Niantic Inc.

Lately they have a way of stealing coins or glitches that take ur remote raid passes ect and never replace it. They have become thieves and customer service is beyond horrible lately. Definitely not what they use to be and very money hungry its ridiculous they actually took the fun out the game. Never thought I would have to write a bad review but they earned it all by themselves.
Niantic doesn't care about their customers not one bit. Their reply on chats in game even worst.
They refunded me for 10.62 for coins they OWED ME and when 1 of the refunds went through they said they refunded 2 witch is a lie and put my account negative 1300 coins. Thieves for sure but my bank is on they behind. So good luck trying me.

I've been playing Ingress since year, I've also played PoGo a little. All in all I've thoroughly enjoyed playing - especially Ingress. It's got me off the sofa and walking around.
Both are free to play, and in all honesty there is no real in game reason to spend money. There have been a few bits I've bought, but th a t was mostly to support a free game.

5* for Ingress, 3* for PoGo (some of the players are asses).

What do you want for free?

If the powers that be at niantic get a wild hair about you then just like that you are banned. Good luck trying to get through to them cause they are obviously out to lunch and not coming back. Not like I dint spend money on the game I did. And regularly as well as playing every day. I honestly don't know what you have to do to please them enough to keep playing so I guess I'll be saving money. Hmmm wonder what I will do with my time and money! Not niantic!

I reported a bug which blocked my gameplay for 1 month. I reported it 5 times and each time it was shut off without action. The 6th time I was partially compensated for 1/8 of what I had lost. I asked to
Escalate the issue and my complaint was closed. Joke of a company

Does not listen to their customer base! Keep the game accessible! Increase the limit or remove it all together!

Let's face it, niantic makes games that change our world for the better. The games have helped me excercise, meet new people, and see new places. It's really a refreshing new game style.

Enjoy Pokemon Go. Game is entertaining and have provided several hours of fun. Game became glitchy in 2016 and I gave up playing for a year. Not sure how heavy grinding while playing by the rules ended up in a soft ban. Due to how the game was acting. Then six months later it started working normally again.

Not my fault I work right underneath a pokesotp/gym. Not my fault there's good spawn's because it's right next to a Starbucks. Not my fault there are good spawns because I work under a triangle of pokestops. Not my fault I went out of my way to walk an hour a day in the morning to play. Not my fault I went out of my way to walk an hour in the evening to play. How playing by the rules initiated a soft ban I don't know. I thought the whole purpose was to go out and explore? Not my fault I choose to play 3-5 hours a day by the rules.

While I do enjoy pokemon go event days I'm a little annoyed how they have destroyed the calm atmosphere of a park. All of a sudden there are hordes and hordes of people at the park for every square inch thus defeating the purpose of using the park or enjoying it for a walk.

Thank you for the fun but (I'm not sure how to finish the sentence positively.)

Got in touch with their customer support team to help me out but zero care or consideration was shown, specially when money was spent on their platform and didn't receive what I paid for.
It took me 6 hours to wait for an excuse why I couldn't be given what I had purchased when it clearly was shown it was their fault the app glitches.

Niantic Labs' latest release, Peridot, certainly had the potential to be an exciting and engaging game. Unfortunately, it seems that the company has made some decisions that detract from the overall experience, leading me to advise potential players to think twice before investing time and money in this app.
1. Be prepared for potential game changes: It's not uncommon for game developers to tweak or adjust aspects of a game post-release. However, Niantic Labs has a history of making changes that can negatively impact player experience. For example, the Harry Potter Castles rewards system was nerfed shortly after launch and the game was discontinued in December 2022. This may be a sign of what's to come for Peridot.
2. Don't expect great customer service: Niantic Labs has a poor reputation when it comes to handling player concerns. Their biggest success, Pokemon GO, has had several controversial changes, such as the recent remote raid system alterations. Despite player outcry, the company has not been forthcoming in addressing these issues.
3. ESG concerns: If you are environmentally conscious, it's important to note that some elements of Niantic's games, like in-person raids in Pokemon GO, have been criticized for encouraging car usage. While remote play options were introduced, the company decided to nerf this feature, potentially contributing to increased vehicle use by players.

