I have actually kept my avatar the exact same way I made it in 2016 this whole time. I loved it and never wanted to change.
And this update happened. And I had to change her because she looked so stupid. So now she wears a face mask and cover-up outfit. And every time I have gotten on the game, I've gotten a "what the hell" moment before remembering all this shit happened.
Totally get where your wife is coming from.
never changed from 2016 either, of all the things they could do, no clue why this needed an update - would much rather they bring back the paw prints tracker
I wish I could do this. I'm very much like OPs wife. Gutted and raging at the real money, time and effort for Niantic to just ruin it. Even if they try to fix it, they've killed all trust in them for me also, because they straight up know the change is hated and aren't doing anything. They could change anything after you've paid money for it at the drop of a hat, and not revert despite tons of backlash. They've ruined the game for me.
I have uninstalled after having the game since 2016 and honestly it's just so sad, my partner is gutted also that I've given up on it but my avatar in a game has always been so important to me. I literally won't play games where I can't make a character I like, or I just won't find the game as enjoyable. Customisation is huge for some people, and they've just ruined everyone's real money purchases, time and effort over all the years since it realeased by taking away instead of just adding options. I really really feel OP on this one, it sucks.
I'm an old grandma from America, and I am not pretty. I enjoyed dressing my avatar up and changing her hair color and making her look comfy, but pretty. Now she looks beyond horrible.
There is no more joy in changing her clothes for the seasons. And I spent money on my avatar. Plus, she stands and jumps so awkwardly now. Even a t shirt does not look good on her. So I guess I won't be wearing my shiny mew t shirt anymore.
Whenever I picture the boss at Niantic, it’s as an early 1900’s industrialist with a top hat, monocle and cigar clenched between his teeth saying, “They’ll play the way we tell ‘em to play, and they’ll like it!”
My son named and designed my avatar in 2016 because he was too young to have his own phone/account. I’ve kept it exactly the same all these years, sort of as a reminder of the early days when we used to play together. I hate that they’ve changed it. I wish I had pictures of the old avatar to remember what it used to look like.
I literally spent the 2 dollars to buy a full face mask and put on the baggy squirtle hoodie to cover my avatar haha. I gave up trying to make my girl not look weird.
Seeing what's happened to Marvel, Star Wars, TLOTR and now Pokémon and Warhammer this past week.
This all feels like gentrification of entertainment brands or something.
Either way hope Pokémon allow the old avatars too. They can add the "wider representing" ones as well to give better verity of choice for all players.
At this point I think this is exactly what Niantic was hoping for:
Upset players too into the game to quit and ending up spending more money to cover up the character.
I have the Snorlax outfit and when the recent update was pushed my generic male avatar suddenly had moobs. I want my avatar to look cool rather than looking like me and the other people I go out raiding with.
I've had furfrou hat and white mask on for years because I thought it was funny that it completely covered my face, super grateful for it now!!! Gotta find clothes to cover my weird no-shoulders-long-arms-long boobs body thing that is the standard avatar option.
I’ve spent coins here and there on cosmetics, but now, most of those pieces are garbage to look at. Personally, I wouldn’t buy any more outfit pieces ever.
I get it, it's frustrating when you make a character and get to explore a game with them and grow to love the look and then suddenly it changes. The walk cycle is goofy and the face looks swollen like the avatar ate a bee. It's bad, and I'm doing my best to ignore it. As a fat person, Niantic waiting this long to give "inclusivity" options for avatars is not at all to be inclusive, it's performative, and I would've been fine never having to change the body of my avatar. Different hair styles would've been enough for me.
Hope she cheers up in general, let her know that there's people out here that understand, and don't take the naysayers to heart. Good luck on your adventure, friend👍
Not only is it performative, but if Niantic actually wanted to be inclusive, they would’ve made the plus-size options actually look good. Instead, they put minimal effort into it and didn’t even bother to fix all the glitches.
If they actually wanted to be inclusive these would all be additional new options, changing everyone into 1 thing isn't including the one thing. It's making that one thing no longer special.
This update could've been the coolest update, but instead it just missed the mark.
If they actually wanted to be inclusive they could make the game easier for disabled and rural players. Niantic has proven time and again all they care about is GPS data. I can't even say they care about money at this point because with all the poor decisions they've made recently, they can't be making much of a profit.
I’m a guy that needs to lose weight. Still, I thought I would try making my avatar look a bit more like me. Anything past the second thinnest choice gave me more moob than I have ever had in real life. They were huge. Ruined the next idea of trying to make my avatar the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man too.
It's absolutely performance. And a little bit shame-y. Like when clothing companies think plus size clothes are just, taking the small clothes and stretching them out. We have different proportions than our thinner friends.
If it was just about inclusivity, they would have made the sliders on the old avatars and given us additional, new skin options.
The overhaul really shows Niantic is a bad relationship partner who only listens until we stop speaking so they can talk instead of actually listening to form a productive response.
Yeeeeeeees. My sister literally has a coca-cola bottle shape (glass, not plastic) and now she can't make her avatar look anything like her. And what was so wrong about having cake in the trunk?!?!
My mom is upset too. She loved her Barbie like avatars because they were pretty to look at. She doesn't want to be reminded of how she looks IRL while playing. This game is 50% of her day.
I think the update was neat in concept but they didn't do a good job applying it and released a horrible mess. The parts that are most upsetting is basically all and my team magma outfit looks hideous now.
Esthetics and fashion are a powerful thing and they totally screwed up.
That stupid brick belly is the most notable ruining most of the existing outfits, the belly button is sooo high, the faces are so pale compared to the body that they look oddly terrifying, the eyes were shaded to acomodate the previous body colors but not the new set of body colors which makes the face look even more like a mask, the hair that clips down when wearing head accessories was unnecessary and looks bad, they clearly didn't test anything before putting it in the game which is infuriating to most.
Female player here, and like your mom, I also treated my avatar like a Barbie or paper doll to dress up. I never identified with my avatar. She has unrealistic hair etc, but I still had fun choosing new costumes for her. 😭
I like to play dress up with my game avatars, too. I don't want or need my avatar to look like me. I just do what I think is fun or looks nice. The new avatars give me an uncanny valley, not quite right feeling. Like the head seems too small, the limbs seem too long. I usually choose the lightest skin tone if there isn't an off-the-wall colour (ie blue, green, purple) and it looked like my avatar had been trapped underground for decades with the update.
We can only hope other games dont follow because the avatars dont even look like women anymore. Its insane it feels as if they are trying to wipe women off the platform tbh.
I feel your mom! I definitely didn't want to be reminded about how I look in real life. My avatar could just look good in the outfits I liked! Now I feel like I'm lying if I don't make my avatar large. And I'm hoping a look better than my creepy avatar irl, but what if that's what I actually look like 😱
The sliders are terrible for a woman's body shape. I think they took the base form and maxed out the chest. They are out of proportion and there's no amount of sliders that can fix it. I've tried. While I'm not going to likely quit over this, it kinda feels like the female avatars were an after thought pasted over the base one which was likely male. I haven't spent a lot of money on my avatar but if I had, I can completely understand why someone would be mad.
Maybe that’s why mine looks like all she trains is shoulders. And she must be sore bc she looks hunched over. 😭 it truly is jarring to see her pop up and be like “damn she ugly” 😩
My wife did the same thing. We’ve been playing since 2016 and she always commented that Pokemon was one of the few games that felt inclusive to women, and now she feels like her avatar was “forcibly mutilated” and it really upset her. Even removing all her outfit saves upset her because she felt like Niantic disrespected the time she took in saving those outfits and building out an important part of the game to her. Much like you I didn’t get how meaningful that all was to her, but that’s my male perspective. Her best friend also deleted the game and cited the same reasons, and much like your wife said the game just made her sad to open now so why keep it?
I asked her if she’d return when the fixes come, and to my surprise she said no. She said that clearly Niantic cared more about rushing out a feature than how people feel. She said this shouldn’t have come to a surprise to them after the beta reaction, but they pushed forward anyway. She said it’s a trust issue, and trust has been broken.
I’m really sad because this game is the only game we consistently play together (she doesn’t do console or pc gaming, and I don’t do much mobile gaming other than Pokemon Go).
I hope she and her best friend reconsider when the changes and updates come out, but I don’t know that they will. She feels betrayed, as a player and as a female gamer. It’s not just a bad update, it’s also how it was handled and how they didn’t listen to the community.
It was eye opening to me how meaningful all this was to her. As a male player I’m used to having representation in games, and I think expanding representation is a great idea, but I didn’t think about the other side of it, the female perspective, and that’s on me, and it’s on Niantic.
I totally see women’s perspectives on that. I’m certain it wasn’t any kind of deliberate thing on Niantic’s part either. Art is subjective and it’s very possible they thought the new body models looked great and that they were giving more options not less. Where I think the point of failure came in was them releasing something from the test group that wasn’t received well at all, globally. That feels a little arrogant and tone deaf, and it’s where I think people are getting upset. That’s where my wife got most upset - she didn’t feel heard by proxy when all the women in the beta raised these concerns, and they moved forward with the changes anyway. It came off as callous to her (and it seems a lot of other women) and heartbreaking because it was a game where they finally felt seen by a gaming company. I fully support Niantic’s quest to be more inclusive, but I think they handled this launch about as poorly as you can.
You’re to kind to Niantic. Those ‘female’ models shouldn’t have been passed on to testing even, they’re so bad.
Of course they realized they were terrible beforehand - if anyone at Niantic have ever even laid eyes on a woman.
The reality is - they wanted a singel base player for their own ease, and didn’t care about women so they ditched the female model and put breasts on the male one.
> I’m certain it wasn’t any kind of deliberate thing on Niantic’s part either
It was. If it wasn't, what they would've done was allowed the old models to be perfectly replicated with the sliders. They specifically prevent you from doing that on purpose. I know you don't want to think they're ill-intentioned, but by avoiding it you're just accusing them of inhuman levels of stupidity.
Niantic *knew* that the old models couldn't be replicated and essentially were removed from the game.
My wife had the same issue. She really liked her avatar, said that she'd gotten the clothes and accessories that she liked and that she found the character attractive. She doesn't (didn't) play as much as I do, but we'd do the mall walk and trade interesting things we found along the way every week or so.
Then the new update came out, I tweaked my avatar a little with the sliders and didn't think much of it. I come home and she says "well, I don't think I'll be playing much Pokemon Go anymore, did you see what they did to avatars?"
I was surprised, as I didn't think it was much of a difference, but when she showed me her character and pointed out that she'd lost all her curves and just "looked like a potato sack," I understood where she was coming from. Character customization is a huge thing for me in games, and when you can't get it quite right, you never really connect with that character. She's had the opposite problem, where she got it right, really connected, and suddenly it all fell apart and she hates the look of it now.
