Pokemon Go Explains PokeVision Shutdown

Earlier this week, Pokemon Go shut down Pokevision and other third party tracker apps that allowed players to see the exact location of where Pokemon were spawning in the game. Coupled with the removal of the game's admittedly broken tracking system, players revolted against developer Niantic Labs and flooded Pokemon Go with negative reviews.

In a lengthy blog posted earlier today, Niantic CEO John Hanke explained why they shut down Pokevision and other apps that scraped Pokemon Go's servers for data. Basically, these apps were putting a major strain on servers, forcing Niantic to delay their plans to release the game in South and Central America. By cutting off access, Pokemon Go's servers suddenly had a ton more capacity, which allowed Niantic to move forward with adding millions of new users to the game.

Blocking unauthorized access also helped curb some of the rampant cheating, although Niantic has yet to ban players that clearly used bot programs to get to Level 30 or higher. Although Hanke admitted that some developers and/or hackers will probably continue to look for ways to access Pokemon Go's servers, but that they were trying to minimize the impact of outside parties on the game's servers. In a follow up tweet, Hanke promised a solution was coming for accounts that cheated the system.

Hanke reiterated that Pokemon Go planned to bring back the nearby tracker once they had retooled the tool and promised other new features once the game was on "stable footing".

You can read Hanke's full post here.