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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

#171

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.

Caveat? ;) I mean, those readers can be scary, but...

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

#173
post #72
post #68

Can someone explain how it works? I understand that it's AR- and location-based. How/where/why do you acquire the virtual creatures? Do you have to look for them aimlessly or are there clues?

Just played a little bit on someone else's account. You walk around looking at a map on your phone (very little detail on the map, it's just a 3d street map) and sometimes you see a pokemon running around on your block. You tap on the pokemon and a screen opens up where you have to throw a ball at it. When you hit it, you capture it. There are also these floating disks with images of local landmarks, and when you swi…

You missed leveling, evolving, gyms, the meta game, searching for rare Pokemon, and more.

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech is the least important part of this whole thing. It's not successful because it's particularly innovative or a fancy piece of tech, it's a success because it's pokemon.

Yet I've seen a lot of comments of people who really enjoy the augmented reality part of it, which was inherited largely from Ingress. Sure, the Pokemon IP is a huge part of the reason it took off. But the reason people actually like it is much bigger than that.

Yes except almost nobody plays Ingress and this game hasn't been out a month and it's about to pass Twitter in popularity...

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

#175

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

It's surprising that they managed to "streamline" a pokemon game even further. The original pokemon combat system is already quite simple. The combat boils down to 4 attacks, using items, switching pokemon and running away which is actually ideal for a touch enabled device such as a smartphone.

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has helped develop two extremely successful mobile games "objective" goodness is pretty meaningless. People have more patience than you expect for a game that captures their imagination and will put up with buggyness. In the long run, if a game isn't polished it will lose because of retention. But pure technical polish is often overrated.

Agree, just look at DayZ. Players stuck with that through extreme buggyness. Sure it might not have the same number of players as it once did but there were periods during which players were putting up with a lot of bugs.

Because we're believers! And there's no subscription cost and we've already paid, and all our friends play it too, I guess...

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

#179
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…

Apparently these already have the potential to be "honeypots" without seeing nearby players

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/07/10/four-suspects-...

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

#180

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…

>Very much like Sega did a while ago.

Yes, but hopefully without a massive dip in quality of established properties. Although the writing was on the wall for that one, I suppose.

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