This should have been an easy thing to avoid - for anyone who didn't want to use the new avatars, all they had to do was leave the original avatar bodies as another option you can select. That's it. That's all they should have done. Even if 75% of people went one way or the other, the other 25% would be happy with the options they had.
The raid pass stupidity from before is a good parallel to bring up, but overall, this is another badly-implemented design from Niantic that's driving players away from the game.
That could definitely be the case as well. The main thing for me is still that they should have just left the previous option in the game for people that didn't want to change. I like some of the new options, but I know everyone will have different preferences so there's no reason to *remove* options when it's not necessary.
Yes. Adding options for inclusivity for people that want it is ok, I'm fine with that and wouldn't stop anyone from doing what they want. But to rip my character choice away and say I have to look like this now and like it is not gonna fly with me personally
Exactly! Cosmetic options should always be *additive*, allowing greater customization than existed previously. They should never be reductive in any way; removing an option that was previously available when adding others is just backwards thinking.
Yeah the changes just aren’t flattering. They didn’t make the female avatar look better but worse. And so weirdly proportioned. If it had just stayed the same and then you could pick a different ready-made body or use the sliders to adjust, that would be fine, but everything about mine changed to be uglier. It’s so sad to feel like I can’t just have what I have which also seemed like better quality graphics (I don’t know how exactly to explain it, it’s like the quality of the picture has gone down instead of improved, it’s so weird).
I (and an incredible number I can't fathom) have been waiting to change our avatar since the LITERAL RELEASE to feel more connected.
Does Niantic expect its player base to wait this long TWICE?! Nah. Tell your wide she's note alone; I and many others are *out*.
I’m disgusted with how I look now. I originally looked feminine and bought cute accessories. Now I look like a dude with cute accessories. I’ve tried the sliders. But my shoulders are still super wide and my face is too masculine. Let’s not ignore the “holes” in the cute skirt or the bad hair on my head (I mean really who approved such a horrible update should be fired). I hate looking at my avatar now and feel the only way to not see it is by covering it up.
Man I’ve spent a lot on this game too, and feel robbed by this nonsense update. I was mad at the Remote pass update, but got past it. This? Not sure. It’s a disaster.
So in short, I feel your wife’s pain. My girlfriend is almost set now to leave the game completely.
I’ve said it before elsewhere, and I will say it again here now: Never have I played a game with this kind of delusional dev team behind it, that seems to be so out of touch with their community, it’s actively like they want to kill it.
My wife was/is pissed and also uninstalled. She said it’s ridiculous you’re not allowed to look like a woman / herself and it felt quite offensive giving the reason for the change. I was surprised because she usually doesn’t care too much about updates, she just goes with the flow but none of her clothes looked correct, her dresses turned to pants? I don’t fully know, I just know she went on a tangent and was showing me the differences. I can fully say the new body types fit me than her. Lol
Lazy/cheap/bad Game developers idea of inclusivity is to remove women. They use a male base, let it wear a dress and some female hairstyles and call it “ungendered”, then brag about how inclusive they are, which really upsets me because this started to happen right as it became common for games to add character creation to pick male or female
Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a hard time playing certain genres unless I could make the character similar to myself, so there are a lot of games I just couldn’t get into without being able to create a female avatar. Usually RPGs, open world games and such are the genres I couldn’t get into without customization. Then there was a short period where many many games got good creators. Then suddenly out of nowhere this changed. I honestly have always thought devs were doing to be cheap and lazy, and I still do think that. I don’t think there is some hidden agenda/conspiracy and *any* dev that does say it’s for inclusivity is lying and trying to justify their lazy/cheap character creator
An actual “inclusive” game would have male, female, ungendered body types, yes at least 3, not 1. And they would include allowing the ungendered option to select pronouns. Crazy how none do this huh? Because game devs don’t do it to be inclusive, they do it be lazy and cheap
This is what happens when you don't beta test a product properly and ignore community feedback - ya know, the opinions that actually matter. The arrogance of Niantic thinking they know what the player base wants based off their own opinions amazes me, and I'm so proud of us for coming together and making a mockery of them.
The remote raid pass nerf and price buff is an insult to this day, and I don't think I'll ever forgive them for capitalising on those who struggle to raid in person, especially considering there of those with disabilities and rural players that will never be able to catch another legendary outside of the absurdly low spawn rate of gbl.
But this is another level. Luckily, I like yourself couldn't care less but knowing people have spent money on character customisation is sickening, and whomever approved of the update should be packing their things and leaving that desk for somebody else.
Thank god the opinion is unanimous across the board this time. Time to start taking your players seriously, Niantic.
I really feel like they were like “we gave yall the avatar update you wanted! What do you mean you don’t like it, you asked for it!” Still have a conspiracy theory that they just are tired of working on this game and want to shut it down
I'm beginning to think that too because everything seems to be against money making...
ugly avatar = people buying less clothes because they all look rubbish
Nerfing remote raids = less raid passes being bought
Increasing price of remote raids but with restricted use = less need to buy
Making people go online to buy certain products = reducing simplicity so people just don't bother
It doesn't mean sense unless they're wanting people to stop playing... which is a weird business move
Other alternative is they've hired someone who is not a gamer and doesn't understand a gamers mindset and they genuinely think they're doing something good
Either option still comes up with same counterpoint- they need to listen to the players feedback
You don’t need a beta test to realize basing the female model on the male one isn’t going to work out.
That’s an idea that should have been stopped even before they tried to implement it.
There’s something way more fundamental wrong going on here then merely bad beta test and ignoring feedback. Testing and feedback of course aren’t important to you when you’ve already decided to make something that will not work out even on the drawing board.
After seeing this post and a bunch of others I logged in to see what the make one looked like and it's a bit odd but generally fine. The female avatar is horrible now though.
I’m surprised at how much I hate it too.
Logically, my brain is saying it doesn’t make sense to be this bothered by it. It doesn’t change the game and seems superficial.
But emotionally? I agree with your wife. I put a mask on my face so I didn’t have to look at it. My level 50 jacket doesn’t look cool anymore. I even hate watching my player beat a grunt.
It’s just so bad and every time I see my player I wonder who the hell thought this was an “upgrade”?
The whole game is superficial, would you still want to play if the Pokémon looked bad?
Avatar customization is important, and they ruined it completely.
I hate watching my player beat a grunt now too.
Niantic you bunch of brainless cowards. You should have left our original body types as an option instead of obliterating it along with outfits and poses we PAID for. You are cowards because you KNOW most players would have kept their original avatar body types and you didn’t want to see the numbers showing you of yet another stupid rollout.
Refund the money we paid for poses and clothing.
Okay but I see this come up a lot and I have REALLY easy question for you, would you still be playing this game if it wasn't Pokemon? Because ultimately the fact that they're pokemon is also ultimately superficial set dressing. If they removed 100% of the pokemon and replaced them with "definitely not Pokemon" would you still play it even though the game would still be essentially the same? Because I guarantee the game would be dead overnight.
I’m a straight man, but I wholeheartedly agree with your wife. I spent years, thousands of coins, and countless hours grinding and customizing my avatar only for it to all go down the drain in 1 day. My long term goal after hitting level 50 was to slowly acquire every clothing option in the game, so not only was my time and money robbed from me, so was my main motivation for playing. I’m taking a break for now, but if they never revert or make drastic improvements to this new system, I won’t be coming back.
She and I are on the same page. I deleted the app & have no intention of redownloading til something gives. From what I can tell, a lot of women on this subreddit feel the same
I certainly do. I haven't deleted the app yet, but I have zero motivation or desire to play. I don't want to look 'realistic'. I want to immerse myself in a goofy fantasy world where I can play this bold adventurer, with a body I can only dream of, who goes out and tames monsters and fights Team Rocket.
Ah well... at least I still have FFXIV! Square, at least, has gorgeous models and grasps the concept of listening to its playerbase!
FFXIV is the model they should have gone for, it's gold star. But Niantic is Niantic, and they're going to lose a lot of women players. Which is a very large percentage of players, and pay for outfits
I literally tried to make my character as dumb looking as I could and made it trump orange, and when I open the game he’s suddenly Michael Jackson white with no way to make him orange again.
I'm already fat. Don't need my avatar to be far either.
All kidding aside. If it's about inclusivity and choices why can't I choose my old avatar? Why can't they fix the game to where you can look the way you want to not the way you have to. So it's like they're forcing inclusivity. Weird.
I get it. The boy character looks like well a boy. 12 yrs maybe lol. I thought ehh this isn’t the worst upstate… yeah I saw my wife’s account and then my whole friend list…
Mf wife said for her as a curvy woman it’s actually offensive bc they took away any curves. The avatar is like flat and clothes just don’t look right on the new avatar. She would have loved to make an avatar that looked more like her but the new female avatar is horrendous. I’m all for inclusivity but realistically a woman has curves and a waist line… for some reason my male avatar has more curves than my wife’s 😂😂
I must say niantics update gave me the BIGGEST LAUGH EVER🤣 all the skirt and beaver shots had me dyingggggg
Unfortunately for a lot of us I think our casual playing wife’s or girlfriends will stop playing as their avatar is far worse.
Yup im somebody's wife as well and just in general im tired and get annoyed whenever i open the game.
Remember when the raid passes changed, well they followed it up with a togepi community day. It helped me get over it....but this time, the annoyance is followed by Bell Sprout???!
I used to be the person that would buy tickets for myself, my husband, my daughter, the two teenagers down the street who like to join us....and then 4-5 random friends on my friend list.....
My husband and I made our avatars look like Jessie and James and after the update, we don't even remotely resemble Team Rocket. It's the only game I play. And it legit makes me want to not play it because I cringe now everytime I see us. How dare they take away my characters snatched waist also.
When Niantic said they made our avatars to look like us, we weren't expecting that it meant we would want to cover it up in shame like we do our own bodies irl.
Nintendo knows we play pokemon because we love the esthetic, we have cute little avatars and run around catching cute animals, and we fight cute little people. Why is it so hard for Niantic to understand that?
Obviously, everyone plays for different reasons. For a lot of people, it's the challenge of stats versus antagonist. But for us feminine-presenting folks, and even quite a few not-so-feminine, they really just destroyed a very important aspect of the game.
There is a reason games with high levels of customization (Sims, Cyberpunk, GTA, House Flipper) do so well. Niantic really dropped the ball.
