Pokemon Go developer Niantic is reversing experimental changes made to the way players earn PokeCoins. Most players probably won’t even know this happened, as the test had been limited to Australia for some time. It was then extended to only Germany, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Now, however, the program is discontinued everywhere.
Back during the summer, Niantic put out an announcement that Australia would be its testing ground for new coin-earning methods. It laid out its thinking in the post - that stay-at-home measures prevent many players from engaging in the act of battling over gyms. In light of this, Niantic wanted to try testing a way to earn coins from daily tasks.
The idea sounded great on paper. The daily coin maximum would raise from 50 to 55. Players would also be able to get coins from a variety of activities including captures, Team Go Rocket battles, and taking snapshots. In practice, however, it didn’t go over well. It started when Niantic reduced the amount of coins players could get from gyms. Instead of the full 50, you could only get 30 coins from defending a gym. Suddenly these fun optional methods of making side coins became a requirement if you wanted to stay at max earnings.
Players who were active with gyms complained about the changes. However, a new playerbase was being served: rural players. Those who don’t have many gyms or PokeStops around often feel left out of battle-oriented activities. But with daily tasks anyone could claim, those living outside of cities found their coin earnings increase. The feedback was actually getting on the positive side.
The feedback was apparently so favorable that Niantic expanded the test to three more regions. From August until now, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and Taiwan were using the test earning methods. It seems as of November 5, however, that will no longer be the case. The test will end and those countries will go back to the “50 coins a day, gyms only” mechanics.
Fans are responding with both praise and complaint to the reversion. Some say that the changes were actually going well after some tweaks, but that it was too player-friendly. They believe more players were earning free coins than ever before, so Niantic decided to close the experiment to protect its profit. Others see only the negative - how the changes messed up the gym systems. They felt that using the same resources to take gyms but for less reward was a bad deal. Now that gyms will go back to full coin output, it’s a win for them.
Whatever effect the PokeCoin experiment actually had, it’s over now. Now all that’s left is the next event.
Source: Pokemon Go Blog
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