It’s been a month since Pokemon GO, the extremely popular mobile game, was released and has so far managed to garner over 100 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone. It is also reported that the augmented reality mobile game makes approximately $10 million in revenue on a daily basis. Well, a game of such immense popularity was bound to have people find ways to exploit it and create a better and easier way for people to play the game by providing a more enriching experience to Pokemon trainers. However, whether you’re a fan of such services or not, Niantic labs, the creator behind Pokemon GO isn’t a fan of this and has been blocking game data from being available for third party services. Most recently, the company has rendered Pokemon tracking website, PokeAdvisor useless.
PokeAdvisor was created with the intention to help players track their statistics and progress. PokeAdvisor also provided a look at the complete Pokedex and provided an IV calculator so that Pokemon trainers could automatically and quickly view the full potential of a Pokemon they catch, something which cannot be done in the game itself. This in turn would help a trainer avoid using Stardust unnecessarily on a Pokemon which will not be able to progress to its full potential. The site owner of PokeAdvisor shared on Reddit that it could no longer update profiles as Niantic has blocked PokeAdvisor from accessing Pokemon GO user data. However, PokeAdvisor is still live for the time being but it will be only able to provide out-of-date data as the site is only available in read-only mode.
Recently, Niantic Labs made a statement that it was shutting down third party services in order to clear server resources. While Pokemon GO has already been rolled out to Latin American countries, the roll out was delayed due to aggressive efforts by third party services to access the Pokemon GO servers from outside of the game itself. Niantic labs then proceeded to release an update to the game which blocked the access of game data by third party services. According to Niantic labs, third party services were hurting the ability of the company making the game available in new markets.