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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

#301

Post by pavel_lishin »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #247
masklinn wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not wait until the game was much more polished and had many more traditional Pokemon features before release? The game has all the G1 pokemon. I've had friends ask if it had "that modern garbage" before considering installing it, so having just G1 sounds like an excellent pick, it doesn't hinder younger people and recaptures the RGBY generation which didn't keep up with the series. There's plenty of things to a…

The problem isn't a lack of Pokemon, it's a severe lack of polish. For example: - Obviously the servers are slow, but the app freezes and crashes all the time too. - The help text is unhelpful and leaves the user with a ton of questions as to what the buttons actually do. - Little to no support for people in rural areas, as the Pokemon follow the XM patterns from Ingress. - Buggy Pokemon catching (e.g. you have to th…

> - No way to add friends, and very little community interaction (with the exception of gyms and lure modules).

For what it's worth, here in New York City, the community interaction takes place IRL. There are literally hordes of people roaming the parks. Some people set out lures, and then sit on benches, striking up conversations with other players who walk over to try and catch some Pokemon.

I can't imagine how this game would work in rural areas, though.

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

#302

Post by snuxoll »

organsnyder wrote: post #300
snuxoll wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something most people don't know either, you get 10 coins a day for each gym you have a Pokemon set up to defend (up to a maximum of 10 gyms) - giving you up to 100 free coins every day for just playing the game. And since you can't buy anything that you can't just get from a Pokestop either (and they are pretty common even in my suburban area, there's three on the ~15 minute walk to the convenience store down the st…

> And since you can't buy anything that you can't just get from a Pokestop either Based on what I've read and my own experience (including a month as a beta tester), this isn't quite accurate. There are a few items that can't be harvested, including incubators, lures, lucky eggs, and backpack upgrades. Those can only be purchased.

Bah, you know what, you're right. Still, 100 coins a day from defending 10 gyms (not hard to do if you are in an urban area) is enough to pick up any item in the store (minus the storage upgrades), at least. Lures are really nice considering they benefit everyone in the area, so if you are nearby a group of players lure trading can be a pretty good deal.

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

#303

Post by kyrra »

MBCook wrote: post #19
niftich wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt Ingress was exciting, but it was a new AR/VR concept and an original sci-fi plot, putting it in the same ballpark demographic as a AAA video game. Pokemon GO has the advantage of being based on an multi-billion dollar, 20-year-old franchise. Its appeal goes beyond that of a typical videogame, so has a significant leg up over Ingress in people's hearts and minds. Its popularity will eventually segment into a…

One of the big problems with Ingress was it wasn't available on iOS until maybe a year ago. Since Google made it I don't exactly blame them, but that was a huge chunk of the market. I wanted to give it a try and I'm sure there were tons of other people but we couldn't since we didn't have Android phones. That's not an issue with Pokémon GO.

Ingress on iOS was 7 months after Android.

Closed beta - November 15, 2012

Open beta - October 30, 2013

General Android Release - December 14, 2013

iOS Release - July 14, 2014

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

#304

Post by squeaky-clean »

padobson wrote: post #250
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…

I don't think it's their hardware, but their platform that they've been clinging to. Owning the platform gives gives them a lot of control over the gameplay experience. I don't think they need to give up their platform-owner (or first party in game industry parlance) status in order to take advantage of the mobile space. Just an adjustment in strategy. Nintendo has always relied on ancillary hardware to make their co…

> How much would a gamer pay for the Nintendo NX app? $50? $100?

I doubt most users would pay anything at all. It's essentially just an app-store in an app-store. How much would you pay to download Steam?

But keeping all their content inside a Nintendo NX app would be a great idea. When I went to download Pokemon GO, I wasn't sure which was the correct app, there were tons with similar names, and the top one was by "Niantic", when I was expecting to see Nintendo. You're never really sure these days if an app will be good, or sometimes even if you're downloading the right one. But people trust the closed Nintendo ecosystem, or at least I do, I feel I could pick any game at random in one of their major IP's, and it would be at least an 8/10.

