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Pokémon Go Fest attendees are filing suit against Niantic

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J

Justified

Member
Nearly two dozen Pokémon Go Fest attendees are filing suit against Niantic, the game's developer, seeking travel reimbursement following last weekend's event, where most people were unable to play the game.

Chicago-based attorney Thomas Zimmerman said he was contacted by Jonathan Norton, a California local who traveled to the area for the event. Since then, Zimmerman told Polygon that ”20 or 30" others have joined the class-action suit.
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”The issue is, what was promised, what was the incentive that people relied on and the representations that people relied on to buy a ticket and make travel plans and fly to Chicago to participate in this festival, would they have done that had they known that that was not going to be lived up to and they weren't going to get the experience that was represented?" Zimmerman asked.
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Seems like they are trying to go the detrimental reliance route

Full Article: https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/27/16051538/pokemon-go-fest-lawsuit
 
M

McDougles

Member
Slow wanking motions ensue.

Niantic didn't ask you to travel to Chicago for the event. They fucked up super hard, but attempts at refunds for ticket and in-game money was offered.
 
G

Gestault

Member
If I attended a pudding festival but the festival organizers couldn't supply pudding at the festival, I'd be annoyed. I think the lawsuit is baseless though.
 
W

Waylon Drums

Member
Blam said:
Damn people are hella serious about this game.
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I nearly shat when I found out that people were hopping on international flights for this thing. I've played almost every day since it came out and I can't be bothered to drive a few blocks for a Pokestop some days.

People are nuts.
 
1

13ruce

Banned
How tho they are refunded right? And got compensated with Pokecoins too. So unless they refused the refund they can't sue right?

Still the event was a huge time waste and disaster with the servers not working and more so i can see why they try.
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
People got refunded so this is not going anywhere. You can try to argue the "I wouldn't travel to this place otherwise" but if that was valid reasoning then music artists would be sued non-stop.
 
D

Daedardus

Member
While I can agree with being refunded the festival, which they got, I don't get how you would get back your travel expenses. It sucks that you can't go to your festival, but surely there's lots of other stuff to do in Chicago, no? When something happens on holiday, you try to make the best of it, even though it did not go as planned.
 
Blam

Blam

Member
Robin64 said:
Rightly so, though, when you are spending real money for something. Many people came from far outside Chicago, it wasn't cheap.
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Waylon Drums said:
I nearly shat when I found out that people were hopping on international flights for this thing. I've played almost every day since it came out and I can't be bothered to drive a few blocks for a Pokestop some days.

People are nuts.
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Yeah I can assume so. I played this religiously for a good 2 weeks then dropped it like a stone since I didn't like at all how anything was being handled.
 
SoulUnison

SoulUnison

Banned
I'm still wondering what kind of chewing out Niantic is getting from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company behind the scenes.

They were ridiculously off-brand.
The presenters couldn't even pronounce "Pokemon" right, and then holding the camera on those offensive and sexually nicknamed 'Mons, just for starters.

There's a Franchise Bible out there that Niantic's heavily out of compliance with.
 
J

jonscrambler

Member
BHK3 said:
if I traveled to comic con to meet a bunch of celebs and see a ton of panels, but they were ALL cancelled, I have no right to be mad? The whole event was to play the game and get special rewards, but that wasn't delivered.
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sure but they already got their refund

when a concert get cancelled (which happens and not unusual) people never get refund on their travel expenses
 
J

Justified

Member
Daedardus said:
While I can agree with being refunded the festival, which they got, I don't get how you would get back your travel expenses. It sucks that you can't go to your festival, but surely there's lots of other stuff to do in Chicago, no? When something happens on holiday, you try to make the best of it, even though it did not go as planned.
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The only basis I can see is Promissory estoppel. The players bought travel, and/or hotels solely to attend the festival. Provided they didnt take the refund/items, and/or they didnt sign any waiver
 
B

btkadams

Member
They are getting $100 in-game currency and the $20 tickets refunded. It’s shitty that people spent a bunch of money to get there, but this is life. Suing Niantic for travel reimbursements seems insane to me. I drove 3 hours to an air show a few weeks ago and it was cancelled mid-way through the day to weather. No refunds.
 
