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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.
Geez, the other night, driving through City Park about 3:30am on a Friday night, the place was packed with people slowly cruising around in cars with their Pokemon playing on their phones.
It wasn't just there...at major sites all over town all last weekend, I saw a surprisingly LARGE amount of people out all times of day and especially late night playing it...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Niantic has no one to blame but themselves on this one. First, instead of assuring there was server stability for North America they kept rolling out to new areas resulting in server crashes. During this time anyone that was using lures or eggs or other items were quite livid over the loss of an item they paid for due to the server(s) being down.
Then came the three-step bug. When it went away, no longer could the average Joe Sixpack juts walk around and find new pokemon. It was an effort in futility made only https://games.slashdot.org/story/16/08/23/1437229/pokemon-go-daily-active-users-downloads-engagement-are-dropping#worse by the choice to ban 3rd party services that would facilitate in showing where the Pokemon were. And then to top it all off was the cheating. I can't take a gym if the Gym-Leader is a bunch of 35 level bots with great pokemon.
So at a competitive disadvantage, with no real end goal but walking around collecting pidgeys the game was a bust.
Good try, better luck next time pointy haired managers
In Michigan, the weather has been fine and it's been a summer hit.
But the game is repetitive, and players who want to play "a little bit" can't compete in the arms race for good pokemon to fight in the gyms.
More activities and content needs to be added to the game to keep it fresh, and soon.
When the weather turns colder, it will be harder to maintain users in my neighborhood, at least.
Well, this how Pokemon games have been since back on Gameboy. It's the same thing, over and over.. You go to a town, you battle some people, you find some stuff, you leave town and you catch some Pokemon and you battle some people and then you find some stuff. It's not all that different, it's just that fad players are getting bored with it because they never played all the other games.
Also, "layers who want to play "a little bit" can't compete in the arms race for good pokemon to fight in the gyms." That's true of a great many multi-player online games. There are people that sink months on end and scale up to levels that make it not fun for others and those of us that are more casual. This just simply isn't even close to being a Pokemon:Go only issue. Destiny has this. Battlefield. CoD. Doom. Etc. Pretty much any sort on MMO game will see this problem with the casual players. Just how it is and there's no real easy solution.
School started.
Over the last couple of months, when I cut through one of the local parks on its bike trail, it's looked like the Night of the Living Dead: A bunch of zombies obliviously wandering around, staring down into their phones and cluelessly blocking the path.
Lately, the zombie outbreak seems to have abated somewhat, and the bike path isn't so much of an obstacle course.
The developers have been scrambling to keep up with demand, they haven't been doing anything to improve the game or keep it interesting since launch.
The game launched with a very small set of game play mechanics. Since launch, they've removed 1 mechanic (tracking pokemon) and have added nothing .
If they were capable of keeping their launch-day mechanics in place and weren't scrambling to just keep the servers alive (the reason they removed the mechanic they did) then they could have focused their small development team on improving the game instead.
The key mechanics in the old pokemon games was battling friends & AI and trading pokemon. If they added those mechanics into Pokemon go, then they might be able to keep the interest going a bit longer.
Until then, it's collecting things that you can't find. The fun in that wears thin pretty quickly.
It's dropping because:
a) Many people cheated and thus have no reason to play it anymore, Nintendo has since broken the cheats.
b) It was released during summer when kids are out of school.
Come September, the kids will be back in school and not wandering around downtown cores looking for Pokemon.
That said, there are quite a few yet-unreleased Pokemon, so the game will have staying power for a while. I've walked past the spot that everyone hangs out locally and there are still 50 or so people hanging around when it probably peaked at about 300.
I ran it for a while. Nothing happened. I kept at it. More nothing happened. I put in a bit more time. Still, nothing happened. Then I forgot to keep starting it.
There's nothing to do, no goals to work for or problems to solve. AFAICT my main goal was to gym enough to eventually save up the gold to buy a larger bag, so that I could carry more balls and raspberries. I am not fucking kidding. That was the goal: save up for a bigger bag.
I've played other grind games (and I'm still playing another one, right now: Clash of Clans) and they're all so much better, because you're grinding for a reason (in CoC's case, the reason is just to take on bigger problems, but seriously: that's enough!). A grind goal is lacking, here.
