Pokémon Go fans who are concerned about the game suddenly including adverts have had their fears put to rest. Senior staff working on Pokémon Go have denied that commercials will be thrown in once Scopely takes full control of the project.

Monopoly Go owner Scopely recently spent billions of dollars acquiring Niantic’s entire library, including Pokémon Go. Naturally, fans are concerned that the game will suddenly be filled with microtransactions and in-game ads in an effort to recoup the ridiculous amounts of cash spent on purchasing such a huge title. Senior product director for Pokémon Go, Michael Steranka, addressed this in an interview with Polygon.

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Steranka was asked about whether the game will include ads or measures that restrict playtime. Steranka firmly denied that these would become part of the game. “If there’s one takeaway that I would love for people to have from this conversation,” Steranka said, “It’s that definitively no, that is not happening in Pokémon Go — not now, not ever. Again, Scopely really recognizes how unique this game is, and they’ve told us themselves that they would be foolish to try to change the recipe of what’s made this such a huge hit and a success.

Steranka continued, “So yeah, absolutely not. We will not be building into our games any type of obtrusive ads or anything like that. I just really want to reiterate Scopely as a company, the way that they operate is they give all of their teams the agency to make the decisions that’s right for their games. And that is not something that we feel would ever be right for Pokémon Go.”

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Pokémon Go Isn’t Messing With A Winning Formula

But Can Scopely Stop Itself From Further Monetization?

Pokémon Go is widely criticized by players for its monetization practices, and that was in the game’s current state. It remains to be seen just how different it will look under Scopely’s direction, especially when there’s an incentive for the game to recoup its costs. Steranka’s comments are reassuring, but right now, they’re just words, and no one can tell just what the future holds for the game.

Hopefully, Pokémon Go won’t go as far as to include ads, as that’s a very quick way to chase the audience somewhere else, such as the increasingly popular Pokémon TCG Pocket. Scopely spent a lot of money on Pokémon Go, and now it has to be very careful not to kill the golden goose, as messing with the formula too much (or at all) could lead to a mass exile of the audience.

Source: Polygon

Systems

Released

July 6, 2016

ESRB

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