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Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

arstechnica.com

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Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#131

Post by tim333 »

chrisper wrote: post #90
wcarss wrote: post #16

The loss and subsequent banning of maps and map users made nearly everyone I know stop playing, especially in the total absence of an official replacement or a compelling reason to continue. Hearing my map ding was enough cause to make me leap out of my chair and run to the nearby park at midnight to catch something I wanted, and there'd usually be the usual lure-users and a few map-users out there at the same time.…

What is this maps you are talking about? Did they disable the map inside the pokemon game?

This kind of stuff https://pokevision.com/

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#132

Post by fphhotchips »

calsy wrote: post #102
nathankleyn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's particularly aggravating playing it in a large city (for us London) where, without the maps as a guide, you're stuck wasting balls on common Pokémon incessantly because that's the only thing around. Add to that the fact that they made it, with a recent update, insanely likely for anything half-decent to simply run or be impossible to catch, and you have a recipe for declining interest in playing and paying to be…

But you are supposed to catch common pokemon, that's the quickest way to level up.

That's nice and all, but it's not fun.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#133

Post by bskap »

duaneb wrote: post #119
khedoros wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a competitive game, though. Again, we're playing very different games ;-) > By "unlimiting" yourself you're changing the rules for competitive play for everyone. Again, what competitive play? I'm not competing against you or anyone else, by any reasonable metric. > It's a very selfish way to play the game. It's a relief you've stopped. No more selfish than being relieved that other people aren't having fun any…

> Again, what competitive play? I'm not competing against you or anyone else, by any reasonable metric. You are competing for valuable pokemon, which IS the point of the game.

Why do you think there's a competition for valuable pokemon? When a pokemon spawns in an area, it spawns for everyone in that area and everyone who stops by can catch it. You're not competing with everyone else to get there first.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#134

Post by khedoros »

duaneb wrote: post #119
khedoros wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a competitive game, though. Again, we're playing very different games ;-) > By "unlimiting" yourself you're changing the rules for competitive play for everyone. Again, what competitive play? I'm not competing against you or anyone else, by any reasonable metric. > It's a very selfish way to play the game. It's a relief you've stopped. No more selfish than being relieved that other people aren't having fun any…

> Again, what competitive play? I'm not competing against you or anyone else, by any reasonable metric. You are competing for valuable pokemon, which IS the point of the game.

> You are competing for valuable pokemon, which IS the point of the game.

I'm not. The coworker next to me and I routinely catch the same Pokemon at the same time. Watching it on the map made it clear: if someone catches it, it doesn't just disappear. It's there for a set amount of time. When the time is up, that's when it can't be caught by someone else.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#135

Post by tux1968 »

vlunkr wrote: post #77
djsumdog wrote: post #23

I feel like this is a case, "No shit, what did you think would happen?" It is a free-to-play game after all. I'd suggest watching the developer of Braid talk about free-to-play games. He compares them to 90's syndicated TV shows, each one being independent and leaving you with a cliffhanger prior to each commercial break. When HBO started producing long running series that would eventually be released on VHS and DVD,…

While I mostly agree, I wouldn't say they are entirely a step backwards. Pokemon Go broke the mold and did something that would not really work on any past platform.

I have never played Pokemon Go, but i'm curious what mold it broke? Ingress was around a long time previously and as far as i've surmised contains essentially all the features of Go plus some more. What it lacked was the compelling and nostalgic branding that Pokemon has. Genuinely curious.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#136

Post by ldjb »

khedoros wrote: post #112
duaneb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a competitive game, though. By "unlimiting" yourself you're changing the rules for competitive play for everyone . It's a very selfish way to play the game. It's a relief you've stopped.

> It's a competitive game, though. Again, we're playing very different games ;-) > By "unlimiting" yourself you're changing the rules for competitive play for everyone. Again, what competitive play? I'm not competing against you or anyone else, by any reasonable metric. > It's a very selfish way to play the game. It's a relief you've stopped. No more selfish than being relieved that other people aren't having fun any…

Pokémon Go does have a competitive element to it (or you could say it's possible to play it competitively).

You can compete over who can fill up their Pokédex first (okay, just the 145 that are currently available). You can play the game for longer to catch more Pokémon. You can go out of your way to catch rare Pokémon. Even when you and a friend are in the same place catching the same Pokémon, you're not guaranteed to catch it — you can use Razz Berries and choose which Poké Ball to throw.

There's also Gyms. You can compete over who can control the most Gyms. If you're on opposing teams, you can compete over who will take control over a Gym. Or who will be Gym Leader.

