Hi everyone. I bet I’m not saying anything new, but I need to know. I’ve been playing Pokemon Go since the beginning and just today I reviewed my first contributions (17 of them). I get why you do this - it’s kind of fun! I love categorizing things. But it’s WORK. And Scopely is outsourcing that work to you lovely people for no compensation? Wikipedia has millions of editors, but the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit. Scopely is making money off their games and it’s using YOU to do that. For real, are they paying any of you? Does Scopely give you any kind of reward for the essential contributions you make to their games? Because they should be! You all are working really hard to make their games a positive experience for all players! For me!! And you deserve something in return! I think I would enjoy spending an hour or two reviewing contributions, but doing it for just 20 minutes made me feel like I was being taken advantage of. This isn’t an indie game studio, this is a corporation. It’s not even Niantic anymore (which also wasn’t an awesome company). These guys own Monopoly Go. I just don’t understand the loyalty. What motivates you to review contributions?
Welcome to the forum.
I feel like Wayfarer is a privilege we are allowed. They have an “automated process” that can reject and could be allowed to accept if they decide to reactivate that, and are conducting experiments with simply placing pokestops at street corners. So they really don’t need us. I am going to participate as long as they let us.
Hello! I think it’s not profit, but there are more players doing it since Pikmin Bloom get viral in some Asian countries (especially Hong Kong and Taiwan). Me and some players do it as we want some good looking postcards (like the one in Pokemon Go) for people to give it to others, or just keep it as a memory.
Interesting! So, you’re saying that if you and other reviewers are doing it, then at least it’s not being done by an indiscriminate AI? I think that’s even more reason to appreciate you and to condemn Scopely.
Thanks for your response! It’s definitely NOT a non-profit. They make money from micro transactions (coins) and ad partnerships. I understand what you’re saying about the postcards, they’re fun to collect.
it would be nice if we got a few coins or something game related other than a trophy for valid contributions, but yes, it’s mostly done for free / as a hobby.
it is fun spot hunting, seeing your stops appear in games, and getting your monthly stat reports if you’re into that sort of thing. and of course it’s all voluntary ha
I’m a simple woman, I could be motivated by a few Poke Coins! They’re lucky I love Pokemon so much. Thinking of it as a hobby makes sense to me.
What do I get out of wayfarer?
As a reviewer I get to see cool things in parts of the country (and the rest of the world depending on my bonus location) that I wouldn’t otherwise get to see if I wasn’t reviewing. I also get upgrades for my own nominations, and a shiny platinum medal in Pokémon Go that also earned me a wayfarer drink bottle at Go Fest in London. I also get the satisfaction of knowing I’m helping players in other areas.
On the submission side of things, our town has had several hundred wayspots accepted (not just because of me, though I’ve done a fair amount of them), and most of those have then made it into Pokémon Go. We already had an alright amount of Pokéstops and Gyms across our town when the game launched, but now we’ve got a really good amount, and I’ve also been able to help players in the outskirts of the town by either submitting things in those areas myself, or using my knowledge of wayfarer to help them make submissions themselves.
I don’t really see it as work. I know some people will argue that it is. I personally see it as more of a hobby though. I’m under no obligation to take part and I do it because I want to and because of the things stated above. It does a good job of filling spare time.
Thanks for your insight! Your point about getting to see cool things is an interesting benefit I didn’t think about.
I live in a small town and I think I will continue making submissions to selfishly make the game a better experience for myself, to try and bring attention to small businesses, and because I like archival work (some of my local Pokestops have low quality titles/descriptions/photos that should have been rejected and it does bother me!)
Reviewing is probably not for me, but I appreciate you and everyone else who seem happy to do it. I still think Scopely doesn’t show enough appreciation for you! They couldn’t do this without you!
I review simply because I find Wayfarer itself enjoyable. That said, I don’t really need upgrades anymore, so I usually do around 500 reviews a month. Rather than focusing on improving playability, I enjoy submitting things that are personally interesting to me, such as public art, local hidden gems, and great restaurants.
