Niantic has grand plans for "Pokémon GO." That much is true. Numerous reports have been saying that the game has entered a downward spiral when it lost millions of players in the past few months. However, it should be noted that "Pokémon GO" is just a few months old. The game is still in the stages of infancy and the developers still have a lot of things planned for the future.
Last week, the people behind The Silph Road discovered some interesting things in the latest update's code. While several new features are going to be added to the game soon, the thing that caught people's attention was the 100 new Generation 2 Pokémon referenced in the code. This means Niantic is ready to unleash a new batch of Pokémon for trainers to catch.
By Nov. 18, there will be seven generations of Pokémon, so expect to see more Pokémon in future updates.
Eurogamer recently spoke with Niantic chief marketing officer Mike Quigley and he said "Pokémon GO" was more like a massively multiplayer online game than a free-to-play mobile game. He also revealed that they want to match "World of Warcraft's" longevity.
"I think our lifespan and curve may be quite different from a free-to-play mobile game — it may be more in a [World of] Warcraft vein just because of the type of game we are. It's not about taking a bunch of money off the table and going. Monetisation has never been the focus for us. It's about doing right by the brand and doing right by the fans," he said.
That's quite optimistic. "World of Warcraft" has been around for over a decade now, so if Niantic wants to rival that game's staying power they will have to keep the players happy. Quigley did reassure players that the company would always listen to their feedback.
"They may not always know it, you may not always hear from us, but we're listening."
