all 150 comments

[–]GamefandanInstinct 1599 points1600 points  (43 children)

Is this company even real? Is it like 2 people? I’m stunned.

[–]NightCap46 704 points705 points  (23 children)

the janitor and the potted plant

[–]MickBainlvl 40 89 points90 points  (11 children)

Plz tell me that’s joe dirt

[–]rayge_kwit 71 points72 points  (7 children)

Of course not. Joe Dirt was on top of his shit. that studio was spotless man, there's no way this company is on Joe Dirtè's level of productivity

[–]StinkyLunchBoxCyndaquil 21 points22 points  (2 children)

Scrubbing Bubbles. So you don’t have tooooooooo

[–]rayge_kwit 3 points4 points  (0 children)

heh heh, no I didn't

[–]SubzeroMK 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They scrub the bowl so you don’t have tooooo.

[–]Eevolveer 16 points17 points  (3 children)

Joe Dirt was on top of his shit.

only when he thought it was a comet.

[–]rayge_kwit 6 points7 points  (0 children)

And then he was not only on top of it but he was eating off it

[–]SenpaiStudiosInstinct L40 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Underrated comment

[–]CMYKid7 -1 points0 points  (0 children)


[–]tehbrony5 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Durr plant

[–]CONMANHOC5 -1 points0 points  (0 children)


[–]kingjoedirt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How dare you

[–]Deranged_Hermit 15 points16 points  (3 children)

Nice to see Mitch the plant has rebounded

[–]SaintShowtime 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hard to rebound from MURDER.

[–]Randomd0g 3 points4 points  (0 children)


[–]CarrotMan619 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a presence I've not felt since...

[–]FangLargo 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Where did the whole "janitor and potted plant" thing come from? The first time I heard of it was at facepunch in relation to TF2, but I'm wondering if it every came from elsewhere.

[–]Chewierulz 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes it's from TF2, from a joke in an old blog post from the devs IIRC. There's also the baby they adopted, little miss Team Crabwalk Rocketjump Fortress.

[–]NightCap46 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Idk haha I took it from their sub!

[–]FangLargo -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Google mostly shows results about TF2, so I guess that's one mystery solved?

[–]--_l 3 points4 points  (0 children)


[–]OwnagePwnage123Mystic Hype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's TF2's Dev Team too, they must be taking so long because they gotta develop 2 games at once

[–]RockonmyfriendPraise the memes! 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The janitor and the planted pot.

[–]LawlessCoffeh100% IV, Hydro Pump 86 points87 points  (2 children)

Niantic is actually run by 3 children standing on each others' shoulders in a trenchcoat.

[–]oakengineer 42 points43 points  (2 children)

Maybe its two graphic artists and nobody else. Which is why we get updates that change the appearance of their charge bar, but they can't make a game that runs reliably.

[–]PokemonGO_____ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe someone in the company has mental health issues. I’m not saying that as an insult I’m just trying to think of why it would be like this just saying.

[–]pink_ego_box 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In companies that grew too fast and where human resources aren't doing their job properly, it's not unusual to have overstaffed and understaffed departments at the same time, in which case you see people desperately trying to show t management that they're doing something really useful. In the pharma industry I've seen people from legal affairs coming and giving their opinions in R&D reunions where they clearly have no idea what the topic is about.

[–]totpot 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Not as embarrassing as when Google forgot to renew google.com

[–]TeutorixAleria 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If anyone here is surprised they should have listened to what ingress players were saying before pogo even launched, they are awful.


I don't even know how this is possible. I met with the American side of Nexon years ago and their team for Maplestory for localizing and adding content and anything else Maplestory related was just 2 or 3 people. They were way overworked and were on call for any issues so I'm not saying that's good, but I am saying what the fuck is Niantic even doing with their staff? I really can't even imagine anything but an office full of people twiddling their thumbs, playing solitaire, or simply refreshing their bank account every second.

[–]NMe84 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My thoughts exactly. This is pretty pathetic...

[–]KeNNethX66 5 points6 points  (3 children)

Fellow trainers and I joke that the problem is Niantic has an incompetent employee named Dave. Anytime something like this happen we say, "Who put Dave in charge of renewing the SSL certificate?!".

[–]jetsdude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hahaha Richard the employee takes 2 weeks off and the whole company shuts down. Worst "game" company of all time.

[–]spoon_master 125 points126 points  (6 children)

Can someone ELI5 What this means?

[–]NotAlwaysSunny 210 points211 points  (5 children)

Websites, or in this case a service, that deal with sensitive information like passwords, CC info, etc need an SSL certificate to allow you(the client) to send that information encrypted to the server. This way, if anyone was able to intercept your client's transmission to the server, they would not be able to read it.

Certificates can expire. It's best practice to make sure you renew your certs so that any services or websites you have that rely on them are not interrupted. In Niantic's case, they forgot to renew their cert and now login is broken.

[–]GoodGuyGrahamMystic 23 points24 points  (4 children)

If I may add, there has been a push for all websites and services to use SSL, not just sites handling sensitive information. it's also about providing assurance that you're talking to the right server, and not any attacker/government/whatever in between you and the website.

[–]Elvith 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Correct. Those certificates aren't needed to send encrypted data to a random server. They're needed to not send encrypted data to a random server

With a certificate, the server essentially tells you "hey, this instance you (or more likely your browser) trust, gave me this to identify myself and prove, that I'm really the server you're trying to talk to and not some fake server trying to steal your credentials". It's like you ask someone to show you his ID card. You trust that the state, that issued the ID, checked if its really that guy that he handed the ID to.

[–]AnttwoMystic 0 points1 point  (2 children)

This is random, but are you a native German speaker?

[–]Elvith 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Ja 😉

[–]AnttwoMystic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Geil 😎 I guessed from your comma usage

[–]AstralComet 557 points558 points  (18 children)

Damn, Niantic. Why are you so bad at this stuff?

[–]IsMoghul 164 points165 points  (9 children)

I work in a ~7 man company. I handle everything on mobile, certs and all. I have reminders. It is not difficult.

[–]skylarmt 40 points41 points  (5 children)

LetsEncrypt sends automatic emails 15, 7, and 1 days before a cert expires, so you know to go fix your auto-renew cron job.

[–]OfficialBeardDABIRDADANORF 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Hell, we'll even get 90 day notices at our company. 90, 60, 30, 15, 7, 1, 12h here. Like we're fully aware of the status of our certs at any given time. And this is a bootstrapped company of 3.

[–]Siggy_23 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I work at DigiCert (we recently bought out GeoTrust) and I can confirm that we send out 90, 60, 30, 15, 7, and 1 day email warnings

[–]CyruscM 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Every let's encrypt guide also has a section on setting up automated renewals through cron. It's ridiculous for it to expire now a days.

[–]skylarmt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have some strange Apache configs.

[–]AndyDrew23 0 points1 point  (0 children)

F5 firewall with ssl offloading. One cert to rule them all

[–]SmaMan788Poke slowly 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I work in a ~200 person government agency. Despite our constant reminders, they forgot to renew our Adobe subscriptions last year. And that's only the start of the mess.

[–]AnttwoMystic 0 points1 point  (1 child)

About 7? Seems like that wouldn't be hard to be sure of with a number so small. And seven's oddly specific at that

(just found it funny)

[–]IsMoghul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah! I didn't think about that when I wrote it but it IS accurate. We just lost someone and we have a replacement who hasn't started yet so ... about 7

[–]dylmye 230 points231 points  (7 children)

hijacking (current) top comment to say they fixed it recently, they've updated the certificate.

[–]peteroh9 94 points95 points  (4 children)

Damn, -30 points. Fuck you for being helpful.

[–]dylmye 58 points59 points  (3 children)

I guess I'll go back to lurking this sub ._.

[–]Hitlerismynametoo 15 points16 points  (2 children)

Gotcha homie. You done good. +2

[–]dylmye 25 points26 points  (1 child)

<3 looks like i'm in the positive now anyways. thank you all (:

[–]UnderaglassbellGengar into battle GO! -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

^ From me (:

[–]peteroh9 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Damn, 147 points. Thank you for being helpful.

[–]dylmye 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I guess I'll go back to commenting in this sub .u.