My friends and I used to live their games. However everything changed in a matter of minutes. They have the worst customer support that I have ever seen. I would rate them a zero but I can't, so I rate them a one instead.
Very rude and not customer friendly., Very dishonest and takes away the Niantic vision!
Niantic customer support didn't care about my concern nor tried to help me. A bunch of my friends and I stopped using a bunch of Niantic apps and games. They lost four customers. They lost for loyal people who just want to have fun and be ourselves.
Well I'm off to spread the bad news.

They make games which contain dragons which are designed like the Ku-Klux Klan. Reshiram and Zekrom both are designs of robes. Zekrom's eyes are Nazi colored and he salutes like them too. Reshiram makes a burning cross and he has a design where it makes it look like the character has genitalia which can also disturb audiences. Niantic support will ignore your support ticket and never respond if you bring up the characters. I have deleted the Pokemon Go thanks to them.

I've had a Pokémon go account for 5 years and for any avid player that knows the work and time and money put into this game, you know how ridiculously devastating it can be to lose everything! Over that time I have easily spent $1500.00 or more! My Facebook was hacked a week ago and everything was deleted. I contacted Niantic to see if they could help. They sent a list of things they needed and I provided them the best that I could. After that, they sent another email saying they needed MORE, I told them that the stuff they are asking for can't possibly be found (who takes screenshots of their in app purchases?) I provided them with my player ID, purchase receipts I made from my credit card, the date I started playing, etc. They then preceded to send me an email saying that I have "punishments" on my account and they won't restore it! I've never had any issues aside from their glitches in the game! When I asked them exactly what those "punishments" were, they presented to say "like I mentioned before, you have previous punishments and bans on your account in the past and we won't restore it" I'm a 35 year old mother of 2 toddlers who works 3 jobs! I didn't do anything wrong in or outside of the game! I lost so many memories, so much money! My babies first Pokémon! (Sounds stupid, but he was so little when he comprehended how to catch one!) I am extremely disappointed in this company and their crappy customer service towards a very expensive hobby!

Was a big fan, loyal customer. Upon recent changes, it hindered gameplay. Myself and many others have reached out and voiced concerns and have never received any correspondence. It seems pure greed has taken over at the top.

If you have an issue - don't waste your time with customer support. They will not help. They will not find a solution. Joke, joke of a company. If you look at their mission / vision—- you can immediately see why they are unable to find resolutions. They are not built on any upstanding qualities that build a company and support their customers.

Pokemon Go originally billed itself as being different: instead of players sitting around to interact with the game, it encouraged them to get out and walk. Sadly, this is becoming less and less the case.
My biggest issue is that PoGo is requiring (forcing) players to battle each other more and more via their battle leagues. In fact, in order to level up to level 44, you have to battle in their leagues, against other human beings, at least 110 times! 90 of those times have to been wins in the various levels, including the highest level, Master League (which is really tough). There are four reasons why this requirement is wrong:
1. It discriminates against players who don't enjoy the battle league aspect of the game. Until now, you only had to participate in battle leagues if you wanted to. Now, it is required.
2. It discriminates against players who may a disability, like arthritis. Participating in the battle league means a lot of screen tapping. To be good, you have to be able to double-tap. That's hard on my arthritic hands.
3. Participating in battle leagues means a lot of sitting. There is a lot of time spent researching which pokemon to use, leveling them up, and then just battling. Add in the losses that invariably occur if you aren't proficient, and, yeah... that's a lot of sitting around.
4. Requiring Battle League participation is a break from Pokemon Go's originally intent of getting people outdoors and moving. See item 3, above.
5. No other Pokemon game requires you to battle other Non-NPC (live) players. It is always your choice to participate.
Given all this, it is clear that Niantic needs to modify or wave the Level 44 requirement of participating in the Battle Leagues. They should also make this feature optional in the future.

I've been playing Pokémon Go off & on since 2019 and as a player with a disability I was only doing raids during raid hours, then the covid bonuses arrived & made the game playable for me, and now they are gone & this proves that they are ableist towards us. Avoid!

Game has so many glitches and loads so slowly I can't even get into the game more than half the time. Don't worry though, they have raised the prices of in game purchases twice! Priorities lmao, never getting another dollar from me again and I highly recommend you don't make a purchase either.

Very poor game mechanics, overall scam of their players in which money spent on the game is often taken by niantic with no progress given towards the player, regardless of skill. Niantic is a money hungry company that only seeks to scam its players.

