Pokemon GO (Free) might not be ruling the world like it did when it first came out last summer, but it continues to be very popular and continues to make tons of money for Niantic. In a recent interview, John Hanke, Niantic’s CEO, talked about the current focus of the development team, and it’s good news for those who’ve wanted to see more features and more depth. Specifically, Hanke said the the priority now is to reward co-operative gameplay and give players experiences beyond just the capturing mechanic. These features are the long-awaited trading and PvP battles, which are apparently on the way. Hanke pointed out that if not for the server issues at launch, one of these features would have already been in the game.

After the crazy half-a-year the company has had, they are pretty much funded indefinitely according to Hanke, so there’s no pressure to quickly spit out features just to retain players. And the developers are planning on ways to help bring new players into the game. Now it remains to be seen when we’ll get those new features. Hanke pointed out that early forms of those features will be coming out first and then they will be fully fleshed out. I’m wondering whether Niantic is waiting for Spring to release any big features so people can take advantage of the warmer weather. We shall see. Are you excited about trading and PvP battles coming to the game?

[via Waypoint]