In a short video interview with the A-to-J Connections, David Hollin (Niantic Inc.) shared a lot of information on the state of the game, Niantic’s involvement with the community and future plans.
David Hollin is a game designer at Niantic whose personal contributions to Pokemon GO are the AR mode, the Buddy system and how Ditto was released. His Pokemon Buddy is Kabuto and he is also the “Save your Candy” guy.
There is a lot of exciting info shared in the interview, and we’ve prepared a written summary of everything important. In short, we’re in for a treat this year, especially on particular calendar dates.
We highlighted the best parts in red so you don’t miss them.
Interview summary
- David confirmed there was a big increase of popularity when Generation 2 was released [3:00]
- He refused to comment if Niantic was more favorable of the hardcore or the casual player base [3:50]
- He confirmed that Niantic will not model the game after the main series Gameboy games, as they are based around a singular quest of becoming the very best Trainer. They’re modeling Pokemon GO to be a “living breathing community of players”. [6:45]
- They have not forgotten about Legendary Pokemon – “Legendaries are going to be pretty awesome!” [9:30]
- Currently, they’re more focused on game play features than on adding new Pokemon, but future Generations are not excluded [10:00]
- “Save your Candy” was misunderstood, it was meant as advice for new players [10:35]
- “There will be events obviously tied to calendar year and there are things on the horizon which is Trading and PvP, but these are kinda more long term. In terms of short… hm… we’ll see.” [11:35]
- He sees Pokemon GO as a franchise that will span many years in the future [12:26]
- “It’s tough when you sort of agree with what fans want, but then you end up becoming the punching bag for them.” – he used to read a lot of conversations on reddit to gauge user sentiment, but they became too toxic [13:55]
- A number of Niantic team developers finds it easier not to get involved with the community directly, it’s a lot of stress – “You know, we’re people too, so… that’s something I definitely find difficult” [14:30]
There was more commentary about his personal life, previous job engagement and the Nintendo Switch, however we skipped that part in the summary section as it is not as important.
You can watch the whole interview here: