The whole world is suffering from a pandemic that is causing thousands of infected and dead.
Raids encourage people to go outside against the laws of many countries right now.
Also gyms.
Why doesn’t Niantic give away a daily box to choose which Pokemon we want in exchange for the daily pass?
Why doesn’t Niantic give away the 50 coins a day?
We are all making sacrifices, Niantic continues to make money.
Your opening point is good. You were even ok until your last line. But there is nothing wrong with making a profit from the discretionary spending of others.
That said, Niantic could continue to make money without enticing players to violate pandemic restrictions.
I’d rather they didn’t. I can get a church from my house now and it’s ace.
Reasons to not do this:
Anyways, remote raiding is coming soon™ and then you can raid from home anyways.
Very good point (starting one):
They could have easily give away 50 coins a day for everyone - or an extra pokemon - like suggested in opening post.
One silly pay-cash-to-get-pass event would cover all their potential loses (with 1b extra profit I suppose).
Nothing is wrong with making profit during pandemic, but there is a difference between making profit and being blinded by $…
Niantic has already done quite a lot of things to make the game more playable from home. The spawns have increased a bit and the 1 Coin Boxes give everything you need.
There’s no need to stop the Raids. There are still people who can do them, and if you can’t do them there’s no problem as well. Landorus is in GO Battle League as well and there’s no need to raid the other Raid Bosses.
And as @Robdebobrob said, Remote Raiding is coming.
1: This is always true, pandemic or not.
2: Not even gonna adress that… Thats just ridiculous.
3: No its not. Its a game based on IRL location and surroundings. A city is gonna have more stuff than a village. An ocean is gonna have less spawns than a park (thankfully).
The world isnt the same in every place, so you shouldnt expect a game based and played in that world to be.
It is kind of similar story with my company: there was a big bosses meeting few weeks back ended up with the message to all “let’s keep the work as usual, just be careful and wash your hands”… they realized their mistake just after 3 days - and since then offices are closed and we all working remotely.
Niantic started nice, change with inceses, 1coin boxes, no walking for League.
But instead of closing raids completely, turning off incubator feature - what they did? pay-cash event and, currently, “walk as much as you can” event for special eggs!
Result - they recorded the most profitable month ever…Come on!
They gave up free 15km walking for everyone already (free league) - why not let people convert this 15km into eggs - so you can open eggs worth 15km for free every day.
I know that walking is a signature for this game - but it is the time to say “stop, do not walk, stay home!”.
Full offense; this reeks of entitlement. Most places are on “soft lockdown” and relatively few places are on extreme lockdown.
A game company isn’t entitled to make a game equal for all locations. They do the best to balance locations they can with what they have–and they know they miss a lot which is why they created the Wayfarer Program–and they’re trying to make remote Raids possible for people, but they are a business, not a charity. They know they will be financially impacted by normal gameplay, so they’re making it possible for players to still play at home, but still in a way where purchases can still be made, which is why we haven’t received more incubators. It makes no sense to ask a BUSINESS to be charitable for players. They’ve gone above and beyond to help players impacted, so stop begging and being mad when you receive something you didn’t want.
People who know me know that I’m a heavy critic of Niantic–mainly due to their technical issues–but one thing I’ve given them credit for is attempting to make things more palatable for the average player. If you don’t like that, log off and stop complaining.
Yes it’s true, but it’s not their problem, and it neither is Niantic’s. If your country is in total lockdown, you should just be patient and wait until you can go outside again.
There is a difference between this argument and your first statement. It’s not Niantic’s fault that some areas are more rural than others, but this argument states something that is Niantic’s fault (again if they would do that, but they never will).
Edit: I get your frustration, but this is the way it is.
You are just full of bad examples and no responsibillity. You shift the blame to Niantic cause you dont want to take responsibillity yourself.
From one side you are right, business is not a charity.
