There's been turbulence in the Pokémon GO community ever since Niantic announced that the game's stay-at-home features implemented during the lockdown-heavy period of the COVID-19 pandemic would be rolled back. Fans were incensed at this announcement, and organized a one-day boycott of the AR game. Now, Niantic has issued a response to the controversy.
Niantic's corporately worded response boils down to two key points - the company reaffirmed that the rolling back of gameplay changes implemented during the pandemic restores 'foundational elements' of the game that players enjoyed prior to the abnormal situation arising as countries around the world were forced into lockdown.
Niantic's games have always been about physical motion and are designed to promote real-world social interactions as players would congregate around points of interest in person, and these tenets remain part of the company's core mission.
The features that are being rolled back now that pandemic restrictions are being lifted in countries such as the USA and New Zealand never would have been added without the health crisis in the first place - they're arguably antithetical to the Pokémon GO experience.