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Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

techcrunch.com

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

#51

Post by throwawayReply »

chatmasta wrote: post #40
goodplay wrote: post #12

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.

You can have both, if it's just randomness then you can have shared seeds which the server will verify but the local client can sample too. If they de-sync then the server wins, but the client can feedback quicker before the final response from the server.

I suppose that would enable further cheats such as not wasting pokeballs on ones you know will fail by peeking into the future.

The throw itself is client-side though, so I suspect it's already possible to cheat with "perfect throws" every time.

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

#52

Post by taneq »

epmaybe wrote: post #31
KineticLensman wrote: post #27

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…

Th 'AR' mode is terrible. I had hoped for at least an attempt at registration and tracking. It's not AR, it's just a gyro based 3D app that happens to use the camera feed as a background.

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

#53

Post by ungzd »

goodplay wrote: post #12

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.

What's more interesting is the way Ingress checks for link intersections at that scale (and it checks it for each key in inventory).

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

#54

Post by flipp3r »

goodplay wrote: post #12

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.

One of the reasons is probably that people are using Pokemon Go in countries where it hasn't been released yet. For example here in The Netherlands there's 1.3 million+ players, even though the game is not even available yet in the Android or iOS app stores in The Netherlands.

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

#55

Post by nicolapcweek94 »

zyx321 wrote: post #33
Roritharr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Another good example of this are the Steam sales, especially the big ones (summer and christmas sales render the store completely unusable for the first day or so)

It's "good enough" for the week of the sale, upgrading all the servers for a week of super heavy traffic just to see them idle the rest of the year isn't a great business plan

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

#56

Post by adamors »

calsy wrote: post #11
adamors wrote: post #7

Can we have a moratorium on Pokemon Go posts? It is getting really annoying, especially since submissions regarding it have absolutely no value.

Why? Pokemon Go is the most talked about topic in tech at the moment. Considering this a tech news site, it would seem more than appropriate to show this content.

That's a stretch. This is like any other HN fad, like the 2048 variants, javascript frameworks etc.

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

#57

Post by chatmasta »

flipp3r wrote: post #54
goodplay wrote: post #12

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.

One of the reasons is probably that people are using Pokemon Go in countries where it hasn't been released yet. For example here in The Netherlands there's 1.3 million+ players, even though the game is not even available yet in the Android or iOS app stores in The Netherlands.

I'm currently traveling in Hungary and was able to download the game on the first day of release. Is that because my Apple account has a US billing address?

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

#58

Post by chatmasta »

alexhawdon wrote: post #24
mynewtb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flag and hide is the way to go.

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)" Just hide if you're not personally interested. IMO flagging that would…

Do all flags get reviewed by moderators? I was under the impression that if some threshold number of people flag the same topic, it disappears automatically.

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

#60

Post by flipp3r »

chatmasta wrote: post #57
flipp3r wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons is probably that people are using Pokemon Go in countries where it hasn't been released yet. For example here in The Netherlands there's 1.3 million+ players, even though the game is not even available yet in the Android or iOS app stores in The Netherlands.

I'm currently traveling in Hungary and was able to download the game on the first day of release. Is that because my Apple account has a US billing address?

I use Android myself but I've heard from colleagues that if you use a US account you can download it here. For Android it's just downloading executable through any channel that isn't Google's play store.
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