[–]HeeeeyyouguuuuysValor I Level 40 I Ohio, USA 356 points357 points  (1 child)


Can we go one week without Niantic peeing its pants in front of the class?


"embarrassment" suggests they have shame.

It is clear they do not.

[–]GTxGokuu 210 points211 points  (5 children)

How is this allowed to happen

[–]Ditto8353 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Usually because Mark got let go under the guise of "cost cutting" even though everyone knows that William just didn't get along with them so now that William is CIO, Mark gets the shaft. The problem is that William was so god damn excited to finally be rid of Mark that he completely forgot to review everything that Mark did for the company. Now the license is set to expire in 2 weeks, William doesn't give a shit because he works for corporate and has other shit going on, and the remainder of IT at the local site is left trying to figure out who the fuck they need to talk to in order to renew the license. And that's not even the worst of it.

Chances are the invoice is actually 2 months overdue. Kelly in AP has been getting notices about it for a while now, but she doesn't really give a shit because she doesn't know what the invoice is actually for. Mark's email has now reached capacity, never having been properly shut down and only monitored for 2 weeks after his departure, so the 36 warnings about the certificate's expiration never got delivered. When the local IT manager finally realized what was going on, they talked to Kelly about getting the invoice approved for payment, but Charlie is out on holiday now for the next two weeks, and since the invoice is over $1,000 he's the only one who can approve it.

So you run internally for 3 weeks on self-signed certificates and just hope no one important finds out.

[–]AngularBeginner 38 points39 points  (2 children)

Even happened to Microsoft Azure in the past.

[–]newfor2018 22 points23 points  (0 children)

happens a lot more often than it should. with companies big and small

[–][deleted] 102 points103 points  (9 children)

Where’s the official confirmation?

[–]5p33di3Instinct | Lvl 40 | Westerville, Ohio[S] 91 points92 points  (8 children)

[–]GladMaxSnormax 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Doesn't that say October expiry?

[–]mizznox 41 points42 points  (0 children)

They've already updated it. Showed Jan 21st expiration briefly.

[–]DontheFirstZapdos 10 points11 points  (0 children)

(From January 22nd)

[–]ohteeds 142 points143 points  (7 children)

I was finally using a lucky egg since they fixed the scrolling glitch. Oh, well. Good old Niantic

[–]mizznox 76 points77 points  (6 children)

Contact Niantic about that one, they'll replace it.

[–]ohteeds 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I’ll try


I uninstalled the app several months ago, but stay subscribed to the sub for things like this.

[–]jayansworld 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Just here for the shitshow

[–]pedone1 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It was good for like a month, I don't play mobile games but I played this one like I played csgo.they fucking had it, how do they fuck up so badly?

[–]ydob_suomynona 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have my popcorn here and reading through the comments as we speak. Life is great.

[–]ClothingDissolver 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I wish I could say this has never happened to me on a commercial project, but forgetting to renew your SSL certificate (or other yearly licenses) is sadly common.

[–]doomgiver98 16 points17 points  (0 children)

They can't blame this on TPC.

I would be embarrassed if I worked for Niantic.

[–]UndeadBread 81 points82 points  (5 children)

In Niantic's defense, I've seen plenty of big companies screw this up as well, including Apple and Google.

[–]IsolatedThinker89 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Man at my first job out of college the product that I was the sole developer for had this happen.

Apparently that company had this happen enough times that they put a process in place because after the incident I was there for.

They ended up having their helpdesk team have a timer for every cert used in production, and the daily routine for the opener was to verify the timers. Then two months before a cert was set to expire, a meeting was scheduled to resolve(renew) it which included the product owner, a developer, tester, help desk tech, and the directors of each of those departments.

Surprisingly they stuck to that and it worked, for at least the rest of my time at that company. I guess my point is, some things are more often than not learned the hard way.

[–]dizzle-j 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Work for a pretty big global data cooperation. Can confirm we've cocked up certificate expiry before. It happens :)

[–]skylarmt 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I can confirm, all mine are auto-renewed (LetsEncrypt) but sometimes the script fails for some reason and I need to do it manually after getting an email reminder. A couple times they've actually expired before I got to them.

[–]Aadaenyaa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So have I. 8-)

[–]RawwRs -1 points0 points  (0 children)

the only down voted comment because you are devils advocate, smh reddit.