Pokemon Go is a neat idea, but no game. FWIW, I actually think that if they were to put in some effort, they really could fix it. Just think up a game (or two or three or ten), and add that to it. Treat the previous work as background/setting/universe_creation. Mapping the universe onto the real world was a good idea and I think we're going to see a lot more of that happening in the near future.
This Pokemon Go shit is the electronic equivalent of the Pet Rock, Tickle Me Elmo, Cabbage Patch Doll, etc.
Useless.
Salty much, bitch?
Unlike the usefulness of most other games?
If it brings the user a fun experience, then it is useful.
Sounds like someone is crying because they took your cheats away.
The Bloomberg article shows the game being off it's launch peak by 20-25% or so, with a spike in engagement that it doesn't explain a few weeks ago. This is normal for this kind of game- and mobile games tend to make their profit on a small percentage of users that spend a TON on microtransactions (more pokeballs, lures, etc), not in raw user count. The game is likely still wildly overperforming what Niantic expected it to- and there are plenty of features (direct trainer battles, more pokemon) for Niantic to implement to extend the game's lifespan.
They made it impossible to play while riding as a passenger in a car. If you are going more than 4 Mph you cannot catch-em-all. I am pretty sure making it so kids cannot play while riding in the car killed their numbers.
I am sure it is to prevent idiot drivers from removing themselves from the gene pool via obtaining the coveted "Darwin Award."
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.
Did anyone really expect the fad to last?
I mean, that is the goal of the game, is it not?
Ok, so you have a really popular app come out. Lots of people try it and like it. Then lots more try it because lots of other people are. This second group doesn't see what is appealing and chucks it. This still doesn't detract from it being popular, or indicate it is doomed.
E.g. Look at World of Warcraft, now has 1/2 the subscribers it did at its peak a few years ago. Despite this it is still going strong as the most popular MMO.
Breaking the cheat is the reason people are quitting.
The game is a massive tredmill. There is no way that someone with little time can be competative except for bots. Unless you live in NYC or someplace similar you can't get enough pokeballs to play without paying a fortune buying them from the store.
Configuring and tweaking bots was far more fun than the game.
"Just how it is and there's no real easy solution."
There is a very easy solution. Make the game skill based and hard rather than progressive achievement based and easy.
"Just how it is and there's no real easy solution."
There is a very easy solution. Make the game skill based and hard rather than progressive achievement based and easy.
Skill based, like every game I listed? There's skill involved there and the more you play, typically the better you are. Which leads in to the issue I called out for casual gamers that aren't as skilled a jumping, with a sniper, and then quickly zoom aiming to head shot across the map.
Is this a surprise? This is probably exactly what the companies behind the game knew was going to happen.
In other news, fewer people will go and watch Suicide Squad this weekend compared to last.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So it's basically like every other popular everything ever? Who would have though.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
My daughter ( 7 ) was nuts over it when it came out. But you walk around, try to catch Pokemon, not by battling them and weakening them first, but by just throwing a limited resource (Pokeballs) until you catch one. Then you run out of Pokeballs and there's not much to do unless you are already high level and have spent a lot of time and/or money building a team for gyms. That's the only kind of Pokemon Battle in the game currently, and it's kinda really dull, no real strategy to it at all.
She has no interest in it anymore... I imagine among older Pokemon fans, they're also seeing the game is dull and lacks what made Pokemon interesting in the first place...
>> There is no way that someone with little time can be competative except for bots.
This, and the only real"battling" in the game is Gym Battles currently, and those are dull even if you do have a built-up team....
Yes, but you battle in the game, you even have to battle the wild pokemon to weaken them to catch them. Pokemon Go you just throw balls at them. And the one battle that is in the game is dull and has no strategy really beyond "Have the pokemon with the most CP!"
