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Pokemon Go Daily Active Users, Downloads, Engagement Are Dropping (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader writes:Pokemon Go is starting to lose the battle for mobile mindshare, according to Axiom Capital Management. As such, investors and executives at Facebook Inc., Instagram, Tinder (Match Group Inc.), Twitter Inc., and Snapchat can breathe a sigh of relief, says Senior Analyst Victor Anthony. "Given the rapid rise in usage of the Pokemon Go app since the launch in July, investors have been concerned that this new user experience has been detracting from time spent on other mobile focused apps," he writes.
Enthusiasm about the potential for Pokemon Go (and augmented reality gaming in general) to improve Nintendo Co Ltd.'s financial performance sent shares parabolic after the app launched in the U.S., and even spurred rallies in secondary plays linked to the success of the game. Data from Sensor Tower, SurveyMonkey, and Apptopia, however, show that Pokemon Go's daily active users, downloads, engagement, and time spent on the app per day are all well off their peaks and on a downward trend.
Also, they just banned a huge number of bot accounts. That's gotta hurt the active user numbers.
I read the internet for the articles.
After my experience with Pokémon Go (and subsequent reduction in playtime), here are the issues as I see them:
- Too many pop-up messages now preventing gameplay or interfering with it. It's not the game's job to police my actions.
- Acquisition of Poké Balls is too difficult, even in urban areas, given that as you level up the Pokémon run away more and are more difficult to catch.
- Fighting at gyms is just a terrible and unreliable experience. The entire battle system needs an overhaul and should return to something more similar to the old games.
- Back on Poké Balls, some form of passive acquisition method would re-engage me in at least casually playing the game. Even if it was 1 per hour or something, that would help.
- Fighting with other players should be easier even when not near a gym, and should give some rewards.
- The game freezes and crashes often, and is a huge battery hog, and is perhaps the only app I have that actually heats up my device to the point it feels hot. They really need to work on the efficiency of their code.
- Leveling up your account shouldn't be "catch as many Pidgeys as possible and evolve them all at once with an XP-boosting item active." That's stupid.
Obviously, fixing some/all of these problems would be helpful to improving the longevity of the game.
You can kill a pokemon with twice your CP if you know how to dodge its attacks properly and hit its weakness, i.e. "It's super effective"