"[Story] Impact on local gameplay because of increased number of sponsored pokestops at Unibail-Rodamco mall"

#PokemonGO: I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, were the Unibail-Rodamco mall “Fisketorvet” received a massive amount of sponsored pokestops, see e.g. this post for a picture. I wanted to share my view on how this has impacted the local gameplay in and around the mall, well actually across the city, as I think it is quite interesting.Shortly about myself: Level 34, part of a Facebook group with hardcore players from my team. Previously I was quite active in participating in raids, but over the past months I have had very limited time and I am now a lot more casual because of that – I play approximately 30 minutes a day while commuting to/from work. I have only been at the mall a few times myself, so some of the observations I describe below are based on what my team mates have shared in our group or told me.A lot of people have regained interest in playing PoGo because of the crazy amounts of pokestops/pokemon at the mall. People are motivated by different things, as I will touch upon later in this post.Lots of people are at the mall, especially right after the stops arrived. During double xp event the place was almost lured 24/7, and there was constantly people there, even during public holidays when most/all of the shops at the mall was closed.New rules/restrictions in the mall have been but in place because of the large amount of people playing PoGo – for example people cannot sit down on the floor of the mall anymore.Parents complaining that their kids cannot see the sponsored pokestops. Some families have travelled from out of town to the mall, only to find that their kids cannot see the pokestops = DRAMA!Playing PoGo at the mall attracts a lot of people, even a famous PoGo-Youtuber visited the country the mall for a few days.Increase in sales in/around the mall coffee, refreshments & snacks, etc. – purely anecdotal, but my team mates often gather at a coffee shop, to rest their legs. Farming XP at the mall involves a lot of walking in order to hit all pokestops / lure spawns.During the recent double XP event grinding for XP at the mall was extremely popular, and some people where “living” at the mall for almost the entire event, only going home to sleep. This also meant that optimizing the XP grind got popular and motivated people to play even more, and hardcore players competed to get the most XP – I have heard players gaining 15 million + XP, but I don’t know the actually numbers – they are very, very high at least.As a consequence of the previous point a lot of people have acquired a GO Plus in order to farm even more XP. Several from my teams have bought one, which motivated them to grind to reach level 40.A high amount of spoofers/bots have arrived in the area. A lot of new (never seen in the PoGo scene in the area before) high level players have showed up. Gym shaving has increased even more. Previous stronghold gyms are now being challenged a lot more.The required CP to get into gyms has been raised dramatically, because of the spoofers/bots and the many new level 40 players. In several gyms you need pokemon above 3350 CP in order to be placed above the bottom slot. This forces players to increase their trainer level in order to compete, and avoid being shaved out of the gym. Personally I find this a bit annoying, since I don’t have the time to raise my trainer level “fast enough”, where as I previously could compete on level terms with other players.With all the new people reaching level 40, most of them now focus on "showing off" and gym battles have intensified a lot. All three teams are raiding in different parts of the city quite regularly, driving in several cars and gathering sometimes 20+ people for raids. I am curious to see if this will continue, or what will happen. I heard some people talking about trying to target "spoofer gyms" specifically, as other recent posts on the subreddit have described also.Thanks for reading! Maybe people having grinded at the mall can contribute with further aspects that I did not see. I wonder if anyone else found similar tendencies at other Unibail-Rodamco malls?TLDR; All the new sponsored pokestops has made it easier for more people to XP, lots of people got to level 40 grinding heavily in the mall, spoofers utilizing this too, as well as occupying local gyms around the mall. The required CP to get into gyms has been raised dramatically, several gyms you need above 3350 CP if you want to be placed higher than the bottom slot.edit: Formatting via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2q26J1W