Unlike Ingress, where there is a continuing story line influenced by how well the two factions are doing, and there is a global score that every player can influence, and an in game chat function so players can interact without knowing each other ahead of time, and the ability for huge operations involving dozens of players and the challenge of organizing such an operation (clearing lanes to make way for linking, capturing or destroying key portals, heading out to some obscure location in the middle of the night and feeling like a secret agent on a top secret mission), Pokemon Go really has very little to offer. On top of that, the tracking feature is not what the players wanted (and had at release). You basically go around capturing gyms, which serves no purpose... the xp gained is not worth the potions you need to use to recover from the attack, so unless you are trying to get on multiple gyms to get your daily rewards, there is little point. You also go around hunting pokemon, which is not multiplayer in the slightest, except for the fact that your friends can do it with you. And you can only hunt so many pokemon before it gets redundant... the xp requirements suddenly grow at a stupidly fast rate once you get to level 20. It is extremely difficult to find new players as there is no way to communicate with them unless you happen to bump in to them. If you live in a place far away from water, you essentially are locked out of some of the badges and pokemon (unlike ingress where all badges are accessible, even while urban play and rural play present different challenges).
Essentially, Pokemon Go has little to offer once the novelty wears off.
Useless.
I have zero interest in Pokemon Go but that's an asinine point. Videogames are not meant to be useful. At all.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
"The game so far is too simple"
True
"and you can quickly play to endgame content"
True, but I doubt even one legitimate player got anywhere near level 30. You can quickly play end game content because it's the same as start of game content. The problem is the same as all mmo's, instead of skill based play it is an acculation treadmill.
These games need to take out any and all forms of advantage accumulation over time. A 240 game hour character/account should have absolutely zero advantage over a 30 minute played game character/account. I don't just mean combat advantage, there should be no cooler stuff you get, not even cooler looking or wealth accumulation. There should be no goals to work toward other than playing well one encounter at a time. The goal is having fun while playing instead of accumulating things.
As for bots just publish an api to encourage people who enjoy coding and configuring bots to do so. Then you actually control the api and prevent the bots from having ultra-human advantages.
Unlike the original Ingress. Pokemon Go doesn't really get better with friends. In Ingress playing with a friend can allow you to take down stronger portals faster, and it's the only way to build up stronger portals. You can make giant control fields.
In Pokemon Go as much as people in real life keep chiming on about how social it is. The game isn't social. Playing with friends isn't something the game encourages. It just happens because PoGo has such a large community. You don't run into people playing Pokemon Go because of game mechanics but because it's a Pokemon game. If there was a pokemon match 3 game that gave your "energy" by walking you'd still run into just as many people playing it. You'd still have fun "Pokewalks" together and meet other random people doing their "Pokewalks". But Pokemon Go doesn't have many social aspects. And while the license brought people in. Unless they change the game (and removing one of the few social features [Poke-tracking] doesn't count) I would be very surprised if their numbers didn't fall off by the end of the year. I was actually very surprised more Ingress mechanics didn't transfer over because Ingress is a great game it just has a dreadfully pedantic theme that has no mass appeal.
And yeah the newbie gap is much better in Ingress. A level 1 player can't really affect me as a level 10 player but they can play for a few weeks and catch up to a point where they CAN compete. You don't have to dedicate your life to the game to become effective and (to be fair possibly because it's so small) there's a community that values sharing from a mechanical standpoint. You can only use so much gear. I live in a high value region so if there's someone new and they want to meet I have no problem giving them as much gear as they can handle because I'm swiming in it.
Just another second banana
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.
The staying power of many video games these days is all about the metagame. Some video games have an end. Traditional role playing games almost always have an ending that the player is working towards. Many "arcade" type games, on the other hand, are all about racking up the highest score. Games like pinball never really "end" even though your play session may have. Along the way, we've seen meldings of all sorts between the genres. World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs, for example, have an "end" goal of the story to work towards like a traditional RPG, but even after killing the final boss in the current game content the game isn't "over". Like an old arcade game, there are goals beyond the story that allow you to compare and compete against other players in meaningful ways.
The problems with Pokemon Go are the same ones faced by every other massively online game without an ending - players without significant time or money to devote to the game will never be able to compete with players who have an abundance of those resources. That's not very important in the first month or two when lots of people are starting from scratch and won't be at a significant disadvantage for starting late. But by now, nobody is going to care that you evolved your first Pokemon or were victorious in your first gym battle. In addition, the players who want to do things mostly on their own and not interact with other players much really have almost nothing to draw them into the game once the pace of content unlocking slows (as it always does in MMO games). Frankly, I'm amazed the game was able to hook as many people as it did with its initial launch given the lack of any sort of meaningful "end game" content for any type of player.
it already has a mortal enemy that is right WINTER IS COMING!
