Freedom to choose : the surprising change of the rules one month before the anomaly
NomadAndrea
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Niantic staff: I am writing to you because I must say what I think regarding the suppression of the free option to obtain the anomaly medal . I bought many things from Niantic: anomaly swags, frackers ... The problem is not money but the freedom to choose. All other anomalies had a free and paying option. Ingress players were free to choose whether they gave money to niantic or not. I bought a lot of things from niantic to thank the work that niantic does for Ingress because I was free to decide.
Now Niantic announces by surprise that we have no more freedom to decide to give our money to you or not and we are obligated to buy the medal anomaly? The teams are formed, the hotels and flights booked. Why to do that one month before the anomaly Niantic ?
Freedom to choose That was Ingress, freedom to decide what to do. And now niantic acts like a conservative dinosaur that forces people to buy a product.
Why?
We ask Niantic to re-integrate the free option to obtain the anomaly medal so that players have the freedom to choose whether they want to pay or not, as it was before. Ingress players helped Niantic for free with the database, with alpha & beta testing and with a lot of publicity of Niantic games around the world because we thought we had the freedom to choose.
If Niantic is in trouble with money, Niantic could have prevented the players and put an ad: "we need you to continue, ingress is no longer profitable and the next anomaly will paid." and if you need to do a crowdfunding, just say it, do not impose mandatory payment rules for the anomaly medal. Niantic must give us the freedom to decide what to do.
We only ask for transparency, honesty and freedom to choose
Thank you
Agent nomadAndrea Resistance L12 (recursed) / Pokemon GO L34 / WIzards United L 9
Comments
I agree in most. For myself I think they made a big mistake. In my opinion they should have done it as so
Free (or € 1,-) ticket = Anomaly Medal
€ 10,- ticket = Medal + 2x AP + Scoresheet + 1 Character medal + small loadout
€ 15,- ticket = above + 2 Characters + medium loadout code
€ 20,- ticket = above + 3 Characters + Great Loadout code
This way there is a option to choose, and I would pay 10 ~ 20 euros for what I want at that moment.
But now it just seems like sudden money grabbing from Niantic. The medal alone is not worth the amount of money, most don't care about 2x AP (at least I do not) or score sheet.
I think with my suggestion or something similar they wouldn't have this much negative feedback.
If they need Money they could add a "official Ingress anomaly T-Shirt with Agent Name" to the Shop and sell it for 50€ each.
Than add some other swag und they are Set.
They would probably get more money out of this than all anomaly tickets combined.
I can't count, how often this has been told to them... but... they obviously chose another way. Probably for another goal. I don't feel like they really want/need the money. This, they could obtain much more easier.
Honestly, I just feel like they want to kick us (out).
This was so far the worst mistake Nia made, I was a event only player, now I'm not even going to play events.
This will be the first anomaly medal I miss since Darsana.
Not because I'll skip the anomaly - but because I will absolutely not purchase a badge.
What's next? "Deploy 100,000 resonators and pay $0.99 to receive the platinum builder medal"?
I hate this change,but there is stil freedom of choice. you can stil choose not to pay, enjoy event, play with friends. only score that wont be counted is unique hacks (so you wont have to rush this stupid category) and artifacts. but you can still sore shards, fight for portals, etc. go to event, have fun, and dont pay if you dont want to. medals can be taken away from you anyway.
So this entitles me to sell the items we always give at FS. We used to sell optional ruffle tickets and then give the items for free to anyone attending... What a bunch of fools we were!
We can now sell the envelope with items (stickers, magnets, pin, cards, bio). Yeah! Excellent!
/sarcasm
Anomaly medal: I wouldn't pay for a bunch of poorly designed pixels on my stats that I can't share... Not that I care for sharing my profile either, or even having that little icon in it... The medal is not important to me.
I will still recharge nearby anomalies for the Team, medal or not. Go Enlightened!
An I will still organize FS for my fellow agents just for fun... While it's still free... With swag and ruffles, agents like ruffles.
I was never interested in MDs for the medal, would just go for fun. More fun now! I don't have to register! \o/ Just go out, do the missions, and meet at the "beer gathering".
Going back to Anomaly medal: Let's just create banners for Anomalies, so agents can have the banner instead of a crappy medal. That way agents can have a "souvenir" for their memories.
By the way, in countries like Argentina, with taxes, it goes up to 4 days wage to get those pixels. But probably we will never have an Anomaly here so I don't bother xD