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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.
A really, really straightforward way around that problem already exists - Segregating players by whatever key stats make them casual-vs-god-like.
In the case of PoGo, that would just mean your highest CP critter, in tiers of around 500-ish. Once you get something over CP1500, you could effectively enter an entirely new world (doesn't need to be explicit, although in keeping with the Pokemon theme, they could call it a new town/island/whatever), with gyms controlled by people in the same ballpark as you.
>> Eventually you catch them all and then what? The biggest problem with the game (I walk about 7 miles a day playing, I'm at level 23 which is about 5% of the way through) is that, at first, you are always seeing exciting new Pokemon. But after a while it doesn't feel like you are progressing. Who wants to catch their 1000th Rattata? You can play several hours a day for a week and not see anything new that you haven't caught before. The second-biggest problem is that the game penalizes you for going to natural areas. You can only catch Pokemons walking around city centers and the parking lots of strip malls. Walk a hundred miles in a state park and you'll make practically zero progress. Related to the second issue is that you see people playing on bicycles, motorized vehicles, and other means that are essentially cheating. Who cares if you're just cheating yourself, but if you want to make player interaction this is much harder. If all of the Pokestops and gyms were at places that could only be reached on foot, this could be prevented.