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

#305

Post by nemo44x »

jpreiland wrote: post #282
nemo44x wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Pokemon Go i haven't found them worth it yet, but that may come later. It's not a requirement but I highly recommend to people to buy some "Lucky Eggs (2X XP for 30 minutes) and extra "Incense" (attract more Pokemon for 30 minutes) and use them together in the early game. The reason why is that you get 2X the experience for discovering a new Pokemon which you will do a lot of early on. By doubling that further y…

also, save up a bunch of Pokemon ready to evolve (such as the ever plentiful Pidgey) and do them all at once with a Lucky Egg. 500 xp per evolution turns to 1000, making leveling pretty fast. The last few days I've been saving all of my stuff until the end of the day to evolve and easily pick up 12k+ xp it's tempting to evolve everything as soon as you can, but waiting to do batch evolutions with double xp is much mo…

Good idea. I haven't evolved many of my Pokemon's yet. Just saving the dust and candy for when I want to evolve higher level captures I'll get later. Of course, at some point you need to figure out when it makes sense to just start evolving!

But, I'll certainly use this idea when that time comes!

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

#306

Post by squeaky-clean »

samfisher83 wrote: post #284
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…

I think Pokemon has more to do with success of it than the AR stuff. I see most people playing without AR on. Pokemon appeals to the nostalgia factor. A lot of us grew with these games when we were kids. Now most of us older, but we still grew with them. It also hits the kids demo as well. Pokemon is/was a good game. Its like why marvel and transformers and all these 80s/90s cartoons are doing so well.

> I think Pokemon has more to do with success of it than the AR stuff. I see most people playing without AR on. Pokemon appeals to the nostalgia factor.

I think it's both. The game isn't great on it's own, and I bet the AR will feel tiring after a while like it did with Ingress. But this is amazingly close to the real-world idea of Pokemon so many of us have wanted since childhood.

Last night I went for a walk in the middle of the night to a nearby park. I encountered a few other "pokemon trainers" on the way (it's really obvious when someone is playing), and at the park were at least 30-40 other people, spread out in small groups, some hanging out in spots, some wandering around the grass tracking a Pokemon...

Seeing Pokemon in the real world is neat and all, but meeting lots of other "Pokemon Trainers"?! Wow, that really made me feel like a little kid again. I hope the population stays active until they add battling. It seems like it would be incredibly dull playing this game by yourself without running into others.

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

#307

Post by tdaltonc »

malchow wrote: post #294
tdaltonc wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is also an investor in Niantic Labs. If you think the price is high, you're welcome to short it.

Do you have a link for this? (I believe you, but I don't see it reflected in any of the VC DBs.)

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-google#/...

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

#308

Post by 90002 »

SyneRyder wrote: post #297
madeofpalk wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pokemon Go has a really interesting mechanic for this - one of the in app purchases you can buy is for a 'Lure' that you can place in your physical area (in game) that attracts Pokemon for all people in the area. So not only are you helping yourself, you're helping others around you. In our office, we take turns on placing them to help everyone out.

And not only are you helping others around you, it's also enhancing the social aspect of the game. I saw lots of lures at tourist sites in the city today, and people were naturally crowding around them to catch Pokemon - and talk to everyone else who had crowded there too. One of the smarter ideas I've seen today - a local pub noticed they were getting increased traffic from players due to being close to both a gym a…

It's fascinating to see this game making such a cultural impact in a matter of days, with much more room to grow on both the social and business side of things. It has massive potential to double as a wallet not only for digital goods, but items that can be purchased in the physical world.

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

#309

Post by MBCook »

kyrra wrote: post #303
MBCook wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big problems with Ingress was it wasn't available on iOS until maybe a year ago. Since Google made it I don't exactly blame them, but that was a huge chunk of the market. I wanted to give it a try and I'm sure there were tons of other people but we couldn't since we didn't have Android phones. That's not an issue with Pokémon GO.

Ingress on iOS was 7 months after Android. Closed beta - November 15, 2012 Open beta - October 30, 2013 General Android Release - December 14, 2013 iOS Release - July 14, 2014

Really?

Huh, I only heard about it last year.

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

#310

Post by MBCook »

Betabot101 wrote: post #170
georgeecollins wrote: post #39

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.

I don't really 'get' DayZ, but I also know that it was a pay-once game, not free to play. Once you've paid the money you might as well get your fun out of it. But if you're constantly losing items and getting frustrated by bugs what's the incentive to keep playing and possibly giving Niantic money?
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