PokemonGO Blocked

Earlier today Pokemon GO went live in some countries. We managed to post a workaround for Android for countries that could not officially download the game. While it was working fine initially, now people are playing a game totally devoid of Pokemon.

For players outside the Australia and New Zealand region, the game worked fine when we first posted the APK installation workaround but around 5pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT), which is where we are located, we noticed that while we were able to log into the game, all the location points, gyms and Pokemons had vanished from our maps. Further checks in various Pokemon GO threads also show that players outside the launch countries were experiencing the same issues.

Pokemon go before and after
Plenty of checkpoints and Pokemon were around when we first posted the APK workaround but now it’s all just an empty map

We initially thought that the servers might have been overloaded, but after checking with some players in Australia, where the game has been officially launched, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Australian players have reported that the game works just fine where they are.

It seems then that the developers might have deliberately stopped spawning Pokemons and checkpoints in countries that Pokemon GO has yet to be officially launched. This is purely speculation at the moment as we have not been able to get an official statement from either Nintendo or Niantics. Just to be clear though, the game isn’t blocked as we can still log-in and move around. The only thing is nothing is spawning, so all you can do is move around an empty map.

So either way, looks like we’ll have to wait for the Pokemon GO to be officially launched in our respective countries. You COULD try to spoof you location in Australia or New Zealand but we recommend you don’t do. That because Niantics has come down hard on players who have location spoofed in their other game, Ingress. So we’re pretty sure they won’t hesitate to do the same for Pokemon GO players.

For more Pokemon GO news and stories, head over here.