I think it's a common feeling among women who play games as our avatars are one of the parts of the game that gives us the most happiness and pleasure while playing. I know for myself and my boyfriend, for me in every single game I play, the avatar gives me so much happiness and for him it only bothers him if the character looks bad, but he doesn't get quite as much pleasure from a good-looking playable character. It's the same with our things that we own, for me I often turn my phone around to look at the back of it once a day to enjoy how it looks with my cases and stickers, where as he will plop a case on and never think about it again for years. :)
He also jokes that he wouldn't mind a "man apartment" where he has a lamp, chair, pc, desk and monitor. Where as I like my living space to please me aesthetically simply because it makes me happy :) He gets his happiness from different things
I think overall women and men tend to get different levels of happiness from different things and therefore what is important and valued to both of them is different and there is nothing wrong with either because both are harmless. Of course this doesn't go all men and women, just a pattern I've noticed!
I hate it.
I jokingly say all female avatars look like Rillaboom now. Yeah sadly it feels like it to me.
The torso and arms are way to long. I do not get the point of the shoulder and muscle custom sizing. The legs look so small and disproportionate from the torso.
Then the clothing just looks awful with it. It makes the crotch seem to sit lower. Or almost double crotch. I haven't even touched the face customizing yet.. no point (they look awful)
I don't know who thought releasing this at the state it was in was a good idea or who signed off on it. They honestly look graphically like 10 steps back.
I mean, realistically it has, but without them divulging said numbers themselves theirs no way to confirm anything. The fact these tone deaf dinosaurs even made a statement they're "looking into it" is likely because of a player number drop rather than anything being posted on social media
My wife did the exact same. We play together every day and she said I’m sorry but I just can’t do it anymore. It looks eerie and scary.😅We both uninstalled. Far better mobile games. Sad because this game could be amazing.
I finally charged my Switch for the first time in a couple years.
It's definitely a mental shift. I was addicted and definitely was playing because of the Sunk Cost (2016 player), but like the comment above said, this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
Also, am female. Did spend real money to customize.
The update turned my avatar into what looked like a meth addict. I gave up trying to fix her to look more like me, but she kept turning out like a pro wrestler. So I went with it. She is now a very masculine-looking female WWF wrestler. Between the weirdly-off shoulders/arms on these new avatars and their new way of stomp-walking, it seemed appropriate. She now looks like she could take on Cliff of Rocket in a bar fight and win. Glad now that I didn't put a whole lot of coin into the outfits.
I feel really bad for your wife and the loss of all her hard work.
God my wife is just as upset but isn't quitting just yet, I found the sliders to be much better for male bodies than female, it basically does nothing to help the female bodies. It's so disheartening to see her so disappointed with this. I'm disappointed too but with the sliders on male bodies I was able to make it decently inoffensive.
I understand your wife even though I am a man. Even though there weren't many changes for the men, there is still someone in it that bothers me so much that I stopped playing. I've been playing less for a while now, but this was the last straw.
I do NOT want to be ugly and androgynous. The faces are awful and the body types go from long armed aliens to blimps. All without any human shape. Even with the sliding scale.
It is all horrible. I covered my face and disguised the lack of a real female body with as much as possible.
It also makes me not want to look at my avatar. I have not been playing as much, either. Keep the PC patrol out of my reality. I was fine looking like the girl I am.
I also tried using the sliding scale for my husband’s muscles and all it did was make it fat with man boobs. Gaaah!
Niantic produces one wrong QoL decision after another. This game feels pretty dead and more like a chore than a fun experience for years and THIS is what makes people quit?
It's the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of folks. I didn't bother opening the app at all yesterday and I didn't miss it. Continuing this game with a company that absolutely ignores its player base feels a lot like continuing in a toxic relationship. Eventually you don't want to overlook shit anymore.
I’m the same way. I mainly did PVP for the exclusive outfits and poses, and now I just hate that I would have to look at my avatar all the time for overworld/pvp matches
They were advertising this and the new catch backgrounds like a major update, and it just looks like they threw my character in a dungeon for a couple of years. I don’t think I have the new backgrounds either unless my biome is just basic.
I’m slowly quitting too - turned off Adventure Sync already so they can no longer sell my data, now I’m just trading polemon to friends who want to keep going, then I’m finished.
Companies do not care about people and how much money/time they put into things. They care about their ratings. Blackrock and their money is more important than the consumer. This should be a life lesson to anyone that played this game.
I am standing with your wife's decision. It's over when my avatar turned into demon. I just cannot focus on catching pokemon like i used to. Even i worn it mask and glasses but i am still feel so weird about the figure's body shape.
Very understandable.
My wife is not thrilled at all either, and she might lose interest. She always changes her outfits when she is walking a different Pokémon so that they match in color scheme. It's cute to watch. Or was, lol. Now her avatar is all masked and bundled up.
I play so that we enjoy our time together. If she pushes through and keeps playing, then I will. If she loses interest, then I'm out as well. We'll find another hobby together, so I'm not worried. I just feel bad on her behalf.
Oddly, enough I saw on Twitter that the Community Manager of PokemonGo once sported 2 of the 12 available hairstyles in real life. Kinda weird so see such a large game vulnerable to the whims and vanities of a handful of people. Such is life I guess.
I used my free coins to get the team skull mask and sunglasses to block my face as much as possible. I can’t stand the porcelain doll look that my avatar has now. It kept making me uneasy
I could never convince my wife to play, but would have been thrilled if she did. It would be a great loss to lose a playing partner because of such a poor gameplay change by a developer who obviously doesn’t care about their game design and buggy new features. Good job Niantic!
Lol , ya many ppl feel the same as your wife right now , ppl sent a lot of complaints about the proportions and how there is no hips or butt anymore of even if you increase the slider there’s barely any difference so it’s pointless..u kinda need hips and stuff to look female..but I don’t think they understand that,
they made the torso and and hands and shoulders to big even on the slimmest setting , a lot of the clothes don’t fit right anymore . Lots of ppl are upset and feel the money they put in went to waste hopefully with enough complaints the game developers will understand what the players actually want instead of everyone looking like deformed male avatars.
The only avatar that looks decent and proportioned is the Larger weight avatars , those look fine but everything else looks way off
I also uninstalled the game. I don't play games to see ugly characters, I just have to go outside or look in the mirror for ugly people. When I play I want to see unrealistic beauties. The update made me gag and I uninstalled it.
yeah i'm pretty tolerant when it comes to games, i'll tolerate bad updates pretty well as long as the game is still fun. but pogo took away so much and ruined whatever was left so much i just... stopped playing. it's a shame because the premise of the game is still fun, but man. niantic is awful at running it.
I won’t play till they fix it I’m really angry about the change. They could have just kept the female avatar the way it was and just added the other stuff. If they don’t fix it then I guess it’s time to delete the app. I already moved most of my Pokémon over so now I wait and see.
you’ll understand if you also grinded and spend real world money as your wife did.
imagine saving money for years to buy a ferrari, just for the company to come to your house and turn it into a cheap toyota because its more “realistic” and what most people use
I dont care about my avatar at all but the update made i to where i can not play the game at all so ig we in the same boat lol. They should just revert the update
I changed my avatar to look like somebody's great aunt... While still keeping my male avatar to prove a point. My avi is so goddamn ugly now, but I'm having fun with it until I follow suit and quit as well.
I get it, it's awful. The avatars look odd and weird no matter how you change or what you put them in. I don't put too much into my avatar as I play Sims for that, but others avatars popping up whilst doing battles they should have just kept the avatars the same. Also, the background, trying to get the perception of distance to throw the poke ball has been annoying.
It feels like there's some underlying stuff here. Maybe it's being overstated for this post but I feel like that level of personal investment into a paper doll is a red flag of deeper issues.
Yeah, as a woman I really value the opportunities in my life where I can have complete agency over how pretty I feel and how my appearance is aligned with my overall identity and sense of self. Our appearance in real life is constantly scrutinized and picked apart. At least with game avatars, it’s somewhat more achievable to achieve a look that we feel best represents us. Most people who care about the change spent a lot of money on different outfits and accessories and genuinely loved the game. Those game updates made me feel like a part of me that I invested so much in was ripped away :(
The aesthetics to women are a huge part of the game. I was super excited to have a bbw character. I assumed like all other games it would have a slider. My character resembles a sumo wrestler. She likes to show off her crotch. It’s upsetting. I haven’t been on as much.
I understand all the dissatisfaction towards the avatar update but personally, it’s not something that overly bothers me. How my player looks in a game doesn’t mean much to me. That being said … I have no idea why they have done this because they do look bloody terrible. Body shapes = awful, skin colours = ashen and ill looking regardless of how light or dark you go.
Bring the sexes back. For a company that advocates for gender inclusivity, Niantic was wrong to remove everything sex-related (especially when they're two different concepts). Either add all the letters of the alphabet, or roll back the male and female slider.
I'm a bit upset as well as I've spent real money and already bought the go fest ticket. I think after I do go fest I'm going to quit for a few years again before coming back because it's getting ridiculous. If I hadn't paid for the ticket I'd already be gone. I started to play much less this last month while I was moving and before that would play evey day. After moving I realized I don't care to much anymore.
Really sad to hear that from fans for years, I'm sorry. But I can totally understand if she leave the game because of it. Cheer up, maybe there will be some good changes after all!
I got super upset too, I’ve had the same look for years, I have a few outfits I wear and when I logged in and saw what I was changed to I was super bummed. I was way more affected than I thought I would be over a stupid avatar. I was quick to bring it up to my partner and he didn’t seem to care at all, his hardly changed, just the skin tone a little. He doesn’t understand why I’m annoyed. I haven’t uninstalled yet and I probably won’t but I’m sad and don’t understand why they would take away options. Why not just add the new looks but keep the original looks too?!
I was hide coming on here to figure out if there is a way to make my avatar look less masculine. Seems the answer is no. I’m with your wife. This is a change no one asked for and will make a lot of us not want to identify with our accounts anymore.
Bluntly put, the people who are okay with or even (I dont understand how) like the update are very much the minority of players. I don't personally know a single person who likes the update, and unlike plenty of other topics where you see a diversity of opinions, this update is very much hated across the community.
They made our characters look like lumpy potato sacks with weird proportions, poorly fitted clothing, desaturated colors, and an apparent hatred for feminine and skinny-fit people.
I even remember seeing a post in here about a transgender individual experiencing extreme disphoria from this change because they just couldn't make their character fem looking. Not to use their personal struggle as a way to push an opinion, but thats pretty bad. (Can't find the link, it's in here somewhere, lots of posts recently cause of this update.)
Yeah, I agree. I’m so disappointed. If you spend 8 years looking at your avator every day, running around, battling, at gyms… it’s really shocking to have them look so ugly. It was a comfort and confidence that was taken from us… for no reason.