But from another angle - just two examples from top of my head:
our local telecom provider: few weeks ago they announced that for all their customers they remove speed limit - and everyone get the max - free of charge - until the situation come back to normal; they also removed chargeable quote limit - so no charges for downloading more that you had in your plan
cisco webex - this is commercial video conference solution - like zoom or skype - but some time ago they change their service and you can use their solution for free until things will back to normal
Is this a charity?
No - it is recognizing critical needs for people and making a conscious decision to NOT benefit from that.
This is NOT the time to think about your profit margins. Especially if you are the leading company in the market - potentially setting example for others.
So what is this example in Niantic case?
Make paid-by-cash event, get your highest profit ever and organize the event for walk-as-much-as-you-can.
Yeah, well… true American Dream.
And about my ridiculous example (3) - I gave it as a counter for another ridiculous example: “ocean spam vs park”. Yes, they key word here is the “balance”. And to balance things fairly now all raids (not only ex) should be stopped as well as egg hatching. Some kids saying “this is a problem of the countries having a lock-down” is a typical childish, self-oriented approach. Hopefully NOT be seen as approach of multi-billion international company…
Well first off your telecom is an essential need and Cisco webex is an essential need for those who need to work at home, Pokémon Go is not an essential need. Niantic already recognized SOME of the needs of PoGo players by making it easier to get Pokeballs and doubling the amount of gifts you can hold. Players don’t need to do raids to play, it’s an optional part of the game.Like @Robdebobrob said it’s up to each person to use their best judgement and be responsible on deciding whether they should go outside and do raids/walk to hatch eggs.
Yes I think this is a valid point, but I also honestly think that saying that all raids should be shut down and egg hatching removed or a company should just completely bend over backwards for me because my country is in lockdown is also selfish and self oriented. Life isn’t fair, some people are currently able/are choosing to go out and do raids while others aren’t, is it 100% fair? No, but once again life isn’t fair and games like this won’t be fair and even across the board for everyone. Like my wife has been saying to me the last two weeks PoGo is just a game, and I don’t have to do every event or raid that happens.
Differences: telecom is a utility, as is classified. Cisco Webex is a video messaging system and has been deemed essential for work purposes to keep communications running. Zoom and Skype are still being used as alternates.
A video game is not essential. Niantic certainly didn’t HAVE to implement any changes, but they did, so stop being a choosy beggar.
You guys make me feel like I am the only adult here 
If pogo would advice ‘stay home’ - maybe 1% of the player base would change their mind and stayed home - which is still fine - 5mnl people less on the streets.
But if pogo would choose NOT to ignore the problem but TRY TO HELP by:
Then it would be not just 1% - but probably 70%, or more, which would be really beneficial to the preventing pandemic.
Again Remote Raiding is coming, so I don’t see the point in removing Raids.
Niantic has done some great stuff to help us during this.
This is all stuff they didn’t have to do, but did anyway.
Many other game developers don’t do sh!t for their gamers, Niantic tries
Maybe remote raiding is a cashgrab, but isn’t shiny legendary raiding that anyway as long as we can’t stack free raidpasses? Heck, even pvp is a cashgrab if you think about it with better rewards via paid passes.
Calling for a complete shutdown for raids is sellfish, more sellfish then others wanting to keep them going.
Tier 1-3 is soloable. Tier 4-5 is doable as long as you’re not in complete lockdown. If you are in complete lockdown, then PvP.
Remember that these are NOT shiny legendaries you are missing out on. So what is the big deal to begin with?
NOT everyone is in full lockdown. What is next after raids, stop all other events like the current easter event?
shut down the entire game while this is going on to prevent people from going out? Keeping raids up doesn’t hurt, barely any1 raids atm anyway and most do solo raids.
Find out where the first tease about remote raids was posted and the check the numbers
And once again consider 500mln player base who were doing raids and hatching eggs during that time because Niantic decided that covid is just another flu and their income is more important.
“With great power comes great responsibility” - and like young Spiderman Niantic is just failing this test.
HAHA, i think Niantic is acing this test!