The Tragedy of Pokémon Go: What it takes for good ideas to attract money

People definitely bring it up, but what are they meant to do? Collapse a media franchise worth many millions of dollars?

Frank Lantz is a really positive guy overall, so again, I think his negativity overstates how he actually feels. His company Area/Code was not acquired for its location based games, and Area/Code never made a game where you look through a camera and see a thing superimposed in it. Suggesting Area/Code 'got there first,' as Ian does, is a bit of a stretch. Honestly, it's doubtful anyone at Niantic has actually played a single thing Area/Code has made, not even Drop7. Nobody would put a screenshot of Plundr in their pitch deck and say, "We're going to make the next big version of this." Besides, Plundr was never released as a public game anyway, so it would be absurd to compare this actual thing Pokemon Go to what is basically a design fiction.

But even if you allow that all these advertisement game footnotes are genuinely cited/used in Pokemon Go, you're forgetting that none of that really matters in gaming as an art form. The only person's opinion that really matters is the consumer's (and to a limited extend the Google Play Store editors and App Store editors). Players are less interested in who invented what concept. If you're going to reference the past, reference familiar control schemes (like nearly every console shooter references Halo) or properties (like, well, Pokemon). It's surprising that professors of games-as-art like Ian and Frank would seem to get this wrong.

People on this forum are probably most critical of the bugs, but again, none of that really matters. Other commenters have said it more succinctly: if you have something great, people will deal with its problems. Forget DeNA games (like one commenter noted); have you ever tried to play Minecraft on an iPhone? You're moving around your FPS head with your finger and using a virtual joystick, which is literally the most horrible control scheme for touch possible. Kids still deal with it, they really don't care.

Why are there people looking to assassinate Pokémon? I think the Niantic team was given multiple opportunities to do something unconventional, which basically never happens, especially never in any of the jobs of people on these forums. They're kind of rubbing in all your faces that you really don't have to be making elegant hierarchies and making the world a better place all day, if only someone trusted you to do something weird.

You know that's the real rub for the author.

Where was I condescending? I gave good answers to all your points.

>This app crashes so much, it must be some really obvious exception they're not catching.

Who's condescending now? "Since it breaks so much, sheesh, it should be really obvious how to fix it." Nothing is really obvious how to fix, if they knew how to fix it they already wood have

>I don't expect it to be bug free, but constantly crashing? Since you're obviously such a pro, let me ask you: Would you release software that crashes so often?

Inferiority complex much? I never said I was a pro. And releasing an obviously buggy product sometimes is tied to contractual agreements or marketing deals. Once you start a marketing blitz, you _need_to release something. Engineering is subordinate to actually, you know, making money.

>Apple doesn't have contigencies for top-tier developers and emergency updates? Huh.

Not for "top tier developers". Also emergency updates are generally only relate to when there are security or privacy concerns. Crashing doesn't bother them much, if it made it through their initial vetting process.

>Caching is a famously hard problem, but wiping the entire state and starting again for basic information that doesn't change is sloppy. Deltas and common sense helps here. Same thing for use of GPS and data.

You said yourself that the app is really buggy, and then you also want to introduce a level of caching on top of it? That will make it even buggier and harder to diagnose.

>So many people affected for no good reason.

Which lays credence to the fact that Niantic made the right balance between buggy software and shipping. Not many people would be affected if the game weren't popular despite its bugs and limitations, so shipping at this stage seems like the proper thing to do.