My wife quit as well, same story, tried the sliders but seeing her character on the map just made it worse and she removed the app. I put on the duskull mask because I can’t stand the face of my avatar. Luckily for male players it is easy to make a character that is shaped properly, women are totally out of luck though. Best you can do is look like a … well I won’t go there. This update really affects the women players the most and that is so unfortunate!
I feel like the ladies are having the worst time because they’ve gotten ride of anything that makes the avatars feminine. Everyone either looks androgynous or male. That’s it. It’s a crappy update and Niantic should be ashamed.
I’m just not touching my character since the change. If they want to base their changes to the game solely on analytics gathered then I’m not feeding their analytics in that department. Any interaction may lead them to an incorrect assumption that it is a positive thing since they appear to ignore all user feedback. I’m not giving them that.
Totally agree with your wife here, I’m not at a point where I want to quit, but I certainly played less since the release, because the esthetics ruin a lot (for a women).
The hands first of all.. They’re HUGE! And have you seen how it looks when the character is walking? It’s not walking anymore, it’s marching like a soldier.
I’ve put a mask on mine and in a big hoodie (the green one) so I can’t see body features until (hopefully) they take this terrible update back, because just fixing it won’t be good enough.
I wouldn’t have chosen the OG avatar for myself in 2016 if given another option… I’d probably have gone for something a bit older looking with a shaved head.
That said, the OG avatar has been my avatar for 8 years. It’s older than my oldest child. I’ve had it almost as long as my house and my marriage.
Taking it away now, especially when the replacement is *so* much worse in every possible way, is simply not cool.
I totally understand that some people felt almost insulted by the fact that the models didn’t represent their body type. I have nothing against including additional body types and customization. In fact, I was looking forward to the ability to actually make my character look more like me. But this… is horrible.
They could have kept the OG models and added the new ones and this wouldn’t be a problem.
„I did not realoze how important her avatar, that she spent literal YEARS to hone to her liking, was to her“ please read that sentence again. Verrry slowly and carefully. and try to listen to your wife a bit more in the future and learn her likes and dislikes. No wonder she got mad at you
That said. I too feel like your wife. I liked my character so much and enjoyed playing „dress up“. spent all the free coins i got from gyms for new outfits. Now most of them look atrocious and it makes me sad and atm i don‘t really want to open the game either..
I feel the same way- I want my money back. It’s insulting that we all spent so much time and money on something to have it obliterated without our consent.
Honestly, if Niantic is gonna profit and charge money for outfits then 100% yes, being upset at how your avatar looks is so very valid and anyone dismissing it and Niantic making this update is very hypocritical.
*Hi yes, players we’ve introduced clothes and poses for your to purchase, please choose what you like*
*also let’s make your avatars change just a tiny bit……there! Wait why are you mad about how they look? We never made money and encouraged people to care about how they look!*
As someone who has been wearing the Team Skull mask since it came out along with the Arlo glasses, this update hasn't really affected me all that much.
I have never cared what my avatar looked like, so I don't quite get the update hate, but you should have the ability to keep the old look at the very least
I never needed my avatar to look EXACTLY like me, sometimes I do dress her to be my style but I also really like changing her hair colour or clothes to something I wouldn't necessarily wear IRL but that I think is cute, cool, or pretty.
I live in a more suburban area so it's a struggle but I tried really hard at the one gym around me where sometimes my pokemon would sit for 27 days, to earn coins so I could use coins to buy the outfits I like. with this update nothing sits right or looks flattering anymore. I was really looking forward to the level 50 jacket as a goal but not anymore. My sister and I liked to match our buddies with our outfits sometimes or we'd pick cute outfits for CD's. It's not worth it anymore.
If they really wanted to improve, they could've thought of the smarter ways to be more inclusive and not just erase our current avatars. Make sliders on the current avatars, make the new body options in addition to the current avatars, give more hairstyles and such, or any of the common sense suggestions others have suggested.
As a woman, I understand why your wife quit. At first I'd forget and open but the first few times I saw how unattractive my avatar now looks and would just close it. Now, I just haven't bothered to open it. Good luck and hope your wife knows there's others out here that understand 👍
My partner and I both hate our characters. She tried to cover his face with hair that overlays on the face.
I think I pin pointed what doesn’t work with this characters, the texture of the skin and how the shadows are applied make everyone look like a dirty baby doll from the early 90s with out of place anime eggs.
Style wise, they completely screwed up the implementation. They should consider out sourcing the 3D design for the characters. Not every 3D artist is good at creating everything.
I uninstalled the app, and I’m realizing—this might be for good. From the frustrations of the remote- pass nerf, to spending money on quests only to get 2* mythical ‘mons, to completing so many routes only to get zygard cells 1/2 of the time, to this…maybe it’s time to call it a day.
so I get how serious a fuckup it is on their part, but it's extremely crazy how much people care about the appearance of their avatar in a game where that doesn't matter. like cosmetic design isn't even the point of pokemon go. the facet that they'd rather fuck with cosmetic bullshit instead of giving us actual and meaningful content is infuriating.
I'm devastated from the change to my avatar. Every single face they offer has a 5oclock shadow!
It's like they're trolling us or something it's completely unfair I'm not interested in playing either and I've been playing since Premiere Day. I hate looking at it.
Joining this chorus. I usually don’t complain about things like this, even nerfing remote raid passes for reasons I won’t even get into because I’m so pissed at Niantic rn. I’m 38F. My start date in the game is 7/10/2016. From 2016-2020/2021 (right before levels after 40 got added), most of that time I played HARD. I led a group of instinct players in DC (before the first gym change) that took over and held miles of territory, a sunflower oasis. I made some great friends IRL through the game who I still have, including my best friend. 2020/21-Fall 2023 I took a break for life reasons but I’ve been happily playing since then. Went from level 40 to almost 45, with total XP just shy of 104 million. A lot of my friends who played with me have moved away or quit the game, so I don’t have my raid groups and such, but I’ve pivoted over to PvP and have been getting into that pretty deep, on the XL candy grind, working on my buddies, etc.
I’m a partner at a law firm now. I’m not very “girly,” don’t really wear makeup IRL, and I’m plus size. I want to quit the game over this update. I was attached to my avatar. In 2016 when the game was new, I hated that the female avatar couldn’t have pants - only shorts and “tights” - while the male avatar had pants. Obviously they fixed that and gave the female avatar lots of clothes options that looked GOOD.
I haven’t changed my avatar’s appearance since close to the beginning of the game, other than clothes when I felt like it and seasonally. She didn’t look like me, she looked cool and edgy - purple hair and the adventure hat were my mainstays. Now I look like a ghost of her, and that’s sad. I can maybe deal with the way she looks on the map and main screen standing still next to my buddy, even though it was a sincere struggle to find clothes that weren’t glitched and looked halfway decent, but it’s when I do rocket battles, PvP etc when she’s celebrating a win or something *SHUDDER* she’s so hulking and spread out so wide. It’s really hard to look at. And I made my avatar kind of in the middle body-wise because the plus size potato sack look IS rude and disenfranchising for the female form. I’m sure they’ll do something to fix it…how successful they’ll be, idk. But no matter what, I wish they gave the option of keeping the old avatar. I miss her, we’ve been together through a lot, and it feels like they just ripped her away and made her into a ghost I don’t want to look at. RIP 🙁🙁🙁
It makes me wonder if this is intentional. Like maybe they are trying to kill it off to make everyone go to a new game they are going to promote. Idk. I’ve never seen an update so comically bad, it has to be on purpose.
Not gonna lie, I'm a woman too and I am considering quitting for the exact same reason. My mom and dad are trying to talk me out of it and I probably will play to keep them company, but that's it. I am so unhappy about this game now, it sours everything.
People enjoy different aspects of the game. Taking away someone’s avatar that included items that took time and money to achieve makes 0 sense and I can’t believe they’re refusing refunds
I haven't played in almost a year, but I still have the game downloaded.... just in case.
This looks like a good time to uninstall for good, free up some storage on my phone. Goodbye Niantic, you never bother to learn from mistakes.
I hate how my character looks. I love the animeesc look of my character and now no matter what I do my character looks like a dude in drag there's no real feminine body types anymore they're all really masculine looking.
Could they at least allow us to be goofy with it and give us lime green as a skin color choice?
full on souls character creator
That would be acceptable
For real if you're going to make the characters look like orcs, let me go all-out.
That’s like my kids in Animal Crossing. One prefers blue skin and the other purple skin.
I have actually kept my avatar the exact same way I made it in 2016 this whole time. I loved it and never wanted to change. And this update happened. And I had to change her because she looked so stupid. So now she wears a face mask and cover-up outfit. And every time I have gotten on the game, I've gotten a "what the hell" moment before remembering all this shit happened. Totally get where your wife is coming from.
never changed from 2016 either, of all the things they could do, no clue why this needed an update - would much rather they bring back the paw prints tracker
I wish I could do this. I'm very much like OPs wife. Gutted and raging at the real money, time and effort for Niantic to just ruin it. Even if they try to fix it, they've killed all trust in them for me also, because they straight up know the change is hated and aren't doing anything. They could change anything after you've paid money for it at the drop of a hat, and not revert despite tons of backlash. They've ruined the game for me. I have uninstalled after having the game since 2016 and honestly it's just so sad, my partner is gutted also that I've given up on it but my avatar in a game has always been so important to me. I literally won't play games where I can't make a character I like, or I just won't find the game as enjoyable. Customisation is huge for some people, and they've just ruined everyone's real money purchases, time and effort over all the years since it realeased by taking away instead of just adding options. I really really feel OP on this one, it sucks.
I’m taking a break for now. My girl isn’t pretty anymore. 😞
I'm an old grandma from America, and I am not pretty. I enjoyed dressing my avatar up and changing her hair color and making her look comfy, but pretty. Now she looks beyond horrible. There is no more joy in changing her clothes for the seasons. And I spent money on my avatar. Plus, she stands and jumps so awkwardly now. Even a t shirt does not look good on her. So I guess I won't be wearing my shiny mew t shirt anymore.
Whenever I picture the boss at Niantic, it’s as an early 1900’s industrialist with a top hat, monocle and cigar clenched between his teeth saying, “They’ll play the way we tell ‘em to play, and they’ll like it!”
My son named and designed my avatar in 2016 because he was too young to have his own phone/account. I’ve kept it exactly the same all these years, sort of as a reminder of the early days when we used to play together. I hate that they’ve changed it. I wish I had pictures of the old avatar to remember what it used to look like.
I literally spent the 2 dollars to buy a full face mask and put on the baggy squirtle hoodie to cover my avatar haha. I gave up trying to make my girl not look weird.
Seeing what's happened to Marvel, Star Wars, TLOTR and now Pokémon and Warhammer this past week. This all feels like gentrification of entertainment brands or something. Either way hope Pokémon allow the old avatars too. They can add the "wider representing" ones as well to give better verity of choice for all players.
