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Pokemon Go's Paying Population Drops By 79% -- Still Most Profitable Mobile App In The US (metro.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Metro: The world's obsession with Pokemon Go was clearly never going to last, but the incredible thing about its success is that although the paying population of the game is now down by 79% from its mid-July peak it's still easily the most profitable mobile app in the U.S.. According to analysts at Slice Intelligence, at its peak Pokemon Go inspired twice as many people as normal to spend money on mobile games, but that's now returned to normal. But Pokemon Go still accounts for 28% of all money spent on mobile games in America, bringing in six times more than nearest rival Candy Crush Saga. The obvious problem for Pokemon Go is that there's not really much gameplay to keep you coming back, and as winter approaches wandering around the countryside is going to lose some of its appeal somewhat. But there's a huge range of new features that could be added to the app, and just this week has seen the introduction of the buddy feature that lets you walk around and team-up with a particular Pokemon. There's also the delayed release of the Pokemon Go Plus Bluetooth device and the recent announcement of the Apple Watch app.
When an industry refers to their most profitable consumer to exploit as "whales" you know there is a problem with a lack of respect:
http://kotaku.com/who-are-the-...
bring back pokevision
Apptendo knows that only modern app appers will app apps while apping other apps, so the 79% of users who stopped apping the apps were actually LUDDITES pretending to be modern app appers!
Apps!
limited playtime
what is the name of the Google division for the trolls? anusweb?
This same thing happens every year. Zynga, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, Draw Something, Flappy Bird, and on and on. I wish I could short sell game popularity.
Pokemon Go will probably follow the same path as Ingress has. Most players will be casual, but the really dedicated will be really dedicated. They'll probably introduce something akin to Ingress' Anomalies, which'll be big cash cows as players treat them as a holiday splurge-type thing.
Have emergency room admissions also fallen? My neighbor is an ER physician assistant, and she said that about 10% of injuries are Pokemon Go related, mostly from people running around without watching where they are going.
Most of the articles I've seen about this inevitable dropoff in popularity have had an underlying implication that Niantic had done something very wrong. What is often left unsaid is the second part of this headline: it is still INSANELY profitable. SIX TIMES more profitable than its nearest competitor. Pokemon Go is still an app developer's wet dream. Yes, Niantic has had some big stumbles in their rollout, and yes, the fad has died down a lot. But they're still raking in money hand over fist, and they've still got a pretty loyal fan base, and if they're smart they'll continue to roll out new features to keep people interested for some time.
The players are simply realizing the game is a scam that forces them to buy expensive virtual objects the more they are hooked to it.
A young family member is into this (I suffer from having to pony up an advanced allowance and having accompanying him to wherever these things lurk), and it has become increasingly difficult for him to cope with the unsatiable thirst of the game for "pokeballs" the higher his level gets.
The virtual critters become higher in level the higher in level you are, and they need more tries for being trapped (which requires one pokeball each), or require more virtual goodies for increasing their chance of remaining in your poke-inventory.
Also there are no shortages of pokemon, it's actually a barrage of the critters akin to a roach infestation. You can exchange the caught critters for "sweets" and "star dust" that allow you to improve the ones you have or "evolve" them. The idea is to entice you to go looking for pokeballs to catch the suckers that practically assault you everywhere, or buy more.
Ergo, the game is rigged to make any high level user run out of pokeballs very soon and to always want them, and has to go to wherever these things are replenished like a junkie, or buy them.
Niantic got themselves a pretty good money printing machine with that one.
Right now the app allows users to catch 151 different Pokemon. The Wikipedia page states there are 721 Pokemon available in all the different games. If they need to give the app's popularity a little boost, they'll release some of the 570 others. "Gotta catch 'em all", right?
The latest release apparently also shuts out anyone with a non-stock ROM or root access to their own devices.
They had made hints of threatening to do that to Ingress some time back but never got that heavy-handed. I suspect Pokemon has a much higher profit margin and they figure they can shut out a whole bunch of players and still rake in tons of money, at least for a while.
I hope they reconsider - there is plenty of room to complain about problems with the gameplay and its limitations, but I'm not going to lie, it's still kind of fun. I'll keep playing it as long as they allow me to - I'll probably even break my usual rule of not wasting real-world money on "virtual" crap once in a while (already done it once). If they shut me out, though, I guess I'm done playing.