There are many different aspects to this game. Whilst one particular aspect (Pokémon not disappearing when caught) may not be competitive, that doesn't mean the game as a whole can't be.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#137

Post by seangrogg »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #98
derefr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By taking out the maps, Niantic has turned their scavenger hunt into a scratch-off lotto ticket ... they broke the effort-reward cycle You're phrasing this almost as if Niantic wanted there to be third-party mapping apps in the first place, and then changed its mind. The game Niantic released doesn't have mapping, and didn't intend to have an open API. This can be read as an implicit statement that the game design…

The game didn't have maps, but it did have the "footprints" features that would let you zero-in on nearby Pokemon. That's been broken almost since release, and a general replacement still hadn't shipped the last time I checked. The maps were a hack to deal with a broken game, and they eliminated them before addressing the root motivation.

The breaking of the feature was seemingly a response to try and break maps to begin with - the data used in the footprints is what the mapping applications used (along with millions of accounts giving off false coordinates) to triangulate 'mon.

The root motivation of the bug was the stressing of the servers by "headless" accounts that existed solely to make mapping software possible. It's unfortunate that they chose to try and combat that activity rather than just understand it's what people wanted and make it less taxing on their server (make a mapping endpoint on an alternate server).

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#138

Post by khedoros »

derefr wrote: post #125
khedoros wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you "fix" a movie? Yes, if I had the time and artistic ability. I've enjoyed various unofficial re-cuttings of Star Wars, different edits of Blade Runner, and so on. I'd put other things in the same category: upscalers for emulated games, texture packs for N64 games and Minecraft, mods for Minecraft and every other game under the sun, re-implementations of game engines or whole games that introduce features n…

> I've enjoyed various unofficial re-cuttings of Star Wars, different edits of Blade Runner, and so on. I'd put other things in the same category: upscalers for emulated games, texture packs for N64 games and Minecraft, mods for Minecraft and every other game under the sun, re-implementations of game engines or whole games that introduce features not found in the originals, etc. I would note that all of these fall ei…

> I would note that all of these fall either into the category of "creator encourages community involvement" or "creator has abandoned work and ignores community involvement." Yes, people participate when participation is a net-positive. What I was asking is why people would bother contributing their time and effort to effectively do software development for a company that actively tries to discourage them from doing so.

Well...Pokemon Uranium and the community Metroid 2 Remake. Both actively discouraged, but both worthwhile creations, IMO (and the kind of thing I'd have fun doing). Presumably, they did those not just because they wanted to write an RPG or Metroidvania game, but because they're fans of those specific franchises. I read it as an expression of fandom.

I'm working on an engine re-implementation project for an old game, currently owned by a fairly litigious company, for a few reasons:

- I love the game itself, and writing my own in a similar genre+style misses the point

- I like to feel like I'm the first one to re-discover the file formats in a couple decades

- I like understanding the low-level details of "how the sausage gets made"

- I've seen similar projects with this same game crash and burn, and I'd like to be the different one (there've been half a dozen previous attempts at the same game).

- I want to make it possible to easily mod the game, maybe to get a community to build a remastered version.

> Why not create a Fanny-pack Gremlins March app?

It's a lot of work to attract people to a franchise, and it's easier to ride on the coattails of another one ;-) I also suspect that the driving force was Pokemon fandom, not only the desire to make a game. The legal issues involved clearly weren't a decisive factor during the development phase.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#139

Post by ozmbie »

djsumdog wrote: post #23

I feel like this is a case, "No shit, what did you think would happen?" It is a free-to-play game after all. I'd suggest watching the developer of Braid talk about free-to-play games. He compares them to 90's syndicated TV shows, each one being independent and leaving you with a cliffhanger prior to each commercial break. When HBO started producing long running series that would eventually be released on VHS and DVD,…

It's easy to complain about free to play games and the tactics they use. But it's just a response to the consumer base.

Developers tried the paid game model and, other than a small number of niche games, the mobile market just doesn't want to pay for them.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#140

Post by Bahamut »

nathankleyn wrote: post #40
cheald wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is on the money. Niantic made it harder and more frustrating to play their game, and people stopped playing it. They have utterly failed to understand what their playerbase wants, and people are falling off. The maps really drove it into overdrive, especially with the presence of "nests", because it allowed people to figure out where they needed to be, and would then congregate there. By taking out the maps, Nia…

It's particularly aggravating playing it in a large city (for us London) where, without the maps as a guide, you're stuck wasting balls on common Pokémon incessantly because that's the only thing around. Add to that the fact that they made it, with a recent update, insanely likely for anything half-decent to simply run or be impossible to catch, and you have a recipe for declining interest in playing and paying to be…

I found plenty of rare Pokemon walking around while I was visiting London in late July, including a Dragonite.
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