However, this system relies on mutual help—we can’t register Wayspots unless someone reviews them. That’s why I believe that if you’re submitting, you should also participate in reviewing. Plus, reviewing allows you to discover the history and interesting spots of other regions.
While you do have to travel to get them, we can also get cool swag at booths during GoFest. Considering the time I spend reviewing every day, it’s like a nice little bonus, but I’m just happy because I genuinely enjoy Wayfarer in the first place. Reviewing is even more important for beginners. Increasing your review points gives you more submission allowances and creates opportunities to learn good submission practices.
Above all, despite being a for-profit company, their games are overwhelmingly free to play. Of course, revenue comes from things like in-game purchases, but they secure official partnerships and make a real effort to keep the game playable for free as much as possible. If that’s the case, I’m more than happy to help out for free, especially since it’s fun to begin with.
And let’s remember the corporate philosophy they’ve held since the Niantic days: to get players out walking (exercise), discover new things and experiences in the real world (exploration), and foster connections with others (socialization). This beautifully aligns with the traditional Japanese merchant philosophy of “Sanpo Yoshi” (three-way satisfaction: good for the seller, good for the buyer, and good for society). Since we are helping support that vision, working for free doesn’t bother me at all.
Que interesante que alguien publique este tipo de comentarios.
Por mi parte envió y reviso waypost para crear mas puntos de interés en el mapa y tengo la costumbre de enviar solo waypost que estoy 100% seguro de que aparecerá en el juego de pokemon Go, existen muchos puntos de interes que termino omitiendo, pues yo hago todo para lograr mas pokeparadas en el juego.
Y lo que algunas veces me hace sentir que valió la pena enviar el waypost es ver que alguien puso un cebo en la pokestop, me hace pensar que mi trabajo le es util a alguien y me anima a seguir contribuyendo tanto revisando y calificando.
Y también me gusta revisar waypost pues es algo que con el pasar del tiempo se hace super sencillo. sinceramente para calificar rápido lo unico que hago es buscar motivos por el cual no cumple los criterios de aceptación así se me hace muy facil calificar, nunca lo vi como regalar mi tiempo y trabajo, pues el sistema nos da la oportunidad de crear y aceptar nuestros propios puntos de interés.
I am not a big numbers nominator (more since they introduced web-submit) but I assume my Wayfarer “journey” is similar to most.
- Oh, I can nominate wayspots. What shall I nominate that I can reach from home.
- Rejected, but why? join forum. “Ah that’s why”
- Well I will try something that is 100% eligible. Success.
- Look, someone has sent me a gift from a wayspot I added to the game. Thats cool.
- I’m doing it again (and again, and again).
That’s why I nominate, in regards to reviewing…
- Learn what others are nominating (then confirm here that it’s eligible) which gives ideas for my own nominations.
- Clear out the backlog so mine gets in to voting.
- Currently have plenty of spare time so the idea that it is an hobby is correct for me.
- I can not always get out to play PoGo but Reviews I can do from home.
- The feeling that I am helping whilst still enjoying something.
In regards to the Scopely are using us argument, they could just load the map with low quality “Bus Stops / Street Corners” so they don’t actually need us. I would prefer interesting wayspots instead.
I would definitely be up for some free pokecoins but they would have to avoid encouraging people from spamming low quality ineligible wayspots just for the coins.
/ Ramble over…
I do it for everyone’s “perfect” submissions with their incredible titles like “parkk” followed by their “can’t believe they didn’t approve” descriptions like “its a park.”
Can you imagine the amount of abuse if you got paid / in-game rewards for reviewing or subbing? You’d end up with voting rings mass-accepting everything in an area (or the opposite). Bot accounts would be rife.
The way it is relies on the people who find this kind of thing interesting. Its a hobby, and one that happens to make another hobby (playing PG) more enjoyable.