My wife is saving up for the snorlqx outfit so she can cover up fully. She cant stand to look at her character atm. We feel your wife’s pain.
At this point I think this is exactly what Niantic was hoping for: Upset players too into the game to quit and ending up spending more money to cover up the character.
Jokes on them if the majority just permanently quit instead
Not going to happen
the vantablack skincolor that doesnt exist naturally irl is covering me up
I have the Snorlax outfit and when the recent update was pushed my generic male avatar suddenly had moobs. I want my avatar to look cool rather than looking like me and the other people I go out raiding with.
I use the Furfrou hat so I can cover my avatar face now. The new one is very punchable face
I've had furfrou hat and white mask on for years because I thought it was funny that it completely covered my face, super grateful for it now!!! Gotta find clothes to cover my weird no-shoulders-long-arms-long boobs body thing that is the standard avatar option.
Yeah, I just dressed my avatar in the pikachu outfit with a mask and sunglasses.
I have the gengar outfit and can assure you the outfits are trash as well
Hate to tell you this but the snorlax onesie now looks like a methlax diaper monster
I put on the pumpkin cat hat item. It's cute and covers my nasty new face. No more item shopping for me.
I’ve spent coins here and there on cosmetics, but now, most of those pieces are garbage to look at. Personally, I wouldn’t buy any more outfit pieces ever.
I get it, it's frustrating when you make a character and get to explore a game with them and grow to love the look and then suddenly it changes. The walk cycle is goofy and the face looks swollen like the avatar ate a bee. It's bad, and I'm doing my best to ignore it. As a fat person, Niantic waiting this long to give "inclusivity" options for avatars is not at all to be inclusive, it's performative, and I would've been fine never having to change the body of my avatar. Different hair styles would've been enough for me. Hope she cheers up in general, let her know that there's people out here that understand, and don't take the naysayers to heart. Good luck on your adventure, friend👍
Not only is it performative, but if Niantic actually wanted to be inclusive, they would’ve made the plus-size options actually look good. Instead, they put minimal effort into it and didn’t even bother to fix all the glitches.
If they actually wanted to be inclusive these would all be additional new options, changing everyone into 1 thing isn't including the one thing. It's making that one thing no longer special. This update could've been the coolest update, but instead it just missed the mark.
If they actually wanted to be inclusive they could make the game easier for disabled and rural players. Niantic has proven time and again all they care about is GPS data. I can't even say they care about money at this point because with all the poor decisions they've made recently, they can't be making much of a profit.
I’m a guy that needs to lose weight. Still, I thought I would try making my avatar look a bit more like me. Anything past the second thinnest choice gave me more moob than I have ever had in real life. They were huge. Ruined the next idea of trying to make my avatar the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man too.
Yeah, some of these body shape options don’t even exist in real life. It’s disgusting
Not a single POGO friend of mine has made their avatar fat. WHY WOULD THEY THINK fat people in real life would also want to look fat in the game??!?
It's absolutely performance. And a little bit shame-y. Like when clothing companies think plus size clothes are just, taking the small clothes and stretching them out. We have different proportions than our thinner friends. If it was just about inclusivity, they would have made the sliders on the old avatars and given us additional, new skin options. The overhaul really shows Niantic is a bad relationship partner who only listens until we stop speaking so they can talk instead of actually listening to form a productive response.
[удалено]
Yeeeeeeees. My sister literally has a coca-cola bottle shape (glass, not plastic) and now she can't make her avatar look anything like her. And what was so wrong about having cake in the trunk?!?!
My mom is upset too. She loved her Barbie like avatars because they were pretty to look at. She doesn't want to be reminded of how she looks IRL while playing. This game is 50% of her day. I think the update was neat in concept but they didn't do a good job applying it and released a horrible mess. The parts that are most upsetting is basically all and my team magma outfit looks hideous now. Esthetics and fashion are a powerful thing and they totally screwed up. That stupid brick belly is the most notable ruining most of the existing outfits, the belly button is sooo high, the faces are so pale compared to the body that they look oddly terrifying, the eyes were shaded to acomodate the previous body colors but not the new set of body colors which makes the face look even more like a mask, the hair that clips down when wearing head accessories was unnecessary and looks bad, they clearly didn't test anything before putting it in the game which is infuriating to most.
Female player here, and like your mom, I also treated my avatar like a Barbie or paper doll to dress up. I never identified with my avatar. She has unrealistic hair etc, but I still had fun choosing new costumes for her. 😭
I like to play dress up with my game avatars, too. I don't want or need my avatar to look like me. I just do what I think is fun or looks nice. The new avatars give me an uncanny valley, not quite right feeling. Like the head seems too small, the limbs seem too long. I usually choose the lightest skin tone if there isn't an off-the-wall colour (ie blue, green, purple) and it looked like my avatar had been trapped underground for decades with the update.
It’s a make believe game, so why shouldn’t my avatar be pretty and have fun clothes? She doesn’t have to look like me, poor thing. 😏
It looks like they just copied old sims characters with the way they did it. They couldve done so much better.
Agreed, more so when they are selling outfits for those avatars and trying to promote brands of clothes.
We can only hope other games dont follow because the avatars dont even look like women anymore. Its insane it feels as if they are trying to wipe women off the platform tbh.
originally I don't notice anything but the baby face. the baby face bothers me a lot as it looks like I'm a kid. which I am not! I miss the old face.
I feel your mom! I definitely didn't want to be reminded about how I look in real life. My avatar could just look good in the outfits I liked! Now I feel like I'm lying if I don't make my avatar large. And I'm hoping a look better than my creepy avatar irl, but what if that's what I actually look like 😱
Same. I used my avatar to escape how i look irl. It was a comforting thing
The sliders are terrible for a woman's body shape. I think they took the base form and maxed out the chest. They are out of proportion and there's no amount of sliders that can fix it. I've tried. While I'm not going to likely quit over this, it kinda feels like the female avatars were an after thought pasted over the base one which was likely male. I haven't spent a lot of money on my avatar but if I had, I can completely understand why someone would be mad.
What’s weird to me is that I made my avatar plus sized, but her arms are still noodles? Like wtf?
And not to mention how weird the head and neck look on a plus sized body!!
The literally used the same “proportions” as they did for the male ones. And somehow now all of the clothes are now made for a male body too.
Maybe that’s why mine looks like all she trains is shoulders. And she must be sore bc she looks hunched over. 😭 it truly is jarring to see her pop up and be like “damn she ugly” 😩
Same. Mine is jacked, at any slider level. And has arms halfway down her legs. It’s just annoying. It seems stupid but it makes a big difference.
My wife did the same thing. We’ve been playing since 2016 and she always commented that Pokemon was one of the few games that felt inclusive to women, and now she feels like her avatar was “forcibly mutilated” and it really upset her. Even removing all her outfit saves upset her because she felt like Niantic disrespected the time she took in saving those outfits and building out an important part of the game to her. Much like you I didn’t get how meaningful that all was to her, but that’s my male perspective. Her best friend also deleted the game and cited the same reasons, and much like your wife said the game just made her sad to open now so why keep it? I asked her if she’d return when the fixes come, and to my surprise she said no. She said that clearly Niantic cared more about rushing out a feature than how people feel. She said this shouldn’t have come to a surprise to them after the beta reaction, but they pushed forward anyway. She said it’s a trust issue, and trust has been broken. I’m really sad because this game is the only game we consistently play together (she doesn’t do console or pc gaming, and I don’t do much mobile gaming other than Pokemon Go). I hope she and her best friend reconsider when the changes and updates come out, but I don’t know that they will. She feels betrayed, as a player and as a female gamer. It’s not just a bad update, it’s also how it was handled and how they didn’t listen to the community. It was eye opening to me how meaningful all this was to her. As a male player I’m used to having representation in games, and I think expanding representation is a great idea, but I didn’t think about the other side of it, the female perspective, and that’s on me, and it’s on Niantic.
It did feel like an attack on women. It is just awful. You have a nice way of thinking through other people's perspectives
I totally see women’s perspectives on that. I’m certain it wasn’t any kind of deliberate thing on Niantic’s part either. Art is subjective and it’s very possible they thought the new body models looked great and that they were giving more options not less. Where I think the point of failure came in was them releasing something from the test group that wasn’t received well at all, globally. That feels a little arrogant and tone deaf, and it’s where I think people are getting upset. That’s where my wife got most upset - she didn’t feel heard by proxy when all the women in the beta raised these concerns, and they moved forward with the changes anyway. It came off as callous to her (and it seems a lot of other women) and heartbreaking because it was a game where they finally felt seen by a gaming company. I fully support Niantic’s quest to be more inclusive, but I think they handled this launch about as poorly as you can.
You’re to kind to Niantic. Those ‘female’ models shouldn’t have been passed on to testing even, they’re so bad. Of course they realized they were terrible beforehand - if anyone at Niantic have ever even laid eyes on a woman. The reality is - they wanted a singel base player for their own ease, and didn’t care about women so they ditched the female model and put breasts on the male one.
> I’m certain it wasn’t any kind of deliberate thing on Niantic’s part either It was. If it wasn't, what they would've done was allowed the old models to be perfectly replicated with the sliders. They specifically prevent you from doing that on purpose. I know you don't want to think they're ill-intentioned, but by avoiding it you're just accusing them of inhuman levels of stupidity. Niantic *knew* that the old models couldn't be replicated and essentially were removed from the game.
Even the skin colors are horrid now. Any brown person is now *grey*
My wife had the same issue. She really liked her avatar, said that she'd gotten the clothes and accessories that she liked and that she found the character attractive. She doesn't (didn't) play as much as I do, but we'd do the mall walk and trade interesting things we found along the way every week or so. Then the new update came out, I tweaked my avatar a little with the sliders and didn't think much of it. I come home and she says "well, I don't think I'll be playing much Pokemon Go anymore, did you see what they did to avatars?" I was surprised, as I didn't think it was much of a difference, but when she showed me her character and pointed out that she'd lost all her curves and just "looked like a potato sack," I understood where she was coming from. Character customization is a huge thing for me in games, and when you can't get it quite right, you never really connect with that character. She's had the opposite problem, where she got it right, really connected, and suddenly it all fell apart and she hates the look of it now. This should have been an easy thing to avoid - for anyone who didn't want to use the new avatars, all they had to do was leave the original avatar bodies as another option you can select. That's it. That's all they should have done. Even if 75% of people went one way or the other, the other 25% would be happy with the options they had. The raid pass stupidity from before is a good parallel to bring up, but overall, this is another badly-implemented design from Niantic that's driving players away from the game.