Let me tell you about a little place I like to call: the southern hemisphere.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I spent some time on that one. Very good for a freemium game.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Great idea, terrible execution.
No surprise that it started off super popular. Who wouldn't want to relive their childhood Pokemon days, except in the real world? And it is indeed really fun at first. The thrill of catching new Pokemon is a great high.
But then reality sets in:
So yeah, I'm not surprised numbers are falling off. Once you hit around 75 Pokemon species the game just becomes a huge grind for almost no reward. I suspect that once they get their issues under control and start releasing new content they'll see a little bit of rebound, but it may already be too late to woo a lot of people back.
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.
I expect the "speed lock" was in the original copy and paste from the Ingress code that Niantic used to create Pokemon Go from.
Bye, Pokemon!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I saw this a mile away. Pokemon is not a "team" game, it is an individual game, that can be played in groups. The group aspect isn't even necessary for the game itself, it is more social than game related.
Because there is very little interaction required among players, players aren't engaged with each other. Eventually you catch them all and then what?
If you are tired of Pokemon, but like the VR world, might I suggest you try Ingress. There are multiple facets to Ingress, you can play alone, as part of a team, explore, do missions, build fields, control zones, badges to collect (some damn near impossible to get) . If you get bored with one aspect, there are several others to pique your interest if you want.
At this point, they can only release more Pokemons, which is only a very short term fix. They may be able to introduce more team play, but since the incarnation of the original Pokemon game, they will have to create some new part of the Pokemon lore to do so. AND that will piss off the hardcore fans.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It's too easy to find Pokemon. Currently the game is mainly about collecting all the Pokemon and once you have majority of them there it not much left to do.
Any Pokemon can be found in just about any area given enough time, this kills the exploring concept. Non-common Pokemon should only be found in different geographic areas taking into account thinks like climate, water sources, forested vs plains vs desert.
Too many Pokestops that are way too close together making it easy to walk in small circles and again limiting the need to explore other areas.
Unfair advantage for people in major cities vs normal cities vs rural areas.
Pokestops and pokemon seem to be clustered in downtown areas.
Walking trails in many parks (which do show up as trails on the map) have nothing which I found to be very disappointing and again limits the need to explore.
The game is way too easy for people to play using "drive by and pull over" techniques.
Cheating got way out of hand. Gyms retaken minutes after I took them with no other person in visible site and all the other cheating.
Too easy to level up from 1-20.
Stops resetting after 5 minutes reduce the need to explore and continuously provide items and xp, they should only reset once a day.
All that said, any new game is going to have it's initial spike, drop, and level off with a slow decline and smaller spikes as new content is released. This decline should not be unexpected. However the company could have done a better job to take advantage of the initial spike so it last as long as possible.
Lore? Pokemon Go has Lore? ;)
Stop pressuring me to get engaged, she's on the Blue team and I'm on the Yellow team, at least wait until the third date!
(oh, not that type of engagement ... never mind)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Also, they just banned a huge number of bot accounts. That's gotta hurt the active user numbers.
Bots have feelings too!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They made it impossible to play while riding as a passenger in a car
No they didn't. My son uses my wife's phone, launches the app, it says you are going too fast, he taps 'i am a passenger'* and then usually catches 3-4 on the drive to wherever as well as picking up supplies.
* Somewhat amusingly "I am a passenger" is the only option it presents when tripping the speed lock. No "Cancel" option.
Also somewhat amusingly, he triggered the speedlock during a walk. Not even a particularly fast walk. Again, he hit 'I am a passenger'. Perhaps the button should say "I'm not driving".
I am sure it is to prevent idiot drivers from removing themselves from the gene pool via obtaining the coveted "Darwin Award.
idiot drivers can just hit "I am a passenger" and merrily proceed to kill themselves and others around them.
Sure, the only really unpredictable aspect of this scenario is the size of the peak. If their business plans were predicated on maintaining usage near the initial peak indefinitely, then they were stupid plans.
I'm guessing that the plans for this product aren't that stupid. In that case a sensible goal will be to maintain a modest but loyal group of regular users and to periodically introduce new features that will entice usage jags out of occasional players.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
huh?
yes you can play it in the car. A message pops up asking if you are a passenger and you say yes. After that you can catch pokemon, click on pokestops, etc. The only issue is depending on the speed of travel you have to be very quick with the pokestops and gyms..