[–]ReStitchSmitch 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I had to laugh when all my chats went wild with talks of "gen 3 release" no guys. Not at 7 pm on a Sunday night. Niantic never thinks of the children.

[–]MegazoaMystic Lv.40 31 points32 points  (0 children)

You'd think Niantic would finally learn a thing or two after all this time. Smh.

[–]fourshow1993 33 points34 points  (3 children)

How do you forget something like that? What else are they so unimaginably busy with?

[–]ickyickes 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Counting their money

[–]6C6F6C636174 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Most people don't set a reminder. They wait for an e-mail from the last place they purchased a cert from.

[–]zqsd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At my job we got an expired certificate, just because of communication, it's crazy.

My boss expected the admins to renew the certificate, I did not believe it. So I asked the admins. Said admins tell me I have to make a purchase order. I have no idea what a purchase order looks like so I ask around. Finally the admins make a purchase order. We have to wait for the new certificate. Now we have to wait for the admins to setup a test VM. I have to check the new certificate on the test VM works fine. Admins finally switched to the new certificate.

It tooks days between each interaction, needless to say the certificate expired before renewal even though I tried to renew it 2 months ago.

[–]NorthernSparrow 40 points41 points  (0 children)

they are such frickin’ amateurs

[–]thatloudblondguy 61 points62 points  (18 children)

This game is, had been, and always will be a train wreck. I'm depressed daily due to the wasted potential.

[–]PM_ME_HUSKY_PUPS 22 points23 points  (4 children)

Just you wait untill they release the harry potter go game....

[–]cpt_pancreas 34 points35 points  (1 child)

"we really didn't expect Harry Potter to be this popular"

[–]jetsdude 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"we're doubling down on Harry Potter WU"

[–]AssCrackBanditHunterFlair Text 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm convinced it's gonna be a flop. Everyone downloaded pokemon go and knows it's a waste of time. Those same people aren't gonna go for another poorly executed grinder

[–]skilledwarman#Red Valor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I though there was another studio actually developing it but licensing the tech from Niantic?

[–]UnderaglassbellGengar into battle GO! 6 points7 points  (0 children)

[–]SemlohwerdJust call me Guy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is the small business equivalent of forgetting to pay for your domain. How are they so incompetent?

[–]BritasticUK 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ahahahahaha, this is great.

[–]Oceandove45 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Typical Niantic.

[–]DubTheeBustocles 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That’s basic as fuck.

[–]BattledroidEDarth Valor 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This is such a cardinal sin and rookie mistake. I can't believe it.

[–]anon42093 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Man, i struggle in this limbo of i REALLY want to play so i follow the subreddit and keep up to date - but i hate the way Niantic have approached the situation from day 1. So disappointing

[–]StornZ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Somehow this doesn't surprise me.

[–]thedragoon0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Th-th-th-that’s al folks.

[–]ieatyouforbreakfast 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This has to be a train wreck.

[–]CatOfGrey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just hit level 20, and I've got six 10km eggs in six happy incubators. I've also got a ton of evolutions pending (and yes, a lucky egg to squeeze out a ton of XP!) It's been a good month.

Scared the crap out of me. I thought I lost my account.

[–]newfor2018 3 points4 points  (0 children)

yeah wasted 18 revives today because half of the raid dropped out and couldn't get back in, while the rest of the group who were still in wanted to keep going and try to beat the kyogre. so i tried... 3 of my teams wiped out and we still failed. 2 second more and we would have gotten it too. it sucks.

[–]Skelebard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

and works again


This has to be a joke..

[–]Tesagk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rookie move, Niantic.

[–]chris7o7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hopefully this explains why I been having issues

[–]ytqituyqi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Niantic need more money guys, we must help because they are a small company.


[–]casemodsalt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm actually wondering why yellow gyms are staying yellow so long since the update a few days ago

[–]khmerkrom1980 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Had toooooo!!!!!!!!!

[–]General_Zarroff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can someone explain to me what this means what happened ??

[–]Fdudi -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Mistakes happen, move on

[–]CitizenT0xieButts-R-Nice -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That's what happens when you play a shit game lmbo