…Niantic’s chief officers failing to understand their entire playerbase over the years is what caused things to spiral downward.
Hello, Niantic!
If you actually want people who can play in-person to explore, please update the overall outdoor play experience without discouraging playing indoors*. Like you, I would love for the game to look like it did years ago, but times have changed.
The landscape of the game is a lot different now and as a company you have to recognize that the old ways aren’t going to work anymore and that forcing people to play the way you want them to will never be received well. However, I believe that we all can still have our cake and it too, if done right. The game would flourish once again with both IRL & indoor playstyles.
Ideas below!
Campfire or Today View - Implement a feature that alerts you of something really cool at this particular gathering area during peak hours when people are playing. It could be anything. Not just a wild, rare spawn.
Global Trading - Convert a certain gym at a gathering area into a global meet-up point for global trades.They could be invite only & you could invite a friend!
Spawns - Add a filter to the nearby that removes things that the user doesn’t want to see & create a notification system that pings everyone to the closest designated gathering area of something interesting at this POI. No more Pikipek, event Pokémon, & weather boosted nonsense clogging your nearby!
Nests - Every season brings about new species of Pokémon that can nest. So why not add nests in Campfire? It’s an incredible app, but it’s very underdeveloped at the moment.
Community Day - Not every Community Day is a total success. Especially the ones where the featured Pokémon is recycled, boring, or just not popular. To offset this, boost 5 star raids at gathering areas that grant you at least 1 Rare Candy XL as a reward once completed.
Pokéstop/Gym Submissions, Edits - Make this an in-game rewarding experience much like you have with AR Scanning tasks. If a new POI is created or if an edit is deemed a great addition, reward that player with something too good to pass up.
Conclusion
All of these suggestions don’t have to be considered at once, of course. But these are the areas I feel that need to be addressed for the longevity of the game. If you really want people outdoors, please look into these features. Thanks for checking this post out. GGs. #HearUsNiantic