L

Like the hat?

Banned
I was there. It wasn't nearly that bad. Connection issues were annoying but really, they already offered refunds and $100 worth of coins, two things they didn't have to do at all.
 
L

L~A

Member
I still don't get why people are calling the event a "fiasco", it was tremendous success imo. It was for the 1st anniversary of the game, and so Niantic clearly wanted players to reminisce about launch, and allow newer players to experience it for themselves.

Aka: lots of people playing in parks, and nothing that works.

The truly authentic Pokémon GO Launch Experience ™

(Yeah, this is sarcasm)

SoulUnison said:
I'm still wondering what kind of chewing out Niantic is getting from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company behind the scenes.

They were ridiculously off-brand.
The presenters couldn't even pronounce "Pokemon" right, and then holding the camera on those offensive and sexually nicknamed 'Mons, just for starters.

There's a Franchise Bible out there that Niantic's heavily out of compliance with.
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Yeah, I'm more interested in that tbh, but that's because I didn't attend myself.
 
G

giancarlo123x

Banned
btkadams said:
They are getting $100 in-game currency and the $20 tickets refunded. It’s shitty that people spent a bunch of money to get there, but this is life. Suing Niantic for travel reimbursements seems insane to me. I drove 3 hours to an air show a few weeks ago and it was cancelled mid-way through the day to weather. No refunds.
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Weather is something you can't control, keeping their game running smoothly is all on them.
 
V

Vandole

Member
Definitely sympathize with these people. After almost 2 decades of going to different comic and video game conventions, my #1 tip is to not travel any great distances for these kind of events, and definitely not for any first-year event. So much can go wrong. Guests cancel at the last minute, bad weather can postpone or cancel an event entirely, and if ticket sales are bad some more unscrupulous promoters or companies will just cancel an event. Wizard World for instance just cancelled their Orlando Convention just a month before the date.

If you are traveling long distances because you really don't want to miss something, make sure you have some kind of backup plans in the immediate area so you don't completely waste your time if something falls through.
 
A

akileese

Member
So it came out that Niantic worked with cell providers, giving them traffic estimates, etc, to try and mitigate this before hand. I think Boost and Sprint had popup towers there but Verizon said their network was fine and it was all on the app despite attendees saying their Verizon phones wouldn't work. No idea about T-Mobile and AT&T.

I wasn't there and I read about this stuff second hand so obviously take it with a grain of salt but I'm interested to see what comes of this if it turns out Niantic really did due diligence in working with providers. Can they be found at fault for the negligence of cellular providers if they attempted to acquire more capacity for the event?
 
S

suicreeps

Member
I don't think this lawsuit will go anywhere. The travel costs is more on them, but yeah the fest went really wrong so they should be refunded the cost of the fest and nothing else(which they already were).
 
J

JoeM86

Member
akileese said:
So it came out that Niantic worked with cell providers, giving them traffic estimates, etc, to try and mitigate this before hand. I think Boost and Sprint had popup towers there but Verizon said their network was fine and it was all on the app despite attendees saying their Verizon phones wouldn't work. No idea about T-Mobile and AT&T.

I wasn't there and I read about this stuff second hand so obviously take it with a grain of salt but I'm interested to see what comes of this if it turns out Niantic really did due diligence in working with providers. Can they be found at fault for the negligence of cellular providers if they attempted to acquire more capacity for the event?
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I know of people who went to Grant Park a day or so later, with much fewer people around obviously, and they were still having issues.

The area is a mobile dead zone. Niantic failed to research properly
 
A

admiraltaftbar

Member
I'm going to be surprised if this doesn't get thrown out. Niantic paying back the convention price and giving out in game money probably covers their liability of owing people for messing up the event.
 
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