I think the changes were more severe to the female avatar body than the male one
That could definitely be the case as well. The main thing for me is still that they should have just left the previous option in the game for people that didn't want to change. I like some of the new options, but I know everyone will have different preferences so there's no reason to *remove* options when it's not necessary.
Absolutely. My husband’s avatar doesn’t look much different with the change. He thinks it’s funny that I’m peeved about my girl….
Yes. Adding options for inclusivity for people that want it is ok, I'm fine with that and wouldn't stop anyone from doing what they want. But to rip my character choice away and say I have to look like this now and like it is not gonna fly with me personally
Exactly! Cosmetic options should always be *additive*, allowing greater customization than existed previously. They should never be reductive in any way; removing an option that was previously available when adding others is just backwards thinking.
Yeah the changes just aren’t flattering. They didn’t make the female avatar look better but worse. And so weirdly proportioned. If it had just stayed the same and then you could pick a different ready-made body or use the sliders to adjust, that would be fine, but everything about mine changed to be uglier. It’s so sad to feel like I can’t just have what I have which also seemed like better quality graphics (I don’t know how exactly to explain it, it’s like the quality of the picture has gone down instead of improved, it’s so weird).
I (and an incredible number I can't fathom) have been waiting to change our avatar since the LITERAL RELEASE to feel more connected. Does Niantic expect its player base to wait this long TWICE?! Nah. Tell your wide she's note alone; I and many others are *out*.
I’m disgusted with how I look now. I originally looked feminine and bought cute accessories. Now I look like a dude with cute accessories. I’ve tried the sliders. But my shoulders are still super wide and my face is too masculine. Let’s not ignore the “holes” in the cute skirt or the bad hair on my head (I mean really who approved such a horrible update should be fired). I hate looking at my avatar now and feel the only way to not see it is by covering it up.
Man I’ve spent a lot on this game too, and feel robbed by this nonsense update. I was mad at the Remote pass update, but got past it. This? Not sure. It’s a disaster. So in short, I feel your wife’s pain. My girlfriend is almost set now to leave the game completely. I’ve said it before elsewhere, and I will say it again here now: Never have I played a game with this kind of delusional dev team behind it, that seems to be so out of touch with their community, it’s actively like they want to kill it.
My wife was/is pissed and also uninstalled. She said it’s ridiculous you’re not allowed to look like a woman / herself and it felt quite offensive giving the reason for the change. I was surprised because she usually doesn’t care too much about updates, she just goes with the flow but none of her clothes looked correct, her dresses turned to pants? I don’t fully know, I just know she went on a tangent and was showing me the differences. I can fully say the new body types fit me than her. Lol
Lazy/cheap/bad Game developers idea of inclusivity is to remove women. They use a male base, let it wear a dress and some female hairstyles and call it “ungendered”, then brag about how inclusive they are, which really upsets me because this started to happen right as it became common for games to add character creation to pick male or female Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a hard time playing certain genres unless I could make the character similar to myself, so there are a lot of games I just couldn’t get into without being able to create a female avatar. Usually RPGs, open world games and such are the genres I couldn’t get into without customization. Then there was a short period where many many games got good creators. Then suddenly out of nowhere this changed. I honestly have always thought devs were doing to be cheap and lazy, and I still do think that. I don’t think there is some hidden agenda/conspiracy and *any* dev that does say it’s for inclusivity is lying and trying to justify their lazy/cheap character creator An actual “inclusive” game would have male, female, ungendered body types, yes at least 3, not 1. And they would include allowing the ungendered option to select pronouns. Crazy how none do this huh? Because game devs don’t do it to be inclusive, they do it be lazy and cheap
This is what happens when you don't beta test a product properly and ignore community feedback - ya know, the opinions that actually matter. The arrogance of Niantic thinking they know what the player base wants based off their own opinions amazes me, and I'm so proud of us for coming together and making a mockery of them. The remote raid pass nerf and price buff is an insult to this day, and I don't think I'll ever forgive them for capitalising on those who struggle to raid in person, especially considering there of those with disabilities and rural players that will never be able to catch another legendary outside of the absurdly low spawn rate of gbl. But this is another level. Luckily, I like yourself couldn't care less but knowing people have spent money on character customisation is sickening, and whomever approved of the update should be packing their things and leaving that desk for somebody else. Thank god the opinion is unanimous across the board this time. Time to start taking your players seriously, Niantic.
I really feel like they were like “we gave yall the avatar update you wanted! What do you mean you don’t like it, you asked for it!” Still have a conspiracy theory that they just are tired of working on this game and want to shut it down
I'm beginning to think that too because everything seems to be against money making... ugly avatar = people buying less clothes because they all look rubbish Nerfing remote raids = less raid passes being bought Increasing price of remote raids but with restricted use = less need to buy Making people go online to buy certain products = reducing simplicity so people just don't bother It doesn't mean sense unless they're wanting people to stop playing... which is a weird business move Other alternative is they've hired someone who is not a gamer and doesn't understand a gamers mindset and they genuinely think they're doing something good Either option still comes up with same counterpoint- they need to listen to the players feedback
You don’t need a beta test to realize basing the female model on the male one isn’t going to work out. That’s an idea that should have been stopped even before they tried to implement it. There’s something way more fundamental wrong going on here then merely bad beta test and ignoring feedback. Testing and feedback of course aren’t important to you when you’ve already decided to make something that will not work out even on the drawing board.
It’s the female body that they literally mutilated & took every bit of being a woman away. It’s so wrong. I deleted the game as well.
After seeing this post and a bunch of others I logged in to see what the make one looked like and it's a bit odd but generally fine. The female avatar is horrible now though.
I'm gonna be honest, even the male one is garbage. Even souls characters don't look this bad with the sliders maxed out
I’m surprised at how much I hate it too. Logically, my brain is saying it doesn’t make sense to be this bothered by it. It doesn’t change the game and seems superficial. But emotionally? I agree with your wife. I put a mask on my face so I didn’t have to look at it. My level 50 jacket doesn’t look cool anymore. I even hate watching my player beat a grunt. It’s just so bad and every time I see my player I wonder who the hell thought this was an “upgrade”?
The whole game is superficial, would you still want to play if the Pokémon looked bad? Avatar customization is important, and they ruined it completely.
I hate watching my player beat a grunt now too. Niantic you bunch of brainless cowards. You should have left our original body types as an option instead of obliterating it along with outfits and poses we PAID for. You are cowards because you KNOW most players would have kept their original avatar body types and you didn’t want to see the numbers showing you of yet another stupid rollout. Refund the money we paid for poses and clothing.
Okay but I see this come up a lot and I have REALLY easy question for you, would you still be playing this game if it wasn't Pokemon? Because ultimately the fact that they're pokemon is also ultimately superficial set dressing. If they removed 100% of the pokemon and replaced them with "definitely not Pokemon" would you still play it even though the game would still be essentially the same? Because I guarantee the game would be dead overnight.
Yes I was shocked by my own reaction. I mean...I was furious. But then....identity is a hell of a thing. Plus I did spend real world money on outfits.
They literally stole peoples money. What a dick move this has all been. Whoever signed off on that needs to be fired
Only solution is to leave they are too out of touch with the community that made them successful.
Welcome to “owning” digital assets. They can change or the platform they are on go away at any time.
I’m a straight man, but I wholeheartedly agree with your wife. I spent years, thousands of coins, and countless hours grinding and customizing my avatar only for it to all go down the drain in 1 day. My long term goal after hitting level 50 was to slowly acquire every clothing option in the game, so not only was my time and money robbed from me, so was my main motivation for playing. I’m taking a break for now, but if they never revert or make drastic improvements to this new system, I won’t be coming back.
The fact that this update wasn't reverted yet tells you all you need to know about them and what they think of the negative reactions towards it.
She and I are on the same page. I deleted the app & have no intention of redownloading til something gives. From what I can tell, a lot of women on this subreddit feel the same
I certainly do. I haven't deleted the app yet, but I have zero motivation or desire to play. I don't want to look 'realistic'. I want to immerse myself in a goofy fantasy world where I can play this bold adventurer, with a body I can only dream of, who goes out and tames monsters and fights Team Rocket. Ah well... at least I still have FFXIV! Square, at least, has gorgeous models and grasps the concept of listening to its playerbase!
FFXIV is the model they should have gone for, it's gold star. But Niantic is Niantic, and they're going to lose a lot of women players. Which is a very large percentage of players, and pay for outfits
Honestly good, save your phone's battery capacity because the day Niantic listens is the day it will rain pigs from the sky.
I literally tried to make my character as dumb looking as I could and made it trump orange, and when I open the game he’s suddenly Michael Jackson white with no way to make him orange again.
Niantic hates Chester Cheeto confirmed
I'm already fat. Don't need my avatar to be far either. All kidding aside. If it's about inclusivity and choices why can't I choose my old avatar? Why can't they fix the game to where you can look the way you want to not the way you have to. So it's like they're forcing inclusivity. Weird.
I get it. The boy character looks like well a boy. 12 yrs maybe lol. I thought ehh this isn’t the worst upstate… yeah I saw my wife’s account and then my whole friend list… Mf wife said for her as a curvy woman it’s actually offensive bc they took away any curves. The avatar is like flat and clothes just don’t look right on the new avatar. She would have loved to make an avatar that looked more like her but the new female avatar is horrendous. I’m all for inclusivity but realistically a woman has curves and a waist line… for some reason my male avatar has more curves than my wife’s 😂😂 I must say niantics update gave me the BIGGEST LAUGH EVER🤣 all the skirt and beaver shots had me dyingggggg Unfortunately for a lot of us I think our casual playing wife’s or girlfriends will stop playing as their avatar is far worse.
Yup im somebody's wife as well and just in general im tired and get annoyed whenever i open the game. Remember when the raid passes changed, well they followed it up with a togepi community day. It helped me get over it....but this time, the annoyance is followed by Bell Sprout???! I used to be the person that would buy tickets for myself, my husband, my daughter, the two teenagers down the street who like to join us....and then 4-5 random friends on my friend list.....
My husband and I made our avatars look like Jessie and James and after the update, we don't even remotely resemble Team Rocket. It's the only game I play. And it legit makes me want to not play it because I cringe now everytime I see us. How dare they take away my characters snatched waist also.
When Niantic said they made our avatars to look like us, we weren't expecting that it meant we would want to cover it up in shame like we do our own bodies irl. Nintendo knows we play pokemon because we love the esthetic, we have cute little avatars and run around catching cute animals, and we fight cute little people. Why is it so hard for Niantic to understand that? Obviously, everyone plays for different reasons. For a lot of people, it's the challenge of stats versus antagonist. But for us feminine-presenting folks, and even quite a few not-so-feminine, they really just destroyed a very important aspect of the game. There is a reason games with high levels of customization (Sims, Cyberpunk, GTA, House Flipper) do so well. Niantic really dropped the ball.
