Pokémon GO players living on the island of Salamis are rejoicing this week, as Pokémon have returned to their neck of the woods for the first time in seven months.
The way in which Pokémon GO and other augmented reality mobile games work is pretty clever, as you can imagine. The games use something called Open Street Maps (OSM). Simply put, OSM is what would happen if Wikipedia and Google Maps had a baby - maps that anyone can update and change. Although, like Wikipedia, discrepancies are often quickly corrected.
The trouble is, while OSM corrects any mistakes, games using the maps might not be using that most up-to-date version available. That's exactly why the Greek island of Salamis has been Pokémon-free for the past seven months, reports Eurogamer. Someone incorrectly tagged Salamis as a bay on OSM. Pokémon GO has since assumed the entire area is submerged in water, and hence Pokémon have not spawned there.
Since that fateful day on which all of Salamis's Pokémon fled the island, residents who play Pokémon GO have been tirelessly campaigning for their safe return. However, as islander Nick explained to Eurogamer, his and others' pleas to Niantic have been met with generic and automated responses. Players have been told to play somewhere with more PokéStops, and even to check if they have enough mobile data.
The Pokémon GO players of Salamis' last-ditch effort was to try and make their plight as public as possible, and it worked. Earlier this week, a Redditor revealed that they opened Pokémon GO to discover Salamis and other surrounding islands, which had been Pokémon free for months, were once again crawling with creatures to catch.
The Reddit post thanks everyone who made the return to the norm happen, and even commented on how fast the change was made. We're assuming they mean since the Pokémon GO players of Salamis revealed their problem to the world, and not the previous seven months the island's 40,000 residents have had to go without playing Pokémon GO. A lot has happened in-game during the last seven months, so the islanders have a lot of catching up to do.