Niantic, the developer behind the hit mobile AR game, "Pokemon Go," has reacted to reports of a player (known as Trainers in the game) from Ohio catching a rare and exclusive legendary bird Pokemon, Legendary Articano. The developer called its appearance an "error" and has removed it from the account of the trainer.
Kait Covey had posted video proof on the Dayton Pokemon Go Facebook page claiming that she won the first ever Legendary Pokemon in this sensational game. Soon, questions were raised about the Trainer catching the Legendary Articano. Reports suggested the possibility of a hack or glitch. Covey had claimed that she received the Legendary Articano as an apology from Niantic after she had faced a certain issue. She even revealed her prized catch in a Twitch livestream, as further proof.
Legendaries are expected to be available only via special events, and Niantic, which is known to be silent otherwise, has acted rather quickly to fix the issue.
A new post from Niantic on its official Facebook post noted that the Legendary Pokemon was erroneously granted to some players and has now been taken back.
"A few of our Legendary Pokemon had erroneously been granted to some Trainers. Thanks to the help of several of our Trainers, we were able to locate them and bring them home safely."
Further, according to gaming website IGN, Niantic "rectified" and "revoked" the Legendary Pokemon from the Ohio Trainer in order to "preserve integrity" of the game and to be "fair" to all.
"We recently noticed that a few Legendary Pokemon got into a few accounts when they shouldn't have, to preserve the game's integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the legendary Pokemon from the Trainers' accounts," Niantic said in a statement.
The company has not officially released any Legendaries into the game yet. Several gaming websites suggested that Trainers who claim to have caught Legendaries have done it by manipulating the game's code to make it appear in the game.
Players have been facing tracking issues after Niantic removed the three-step paw prints from the 'Nearby" tab inside the game.
Niantic has further teased that the game will make its way into 23 Central and South American countries including Brazil, which is preparing to host the upcoming Rio Olympics 2016. The game is currently available in 61 countries.
