News

Pokémon-Go-on-Windows Movement Persists as Lawyers Crack Down

• By David Ramel
• August 1, 2016

For a dead-in-the-water afterthought, Microsoft's newest version of its mobile OS is sure generating a lot of attention from users who want to play the world's most popular game on it.

A few weeks ago, we reported that some 44,000 users had signed on online petition to Develop Pokémon Go for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile in addition to iOS and Android.

The number of petitioners is now more than 100,000, and climbing.

What's more, mobile developers themselves have been busy trying to get Pokémon Go to run on Windows.

Just yesterday, for example, a developer using the handle "ST-Apps" put PoGo-UWP up on GitHub.

What is PoGo-UWP?

PoGo-UWP is an UWP (Universal Windows Platform) client for Niantic's Pokémon Go Android/iOS game. Being a client, this means that it gives you the ability to play in the same game-world as your friends that are playing with an Android or iOS device.

Why is PoGo-UWP?

In the words of ST-Apps:

• Because learning new things is always cool.
• Because it could be done.
• Because Microsoft rejected my job application saying that I wasn't showing enough "passion", and this proves them wrong :)

Whether or not the effort results in a reconsidered Microsoft job offer, it might sooner bring a cease-and-desist order, as has happened to a developer using the handle Mila432.

Mila432 developed Pokémon_Go_API and put it on GitHub. "We don't want Niantic to take action against API usage," Mila432 said in his README.md file, but that's basically just what happened. As shown in his Reddit post, Mila432 was told by the legal types representing The Pokémon Company International Inc. that his creation potentially violates federal laws and certainly violates several parts of the game's Terms of Use:

Your actions in developing a script that reverse engineers and effectively hacks or automates Pokémon Go gameplay (including that portion of the script requiring entry of Pokémon trainer Club account login), and distributing, or facilitating the distribution of, the script violates at least these provisions of the Pokémon TOU...."

Stay tuned to see if ST-Apps -- or any other developers with similar Pokémon-on-Windows efforts -- report receiving similar letters.