‘Pokemon GO’ Secret: What Is Undiscovered? Niantic CEO Weighs In

Data miners have been working furiously since each and every update to discover every Pokemon GO secret. However, according to Niantic CEO John Hanke, their best efforts have yet to produce everything his company has put into this year’s number one app in the world. Furthermore, Hanke insisted that secrets are something players are just going to have to get used to when speaking with GamesRadar.

“There will always be secrets in the game that no one has found because we’re always adding new secrets to the game. There’s one out there right now and we’ll see how that plays out over the course of the next few weeks.”

While Hanke refused to give any clues about the specific Pokemon GO secret he was alluding to, fan speculation has run wild. Ditto is what some fans have focused on. The reasoning has to do with the transform move that was recently found by various miners. In its primary state, Ditto is nothing more than a pink blob, but it has the ability to “transform” into any physical object, including other Pokemon. However, it has a tendency to get a few things wrong when working from memory.

On the surface this seems to be a well educated guess. However, data has been available about Ditto from the beginning. In fact, there have been some that seem to think Ditto may be the region specific Pokemon of Africa. While there have been claims of catches in South Africa, nothing official has been released.

Hanke’s discussion about Pokemon GO secrets were not the only news this week. GameIndustry sat down with Niantic CMO Mike Quigley. Quigley outlined the time frame he saw Pokemon GO fitting into as well as what the future might hold for Niantic going forward, including alternate streams of revenue for their stable of games which include Pokemon GO’s predecessor Ingress.

As winter draws near in North America, Quigley was asked about whether the onset of cold weather may hurt the game now or in the future. He explained that while the company has discussed possibly doing something in cold weather countries next year, at this time not much was planned. He also emphasized the fact that while GO launched in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, countries like Australia and Brazil saw GO launching in the winter, and it seems to have done just fine.

“A lot of people give us credit for the summer release timing, but we also saw strong pick-ups in places like Australia and Brazil, when it was winter for them. There’s a lot of seasonal dynamics we need to consider. It’s a variable that most developers don’t need to worry about. Hopefully we can learn and figure out ways to keep consumers engaged. Maybe there will be other spikes in corresponding glove and hat and coat sales.”

Certainly Pokemon GO has allowed Niantic to solidify itself in the mobile gaming market, but it is not something that they take likely. There is a strategy moving forward, and Quigley was quick to point out that the company has plenty of experience when it comes to startups.

“Most people don’t know this, but this is our CEO John Hanke’s fourth start-up. With that experience, he is very, very thoughtful about how, when and where we invest…Pokémon GO turned out to be beyond our wildest expectations, but if it had just gone mediocre, we’d still would have been ok.”

As for the future, Quigley sees the app as more of an MMO much in the same vane as World of Warcraft. Expect small updates to be frequent, but larger updates will take place as well that deliver content such as the 100 generation two Pokemon that were discovered by miners this week.

So, what do you think the next Pokemon GO secret is? Is it Ditto? Does it have something to do with the legendary Pokemon from generation one that have yet to be found? Regardless, it seems that where one secret is discovered another will quickly be there to take its place.

[Featured Image by Getty Images/Michael Loccisano]