OK cows, time to go back to your own teat now.
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"
Pokemon Go has been cracking down on the bot accounts lately. Are we just seeing how much of this traffic was generated by these automated accounts vs. actual people?
Man, in New Orleans, and the suburbs there are Pokestops every other block, often multiple ones right beside each other...easy to get stocked up on poke balls and such.
The other night, I had to keep throwing stuff out of my 'bag' to make room for more things I wanted.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is not a game for the "power gamers" who want to level up, get gear, level up, get gear..and win. And I think they are finding that out, they can powergame themselves to have very high CP pokemon and rule gyms but then someone who took 4 times as long to level up and get their pokemon comes up and drops them. It's almost very anti-power gamer..haha!
They used cheating to get themselves all the best pokemon that they needed, and now they "fixed" the cheats and they cry that its boring? haha
This is still a very fun casual game that you can play with your family.
There is something unique to this game in that it solves something that the gaming industry has so far failed to do: encourage exercise and real social interactions. I mean actually interacting with real people, not trolls hidden behind their keyboard with large epeens.
It encourages you to go on walks, travel, actually interact with the outside world. That's been the biggest thing that this game has done for me and my kids. We now go to different areas and walk around. Sometimes its to parks, sometimes downtown, sometimes to waterfalls, or any other random public place that we typically don't go. How many other games actually encourage being active, and being outside your basement? It's also a bit like fishing, seeing who can get the highest CP pokemon.
Like it or not the latest generations (at least) sit more and exercise less, and video games worsen that as they encourage the kids to sit in a spot for 10 hours. Whats that? Force them to go outside and play? Some kids really aren't athletic or have a desire to be..and as a parent you could force your kid to exercise but that doesn't really work well. Sure when I grew up I was outside all the time..but then I grew up in a rural town of 28k, where all the housing and streets looked straight out of Leave it to Beaver. My kids are growing up in the inner city, and I'm not so concerned about kidnapping etc. as I am them having to cross dozens of intersections.
So yes, I'm sure the "fad" will fade a bit as it's newness loses its luster, but considering the unique benefits of the game it still is a fun, cute game that encourages social interaction and physical activity.
THIS....!!
Down here in New Orleans, its so damned hot, all you can do to avoid heat stroke and play is to roll about in your car and play with the AC on high.
Down here, the AC in my house doesn't usually cut off from about April till November. I'm looking forward to cooler weather starting to hit in the next couple months.
I guess there's a lot of people up in the Northeast of the US that think they are the only folks on the face of the earth that matter.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Dang, that's a really good idea
That's the problem: PG isn't very fun. The novelty of throwing virtual spheres at virtual animals quickly wears off and there's pretty much no other content. You catch Pokemon, then you level up and catch slightly stronger Pokemon. Gyms only exist so you can increase the meaningless CP stat on your 'mons even further, still for no actual gain other than making future gym battles easier. Oh, and training at a gym only works well if you're already stronger than the strongest Pokemon in there, making it extra pointless.
PG has everything it needed to make a big splash upon arrival - but very little staying power courtesy of its extremely simple and sparse gameplay. To compare it with another massively hyped mobile game, Neko Atsume: NA also has very sparse gameplay with extremely low stakes and limited interaction. But still unexpected things happen in that game, there is an antagonist of sorts (TUBBS! *shakes fist*) and it isn't an offshoot of an RPG series built around its deep combat system and strategic teambuilding. NA says "let's get some cats into your backyard so you can take cute pictures of them!" and delivers just that while PG, by virtue of its heritage, has people expecting exciting battles, teambuilding and carefully training of 'mons - all of which are not present.
In its current state PG is more of a tech demo than an actual game.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
>> 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.
Many of us only downloaded the app to see what was the fuss all about.
The game is not particularly appellative, the group play is nil, my wife and I wanted to play together, and that really does not work out.
The pretence of augmented reality is there, but is not the first app using it, and the way they tied it to the game is a joke.
Plus, if you do not live or work nearby pokestops (I do, at least 4 or 5 pokestops at work), the game is something to forget about. Heck, even with the pokestops at hand, it is b-o-r-i-n-g.
