News

Pokémon Go Developer Removes Legendaries Out of Fairness

Pokémon Go developer Niantic Labs reported on Wednesday that it is removing Legendary Pokémon from some players' accounts to promote "fairness." According to Niantic, the Legendary Pokémon were not intended to be in the players' possession. The full statement reads:

We recently noticed that a few Legendary Pokémon got into a few accounts when they shouldn't have. To preserve the game's integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the Legendary Pokémon from the Trainers' accounts.

Niantic Labs did not disclose the date at which the Legendary Pokémon were removed from players' accounts, which specific Pokémon were removed, or which players are affected.

Niantic issued the statement after players reported having Legendary Pokémon. In particular, a player in Ohio named Kaitlyn Covey claimed that she had received the Pokémon Articuno as a gift from Niantic after reporting an issue with the game. However, Niantic later issued a statement to Geek.com, noting that the Articuno “was not from Niantic. it's either a spoof or someone hacked the game.”

The Pokémon Go app launched in select countries including the United States on July 6, and has since launched in more than 35 countries.

Sources: Polygon (Allegra Frank), Geek.com (Daniel Starkey), Tech Insider (Ben Gilbert), GameSpot (Mat Paget)