It’s truly the end of an era for Pokémon GO fans, with all the recent remote raid changes, and now—the Silph Road shutting down.
Here’s the official Silph Road shutting down announcement on Twitter.
The Silph Road is a completely free resource, tool, and community program for Pokémon GO. It had no ‘business model’, no in-app purchases, and was entirely a grassroots initiative.
It was a popular go-to for Pokémon GO players, with over 800,000 people signed up to the r/TheSilphRoad subreddit, and nearly 2-million traveler cards created.
For a more in-depth look at the Silph Road shutting down, you can read the creator’s post on reddit. It details the reason, and also lays out the timeline of when its services will go offline.
For those that remember, Niantic officially sponsored Silph Road last year, which saved them from shutting down as costs for running the infrastructure was costing too much.
This sponsorship has now officially ended after 12 months, and was not renewed. This is a shame to hear, as not only did it help fund the Silph Road, but also they could work on other projects in tandem.
The subreddit is moderated by a team separate to The Silph Road project, and will stay up.
After news of Pokémon GO’s (still high) but comparatively low earnings in April this year, and the community backlash regarding remote raid changes—the game’s future looks shaky.
Niantic is still to make an official comment regarding the community’s outrage about the remote raid changes, and the shutting down of Silph Road.
Silph Road’s services are planning to shut down completely by August 1st, and the final season of Silph.gg will also conclude.
On the brightside, there are still a few things to look forward to. Niantic and Capcom have announced an upcoming AR game set in the Monster Hunter franchise.
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