Director Reassures Pokemon Go Players About Its Future Following Scopely Deal

Niantic sold Pokemon Go to fellow mobile gaming giants Scopely last week, and whether you’ve been playing since its launch in 2016 or have picked up Pokemon Go more recently, you’re probably a little worried, and rightly so. However, Pokemon Go’s senior product director, Michael Steranka, has attempted to reassure those worried, confirming that some of the signature Scopely features players are worried about will not be coming to Pokemon Go.

While Scopley and Niantic are both big players in the mobile gaming space, how they approach, and ultimately monetize, their respective games is very different. Scopley’s biggest hit is Monopoly Go, which features a lot of advertising and limits what players can do if they don’t want to pay.

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Pokemon Go players are worried their game will suffer the same fate with Scopely in charge. However, in an interview with Polygon covering Pokemon Go’s future and the acquisition, Steranka has tried to assuage those fears. When the director was asked if the Scopely takeover will change how ads are implemented in Pokemon Go, or if players who don’t want to pay will have restrictions put on them, their reply was clear: “That is not happening in Pokemon Go. Not now, not ever.”

Pokemon Go’s Director Doesn’t Want You To Worry About The Scopely Acquisition

None Of The Mechanics Associated With Scopely Will Ever Be Implemented, Apparently

“[Scopely] told us themselves that they would be foolish to try to change the recipe of what’s made this such a huge hit and a success,” Steranka added. The director even gave some insight into how Scopely functions. The mobile gaming giant gives its teams agency when making big decisions about their respective games. That hopefully means that just because games like Monopoly Go and Marvel Strike Force operate a certain way, the practices present in them and other Scopely games won’t be coming to Pokemon Go.

It also sounds like most of the Pokemon Go team that worked under Niantic will be retained for the move to Scopely. To ensure the transition is as smooth as possible, and the game remains the same, Steranka revealed that he will be working with the same team as always regardless of the ownership change, and that he wouldn’t have stuck around had that not been the case.

This is all great to hear, of course, and you’d like to think Scopely wouldn’t want to mess with a game as consistently successful as Pokemon Go. However, no matter how much money a game makes, there will always be someone at the top wondering why it isn’t making more. Hopefully that doesn’t happen with Scopely’s Pokemon Go and elements from some of its new owner’s other games don’t eventually start to filter in.

Systems

Released

July 6, 2016

ESRB

e

Developer(s)

Niantic, The Pokemon Company