‘Pokemon GO’ Players Sue Niantic Over ‘Pokemon Go Fest’

Pokemon GO continues to be one of the most popular downloaded games for both Google Play and the Apple App Store. The app has recently celebrated its first year anniversary and held its biggest event so far—the Pokemon GO Fest. Attendees will be able to catch some rare and legendary Pokemon in the Chicago area with special items and goodies for players to have.

While all seems to go smooth sailing, some were not really happy about it. Players who participated in the event filed a class-action lawsuit against Pokemon GO’s developer Niantic last month. The group is demanding for monetary damages to recover the travel expenses they spend for this event alone. In fact, one person had to travel from California to Chicago just to get the rare Pokemon and game freebies.

In an exclusive interview with the website Polygon, Chicago-based lawyer Thomas Zimmerman said “the group is not seeking any relief with respect to the failure to get legendary Pokemon, because Niantic is offering that, but Niantic is not offering to refund people’s travel expenses for coming to Chicago. Zimmerman also revealed that around 20-30 have joined into the lawsuit and one of the group’s members came from outside of the US just to be able to attend Pokemon GO’s anniversary event.

The Pokemon GO Safari Zone events in Europe are rescheduled to different date instead of its original dates of August 5 (for Prague, Denmark, Copenhagen, and Czech Republic) and August 12 (for Stockholm, Sweden ,Amstelveen, and Netherlands). Those who will be catching Pokemon and take part in these events will able to battle “powerful and unique Raid Bosses” and catch Pokemon in these special areas.

A “Pikachu Outbreak” event will be happening in Japan from August 9 to 15 to be organized by The Pokemon Company. The United Kingdom will also have a Pokemon GO event has happened last July 22-23 in Chester, England which is a collaboration between the UK heritage organization Big Heritage and Niantic. The aim of the event is to be able “to curate historical location throughout the ancient city of Chester within Pokemon GO to encourage community engagement and education.”

With more updates to happen soon, we are pretty sure that Pokemon GO will be one game application that would definitely stay for a long time—even if lawsuits are still hanging on their belts.

Source: Polygon.