Just 10 days after releasing an update that fundamentally changed the look of Pokémon Go avatars, Niantic is still promoting the feature without responding to the negative community reactions that have persisted for more than a month.
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Over the past week, Niantic has continued to share posts on official Pokémon Go social media channels promoting the “Rediscover Yourself” update that launched on April 17, which changes the appearance of the game’s avatars. And while most of these posts have focused solely on the customization options players have access to, the community has not been happy with the feature’s implementation, nor with the developers’ lack of response to overwhelmingly negative feedback.
In the most recent avatar update post, Niantic posted about how players can now “customize their eye color,” though that has been a feature since Pokémon Go launched with its original avatars in July 2016. Sure, there are more options now, but the wider Pokémon Go community is calling posts like this “tone-less” and calling on the company to finally address criticisms that have been leveled at this update since March, when certain players first got access to the new avatars.
From the soulless faces to the odd proportions, very few users have shared their excitement about these avatar changes, but even worse is the lack of public response from Niantic. We have at least one report that Niantic is aware of the feedback, though it only came from an “anonymous high-level employee,” and nothing has been shared externally. That source also claims that the company takes feedback seriously, though we’ve since learned that this is not the case, unless that employee was referring only to individuals and not Niantic as a whole.