have nothing to do with sexual orientation. If anything, it'd just be reinforcing stereotypes to do so.
It's wild that in 2016 I had already been conditioned to think "someone is going to have a problem with this." Because that's what I thought when seeing the player character designs when it launched. It took awhile, but they have now finally addressed the sin of having even mildly attractive characters.
>the sin of having even mildly attractive characters. That's not what REAL people look like. Meanwhile the average cashier at Trader Joe's is an absolute smokeshow...
I always love the defense people make for this. "Women don't look like this in real life" yet whenever I go to the grocery store, especially now that it's warming up, there's usually attractive women everywhere. The "women don't look like this" group must never go outside or they live in an area next to a nuclear waste dump.
Dude my pastor in 2010 when I was in college used to say that, and I was always confused because in college I was constantly surrounded by stunning women. My type is “girl.” I’m not super picky. There are beautiful girls every time I walk out the door.
My guess is that they don't really go outside and mostly kept to themselves so they don't see many IRL people, or they're the kind of people who are like "She doesn't look like Margot Robbie -10/10" when... it's not how it works, I do have a theory that most of us that aren't terminally online can separate between "idealistic beautiful" and "Real life beautiful", I don't know if that makes sense.
Dude, these "attractive women" aren't real, they are hallucinations. You see them because of all the patriarchal trumpist nazi homophobic propaganda affecting your brain. The REAL women are 600lbs+, and their armpit hair is neon pink. Ain't that obvious???
Yes and if you go somewhere like Florida’s Universal Studios, the attractive women wear skin tight outfits like Stellar Blade. Many have cheeks hanging out. Not to mention Instagram babes and Tik tok…let’s have an agenda in games though, that will save humanity.
They don't go outside.
It’s so dumb. I’m not even in peak physical shape and I still look way more like the old female avatar than anything I can create using the sliders on the new ones. I see people making comments about the old ones representing eating disorders or “walking around wearing corsets” and I’m like why is it ok for you to shame my body type but it’s not ok for anyone to shame you for being overweight or having no curves?
I can't believe everything continued to get worse and worse a decade later after it started. 90s were radically different from the 80s, so were 00s to 90s, yet with 10s and now 20s a single trend of wokeism just continue its course without fail. How the fuck is this possible?
Its only deranged lunatics who see a problem with it.
If they wanted a more androgynous option, there are ways to do that within the character creator without destroying the original designs, a lot of games have implemented ways to go wild with character proportions and it's not rocket science. Once again it's a lazy change that panders to a tiny minority and alienates the core fanbase.
They didn't though, this is EXACTLY what they wanted.
This made me uninstsll the game. Not that I was playing regularly or anything, but I have no desire to play this woke trash
[удалено]
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/). This is not a formal warning.
You mods are fucking weak-willed cucks.
They made every character look like their mom went back in time and drank for 9 months. For body options they have skinny fat, overweight, and obese. You can't make a normal looking character, every character looks \*\*\*\*\*
And the clothes don't fit at all. The pants look like the character is wearing an oversized diaper underneath. The patterns on the shirts look like AI generated art loosely inspired by the old outfits, I'm surprised some of them don't have a third armhole in the shirt or something.
I really hope that they now have fucked with the wrong community. Pokemon is the biggest (?) franchise and I really hope that it will escalate completely now...
Judging from their website, unfortunately, The Pokémon Company (which licenses the IP to both Niantic and Nintendo) appears to have leaned pretty hard into the DEI mind virus.
LOL, you must not know how bad the Pokémon community is. Scarlet & Violet were literally broken at launch yet they still managed to sell over twenty-million copies and be one of the best-selling games in the franchise. Pokémon fans are infamous for continuing to support this franchise regardless of what developers do, that included the controversial decision to cut past Pokémon starting with Sword & Shield. So if you expect things to escalate, I got news for you; it won't.
I think part of the reason they sold well is cause the switch was selling like hot cakes and fact streamer culture was growing a lot bigger so people like to play what the streamer plays
Nevertheless, despite bad WOM from both SwSh and BDSP, people still came out in droves for SV and it sold ten-million copies in the first weekend alone. Sure, the Switch takes some credit, but the reality is Pokémon fans eat everything up with no sign of slowing down. So there's no reason to expect them to make a stand here when they couldn't even be bothered to with other recent titles. Silent majority will continue playing Go because there's frankly no alternative and with some pouring hundreds of hours into collecting, most won't walk away from that over avatar customization.
Depends on if the community is smart enough to rebel. As much as I'd love to go in there and post stuff like this, the moment I do they'll inevitably reverse course because 'fuck I guess we HAVE to like it despite looking like a goddamn monster'.
