Developer Diaries: A Broken Promise?

Niantic has finally released their most recent entry into the Developer Diaries series, which is dedicated to crossing the bridge between the players and the developers. This time around, the article covers an interview with Yusuke Kozaki, the character designer for Pokemon Go. In this interview, Mr.Kozaki talks about his initial involvement with Pokemon Go, how he designed different characters and artwork in the Pokemon Go Universe, and even how he feels others could get into similar work.

To say the least, this is an interesting read that's worth the time to look into for any Pokemon Go player, or anyone simply interested in graphic design or other more artistic pursuits. Mr.Kozaki's work is genuinely interesting, and he deserves the spotlight for the soul that he's put into his work.

But is this really what the community needs to hear about in a Dev Diary? 

Dev Diaries: A Broken Promise?

Before we go a bit more in-depth with this situation, let's take a step back and take a look at what Dev Diaries actually are, or rather what they were supposed to be. Last year, Niantic started to roll back many of the temporary gameplay tweaks that were established in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this roll-back happened at a point in time where COVID-19 cases were once again on the rise, and players were particularly worried about the lessened Pokestop/Gym interaction distances and the forced close-proximity that this would once again demand. This was the crux of the now infamous #HearUsNiantic campaign. In response, Niantic basically cloistered themselves (no pun intended) with a task force to review the situation and figure out the best response. This went on for several weeks, and eventually Niantic made an official announcement that they would be giving into many community demands, and would begin reaching out to the community more in order to lessen their notoriously closed public image. This would be the beginning of the Dev Diaries series, of which the latest edition is highlighted above. 

But here's a question; what exactly was a Dev Diary supposed to entail? Well, looking at the official announcement, one particular point very much stands out:

• Starting in October, we will begin publishing a developer diary every other month to share the latest priorities, events, and features for the game.

As already stated, Niantic has long had a rather poor reputation for being so closed-off from the community, to the point of coming across as cold in many respects. So what have we gotten since the initial announcement?

• October 2021 covered Community Days and their intended purpose, with some information on their future.
• December 2021 covered the Season of Heritage and its intended storyline.
• February 2022 was important, as it covered the Go Battle League and its future improvement, and also dealt with common player questions and concerns.
• April 2022 covered the Mega Evolution Update and what it would entail

Niantic has been silent since April 2022 in regards to Dev Diaries, and have only broken this silence in November 2022; seven months later.

In the past, Dev Diaries have been a bit of a mixed bag. The February 2022 edition is arguably the only Dev Diary that fulfilled the promised purpose of this series, as it dealt with player concerns and announced upcoming fixes. The April 2022 edition treads lightly on this territory, but it honestly falls more in line with a normal event/update announcement than a community outreach article. And now we have our most recent article, which offers no real look into the future save the fact that they're planning on at least making it to the 10-year mark with Pokemon Go. Again; this is nothing against Mr.Kozaki or his work, but it looks like a simple return to form for Niantic; working in their silent tower behind closed doors until someone walks out onto their balcony to yell out a proclamation and then return to their fortress. 

Let's be honest; Pokemon Go was an explosive success of nearly unprecedented proportions, and it's immensely hard for basically any company to keep their fingers on the pulse of a community this expansive and diverse. Add to that the fact that the concept of a Vocal Minority does exist, as much some of us may hate to admit, and one very specific quote very much comes to mind:

"You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”

In all fairness, it's very important that Niantic looks at every perspective when making a large decision, as they have to look at how these decisions will effect a global community that consists of players of every "class" imaginable; hard-core, casual, raid-only, pvp-only, shiny collectors, players who only play for family time: the list goes on and on. However, this does not make them 100% justified in the fact that they seem more than happy to not come down from their crystal fortress.

How Can The Situation Improve?

When it comes right down to it, the Dev Diary series is supposed to be about us; the players and community of Pokemon Go, not marketing and corporate synergy strategies. Niantic has hit the nail on the head at least once in the past with this series, so they can definitely do it again. Do we expect them to tell us exactly what's going to happen in the future and give us all information as soon as reasonably possible? No. Let's be honest; having that knowledge the second that it's finalized would be boring. However, they could address the community more, and give us some idea as to where the game may be going. For example:

"We've seen on Social Media that players have been concerned about the Communtiy Day move for Chandelure, and we wanted to take a moment to talk about why we thought that the move's final stats were a good idea"

"Gym Defense is an important part of the Pokemon Go experience, and while we won't have anything ready for a while, look forward to updates in the future"

"Our next two seasons are going to tie into a similar theme, so expect our first ever overarching story in the near future!"

or anything else along those lines. Address the community, give us an idea that they are working on something, and call it a day. Heck, they could have even dropped a small section after their interview with Mr.Kozaki talking about the state of the game and fulfilled the promised purpose of the series. I for one enjoy reading about the different individuals who make this game possible, and would even welcome it as a consistent first section for Dev Diaries, or even a series all its own. But when it replaces your one major outreach, that becomes a problem. And while it's true that tidbits like the fictional examples above can spark responses like "I don't care what your reasoning was, I wanted more!" or "Great, now we have to wait so long for this new update", the majority of the playerbase will just smile and say "Thanks for keeping us up to date, Niantic".

In all fairness, Niantic is closer to being able to shed their closed-off image than ever before. They're working to stay active on Social Media, they give us consistent monthly content updates, they give us plans for Go Battle League each season, and they outline each new season to give us a bit of a three-month roadmap. All that we really need is the ability to feel like we're not simply faceless consumers and more actual players who have a stake in this game and are willing to devote our time, and occasionally our finances, to get the joy that it gives us back in return. Niantic holds a lot of power in that regard, and all that we really want is to feel like maybe we have a bit of power to help steer this ship towards the horizon that we want to explore from time to time. We're getting closer, so let's just hope that next Dev Diary is an outreached hand rather than a pre-written script.