Niantic rolls out a new PokeStop nomination feature for Pokemon GO trainers in Thailand, allowing players to submit real-world locales to potentially become PokeStops.
Niantic is still readily spreading the reach of Pokemon GO across the globe, and with that comes the need for more Gyms and PokeStops. Accordingly, Niantic today revealed that players in Thailand are now able to submit locations to become PokeStops.
Pokemon GO‘s PokeStop nomination feature in Thailand is currently in beta. Niantic is rolling out the function to level 40 Pokemon trainers, likely in an effort to keep troll nominations to a minimum. Players who want to try nominating a PokeStop can start the process by ensuring that they have the latest game update and then going to Pokemon GO‘s Settings screen, where a New PokeStop button should appear if the account is eligible to make nominations.
While the news could mean good things for Thailand, players have expressed some concerns regarding Niantic’s PokeStop nomination functionality as a whole. For starters, the nomination process has only be rolled out in limited territories thus far, and has remained in beta. However, the bigger concern is a criticism of the system itself coming from players in Brazil, who have had access to the PokeStop nomination feature for some time now.
Unfortunately, according to Brazilian players, many of the nominations made so far have had no impact on the game. Niantic is still relying upon players to review nominated PokeStops prior to them being eligible to be added to the game. However, the process is somewhat convoluted. Many players have reported that they are still waiting after months for either an acceptance or rejection of their nominations, and even accepted nominations won’t necessarily be added, according to Niantic’s own guidelines. So while the news is good that the program is opening in Thailand, it may be some time yet before players there see a significant increase in PokeStops.
Thankfully, there are still plenty of features in Pokemon GO to help keep players entertained, even with a lack of PokeStops. With future additions like Pokemon GO‘s augmented reality system, players should have new ways to enjoy the game in the months to come, whether or not Niantic adds enough PokeStops to satisfy all players.
Pokemon GO is available now for mobile devices.
