Pokémon GO

Category

Description of App

Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Pikachu, and many other Pokémon have been discovered on planet Earth!
Now’s your chance to discover and capture the Pokémon all around you—so get your shoes on, step outside, and explore the world. You’ll join one of three
teams and battle for the prestige and ownership of Gyms with your Pokémon at your side.

Pokémon are out there, and you need to find them. As you walk around a neighborhood, your smartphone will vibrate when there’s a Pokémon nearby. Take aim
and throw a Poké Ball… You’ll have to stay alert, or it might get away!

Search far and wide for Pokémon and items
Certain Pokémon appear near their native environment—look for Water-type Pokémon by lakes and oceans. Visit PokéStops, found at interesting places like
museums, art installations, historical markers, and monuments, to stock up on Poké Balls and helpful items.

Catching, hatching, evolving, and more
As you level up, you’ll be able to catch more-powerful Pokémon to complete your Pokédex. You can add to your collection by hatching Pokémon Eggs based
on the distances you walk. Help your Pokémon evolve by catching many of the same kind.

Take on Gym battles and defend your Gym
As your Charmander evolves to Charmeleon and then Charizard, you can battle together to defeat a Gym and assign your Pokémon to defend it against all comers.

It’s time to get moving—your real-life adventures await!

Note: This app is free-to-play and is optimized for smartphones, not tablets.

Version

1.0

Free or Paid

Free

Apple Watch Support

Not Known

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

9.3

Accessibility Comments

Currently not accessible at all.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads no page elements.

Button Labeling

No buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is totally inaccessible.

Other Comments

This is currently at limited release, so not all app stores have it. It has been determined to be inaccessible, however.

Developer's Twitter Username

@NianticLabs

Options

Comments

By Kristen on Sunday, July 24, 2016 - 11:27

Adding that this has a separate twitter account besides the developer's twitter:
@PokemonGoApp

I tweeted at this account, as well, though am not expecting a response.

I just read an article in Forbes commenting/shaming Niantik and Nintendo on the shameful lac of communication. Apparently Niantic is in the process of trying to hire someone to handle the social media "community" side, though this is an open position and Nintendo is not stepping up to the plate to help this smaller developer field these inqueries in the meantime.

Apparently not even sighted users are getting any answers regarding bugs or if the server goes down 6 hours.

By KE7ZUM on Sunday, July 24, 2016 - 11:27

Thanks for the twitter handle. I'll be contacting them to see if it can be made accessible and if I can find a way to network and use this as a marketing and promotional tool.

By ming on Sunday, July 24, 2016 - 11:27

hey! I think most of the mainstream games that sighted people to play is not accessible. maybe we can create acampain that asking the video games/ mobile games cominity to make their games accessible for all to play !

By Patrick on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

Has anyone heard back frome anyone yet?

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

Nope. And it looks like we won't. Its like they've gotten silent and will not acknowledge our presence

By Kristen on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

To be fair, I don't think they're responding to anyone, sighted or blind. From what I understand, the company's not the best at responding to users overall - they are apparentl trying to hire someone to be in charge of social networking, etc., but it's safe to say they are on the "ignore everything" policy right now.

Plus they're in a bit of hot water recently due to the fact they've removed access to Pokemon tracking via third party apps.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

We are up to 597 signatures on the petition. Let's spread the word and get it up to 750. I even chipped in 11 bucks to help spread the word

By Tim on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

I can understand why indy developers choose Unity to build cross platform apps but billion dollar listed corporations I cannot. Preventing people from purchasing your product is never a good business model.
Unity engine is disunity and Apple ought to boycott it. I just want to play Pokemon again but Gameboy Color doesn't have VO dammit

By Kristen on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

It does sound like there is an extension to make Unity work with the accessibility hooks - some third-party individual has developed one (don't have the link off-hand - it's been posted sevearl times in the comments.) So it's possible and someone's done the work for it - it's just the developers knowing about it and choosing to use it/implement it. I know several have given thel ink to it in comments/messages to Niantic, though currently there has been no reply.

Niantic does not seem very responsive to anyone, though, so who can tell if they're even reading any of this or if it's just all being thrown in the trash heap.

I've shared the petition on my Facebook and some of my sighted friends have re-shared - hope it helps get some attention to the problem.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 11:27

I bleieve we are still looking for a few more signatures to reach 750 signatures. Maybe after 1000 we could resend the petition to the company.

By Jim D on Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - 11:27

I really want to join my sighted co-workers in playing this game. Has any one heard back from any of the developers on any plans to make this accessible?
Jim

I have not heard back from anyone yet. I sent a few emails to the developers and they have not responded yet, and I'm not sure if they will. How is the petition doing?

By That Blind Canuck on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - 11:27

I am just wondering if anyone has tried re-downloading and trying the game once again to see if accessibility improvements have been made. I've re-downloaded it myself and will probably give it another go, but I ain't keeping my hopes up. I am just wondering if anyone out there has heard regarding the petition that was going around over a year ago. Thanks!

By That Blind Canuck on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - 11:27

Yeah, I opened the app as well after posting and noticed the same, nothing is read and that annoying music that plays, shame you can't turn it off.

It's a shame though that the developper doesn't seem to be interested in touching base with the blind community. If done right, this game could be a blast to play. Had a friend come over to my house this weekend and she had said that there was a Pokémon in my house. That's why I decided to re-download and give it another try. Kind of annoying having a freeloader living in my house and not being able to catch it. Might explain why things around the house keep getting misplaced. LOL!

Ah well, hopefully sometime this century, the developpers will listen and make it accessible.

By Tim on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - 11:27

In reply to by That Blind Canuck

I did notice when opening the app for the first time, VO tried to read some label with "possible text". It's had a ton of updates by the looks of things too but nothing for accessibility.
I thought ARKit would of gone some way to addressing accessibility issues with games like this, oh well.

By sockhopsinger on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - 11:27

To me, Pokemon sounds like some sort of sadistic proctologist. Sorry. Just wanted to inject a little humor here.

By Patrick on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - 11:27

As I’m still waiting for a reply from the developers , I made a review on this game in the App Store.

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - 11:27

It's Nintendo. What would you expect. Many of us have even contacted them about their con-souls, however they are not receptive to accessibility and probably never will be.. I am not normally this negative but even when a petition fails and they don't listen is when you know that they won't care, unless they are involved in a law suit that is class action.