Pokémon Go maker apologises after switching off Shiny Pokémon yet again

Pokémon Go maker Niantic has apologised for its latest slip-up which saw certain Shiny Pokémon made unavailable.

It’s the latest in a long, long line of incidents were the possibility of finding the coveted Shiny versions of creatures – which players spend hours and money grinding for – have accidentally been switched off.

As ever, Shiny Pokémon have a low chance of being found in any situation, so any individual player would likely have no indication they’re wasting their time/resources/real-world money hunting a particular Shiny creature without success.

And, as ever, it’s only when the Pokémon Go community pools resources and realises no one has found a particular thing globally for a noticable amount of time, that Niantic finally notices.

This time around, the affected Shiny Pokémon were the current three Shadow creatures exclusively available from the game’s trio of Team Go Rocket bosses Sierra, Cliff and Arlo: Drowzee, Omanyte and Growlithe.

Battling each boss requires you first find and defeat six Team Rocket Grunts – or use in-game coins to skip this step. The low odds of their Pokémon then being Shiny is designed to be encourage players to keep playing for another attempt.

Cliff Leader battle (Omanyte, Machamp, Tyranitar) in Pokémon Go Watch on YouTube

This week, communities of Pokémon Go players collaborating via Discord and reddit realised there had been no reports of any of these Shiny Pokémon being found in a week – and, as ever, it was a thread on top fan reddit The Silph Road which seemed to finally bring it to Niantic’s attention.