10 Ridiculous Excuses For Failed Video Games

As was the case with No Man’s Sky, Pokemon GO hasn’t ultimately ‘failed’ by any stretch of the imagination. After a long program of updates, GO is a far more involved game with many more features than it had at launch. Yes, a lot of these should have been implemented from the start (such as PvP battling and trading, crucial elements of any be-a-Pokemon-trainer adventure), but it’s better late than never.

Nevertheless, there’s no escaping the fact that GO was hit by a deluge of frustrated players at launch. Not only was the game an all you can eat glitch, crash and bug buffet, but the ability to track Pokemon (perhaps the most crucial element of all) was completely sub-par, and the Nearby function was revised many times over.

The unapologetic and less-than-communicative Niantic’s response was to remove the Nearby feature entirely for a time, while also preventing access to third-party tools, such as Pokevision, which provided players with maps that actually functioned. Their reasoning for doing so was that these third-party maps were “interfering with [our] ability to maintain quality of service.” There may be some validity to that, in terms of server strain (and there was unprecedented demand on said servers, at a time when the game was rolling out around the world), but that really wasn’t good enough.