$#*! this stupid bull$#*! company. Have played this game for about 5 years now. It's gotten so bad over the past couole years I can't take anymore. My entire family has deleted the game. I don't mind spending money I understand that money needs to be made to further advance a game and make it better. Not the case here. Niantic pockets the money and just looks for new ways to charge more. The game isn't fun any more. Im not down for spending hundreds of dollars for absolutely nothing. Shiny rates are the worst they've ever been. I never get shiny pokemon from raids no matter how many I do and how much I spend. For a little pokemon on a phone that's a different colour it's just not worth it. I wish others would boycott this bull$#*! company to teach it a lesson but that will never happen. So I'm out. SHOVE IT NIANTIC YOU GREEDY SCUMBAGS! Ps customer service is pretty much non-existant

I don't know what niantic is thinking but they're killing their own game by rendering everything that made it fun useless. I am giving up playing to the degree I use to play. I remember why I got out of it for 10 months in 2018. Every time I get back into and go hard core niantic finds ways to burn and screw over players and I remember why I stopped.

Niantic has clearly rendered every item in their store in-game shop useless. I don't know what they're thinking by doing this. The only two items they haven't mucked with yet are the meltan box and the go+'s. The game is more than catch pokemon and they know that. If they're trying to go back to pre 2018 ways of playing they can count me out. I've significantly reduced my game play already and pulled out my switch pokemon games.

Raids are have gone from unlimited per day to 3 remote and 2 in person daily. Remote raid passes started out as one penny and increased to their most expensive item in their shop 525 coins. This killed most of the game for players. I got really good at raiding and they decided it was an exploit and filled it.

Incenses. They use to spawn 1 a min now they're 1 every 5 min. For some reason they now have a high run away ratio which renders them totally useless.

Blue Incenses. These are not as good as they advertised them to be. They were sort of a half affed apology from niantic when they increased the regular incenses from 1 min to 5. They are to spawn 1 a min for sure (while moving) and they barely spawn that. It's all randomly algorithmic and you could either get a lot or very few. The legendry birds that spawn from it have a 100% run away ratio thus making them difficult to get. You use to be able to auto fill in the quest with the gotcha evolve but they have filled that exploit and you can no longer drop a blue incense and expect the go+ to catch it.

Lure modules. They use to mob spawn originally. That was fun. They didn't like this so they limited it to 1 a min then changed it to 1 every 5 min. This sucks and half of them end up running way. They keep mucking with the spawn time and rang it any where form 30 min to 90 min.

Remote playing. Niantic could care less about remote players. In areas with zero grid pretty much forget about playing. I originally had to drive 1.5 hrs to a grid and half the time the game would be glitchy as heck.

Go+ devices. These open up a whole new door for playing pogo. The devices are frustrating as heck to operate when they act up. When I have to replace them I find 2:5 work correctly. There is absolutely zero customer service with companies you buy them from and niantic. I probably went through 3 before I found one that was stable and worked. Their shelf life ranges from <1 mo to 1-2 yrs if you're lucky and careful about it. Instead of adding in a patch to allow great and ultra balls on older devices they're forcing players to buy a new device that allows this feature. Sorry but that's all about $$ and niantic knows that.

Game is quickly turning into a pay to play game. I have been playing since 2016 and this game use to have several free features. All you had to do was suck up a little extra grinding to get it. It is very quickly becoming a pay to play game.

7+ star raids. While I enjoy raiding these spawns are very limited and you literally need a full group to beat these bosses. After getting good at raiding I have found most players have zero clue how to host a raid or do one. Niantic really needs to consider raising the xp rewards to higher amounts for their raids. 4 star 10k 5star should be 15 k and slowly increasing with the raid difficulty.
Raid bosses have a high run away ratio. Niantic gave players more pokeballs but legendaries still have a 3:5 run away ratio. By limiting raids to 3 remote 2 in person raids they have pretty much screwed players over. By limiting remote raids if you're using a remote raid app such as poke geni or raid and your host screws you over that's one less raid you can be rewarded with.