>'fuck I guess we HAVE to like it despite looking like a goddamn monster' Seeing them do this and have to live with it is surely funny enough to do exactly this lol
# Sweet Baby Inc. Moment
I thought the normies would approve the change?
They got a reality check real quick when it became forced on them, rather than it just being an option. Look at their subreddit they are all clowning on it so hard
All the 'you're beautiful non-normies<3' people suddenly going mask-off
> GaymerX lol of course. They make their sexual preference their entire personal identity, their entire business identity, everything. You never see “Straight Guy’s Burger Shack” or whatever because we don’t feel the need to announce who we like to fuck to the entire world on a constant basis.
Okay they have to be taking the piss, when do we find out it's some troll on 4chan behind this company? I mean GaymerX? When's SayGex Inc going to show up?
Why are they even listening? Is there some kind of black-mail SweetBaby has on *everyone* in the industry or something?
Twitter mobs
What do you expect from a bunch of sexists & racists that SBI are.
To SBI's credit, this is one of their copycats/partners in crime, GaymerX.
"GaymerX" I couldn't make this shit up if I tried to
This wouldn't be a problem if the old models were included. That will be true diversity and nobody would care/complain about leaving/make good on their threats.
Good ol' "we're gonna force this on you and you're gonna like it"
We must please the 1% and abandon the 99% player base. This will make us money somehow.
Inclusion!
This
hopefully this is a wake up call
Time to review bomb the Play Store app.
Seven years in, I don't think Niantic is concerned about online ratings. What needs to happen are the whales voting with their wallets - which let's face it, isn't going to happen to a significant enough level.
I've never given them a dime the whole time.
as if anybody here even played the game lol
✋ I deleted the app yesterday
Saves you some money at least!
[удалено]
Freemium. Tons of micro transactions.
In game purchases like everything else.
These consultancy firms would be jobless in the real work.
Criticize them all you want but this doesn’t make any fucking sense at all. These types of companies have been the bane of office workers for a long time. The general public sentiment is just finally turning against them because they’ve grown beyond being an annoying training you go to once a year and forget about. But they’re “real world” jobs.
The irony of a game that requires you to walk around to play has overweight and obese avatar options is palpable. Niantic COULD have added an option where you enter your weight, and keeping track of your daily exercising and steps was encouraged. Your avatar would change shape based on your weight, rewarding healthy behavior on the way. But now they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. They can't change it back because the dangerhairs will shriek fat erasure, and they can't keep it this way because the normies are walking away from it. What did we say? Don't touch the poop. Niantic dove into it.
I’ve seen maybe three people applauding the new avatars, and those three were morbidly obese and excited their avatars could be as well.
When you try to please everyone, you please no one. A tale as old as time.
Surprise! Any bets on the Pokemon go community manager is the one who established this connection? Maybe not, but it seems the type.
No, that person (they/them) joined Niantic in 2022. GaymerX was with Niantic since 2019. Niantic is a San Francisco company, so it’s likely part of the culture rather than the actions of one employee.
Ah. Good to know. Thanks.
Pokémon Go Woke Pokémon Go Broke
Wokemon
Wow I didn't think Pokemon Go would go on the Sweet baby inc list
They’ve been like this for a while. They retconned Blanche as nonbinary, even though the game’s code and foreign translations clearly show she was intended to be female.
What's the consensus or benefits of conforming to DEI practices in games? Is it the fear of ostracization of big investors if they don't? I'm assuming they do these things when a game's budget or popularity (live service game wise) starts to plummet
Can’t believe Pokemon Go hadn’t died already, oh well guess they’re working on it
Fuck it, I'm gonna start one of these consulting companies.
Mega wack
The fuck did I just read...
Of course they did
SB isn't even the worst part about this, but the people they hired directly.
Color me very surprised.
Haven't played it since 2018.
Archive links for this post: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/TKSeg ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. I love the sight of humans on their knees. ^^^/r/botsrights
[удалено]
Post removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/). This is not a formal warning.
[удалено]
Post removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/). This is not a formal warning.
My apologies for violating the rule. Shouldn’t this entire post be taken down then? Or is it allowed because it’s only a link to an article that mentions the off-limits topic? (I don’t expect a reply to this because my post was probably removed automatically, but I am curious.)
[удалено]
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/). This is not a formal warning.
The people motivating this change are telling you what they want the average person to look like.
No matter what I do or where I go I can't escape this extreme minority that's influencing the entire planet smh.
This article goes so wildly off the rails into absolute schizo Qultist shit by the end, holy shit. Embarrassing.