Zeroghan at GoHub is concerned that Ingress agents are boycotting OPR over Niantic’s announcement that anomalies will require a $15 ticket to attend. The article surmises that without a Pokemon version of OPR, Ingress, Pokemon Go, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unleashed will all suffer because OPR is the only way to get new portals, stops, and inns approved. You can submit new portals in Ingress, and new stops in Pokemon Go, but only Level 12 Ingress agents can access Operation Portal Review to vote on whether or not a submission should be added to the network.

It’s surprising to some that Niantic’s new policy of charging for anomaly participation is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Niantic has been charging significantly more than $15 for Rare and Very Rare anomaly kits for a long time. However, over the last month Niantic has ended the Trusted Reporter program, doubled the price of frackers, and announced that scanner [redacted] will be retired on September 30th. Any one of those announcements seem to be more boycott-worthy than the new anomaly prices.

For several years Ingress has seen a steady stream of new agents who learned about the game from Pokemon Go and just want to submit and review stops. Level 12 Ingress accounts are worth over $200 on eBay for trainers who don’t want to go to the trouble of leveling up an Ingress account. Level 10 Ingress accounts used to demand over $200 also, but that was before you could submit stops in the Pokemon Go app.

If they aren’t willing to level up an Ingress account, and they can’t afford to buy one on eBay, some trainers have taken to begging for help in Ingress comms:

still looking for a level 10 to submit some portals for me.

Many Ingress agents who are active in OPR are dismissive of Pokemon Go stop submissions. They claim that Pokemon Go trainers submitted points-of-interest (POI) that are consistently lower quality than those that are submitted by Ingress agents. The problem stems from trainers who want stops located in their neighborhoods or close to their jobs.

Even though many rural Ingress agents would welcome new portals in their area, many urban and suburban Ingress agents feel like there are already too many portals for a community that’s shrinking as quickly as it is.

With an increasingly large percentage of portals remaining neutral, some Ingress agents have started to refer to neutral portals as belonging to the white faction. It’s a problem that started a long time before Niantic adjusted their anomaly pricing strategy. The number of agents playing the game is shrinking and new portals aren’t going to change that.