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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

#251

Post by Keyframe »

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…

Nintendo is successful despite Nintendo in some cases. There are so many missed opportunities with them. For example, first DS and Wii had a technical capability to talk to each other. They even announced it as one of the key points before launching either. It never happened. They could've had Pokemon GO on that platform already if they chose to.

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

#253

Post by darklajid »

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…

I'm kind of on the fence here. I played Ingress quite a bit (and early), but what I disliked was that it seemed multiplayer only. There was very little (for me) return for being a solo player and most Ingress communication at that time happened in G+ (aka I wasn't part of that).

Pokemon Go is in some ways a limited Ingress, but the collecting/evolving/upgrading part of the game is what got to me.

I'd be glad about social features in the game. But I already think that this is a better game than Ingress for me personally.

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

#254

Post by nathancahill »

ionwake wrote: post #201
abstractbeliefs wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/4s6rx7/discussio...

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

#257

Post by mkane848 »

veeragoni wrote: post #252

Do I need to feel out of place in this world? I still dont understand why the game is so popular!

It's the social aspect and the act of "dude there's a Snorlax at the basketball court let's go" and getting a group of your friends to go, then as you show up you see other people doing the same thing.

It's an innocent conversation starter. What better ice-breaker between social groups than "You playing Pokemon?" Even people who aren't playing know what's going on. The game itself isn't the selling point here. Being an IRL Pokemon trainer is.

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

#258

Post by stronglikedan »

skc wrote: post #228

This game has all the makings of a fad. The AR angle is new but this is simply Flappy Birds all over again.

Flappy Bird is still more popular than I imagined. I went to Dave and Buster's for my nephew's birthday, and there was an arcade version of the game there, with a ~2' wide by ~4' tall screen. People were happily paying good money to repeatedly press the single button on the console. In fact, I was surprised to see quite a few popular mobile games offered up in arcade format there, with people playing them.

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

#260

Post by panglott »

iwontreddit wrote: post #246
AndrewOMartin wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speculate that Tetris (possibly even just the 1989 GameBoy version) was bigger than the Macarena.

Tetris wasn't that big before the Gameboy version. It was "big" in the tiny new computer/tech world, but it was gameboy which brought it into the mainstream.

The difference is that smartphones have a lot higher penetration than Gameboys did.
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