Adventure sync. Adventure sync isn't perfect and doesn't always work. My job is very active now and I have noticed it doesn't always sync correctly. Nor tally steps correctly. This makes me wonder about their algorithm and honoring correctness. God I hope niantic doesn't decide to put a step limit on their game as I can easily average 60k at work. Oh, I'm sorry but we're limiting players to 100k a week. That would suck if that ever happens. I use a phone swing as well in my off time and that would suck. A couple yrs ago I was physically disabled and this helped me continue to play. God I hope they never patch this exploit.

Aggressive gym players. I've given up with gyms out side our neighborhood gated community. You can never get more than 15 min in a gym before you're booted. Too many players have a work or home advantage which allows them to constantly watch it. No rules against it but players use this advantage all the time. This is why I bought a home next to the neighborhood park. I got lucky and one of the exorcise stations spawned a gym. Last year we had a few players be incredibly aggressive with our gym. They would hog it and immediately kick players out that tried to drop theirs in. Niantic has zero rules about aggressive gym players. This became a bit of an issue and we as an hoa had to send them cease and desist letters. They were getting a bit aggressive with home owners too as they crossed paths with us. I'm pretty easy going, enjoy getting my daily 50 but know it's not always possible to get. These players were way too aggressive.

Multi accouters. I know I'm one. Nearly every player I know has any where from 1-5 accounts. This is an exploit in the game and if you have one account per phone niantic can't do squat about it. I save my old phones now instead of turning them in. If niantic didn't want us to cheat then they'd enact better protocols.

Driving around town to play. This is how I play with the go+ to auto collect. This is honestly the closest I get to playing a to. Some players how ever heavily exploit this. There's a few players that hog the 15+ gyms in the area. I have seen too many players drive to parking lots and squat in their cars until the raid starts. A few business removed their gyms because they got tired of players hogging the spots. There's pluses and minuses to this. One gym sadly had to be removed due to an incident last year (2022) where a player got severely injured in a bad neighborhood. No he didn't make it.

Wayfaring Reviewing. Most players have no clue how to correctly nominate stops. It's a 6 question form but it's filled out like a 2 yr old that can't fill out a simple questionnaire. When I nominate stops it often takes multiple attempts before a could of been valid criteria stop goes through. The review process can either be very quick or super slow. Some stops go through in a timely manner of <6 mo while I have some in my list that have been waiting for 2+ yrs.
Go Fest. Face it niantic has botched about 3 go fest events. Then gave a half affed apology and said all purchases final. Even if you went out of the way to buy a plane ticket and hotel room. Now with restricted raids go fest raid day is going to suck. I'd coin collect all year and use my coins to cash out on remote raids for this day. Niantic has botched their game by doing this. This year I have decided to not buy a go fest ticket.

Bring back the 10a-5p community days. One group approached niantic and forced them to change it to 2p. My work schedule does not allow 2 pm community day. Incenses have a super high run away ratio and thus defeats the purpose of participation. Parks are full by 2 pm and I have to show up 1 hr early if I so much want a parking spot. 10 am worked perfect. Parks were not busy, I could participate a couple hrs before work then just let the go+ auto collect until end of event. Sorry niantic but most of the world can get their affes moving before noon on a weekend.

Battle go league. This is glitchy as heck and niantic refuses to patch it. Players exploit glitches like crazy and every time I play i have a 60% loosing ratio. Thus defeating the purpose of it.

Accounts play differently. I am a multi accounter and have like 5 accounts. Why? No one raids in my area and it lets me take down 5 star raid bosses my self. I have noticed even without bans or strikes that each account plays differently. That's unfair niantic.

Players pay different prices in the store. Sorry niantic but this is an ftc violation. I can verify this with my multi aco$#*!s and other online complaints on social media threads.

Do not release dates in a timely manner. Niantic releases dates for future events too close to the event it self. My line of work writes schedules about 3 weeks out. All too often they wait until 2 weeks before to release the info. Recently I have decided to stop participating in sudden release events. Some times they start and stop so suddenly I can't participate in them.

7 day reward = garbage. Before 2019 you use to be able to get good rewards from you 7 day research reward. Niantic is now giving players garbage rewards. Super common spawn spawns that aren't even worth attempting. It all started with flower hat eevee and they've gone beyond the point of a joke.

Fewer spawns at stops. I have noticed significantly fewer spawns from stops and gyms compared to years gone by. I am noticing 1-3 spawns per stop instead of 5-7 in years gone by. Parks that have a 30+ grid have very few spawns.