14 DAY TRIAL // Pokemon Go is not (yet) available on Windows phones, but thanks to a third-party client called PoGo, users who are still part of the community could play a somewhat similar version of the game right on their devices.
But without a doubt, the simple fact that it wasn’t an official port meant that Niantic, the maker of the real Pokemon Go game, could block it at any moment if they wanted to.
And this is exactly what happened recently, following an encryption update to the Pokemon Go API, so the Windows 10 Mobile third-party client is no longer working. One of the developers involved in the project announced what happened on GitHub, adding that the team was looking into the problem and searching for a way to fix issues.
“Hey guys, Like you already know the PoGo app doesn't work. The reason for that is that Niantic updated their server. The update ruined the API, the requests are now cryptographically signed. The latest update was forced so the app could read it,” the dev announced.
PoGo might never return
So what’s going to happen next, you might ask. Well, things aren’t looking good, and while the PoGo developing team is indeed looking into ways to deal with the API update, they’re not very confident that PoGo can ever be restored. And if it does, another future update could block it once again and so on.
“What do you say? Is it over in your opinion? Sadly, yes. I dont think that the API creators will be able to decrypt it and if they will be able to get it to work, Niantic will probably add more encryptions. This is probably one of the I don't know how many encryption they will add,” the dev explained.
For the moment, it’s very clear that the only safe way to play Pokemon Go on Windows phones would be a genuine port made by Niantic, but right now, the company doesn’t seem to be interesting in this. It remains to be seen if PoGo client can be restored, and we’ll let you know about it if this happens.