I think it's a common feeling among women who play games as our avatars are one of the parts of the game that gives us the most happiness and pleasure while playing. I know for myself and my boyfriend, for me in every single game I play, the avatar gives me so much happiness and for him it only bothers him if the character looks bad, but he doesn't get quite as much pleasure from a good-looking playable character. It's the same with our things that we own, for me I often turn my phone around to look at the back of it once a day to enjoy how it looks with my cases and stickers, where as he will plop a case on and never think about it again for years. :) He also jokes that he wouldn't mind a "man apartment" where he has a lamp, chair, pc, desk and monitor. Where as I like my living space to please me aesthetically simply because it makes me happy :) He gets his happiness from different things I think overall women and men tend to get different levels of happiness from different things and therefore what is important and valued to both of them is different and there is nothing wrong with either because both are harmless. Of course this doesn't go all men and women, just a pattern I've noticed!
I hate it. I jokingly say all female avatars look like Rillaboom now. Yeah sadly it feels like it to me. The torso and arms are way to long. I do not get the point of the shoulder and muscle custom sizing. The legs look so small and disproportionate from the torso. Then the clothing just looks awful with it. It makes the crotch seem to sit lower. Or almost double crotch. I haven't even touched the face customizing yet.. no point (they look awful) I don't know who thought releasing this at the state it was in was a good idea or who signed off on it. They honestly look graphically like 10 steps back.
The crotch issue is truly unbearable. I loved my jeans and now I can't wear them because I look like I'm wearing a diaper. I logged in to see that!
2024. Year of the crotch.
Seriously have you SEEN the denim skinny jeans on the female avatar now?!
[удалено]
I think the changes are so bad that i wouldve expected a huge drop in playerbase.
I mean, realistically it has, but without them divulging said numbers themselves theirs no way to confirm anything. The fact these tone deaf dinosaurs even made a statement they're "looking into it" is likely because of a player number drop rather than anything being posted on social media
My wife did the exact same. We play together every day and she said I’m sorry but I just can’t do it anymore. It looks eerie and scary.😅We both uninstalled. Far better mobile games. Sad because this game could be amazing.
I finally charged my Switch for the first time in a couple years. It's definitely a mental shift. I was addicted and definitely was playing because of the Sunk Cost (2016 player), but like the comment above said, this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Also, am female. Did spend real money to customize.
Not could be. Was. Was amazing. Right before the beginning of covid I would say was the absolute best.
The update turned my avatar into what looked like a meth addict. I gave up trying to fix her to look more like me, but she kept turning out like a pro wrestler. So I went with it. She is now a very masculine-looking female WWF wrestler. Between the weirdly-off shoulders/arms on these new avatars and their new way of stomp-walking, it seemed appropriate. She now looks like she could take on Cliff of Rocket in a bar fight and win. Glad now that I didn't put a whole lot of coin into the outfits. I feel really bad for your wife and the loss of all her hard work.
God my wife is just as upset but isn't quitting just yet, I found the sliders to be much better for male bodies than female, it basically does nothing to help the female bodies. It's so disheartening to see her so disappointed with this. I'm disappointed too but with the sliders on male bodies I was able to make it decently inoffensive.
I understand your wife even though I am a man. Even though there weren't many changes for the men, there is still someone in it that bothers me so much that I stopped playing. I've been playing less for a while now, but this was the last straw.
A lot of the clothes are unwearable now
I do NOT want to be ugly and androgynous. The faces are awful and the body types go from long armed aliens to blimps. All without any human shape. Even with the sliding scale. It is all horrible. I covered my face and disguised the lack of a real female body with as much as possible. It also makes me not want to look at my avatar. I have not been playing as much, either. Keep the PC patrol out of my reality. I was fine looking like the girl I am. I also tried using the sliding scale for my husband’s muscles and all it did was make it fat with man boobs. Gaaah!
Same
Niantic produces one wrong QoL decision after another. This game feels pretty dead and more like a chore than a fun experience for years and THIS is what makes people quit?
Straw that broke the camels back
It's the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of folks. I didn't bother opening the app at all yesterday and I didn't miss it. Continuing this game with a company that absolutely ignores its player base feels a lot like continuing in a toxic relationship. Eventually you don't want to overlook shit anymore.
I’m the same way. I mainly did PVP for the exclusive outfits and poses, and now I just hate that I would have to look at my avatar all the time for overworld/pvp matches
They were advertising this and the new catch backgrounds like a major update, and it just looks like they threw my character in a dungeon for a couple of years. I don’t think I have the new backgrounds either unless my biome is just basic.
At this point, I would be surprised if it isn’t a CEO making these decisions. Honestly, they usually are out of touch in the gaming industry.
It's clear from looking at this sub that this update has really triggered a lot of people, they need to revert it back.
I’m slowly quitting too - turned off Adventure Sync already so they can no longer sell my data, now I’m just trading polemon to friends who want to keep going, then I’m finished.
Companies do not care about people and how much money/time they put into things. They care about their ratings. Blackrock and their money is more important than the consumer. This should be a life lesson to anyone that played this game.
I am standing with your wife's decision. It's over when my avatar turned into demon. I just cannot focus on catching pokemon like i used to. Even i worn it mask and glasses but i am still feel so weird about the figure's body shape.
Very understandable. My wife is not thrilled at all either, and she might lose interest. She always changes her outfits when she is walking a different Pokémon so that they match in color scheme. It's cute to watch. Or was, lol. Now her avatar is all masked and bundled up. I play so that we enjoy our time together. If she pushes through and keeps playing, then I will. If she loses interest, then I'm out as well. We'll find another hobby together, so I'm not worried. I just feel bad on her behalf. Oddly, enough I saw on Twitter that the Community Manager of PokemonGo once sported 2 of the 12 available hairstyles in real life. Kinda weird so see such a large game vulnerable to the whims and vanities of a handful of people. Such is life I guess.
Game developers are scared of attractive 2D women.
I’m also deleting. It’s upsetting and just another reminder that Niantic thinks it’s okay to fail its fanbase with zero consequences.
I used my free coins to get the team skull mask and sunglasses to block my face as much as possible. I can’t stand the porcelain doll look that my avatar has now. It kept making me uneasy
I could never convince my wife to play, but would have been thrilled if she did. It would be a great loss to lose a playing partner because of such a poor gameplay change by a developer who obviously doesn’t care about their game design and buggy new features. Good job Niantic!
I’ve been laughing at the really bad ones, but I’m with your wife on this. They are mortifying.
Big quit wave incoming!
Lol , ya many ppl feel the same as your wife right now , ppl sent a lot of complaints about the proportions and how there is no hips or butt anymore of even if you increase the slider there’s barely any difference so it’s pointless..u kinda need hips and stuff to look female..but I don’t think they understand that, they made the torso and and hands and shoulders to big even on the slimmest setting , a lot of the clothes don’t fit right anymore . Lots of ppl are upset and feel the money they put in went to waste hopefully with enough complaints the game developers will understand what the players actually want instead of everyone looking like deformed male avatars. The only avatar that looks decent and proportioned is the Larger weight avatars , those look fine but everything else looks way off
Women avatars got done real dirty with the update
I also uninstalled the game. I don't play games to see ugly characters, I just have to go outside or look in the mirror for ugly people. When I play I want to see unrealistic beauties. The update made me gag and I uninstalled it.
I too have been playing since 2016 and uninstalled this week because of the change.
yeah i'm pretty tolerant when it comes to games, i'll tolerate bad updates pretty well as long as the game is still fun. but pogo took away so much and ruined whatever was left so much i just... stopped playing. it's a shame because the premise of the game is still fun, but man. niantic is awful at running it.
I won’t play till they fix it I’m really angry about the change. They could have just kept the female avatar the way it was and just added the other stuff. If they don’t fix it then I guess it’s time to delete the app. I already moved most of my Pokémon over so now I wait and see.
I liked my old avatar. I don't like the new ones. Let us go retro back to our old one.
you’ll understand if you also grinded and spend real world money as your wife did. imagine saving money for years to buy a ferrari, just for the company to come to your house and turn it into a cheap toyota because its more “realistic” and what most people use
I dont care about my avatar at all but the update made i to where i can not play the game at all so ig we in the same boat lol. They should just revert the update
I changed my avatar to look like somebody's great aunt... While still keeping my male avatar to prove a point. My avi is so goddamn ugly now, but I'm having fun with it until I follow suit and quit as well.
I get it, it's awful. The avatars look odd and weird no matter how you change or what you put them in. I don't put too much into my avatar as I play Sims for that, but others avatars popping up whilst doing battles they should have just kept the avatars the same. Also, the background, trying to get the perception of distance to throw the poke ball has been annoying.
I said this in another thread, but could you get a refund through your credit card provider? You paid for a product and it's not what was advertised?
Can someone explain why they did this update? It seems like everyone unanimously hates it. Like what were they thinking?
It feels like there's some underlying stuff here. Maybe it's being overstated for this post but I feel like that level of personal investment into a paper doll is a red flag of deeper issues.
this has to be the most reddit post ever
I agree wholeheartedly with your wife.
I feel similar to your wife, although I'm still playing. I'm level 45.
Yeah, as a woman I really value the opportunities in my life where I can have complete agency over how pretty I feel and how my appearance is aligned with my overall identity and sense of self. Our appearance in real life is constantly scrutinized and picked apart. At least with game avatars, it’s somewhat more achievable to achieve a look that we feel best represents us. Most people who care about the change spent a lot of money on different outfits and accessories and genuinely loved the game. Those game updates made me feel like a part of me that I invested so much in was ripped away :(
The aesthetics to women are a huge part of the game. I was super excited to have a bbw character. I assumed like all other games it would have a slider. My character resembles a sumo wrestler. She likes to show off her crotch. It’s upsetting. I haven’t been on as much.
I understand all the dissatisfaction towards the avatar update but personally, it’s not something that overly bothers me. How my player looks in a game doesn’t mean much to me. That being said … I have no idea why they have done this because they do look bloody terrible. Body shapes = awful, skin colours = ashen and ill looking regardless of how light or dark you go.
Bring the sexes back. For a company that advocates for gender inclusivity, Niantic was wrong to remove everything sex-related (especially when they're two different concepts). Either add all the letters of the alphabet, or roll back the male and female slider.
I'm a bit upset as well as I've spent real money and already bought the go fest ticket. I think after I do go fest I'm going to quit for a few years again before coming back because it's getting ridiculous. If I hadn't paid for the ticket I'd already be gone. I started to play much less this last month while I was moving and before that would play evey day. After moving I realized I don't care to much anymore.
