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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

#201

Post by dlevine »

I played a lot when Pokemon first came out. But it slowly lost its hold - I found myself gradually playing less and less, and I've pretty much stopped.

I think the problem is that there isn't much keeping people around other than catching new Pokemon and leveling up. Both of those things get progressively harder as you go along, removing the incentives to keep playing. Maybe if there were some sort of quest system (and not the achievements) or real social mechanic, people would stick around for longer.

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

#202

Post by SerLava »

chimeracoder wrote: post #189
maxsilver wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's likely already some sort of effort-reward cycle built into the game that doesn't involve mapping. You would think that, but there really isn't. It's easier to see if you load up the game for yourself. Sure, it's true that Niantic didn't plan or intend for usable maps to exist. But it's also true that the game is effectively unplayable without the maps. The real winner in this whole situation is Nintendo. Ni…

> The real winner in this whole situation is Nintendo. Niantic has effectively given their entire userbase over to Nintendo -- and even though Nintendo's doing very little to attract or keep them, they'll probably still get some extra 3DS + game sales as a result. I don't understand how that follows. How did Niantic give any of its userbase over to Nintendo? Pokemon Go does very little to advance the Nintendo games -…

There have been a lot of Pokemon core game sales and 3DS sales. That's what he's talking about. People are interested in the original games again.

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

#203

Post by daveguy »

philtar wrote: post #198
cableshaft wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to be hired by Niantic, stat. That's brilliant.

Guarantee you've never made a game in your life.

Implementation of this feature wouldn't require much in terms of processing power or storage. It would just be a more interesting and engaging way of getting to pokemon beyond the current "click it on an overhead". Game programmers and designers could definitely work with this description to make a feature.

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

#204

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

derefr wrote: post #91
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…

> 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…

They do seem to have a thing against unsanctioned map apps/enhancements. It was true in Ingress as well. I always assumed it was because they wanted to distance themselves from anything that could be construed as enabling some kind of stalking behavior - or at least construed as "too much" stalker-enabling (Ingress is already pretty stalker-enabling without map enhancements - but the map enhancements definitely make it many times more effective).

If that was at all a reason for their reticence to create capable ingress mapping tools, it must be doubly so for PGO - a game that will attract many more minor age children than Ingress.

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

#205

Post by graywh »

hackernews2000 wrote: post #181
jedberg wrote: post #43

With winter, and the colder weather, approaching, they really better figure out some game mechanics that you can do inside at home, or that user number is going to drop like crazy. I've been saying this for a while -- it was fun to play for a few days, but I live in a suburb. I have to walk at least .5 miles to get to a Pokestop and they never spawn near my house. I'll still play when I go to new places, but that's a…

The weather is going to get warmer on the opposite side of the world from you.

But that's only about 12% of the world's population. And even less are below the tropics.

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

#206

Post by SerLava »

calsy wrote: post #149
wonder_er wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating to me. Your assessment is entirely defendable, yet in this situation I end up with the opposite assessment: "this is a make believe world with arbitrary rules - bend them as much as you can, because why not" >No one gets to bend the rules of a game because of their circumstance Again, I come to the opposite conclusion, that _because the rules are there_ they are fun to push, modify, bend, break. I…

Its a matter of fair play. I can setup bots to create level 40 characters with high CP pokemon with just a few eggs, walking half as much as other users. Then I'll just take over gyms with my OP pokemon and say 'hey, bending the rules, all good'. In most people's eye that's just dirty play. Same with maps, they are third-party tools used to shortcut success. Yes, the tracking sucks in game (im sure it will improve so…

The difference here is that most games aren't absolutely awful without the cheats.

There's also:

-no way to get banned for using the cheat.

-a very very low barrier to entry.

-the cheat is directly replacing a bugged out, missing game mechanic.

-the PvP advantage is minimal, only affecting a small portion of the game.

Basically none of the classic problems with cheating are present here.

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

#207

Post by beedogs »

derefr wrote: post #91
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…

> 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…

> but that probably means that you were not the audience Niantic designed (and playability-tested) the game for.

And that's entirely the developer's fault, not the players'.

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

#208

Post by wsc981 »

reustle wrote: post #36
cowholio4 wrote: post #26

It's still pretty big in Taiwan. All this for a Snorlax! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoYjVTbLWyo [EDIT: Removed pvp mention because I couldn't find a source]

Also huge in Bangkok still. I see people with matching Pokemon Go tshirts, there are loads of lures around Siam in the afternoon, and hundreds of people camped out all over the malls playing for hours (particularly outside Siam Paragon).

Then again the game was only introduced in Thailand at the start of august.

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

#209

Post by Thriptic »

bskap wrote: post #130
calsy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Assuming your goal is to level up. A lot of people were playing for the collection aspect.

I think the game absolutely needs PVP / better gym mechanics and trading to survive. Right now the emphasis is 95% on collecting, which is why people are losing interest.

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

#210

Post by frik »

ozmbie wrote: post #139
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.

There is a huge game market, with people who really play games and buy their games for their PC, PS4, WiiU etc.

Than there is an even bigger audience who own a smartphone/tablet and consider themself casual players. That's the crowd that are catered by Free2Play games. They are often more like casino games or Farmville clones than real games - real games are fun, casual Free2Play are often created to be addictive and are based on grinding (= boring(?)). Some of them find out there a whole other world of real games, many will be in the impression that they are playing real games just because they know no better, and others ... etc.

To each audience their own. The negative side was that for years several Triple-A companies went down the Free2Play road while their audience all wanted just the next Trle-A installment. Several franchises like MS Flight Simulator, Age of Empires, Dungeon Keeper were destroyed/burned by dumb decisions. Even whole companies like Crytek, Zynga, etc almost lost everything.

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