City council wants to strike out Pokémon Go from Des Moines

The city council of Des Moines wants to ‘opt out’ from Pokémon Go following various concerns from local business and public places.  Image INQUIRER.net

Pokémon Go has enjoyed rapid growth since its launch, but now the average number of daily users seems to have gone down. The city council of Des Moines is looking to add to the statistics by petitioning to remove the city entirely from Pokémon Go.

Spearheaded by one Jeremy Nutting, the city council unanimously voted to have Des Moines removed from Pokémon Go as far as public places and parks are concerned, following the increased crowding of the marina as well as other locales. These crowds were said to be noisy, littering and partaking of legal and illegal vices, reports Engadget.

Local businesses were also being affected by these roaming crowds.

Unfortunately, it may not be as simple as signing a petition and passing it on to Niantic for approval given that the game is merely using map data. The best that could be done is to remove PokéStops from areas of concern to mitigate the obtrusion that player crowds cause.  Alfred Bayle