I could write a whole lot more about how the neurodivergent ADHD approach to this differs from the neurodivergent ASD approach, but I don’t want to indirectly provide couch-diagnoses to anyone who isn’t open to that conversation 
I don’t think is anyone is doing this out of obligation to Scopely, or a need to satisfy a billion dollar corporation. It is an unpaid hobby, and it’s clearly successful and symbiotic enough that the process has remained and been improved over the years.
Personally, I submit for playability and the satisfaction of seeing my own pictures/work in-game.
I review because it’s actually kind of fun to review, and easy enough to do on any device. It’s also one of the few things I can access on my work computer (sshhh) so if it’s a slow day I’ll click away and get some reviews in. I also want to get my platinum Wayfarer badge eventually.
There’s also a satisfaction about seeing POIs from other places, whether they’re good nominations or not, and learning a bit about the history of the POI/place/area/etc. I fell into a rabbit hole the other day about a nomination I was iffy about and Googled the hell out of it to try and see what they did, if this nomination was eligible/significant, etc. I like being able to research and affirm that something is or isn’t eligible.
TL;DR - Everyone that participates in Wayfarer understands that it’s an unpaid gig, but we do it because we’re nerds that love the loop of reviewing/submitting/researching.
Just because there is profit somewhere in the equation, doesn’t mean the people not getting paid are being treated unfairly. People have had constructive hobbies for centuries, and will continue to do so into the future. There are entire fields or work that I would think started as hobbies and gradually became paid, like the arts, or archaeology/history preservation. People doing what they loved, collecting things that were interesting, or just entertaining themselves.
Basically the entire internet (85-95%) as we know it today exists because some people like working on their own open source projects with no compensation (Niantic, now Scopely use OpenStreetMaps for part of the back-end of the games, which is community contributed and edited just like Wayfarer). A few years back a software engineer named Andres Freund uncovered malicious attack on a piece of software used worldwide, before it could take place, just because he liked to see how long it would take to initialise, and noticed a half-second increase in wait time.
There are countless sayings that could apply to “working for free” for Wayfarer as well
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
“Find a job you like and you wont work a day in your life.”
“The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.”
or even
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Moar stops
Gotta embiggen the fun
老實說，我們總認為的打打字就是工作這件事情，是不是有些誤解？
狹義來說，或許有些時候因為現在高科技社會，有更多的分工合作，舉凡遊戲、計算、規劃、評論，或許都會變成一項工作。
但嚴格來說我們平時使用的日用品，更包含這些3C電腦、手機、智慧型裝置，又是誰花心力製作的？
我們是不是忽略了，製作的工作、勞力的工作、電力的工作、維護景觀的工作、維護秩序的工作、維護遊戲的工作是由誰負責，誰要給付薪水給他們？
拍個照片、寫個評論、我們認為我們做到了協力社會，有貢獻給社會，就覺得我幫上忙了？嗎？
所以你覺得，你申請這個補給站點的理由是一項工作，或許你說的沒錯。
但遊戲公司派遣各種人力往世界各處，舉凡機票、食宿都要花費。你覺得，這些成本是否要轉嫁到消費者我們玩家身上，還是你要無償協力到你家附近嗎？
例如Google地圖，信箱郵件，雲端空間，一開始的免費推廣是沒有太多人使用，免費的同時也在嘗試與除錯各種細微的問題，才有逐漸智慧型裝置的社會模式成型，才有開始收費。
已開發或開發中國家的社會總有一些公眾共同使用的東西，總是可以找到一些我們想要的東西而且不需要索取費用，但也要試著去想想，這些便宜或免費的背後的成本…。
As someone new to pogo and going all in with wayfarer for a month, I will say I enjoy giving an upgrade to my town and making it nicer for everyone. But…
What you say makes alot of sense, considering indeed this is no indie studio… We are working for free. This is A LOT of work with no reward.
Will I still be so invested in a few weeks and months ? Well, if we got some kind of ingame rewards, why not. But I won’t be as invested doing this for free for too long.