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Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

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Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#31
post #6

Yes! Another arbitrary metric that pokemon go passes an arbitrary company. We get it, Pokemon Go is popular. Seesh.

Pokemon Go is arguably the first killer app for collaborative Augmented Reality. It shows app developers that there is serious public interest in the 'right' type of AR and will no doubt open the doors for serious monetization attempts. My prediction for the next big thing? The AR equivalent of snapchat filters that you superimpose over yourself, your friends or enemies, visible to people whose cameras are running th…

To be honest, I used AR mode for the first few days but I turned it off eventually. It had bugs on my Nexus 5x where it would do some weird stuff to the live preview from the camera, like stretching the video and other artifacts. It also drained my battery significantly faster. Finally, it's just plain easier to catch Pokemon with AR mode turned off, which kind of sucks since that's the killer feature.

I'd like to know how many users have AR mode turned off. Because while it is a fantastic part of the app, making it more immersive, if most users don't actually have it turned on it means that AR still isn't there yet for smartphones.

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#33

I would be very happy if Niantec releases an in-depth write up on the how the backend was implemented and what measures they took to make it scale to handle this kind of traffic. I don't care much for the game, but details of why the servers weren't (aren't?) able to handle the traffic interests me immensely.

I'm pretty sure they had immense scaling capabilities, but were hitting upon bottlenecks which were unexpected. I'd be also really interested in what those were.

It's just not economically viable to scale your architecture to day-one or week-one traffic requirements. Look at Blizzard games for comparison, a new release every year or so and they're NEVER equipped to handle it. They know that by the end of the month, user count will drop sharply before stabilizing at a much more manageable level.

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#34
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pokemon Go is arguably the first killer app for collaborative Augmented Reality. It shows app developers that there is serious public interest in the 'right' type of AR and will no doubt open the doors for serious monetization attempts. My prediction for the next big thing? The AR equivalent of snapchat filters that you superimpose over yourself, your friends or enemies, visible to people whose cameras are running th…

To be honest, I used AR mode for the first few days but I turned it off eventually. It had bugs on my Nexus 5x where it would do some weird stuff to the live preview from the camera, like stretching the video and other artifacts. It also drained my battery significantly faster. Finally, it's just plain easier to catch Pokemon with AR mode turned off, which kind of sucks since that's the killer feature. I'd like to kn…

[deleted]

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#35
I don't have the game, but it sounds like GPS power drain is the big problem. Is there not some way to improve that? Maybe only turn on GPS intermittently and use accelerometers, wireless signals or the camera to track your position from the last known point and any landmarks?

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#36
post #6

Yes! Another arbitrary metric that pokemon go passes an arbitrary company. We get it, Pokemon Go is popular. Seesh.

Pokemon Go is arguably the first killer app for collaborative Augmented Reality. It shows app developers that there is serious public interest in the 'right' type of AR and will no doubt open the doors for serious monetization attempts. My prediction for the next big thing? The AR equivalent of snapchat filters that you superimpose over yourself, your friends or enemies, visible to people whose cameras are running th…

AR - already has solid beginnings in industry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRrX-nNnTKw

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#38

I don't have the game, but it sounds like GPS power drain is the big problem. Is there not some way to improve that? Maybe only turn on GPS intermittently and use accelerometers, wireless signals or the camera to track your position from the last known point and any landmarks?

I know iOS and Android already use non GPS data to aid in location sensing, but I'm not certain to which degree they actively avoid the actual GPS sensor.

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#39

I would be very happy if Niantec releases an in-depth write up on the how the backend was implemented and what measures they took to make it scale to handle this kind of traffic. I don't care much for the game, but details of why the servers weren't (aren't?) able to handle the traffic interests me immensely.

.Net apparently. https://twitter.com/JamesNK/status/752283962857234433

Re: Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

#40

I would be very happy if Niantec releases an in-depth write up on the how the backend was implemented and what measures they took to make it scale to handle this kind of traffic. I don't care much for the game, but details of why the servers weren't (aren't?) able to handle the traffic interests me immensely.

I suspect one reason for heavy traffic is that a lot of the logic you would expect to implement on the client, actually needs to execute on the server, in order to avoid client based hacks. For example the logic of whether the poke ball successfully catches the Pokemon. Sure you could implement that on the client but then you'd have third party apps cheating at the game without any verification from the server.
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