Four months ago, Pokémon GO's initial warm welcome bled with maximum popularity, penetrating even the bulk of reputable news outlets on television because of the overwhelming hype. The craze was visible and the accompanying frenzy cemented it atop the charts in the App Store and the Google Play Store.
That is until a surge of users withdrew from the augmented reality-capable game by Niantic because of a number of issues that deserve their own separate article. The global success of the game has waned considerably, and even more so now that winter is in the offing.
While it's easy to fault Niantic for its increasingly prohibitive measures that turned many users sour, the developers do make up for its disappointing shortcomings by releasing piecemeal updates in an attempt to avoid fans from jumping ship.
Most recently, it released a Halloween update for the game which shot it back up the charts. Now, it seems that apart from new Pokémon egg icons and improved gym training, Niantic is set to release Daily Bonuses to keep users playing on a daily basis, too.
How Daily Bonuses Work
With the new Daily Bonuses, users are given 500 experience points and 600 Stardust for catching one Pokémon per day. If you successfully do it for one week straight, then you get an added bonus of 2,000 XP and 2,400 Stardust.
Additionally, daily visits to a PokéStop and daily Photo Disc spins will net you 500 XP alongside a number of additional items. Do this for a whole week and you get an extra 2,000 XP and a greater number of additional items.
With these new bonuses in place, more low-level casual players can at least play the game on a daily basis in order to enjoy some progress, without the troublesome measure of taking over the nearest gym for a brief period before rapidly claiming coins.
Will Niantic Bring Back The Tracker?
While these bells and whistles Niantic keeps throwing at Pokéemon GO players might cause brief delight, the biggest issue is still clear as day: the lack of a tracker.
"Seriously, Niantic, bring it back," Android Police's Michael Crider said, and many other voices unarguably join him in unison. The Pokémon GO tracker was even featured in the popular prelaunch trailer, and it initially was available in the first two weeks of the game's launch until Niantic pulled it abruptly. The company has promised to bring it back, a pledge all-too tainted with vagueness and uncertainty.
Pokémon GO's daily active users has been on a steady decline because of the lack of a proper tracker, rendering many players searching for encounters without aim or hint. Now that popular third-party trackers have shut down, players are finding more reasons to head out the door and resign from the game altogether. We'll see if daily bonuses get those players back again.
