It must be "in their DNA" or something. You could replace "Pokemon Go" with "Ingress", their earlier game, and get to almost exactly the same conclusions.
Also, with Ingress the most innovative area was also the one that players complained about the loudest - I am talking about actual player interactions. Going to someone else's portal and bombing it, creating blocker links, covering a strategic area with a huge field so as to win the cycle, etc. Unfortunately it got too competitive some players, so they started location spoofing, edit wars on portals and other behaviors that made the experience shitty for others.
Niantic's reaction was to gut that from their next games rather than try to improve. So I'm still waiting for a good location-based game where you can have some real location-based interactions with other players. Current offering is mostly "everybody going outside and playing a single-player game next to each other".
Also, with Ingress the most innovative area was also the one that players complained about the loudest - I am talking about actual player interactions. Going to someone else's portal and bombing it, creating blocker links, covering a strategic area with a huge field so as to win the cycle, etc. Unfortunately it got too competitive some players, so they started location spoofing, edit wars on portals and other behaviors that made the experience shitty for others.
Niantic's reaction was to gut that from their next games rather than try to improve. So I'm still waiting for a good location-based game where you can have some real location-based interactions with other players. Current offering is mostly "everybody going outside and playing a single-player game next to each other".