Honestly, this newspiece does not really caught me off guard.
Depends on where you are. Back when I played I threw away pokeballs by the dozen because for every 'mon I ran into I passed by at least two pokestops. And that's true for every city with a five- or six-digit population I've been to (where I bothered playing). In rural areas this changes dramatically, though.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
If this were true, it would be a great improvement. The game would be better if it had more mechanisms to ensure that you were actually walking. Not biking. Not riding in a car. Not rollerblading. Not GPS spoofing. But that's a hard problem to solve and takes a lot of infrastructure. The way to solve it would be (a) only have Pokestops in places accessible only on foot (Think unpaved trials in state parks where bikes are prohibited) and (b) have a kiosk there with a rotating code that you have to enter in order to get credit for the stop. That prevents GPS spoofing. Also there should be events like Spartan races with verified participation in order to get stardust. Give out more for the best finishers in the race, but not so much that you discourage those who aren't yet in great physical condition.
Well, this how Pokemon games have been since back on Gameboy. It's the same thing, over and over.. You go to a town, you battle some people, you find some stuff, you leave town and you catch some Pokemon and you battle some people and then you find some stuff. It's not all that different, it's just that fad players are getting bored with it because they never played all the other games.
Only in the same sense that Heavy Rain boils down to "you watch a cutscene, then you do a quicktime event and watch more cutscenes followed by more QTEs". Technically it's true on a certain level but it misrepresents the game and its appeal.
Your typical Pokemon game is focused on growth; you have to carefully build a team that can take on your opponents and you can't do that by constantly tossing out your 'mons. Training a 'mon up requires some time investment, thus you actually need to plan ahead instead of just going with whatever. Also, the various attacks actually make a difference and make the fights more complex than just "keep attacking until someone faints".
PG, on the other hand, has none of those elements. It barely even has fights and those fights don't really amount to anything. The meat of the game is literally to catch 'mons which become utterly useless shortly after when your level allows you to catch superior 'mons. There is nothing to achieve, no growth of any kind, no strategy or tactics. It's Pokemon without everything that made it interesting.
(And this comes from someone who was never a particularly big Pokemon fan and only played one of the first generation games. Even I can tell just how much PG is missing compared to the main series.)
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Or Star Trek, Star Wars, Middle Earth, D&D, Battletech, Shadowrun, etc ect ect
"equivalent of the Pet Rock"
The guy made a million dollars!
OK, not just me who noticed that about the "Battle System"...
And how will those plans survive those "filthy casuals" that will never spend a dime on the game....
just like the bossa nova, disco, macarena.
mfwright@batnet.com
School year starts. Neckbeards rejoice as the minority of bearded fellows can finally leave their pokemon at a gym undisturbed.
Um, most of the fellow Pokemon GO players I've met in person are actually women.
Not sure what universe you live in.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Everyone predicted this outcome.
Especially due to the limitations and bias against new players and non-whales.
I like playing Pokemon Go. It's something I can do when I have a few minutes to myself. I can also go walk around local parks and attractions with my wife or the whole family. Even my mom thought it was fun. We had a great time on vacation with it, whereas the kids might have complained about "being bored" on a hot day, they loved to go to the park and wander around catching Pokemon. It's a scavenger hunt that you can play alone or with others. I've spent a grand total of $5 on it, which is pretty good for something that provided hours of entertainment.
It's harder to play when I've got to work, and the kids are going back to school so we don't have as many opportunities to play. I'm betting less people play in the wintertime, anyway, since in many temperate zones you aren't going to want to be outside for hours when it's raining, snowing and generally unpleasant.
There are many directions they can take this game, and they can add new features like trading, PvP, etc. When new features come out, people can dust off their old accounts and re-engage, just in time for the spring/summer -- or maybe they roll out the features in the winter when there's likely to be less people playing.
idiot drivers can just hit "I am a passenger" and merrily proceed to kill themselves and others around them.
indeed, but niantic's legal department is satisfied that they had to intentionally bypass that screen to do so.
"Videogames are not meant to be useful. At all."
This is as ignorant as the statement you replied to.
Good-bye
For your average adult, I agree with you. However, I don't think we want solo children wandering alone into "natural areas."
