Comment by Matticus_Rex
1 day ago
Niantic was clear about the product of the labor: In exchange for swiping the PokeStop, you'd get the rewards. No one was ever told they'd get more than that, and no one had any reasonable expectation that they'd get more.
Exactly! Everyone thought that the exchange was them doing something in the game, and Niantic was giving them the rewards in the game, and no one had any reasonable expectation that Niantic would get more outside of the game. (After all, neither Blizzard or Square get anything when one completes quest objectives in their MMO.)
So obviously, now that Niantic is getting things outside the game its reasonable the people who did the work ask for something from that.
> So obviously, now that Niantic is getting things outside the game its reasonable the people who did the work ask for something from that.
Absolutely not.
If you are compensated for doing something, you can’t suddenly come back for more 5 years later because it was used as part of something bigger which is now making money.
I have little sympathy for the players here. If you are voluntarily doing free work for worthless virtual things, you can’t come complaining when it dawns on you that it might have been dumb from the start (and to be fair maybe it wasn’t and they did it because it was fun which is completely ok).
I guess we could ban in game shop and game reward for real work as they are somehow predatory but that would be a bit paternalistic.
Can you name any other agreement where it's considered reasonable to renegotiate the terms afterwards because you found out what the other party got was more profitable for them than you'd been aware of, through no misrepresentation on their part?
Expectations are often unreasonable from some perspective. It's not difficult to see why users are upset.
For people who've dealt with children a lot, sure. But making an exchange and then expecting a cut of the other side's profits on top of what you exchanged for is possibly the definition of unreasonable expectations.