Pokémon Go players have found themselves laughing at Niantic’s Ambassador Program update after a turbulent few days for the game.
A surprise but welcomed update saw players reporting a spawn radius for Pokémon increase on June 26, a change that was welcomed by the community, but Niantic swiftly issued a reversal for the ‘unintended’ feature on June 27.
After the backlash Niantic received for their reversal, the developer still decided it was the right time to issue an update to their Community Ambassador program.
Initially launched in July 2022 to help communities host local events, the program is now being revised to “make it even easier for Trainers to create and lead a local community”.
The timing of the announced change could not have been worse, however, with players questioning who in their right mind would want to join up and potentially put themselves in the firing line for others expressing their frustrations with Niantic.
To make matters worse, Niantic also confirmed it is “unable to consider previously submitted event data from TheSilphRoad,” meaning all their previous efforts in partnership with SilphRoad would have been wasted.
Reddit users flocked to express their disappointment at the situation, with one replying: “What a way to waste the times of those Community Ambassadors who were already partnering with Silph before they shut down”.
It has been suggested, however, that those already accepted as Community Ambassadors previously do not need to reapply, though this has done little to erase the frustrations that have emerged from the community yet again.
Another quipped that “anyone that keeps reading beyond ‘now fully run by Niantic’ is a brave soul”, adding that they were “treating Silph like gum to scrape off their shoe”.
The topic is particularly volatile after the spawn distance fiasco, where Niantic apparently told those in the Content Creator program that the change was intended, only to swiftly backtrack and publicly state the opposite.