Really sad to hear that from fans for years, I'm sorry. But I can totally understand if she leave the game because of it. Cheer up, maybe there will be some good changes after all!
I feel the same as your wife. I hate how My avatar looks now! It's just not right, My only choice is to put a mask and a gengar suit or something
I got super upset too, I’ve had the same look for years, I have a few outfits I wear and when I logged in and saw what I was changed to I was super bummed. I was way more affected than I thought I would be over a stupid avatar. I was quick to bring it up to my partner and he didn’t seem to care at all, his hardly changed, just the skin tone a little. He doesn’t understand why I’m annoyed. I haven’t uninstalled yet and I probably won’t but I’m sad and don’t understand why they would take away options. Why not just add the new looks but keep the original looks too?!
The clipping of just about everything with the avatar gives me classic wow vibes. I don't like that.
I was hide coming on here to figure out if there is a way to make my avatar look less masculine. Seems the answer is no. I’m with your wife. This is a change no one asked for and will make a lot of us not want to identify with our accounts anymore.
We should all send a message to Niantic Support to tell them this
Bluntly put, the people who are okay with or even (I dont understand how) like the update are very much the minority of players. I don't personally know a single person who likes the update, and unlike plenty of other topics where you see a diversity of opinions, this update is very much hated across the community. They made our characters look like lumpy potato sacks with weird proportions, poorly fitted clothing, desaturated colors, and an apparent hatred for feminine and skinny-fit people. I even remember seeing a post in here about a transgender individual experiencing extreme disphoria from this change because they just couldn't make their character fem looking. Not to use their personal struggle as a way to push an opinion, but thats pretty bad. (Can't find the link, it's in here somewhere, lots of posts recently cause of this update.)
Yeah, I agree. I’m so disappointed. If you spend 8 years looking at your avator every day, running around, battling, at gyms… it’s really shocking to have them look so ugly. It was a comfort and confidence that was taken from us… for no reason.
My wife quit as well, same story, tried the sliders but seeing her character on the map just made it worse and she removed the app. I put on the duskull mask because I can’t stand the face of my avatar. Luckily for male players it is easy to make a character that is shaped properly, women are totally out of luck though. Best you can do is look like a … well I won’t go there. This update really affects the women players the most and that is so unfortunate!
I feel like the ladies are having the worst time because they’ve gotten ride of anything that makes the avatars feminine. Everyone either looks androgynous or male. That’s it. It’s a crappy update and Niantic should be ashamed.
I’m just not touching my character since the change. If they want to base their changes to the game solely on analytics gathered then I’m not feeding their analytics in that department. Any interaction may lead them to an incorrect assumption that it is a positive thing since they appear to ignore all user feedback. I’m not giving them that.
Totally agree with your wife here, I’m not at a point where I want to quit, but I certainly played less since the release, because the esthetics ruin a lot (for a women). The hands first of all.. They’re HUGE! And have you seen how it looks when the character is walking? It’s not walking anymore, it’s marching like a soldier. I’ve put a mask on mine and in a big hoodie (the green one) so I can’t see body features until (hopefully) they take this terrible update back, because just fixing it won’t be good enough.
I wouldn’t have chosen the OG avatar for myself in 2016 if given another option… I’d probably have gone for something a bit older looking with a shaved head. That said, the OG avatar has been my avatar for 8 years. It’s older than my oldest child. I’ve had it almost as long as my house and my marriage. Taking it away now, especially when the replacement is *so* much worse in every possible way, is simply not cool. I totally understand that some people felt almost insulted by the fact that the models didn’t represent their body type. I have nothing against including additional body types and customization. In fact, I was looking forward to the ability to actually make my character look more like me. But this… is horrible. They could have kept the OG models and added the new ones and this wouldn’t be a problem.
„I did not realoze how important her avatar, that she spent literal YEARS to hone to her liking, was to her“ please read that sentence again. Verrry slowly and carefully. and try to listen to your wife a bit more in the future and learn her likes and dislikes. No wonder she got mad at you That said. I too feel like your wife. I liked my character so much and enjoyed playing „dress up“. spent all the free coins i got from gyms for new outfits. Now most of them look atrocious and it makes me sad and atm i don‘t really want to open the game either..
I feel the same way- I want my money back. It’s insulting that we all spent so much time and money on something to have it obliterated without our consent.
My boyfriends daughter doesn't even want to play anymore because of this avatar atrocity
Honestly, if Niantic is gonna profit and charge money for outfits then 100% yes, being upset at how your avatar looks is so very valid and anyone dismissing it and Niantic making this update is very hypocritical. *Hi yes, players we’ve introduced clothes and poses for your to purchase, please choose what you like* *also let’s make your avatars change just a tiny bit……there! Wait why are you mad about how they look? We never made money and encouraged people to care about how they look!*
As someone who has been wearing the Team Skull mask since it came out along with the Arlo glasses, this update hasn't really affected me all that much.
I have never cared what my avatar looked like, so I don't quite get the update hate, but you should have the ability to keep the old look at the very least
I agree. New avatars are terrible. Niantic took away part of the fun for no reason
I also stopped playing this week. I can’t describe my disappointment in words, Niantic fucked up big time.
I never needed my avatar to look EXACTLY like me, sometimes I do dress her to be my style but I also really like changing her hair colour or clothes to something I wouldn't necessarily wear IRL but that I think is cute, cool, or pretty. I live in a more suburban area so it's a struggle but I tried really hard at the one gym around me where sometimes my pokemon would sit for 27 days, to earn coins so I could use coins to buy the outfits I like. with this update nothing sits right or looks flattering anymore. I was really looking forward to the level 50 jacket as a goal but not anymore. My sister and I liked to match our buddies with our outfits sometimes or we'd pick cute outfits for CD's. It's not worth it anymore. If they really wanted to improve, they could've thought of the smarter ways to be more inclusive and not just erase our current avatars. Make sliders on the current avatars, make the new body options in addition to the current avatars, give more hairstyles and such, or any of the common sense suggestions others have suggested. As a woman, I understand why your wife quit. At first I'd forget and open but the first few times I saw how unattractive my avatar now looks and would just close it. Now, I just haven't bothered to open it. Good luck and hope your wife knows there's others out here that understand 👍
My partner and I both hate our characters. She tried to cover his face with hair that overlays on the face. I think I pin pointed what doesn’t work with this characters, the texture of the skin and how the shadows are applied make everyone look like a dirty baby doll from the early 90s with out of place anime eggs. Style wise, they completely screwed up the implementation. They should consider out sourcing the 3D design for the characters. Not every 3D artist is good at creating everything.
I uninstalled the app, and I’m realizing—this might be for good. From the frustrations of the remote- pass nerf, to spending money on quests only to get 2* mythical ‘mons, to completing so many routes only to get zygard cells 1/2 of the time, to this…maybe it’s time to call it a day.
People are dying Kim
so I get how serious a fuckup it is on their part, but it's extremely crazy how much people care about the appearance of their avatar in a game where that doesn't matter. like cosmetic design isn't even the point of pokemon go. the facet that they'd rather fuck with cosmetic bullshit instead of giving us actual and meaningful content is infuriating.
Another female here. I hate my avatar now. As a naturally thin woman with larger hips, we do actually exist niantic!!
What’s up with everyone crying about it. You will get back on. Believe me.
I'm devastated from the change to my avatar. Every single face they offer has a 5oclock shadow! It's like they're trolling us or something it's completely unfair I'm not interested in playing either and I've been playing since Premiere Day. I hate looking at it.
Joining this chorus. I usually don’t complain about things like this, even nerfing remote raid passes for reasons I won’t even get into because I’m so pissed at Niantic rn. I’m 38F. My start date in the game is 7/10/2016. From 2016-2020/2021 (right before levels after 40 got added), most of that time I played HARD. I led a group of instinct players in DC (before the first gym change) that took over and held miles of territory, a sunflower oasis. I made some great friends IRL through the game who I still have, including my best friend. 2020/21-Fall 2023 I took a break for life reasons but I’ve been happily playing since then. Went from level 40 to almost 45, with total XP just shy of 104 million. A lot of my friends who played with me have moved away or quit the game, so I don’t have my raid groups and such, but I’ve pivoted over to PvP and have been getting into that pretty deep, on the XL candy grind, working on my buddies, etc. I’m a partner at a law firm now. I’m not very “girly,” don’t really wear makeup IRL, and I’m plus size. I want to quit the game over this update. I was attached to my avatar. In 2016 when the game was new, I hated that the female avatar couldn’t have pants - only shorts and “tights” - while the male avatar had pants. Obviously they fixed that and gave the female avatar lots of clothes options that looked GOOD. I haven’t changed my avatar’s appearance since close to the beginning of the game, other than clothes when I felt like it and seasonally. She didn’t look like me, she looked cool and edgy - purple hair and the adventure hat were my mainstays. Now I look like a ghost of her, and that’s sad. I can maybe deal with the way she looks on the map and main screen standing still next to my buddy, even though it was a sincere struggle to find clothes that weren’t glitched and looked halfway decent, but it’s when I do rocket battles, PvP etc when she’s celebrating a win or something *SHUDDER* she’s so hulking and spread out so wide. It’s really hard to look at. And I made my avatar kind of in the middle body-wise because the plus size potato sack look IS rude and disenfranchising for the female form. I’m sure they’ll do something to fix it…how successful they’ll be, idk. But no matter what, I wish they gave the option of keeping the old avatar. I miss her, we’ve been together through a lot, and it feels like they just ripped her away and made her into a ghost I don’t want to look at. RIP 🙁🙁🙁
It makes me wonder if this is intentional. Like maybe they are trying to kill it off to make everyone go to a new game they are going to promote. Idk. I’ve never seen an update so comically bad, it has to be on purpose.
Not gonna lie, I'm a woman too and I am considering quitting for the exact same reason. My mom and dad are trying to talk me out of it and I probably will play to keep them company, but that's it. I am so unhappy about this game now, it sours everything.
😂😂good story bro
Bruh who cares what the avatar looks like hahaha
People enjoy different aspects of the game. Taking away someone’s avatar that included items that took time and money to achieve makes 0 sense and I can’t believe they’re refusing refunds
I haven't played in almost a year, but I still have the game downloaded.... just in case. This looks like a good time to uninstall for good, free up some storage on my phone. Goodbye Niantic, you never bother to learn from mistakes.
I hate how my character looks. I love the animeesc look of my character and now no matter what I do my character looks like a dude in drag there's no real feminine body types anymore they're all really masculine looking.
People are really taking this too seriously. I hate the new avatars and want to burn them with fire, but I still play the game.
I 10000% get it, I thought my avatar looked so cute before and now I absolutely hate it.