Tory cuts ferry docks’ Pokemon Go appeal
Over half of the Pokestops at the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal are no more, after some personal intervention by Mayor John Tory.
The area around the ferry has seen an influx of Pokemon Go players after the mobile game exploded in popularity during its release in June. What’s responsible? The area’s nine Pokestops — in-game beacons where players can congregate in real life — far more than any other location in the city.
Where players otherwise move from one stop to the next, at the terminal — where non-players depart for and arrive from the Toronto Islands — the sheer number of stops meant they could stay in one place and still catch Pokemon. The number of players became such a problem that the city petitioned the game’s developer, Niantic, to reduce the number of stops.
But things weren’t moving fast enough, so Tory decided to take matters into his own hands and email Niantic’s CEO John Hanke personally last Friday.
“I wrote him a note and said ‘I’m really happy with your success with Pokemon Go, I’m really glad all the people are enjoying playing it . . . However my job is to balance that against the fact that there is a degree of disruption,” Tory said.
Hanke replied almost immediately, and put Tory in touch with Niantic’s head of operations.
By Monday, the two had agreed to pare down the number of stops from nine to four.
Tory said the company was sympathetic with his concerns, though “there were many historic plaques and different things down there that constitute legitimate Pokemon stops.”
Pokemon Go has been losing players in the last weeks, according to one outside analysis, leading some to speculate its usage would taper off when summer ended. Tory said he didn’t want to wait to see if things died down on their own. The reduction seems to have worked. On Wednesday afternoon, the ferry terminal park was deserted — a far cry from a week ago, when every square foot seemed covered in players who had come from far and wide for Pokemon.
Tory said he still supports players, and wants to partner with Niantic to do some Toronto-specific events with the game.