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Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

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

#201

Post by ionwake »

abstractbeliefs wrote: post #114
jmadsen wrote: post #107

Currently discussing with friends best way to crack it and make it seem like there's a rare pokemon just up ahead - for all those people who slowly clog up the sidewalks and stations staring at their phones. Ideas welcome! (For the official record, since you have to say this these days - I'm only joking)

It's already been noted that the application itself doesn't verify the validity of TLS certs, so it's trivial to MITM the connection and there are currently people working to learn the ins and outs of the API.

Has anyone made any progress ?

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

#202

Post by ryenyc »

The Twitter comparison seems very off. Note that the article is talking about Android only. According to https://about.twitter.com/company, Twitter has 310 MAUs and 83% are Mobile. They've publicly stated MAU to DAU retention is 44% (Bloomberg, etc). That leaves Twitter on Android with 40-60M+ DAUs. Pokemon Go's download number which is plainly visible in the Google Play Store is >5M but <10, and that's worldwide. So Android Pokemon Go = 5-10M DAUs MAX, Android Twitter = 40-60M DAUs

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

#203

Post by icoder »

merb wrote: post #139
kalleboo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

Could be, but in-app purchases often rely on very skewed spending behaviours. In other words, you alone may not be the best representative here, at least not with the 'whale' that is found for every 1000's of "you's".

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

#204

Post by johannes1234321 »

viraptor wrote: post #181
yoodenvranx wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course you are right about the safety of the kids. I just wish there was an opt-in system where you can choose to share your ingame actions. If you don't share it you are invisible and you can't see other players, but if you are into Ingress-like gameplay you can just enable it. About bots and cheating in Ingress: the biggest problem is that Niantic is a small company and they just don't have the manpower to…

I'm not sure I'm buying the small company angle. Sure, there are always going to be very creative people who work around complex rules, but that's not everyone. They could apply very basic checks and get rid of 99% of spam I've seen. Specifically, applying "you just moved more than 20km in one go and posted the same message including {bay/sell} => permaban".

For one moving 20km to Paste a message is easy and legal - using the Intel map. If you use the chat there it uses whatever location your focus is on. Also banning the "selling items" accounts does very little, they are cheap to recreate. The thing you have to control are farming bots.

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

#205

Post by yoodenvranx »

viraptor wrote: post #181
yoodenvranx wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course you are right about the safety of the kids. I just wish there was an opt-in system where you can choose to share your ingame actions. If you don't share it you are invisible and you can't see other players, but if you are into Ingress-like gameplay you can just enable it. About bots and cheating in Ingress: the biggest problem is that Niantic is a small company and they just don't have the manpower to…

I'm not sure I'm buying the small company angle. Sure, there are always going to be very creative people who work around complex rules, but that's not everyone. They could apply very basic checks and get rid of 99% of spam I've seen. Specifically, applying "you just moved more than 20km in one go and posted the same message including {bay/sell} => permaban".

Perhaps it's just easier to leave it like the way it is? This way they can easily track spam-bots and the network behind it. If they start to implement more sophisticated by systems the spammers would also become more sophisticated.

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

#206

Post by Larrikin »

was_boring wrote: post #186
kalleboo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's little reason why they are dependent on only in-app coins. They could easily sell "advertising" by placing regionally rare items in real business space.

This would be one of the worst possible outcomes of Nintendo dipping their toes into the mobile game category. Nintendo doesn't need to bootstrap, they don't need to mine user data, they are brimming with IP and are backed by a lot of creative people.

My hope is after this initial success they start adding in paid apps that tie into improve their existing games. Something like exploring the real world for Pokemon allows them or the items they carry to be transferred to the 3DS version.

If something like that is successful full development of uniquely mobile games that are actually worth paying for and don't require the app to be full of ads, cheat to win paid upgrades, or completely unnecessary waiting periods between levels. The best outcome for the mobile gaming industry would be the fall of in-app purchasing in favor of outright buying fun well made games.

Nintendo's IP is strong enough to lead this charge with the right business strategy.

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

#207

Post by david-given »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #102
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…

The one thing which is missing (and which made Ingress the amazing game it is) is ingame notification and ingame player activity. Based on the gym activity there are at least 15-20 players in my town but there is just no way of contacting them. If I am lucky I can manage to meet one by random chance but currently Pokemon Go is a rather single player game. The other thing which is missing is a system which shows ingam…

Um. I played Ingress up to level 7, at which point I gave up. The geolocation features were excellent and I enjoyed exploring my city and finding interesting landmarks that I hadn't seen before --- but I found the actual game was extremely lackluster.

The problem as I saw it was that the game (as of a few years ago) rewarded taking territory, but not keeping it. So capturing a portal scores you points. But once you've captured it, there's no point keeping it any more. In fact, you want it to be recaptured as quickly as possible so that you can retake it and score more points. I found that I'd hardly ever use the higher-end defensive items because there wasn't any point --- defending portals wasn't worth anything.

This encouraged the behaviour where you'd capture a portal, and outfit it with the cheapest possible resonators. This made it trivial for the other time to capture it, and they'd do the same thing. And then you would recapture it. Repeat ad nauseam. This wasn't fun.

I don't know what the gameplay's like for Go; hopefully they didn't make the same mistake this time.

Edit: I've just discovered that Ingress also has the field formation mechanic, which is an end-game thing and grants team points. So you want to hold portals there to maintain big fields. So there is something --- I just never got involved in it (probably because it involved talking to other Ingress players)...

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

#208

Post by panglott »

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…

Pokemon Go reminds me of nothing so much as the Macarena in 1995. It's a fad that will run its course. But a game getting that level of cultural penetration will be a real watershed.

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

#209

Post by johannes1234321 »

wccrawford wrote: post #162
MBCook wrote: post #12

The amazing thing to me is that, at least on iOS, the game is pretty objectively bad. Of course that hasn't stopped me from sinking a lot of time into it this weekend. I've spent $10 on it, which is easily a record for free to play game for me. The server issues are one thing, but the game doesn't even get lots of basic things right. If the server goes away, or sometimes if I'm just out of the app too long, I have to…

If you eliminate all the server issues, the game isn't "objectively bad". In fact, I quite enjoy it. It's a little simple for the first few levels, but that's how Pokemon games have always been! Once you level up your character, you'll start getting harder Pokemon to catch and you can start trying to take and hold gyms. And you'll get enough candies to start upgrading and evolving your Pokemon as well. To put it plai…

How can I try to hold a gym? I can't interact with the players from "my" team and I don't get attack notifications to be able to react. So suddenly my gym switched color which I can actively check after the fact. In good old Ingress I got an attack notification and (remote) recharge or (locally) refill with resonators or emergency switch it using a virus, thus prevent the attack. I reached Level 14 in Go and uninstalled it. Will probably try in a few versions, again. But for now this wasn't much fun.

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

#210

Post by panglott »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #102
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…

The one thing which is missing (and which made Ingress the amazing game it is) is ingame notification and ingame player activity. Based on the gym activity there are at least 15-20 players in my town but there is just no way of contacting them. If I am lucky I can manage to meet one by random chance but currently Pokemon Go is a rather single player game. The other thing which is missing is a system which shows ingam…

Walking around my neighborhood last night on two occasions at different times of the day, I encountered a dozen or more players both times: people of all ages out in the park or walking their dog. I live in an urban area half a block from a park with four Pokéstops in close proximity, but meeting/interacting with other players is not going to be a problem.
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