While companies usually want to help, sometimes you just hit a brick wall. In my case the first-line support agent is helpful, but when it goes further than that, well…
Almost a month ago, I tried to contact Pokémon support for the game Magikarp Jump. While it’s a silly game, I can’t open the in-game store page. It just gets stuck with the following message:
Thanks to the helpful “Support” button on the launch screen, I knew I needed to provide the Support ID and create a ticket. So I provided the following:
Hello,
Support ID <redacted>
I’ve been trying for a couple of days to access the store again. I could the first time, but didn’t purchase anything. Now I just get the message “now transmitting” and it won’t load. I’ve tried to backup, uninstall, reinstall and restore my data, but I have had no luck. Any idea what it can be?
Regards,
Jeroen Heijster
After 3 days, I received a reply asking for more info:
Hello Trainer,
Thank you for contacting Pokémon Support! We understand you are having some issues with Magikarp Jump. Please provide us the following information so we may look into this further:
Support ID:
Device (Please include Model Number):
Android or iOS?
What OS version?
What time did the issue occur? (Please include time zone):
Details regarding your issues (Please give as much detail as possible, the more details, the better.):
If you are able to take any screenshots, please include them as they can be very helpful.
Thank you for playing Pokémon!
Sincerely,
The Pokémon Company International Support Team
Now, I’ll admit that I missed some of those details (none were actually asked when opening the ticket), some actually were, like the details regarding the issue and the Support ID.
Since I provided the Support ID, I assumed that they’d at least have the device model, OS and OS version. According to their privacy policy they log device hardware and software data, so it’s a bit odd, but oh well. After I supplied them with 3 screenshots of the same screen with the animation just a bit different (and a clock showing it goes on for over 15 minutes) and the screenshot listed below, I had to wait again.
The same day it got escalated to a “dedicated” team. Due to high ticket volumes, a resolution may take longer than normal. The weird thing is, that they don’t express what the normal resolution time is.
After just a week, I got the following “solution”:
Hello Trainer,
Thank you for contacting Pokémon Support! We understand you are receiving an error when trying to connect to the store. The development teams recommends the following:– Please confirm that your game was downloaded from the correct Google Play/Apple account.
– Check with Google/Apple to make sure previous purchases are completed
– If your OS is not the latest, please update the OS on your device.At this time, there is no other method to help solve this issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Thank you for playing Pokémon!
Sincerely,
The Pokémon Company International Support Team
I always use the same Google Account for downloads, so that’s not it and no previous purchases are listed in my Google Play Account for Magikarp jump. No pending OS updates either, so I went back to them again..
This is obviously not a solution.
The game is downloaded from Google play, the latest version is installed.
No purchases are pending in Google Play.
My OS is the latest available.
I have uninstalled and tried with a new player and I could open the screen. The moment I restored my data, I couldn’t open the store screen anymore. It’s like it’s trying to check for something on your backend.
I’ve checked logcat and nothing relevant showed up. If needed I can provide the backup details so you can try to debug it locally.
Since I’m a developer, I tried to check it out as much as I could, but even in logcat, I couldn’t see anything useful. Hell, I even tried to give them the details required to debug it on their end. But even that didn’t help…
Hello Trainer,
The development team stated that they do not take backup information and there are no other steps to fix this error other than what we have already provided.
Thank you for playing Pokémon!
Sincerely,
The Pokémon Company International Support Team
My only conclusion is that they don’t want my money. I also guess they don’t want other people’s money, since issues like these rarely happen for just one person. It’s just that a lot of people won’t even bother contacting support, they just give up.
I tried for almost a month and my issue is still not resolved. The only way to “fix” this is to start all over again, but since I’d have to start over, that’s not an option. This is something related to my savegame/profile and the ones who CAN solve this, won’t. Well done Pokémon Company, well done.