Well, unless you're the type that hands a kid an old Army Basic Survival guide, blindfolds them, drops them off in the middle of the wilderness and says "Good luck, kid."
Nerds getting outside and walking large distances is just not natural: we need to be behind our monitors, inside. However the normal situation is restoring itself. When autumn comes with lots of rain numbers will drop even more.
The charts I saw earlier appear to show a very rapid increase, but a very slow decline, that may continue, depending on future releases. As of now it looks like it peaked at roughly 45 million players, and is down to around 35 million now, still very many.
Beware of the Redittor who loans you a Sharpie.
Well, true there have been some extreme server problems due to load. The worst one is when you can take the opponent down to 1 hp, but newer kill it.
But in a normal battle without lag, a vaporeon can kill a Flareon with twice the cp. And that is without doing any dodging.
Until you make a game that requires practice and skill to be competitive, you won't have the staying power of games like CS and SC. People have been playing the original CS for over 15 years, and the new games are essentially the same game mechanics repackaged to keep us from buying a game once and playing it for 15 years.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's the problem: PG isn't very fun.
It CAN'T BE fun!
It it was fun, people would actually play it to progress instead of buying pokeballs from the shop.
Now, tor a game to be successful, it has to be some boring grind that people would want to pay for to avoid.....
And that's why we can't have nice things.
bickerdyke
(doesn't need to be explicit, although in keeping with the Pokemon theme, they could call it a new town/island/whatever),
That's exactly what would NOT work here as you're supposed to play in a setting that's recognizably your own town/city/island.
bickerdyke
That's exactly what would NOT work here as you're supposed to play in a setting that's recognizably your own town/city/island.
Taking things a biiit too literal here, friend. Who says "your own town/country/planet" doesn't belong to "Dainisekai zone"? Or if it offends you that much, call them "leagues" - Up to CP500, you will only see and battle "shojo" league players.
However they frame it, Niantic has a really, really simple way to segregate players by skill, thereby keeping it fun for noobs and old-timers, fun for casuals and hardcore grinders. Hell, under that model, they could even allow "cheaters" (or even rurals) to play in their own league, rather than outright banning them.
Yes. leagues would be great.
Zones won't work. If your town belongs to that zone, moving to the next zone would imply moving to another town.
bickerdyke
I live in Dallas pokestops are only found at stores, parks, and trails. You can walk around a residential neighborhood all day and hit 0. One pokestop isn't enough to keep you full on pokeballs though. Even doing the trail at the park, you'll hit 2 pokestops looping the trail but you won't get enough balls that way, you'd still burn through about 50 an hour.
Related to the second issue is that you see people playing on bicycles, motorized vehicles, and other means that are essentially cheating..
I would agree with you if not for the fact the game already shorts you on distance when travelling by foot. I used to play on my easy runs (7-8mph) and would only get credit for about 30% of the distance I ran towards my eggs.
My biggest problem with the game was the instability. Game would crash half the time I tried to battle/train at gyms. Even being near too many of the gyms caused problems. Also there changes to the capture and flee rate drove me nuts. Having 100CP Weedles breaking out of 3-4 super balls and then fleeing gets old really quick.
I don't think there was a change here. In many games as you level up, it gets easier to take on weaker characters. In Pokemon Go the higher level your trainer, the more likely the Pokemon are to break free. But I think this has been consistent since the beginning.
TBH, when I played I chucked away balls by the dozen. Way more pokestops than 'mons to catch where I live.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I don't think there was a change here. In many games as you level up, it gets easier to take on weaker characters. In Pokemon Go the higher level your trainer, the more likely the Pokemon are to break free. But I think this has been consistent since the beginning.
That's because you find pokemon that are higher leveled as you become higher level. And the balls don't level up as the pokemon do.
There is an xpose mod that shows you the level of the pokemon and the likelihood of catching it with each type of ball.
Gyms only exist so you can increase the meaningless CP stat on your 'mons even further, still for no actual gain other than making future gym battles easier.
When does that happen? Training only increases the reputation score of the gym, possibly freeing up slots for your teammates to defend it, and gives you XP.
Oh, and training at a gym only works well if you're already stronger than the strongest Pokemon in there, making it extra pointless.
That, or you just happen to have learned to dodge and have a pokemon with "suitable," effective attack.