Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession • Hacker News Board

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#131

Post by mei0Iesh » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:30 AM UTC

fphhotchips wrote: post #55

MBCook wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can put up with a fair amount. There are some Z-buffering issues that don't really matter. I've seen occasional glitches with the way the background works in AR. But how can you not remember if I've me that the sound? How can you not remember I logged in? With a handful of ultrabasic bugs it feels like they just didn't even try. If they are network issues why do I get stuck in a try again later screen were the only…

I completely agree with this. The network issues, and the lack of tolerance for GPS issues would be frustrating but acceptable if they were handled properly. As it is they're absolutely infuriating when combined with the way the app just dies when it encounters them. It's incredible that an app that's been in beta for months still has 20 un-recoverable different freeze states that I've found in 72 hours. My girlfrien…

> I'd probably end up spending a bunch of money on it if I kept it around for a couple months, because I don't have the time I need to play it the free way.

Can someone explain this? Isn't the value of a game in the playing of it? If a millionaire could pay to have hundreds of Pokemons spawning in their living room so they can get more points than anyone without leaving the house, what would be the point? If you're having fun playing with your girlfriend, but don't have much free time, why would paying to catch up matter? Did they design it to be limited gameplay, where you only get a teaser if you don't play it all the time, requiring that you buy things in order to get any real gameplay time out of it?

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#132

Post by wodenokoto » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:31 AM UTC

I think this number is considerably more impressive than beating the number of Tinder installs.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#133

Post by userbinator » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:35 AM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #132

I think this number is considerably more impressive than beating the number of Tinder installs.

Indeed, although I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Tinder.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#134

Post by Sephiroth87 » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:35 AM UTC

Just image if the game was actually good... It's kind of a shame :(

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#135

Post by jhanschoo » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:37 AM UTC

Sephiroth87 wrote: post #134

Just image if the game was actually good... It's kind of a shame :(

I'm optimistic that the game will continue getting fleshed out; there's no way Niantic isn't going to capitalize on this.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#136

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:38 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #76

MBCook wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that's an excuse that lots of developer seem to use these days. It's fucking bullshit. I'm so tired of people releasing utter crap and claiming it's OK to fix it later. You know what happens when you do that? You turn off a huge number of people and poison the brand. It's not like if they waited an extra months to actually fix the issues (which were apparently well known in Beta) the Pokémon brand would've bee…

>I'm so tired of people releasing utter crap and claiming it's OK to fix it later. You know what happens when you do that? Apparently what happens is your app becomes one of the most downloaded in history. The truth is, those "lazy developers" are right. They can release utter crap and fix it later. People will put up with it simply because of their emotional investment in the brand, and it will make money regardless…

Surely they can release and fix later because Nintendo (or whoever?) built up the Pokémon brand over time. They've built consumer trust but they can easily destroy that do the point that such moves will fail in the future.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#137

Post by evook » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:40 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #133

wodenokoto wrote: post #132

I think this number is considerably more impressive than beating the number of Tinder installs.

Indeed, although I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Tinder.

Going with that, I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Twitter.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#138

Post by jhanschoo » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:40 AM UTC

Cave lector: Twitter, in this case, seems to refer to the Android twitter app, compared against the Pokemon GO Android app. If that is the case, I expect the reported Twitter DAU to be much lower than the actual Twitter DAUs.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#139

Post by merb » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:42 AM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #128

onion2k wrote: post #121

Ignoring the comparison with Twitter for a moment, this shows that Nintendo's mobile strategy has been woefully slow. They've been ignoring a huge market segment to try to shift hardware instead, and this toe in the water shows that a lot of people are interested in playing their games but not necessarily buying their consoles. I'd argue this means their business needs to change dramatically - away from their own har…

Doesn't that depend on if they can make money on this model? This is a 126-year-old business, not a startup that's starving for "eyeballs" to increase their VC valuation. Selling hardware and $60 games could be a better (and more long-term) business than selling in-app "coins". (Or not!) I guess we'll see now.

I will never buy any in App Coin, but I have a lot of consoles + games from nintendo. Even the 'New 3DS'.

Re: Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

#140

Post by viraptor » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

skilled wrote: post #112

NamTaf wrote: post #88

If Google had any sense, they would be throwing a tonne more at this. It may be Ingress with less features and a Pokemon skin but that latter part is exactly the mainstream appeal they need to make AR big. This is their big chance to create a new market. If they sort out the bugginess and roll out decent features in the next couple of months to keep retention, they're onto something big. At near-on midnight on Saturd…

I think that's a very short-sighted judgement to say that the game is nearing anywhere close to the level of games like Wow and CoD, and sadly -- it will never get there. There isn't very much flexibility that the game offers, and even it if will offer it in the future, the initial moon phase will be over by then. It's a nice example of launching a product and getting people to use it, but within a few weeks Pokemon…

Yeah, I feel like they set themselves up for a tough situation in a few weeks. Ingress was in beta and invite-only state for ages, which allowed the map to be built up and people to slowly join over time. People who joined later were still excited about low-level peers starting with them.

P-GO is likely to reach its peak in a few days... If some exciting content updates don't follow they may have a problem keeping people around. They'll definitely retain many fans (people still play the original handheld versions), but it will be interesting to see what happens in the future. Also, from own experience - it was easy to play Ingress and go on long walks initially. But after a while, you really want to spend time doing other things; past some point a 1h trip to do something specific for virtual points loses the appeal.