(I literally can't go back to the old unmaintained S4 firmware any more for any reason, let alone just to play a game - Samsung's notoriously bad hardware QC bit me again, my USB port no longer works for data, though it still charges for some reason. Not sure how long it was broken before I noticed since I do file transfers over the network via sftp instead of using a data cable, but it means I can't use heimdall/odin to even put back the original firmware and recovery partition any more even if I wanted to.)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I'm at level 22 and have never spent a cent.
The "unassailable thirst for pokeballs" is easily quenched by simply visiting a place with a lot of pokestops (airports, malls, movie theaters, museums, etc) and spending a half-hour collecting, or by having the app open while driving anywhere as you can easily trigger a lot of them that are by the road.
I have scores of all three levels of pokeballs just hanging around and I capture everything I can.
I personally think the game is pretty well balanced, the game is nudging to to explore the full range of what is going on... if you are running out of pokeballs, then it may be better to head to a gym and fight there (which gives you virtual coins you would otherwise spend money on). If you are out of resources for fighting, after you've visited a few stops you are usually pretty full of pokeballs again.
The game is defiantly a lot of repetitive actions, but is also still interesting as you find what pokemon like to hang out at different places, watch the ebb and flow of teams at gyms... no worse I'd say than any of the MMORPG games that are so popular.
If nothing else it gets people outside and doing real exercise which automatically puts it heads and shoulders above just about any other game.
I know some impatient people do spend money on the game but I really don't see a pressing need to do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When an industry refers to their most profitable consumer to exploit as "whales" you know there is a problem with a lack of respect
I'll bite - why do you hate whales? Whales are amazing creatures.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mobile apps and Facebook have really lowered the bar on what we will accept as games. I'm not saying i'd rather be playing SSI games from the 80s, but ... I probably am.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Radiance
When you're at a lower player level, it's lots of fun. Once you've caught most of the local pokemon it soon turns into simple grinding, however --- catching the same common pokemon to get XP, which you need more and more of to increase your level. You also get hugely shortchanged by not being in a major city. The presence of pokestops (necessary sources of in-game items) and more importantly pokemon are tied to where people aggregate. In a small city you will find a fraction of the quantity and of the variety in a big city.
Personally I don't play many games anymore because of the time commitment. Pokemon Go is actually awesome in that respect because for the most part you can only play it wondering around, no temptation to keep playing once you get home or to the office.
I have kept playing in the hopes that the gameplay would improve. But I'm pretty close to quitting myself. Hopefully they can make it enjoyable again before they hemorrhage all of their community.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Yep. They can just put out new waves and reel back a lot of players. I know I'd come back if they put out a major change. I'm also in a half decent suburban area as well.
Wow.
There really is a sucker born every minute.
Level 23 Valiant
Nothing paid. Ever.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
That's an interesting point about losing your "infinite" incubator at level 25... I had not realized that.
Although it's nice, I could get by without incubating as much, as high level Pokenmon also appear around from time to time.
Also the earning coins at gyms thing is not too bad, since you can claim money as soon as you capture a gym. So it's not like you even have to hold a gym, you just have to take one over or add to an exiting gym of your color - it's often possible to find two gyms next to each other which means 20 coins for one day. Then over time you could use those coins to buy incubators... I used my initial batch to upgrade the bag that holds items, so I could have a deeper well to draw from.
That is a good point about urban players and pokestops though, they pretty much have to have a car or bus or be driven into town.
I think probably the perfect Poke-collection unit though would be a bike with a smartphone mount. You could way more easily stop or wander off to the side to collect something, and you would get between pokestops really fast. Might not earn much towards egg incubation though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In a couple more levels, get ready to make it an hour. Then get ready to spend some money or stop playing.
For me it will just mean I don't earn levels as fast. I don't care because I'm in it for the long haul, so if it takes me an extra month to make level 30 (I'm thinking possibly for me that's the end of the year) then whatever. I did look at the ominous progression curve and pondered that, I just decided not to care and play for the fun of it...
I'm almost playing more for the future game it may eventually become than for what there is now (though I do enjoy the randomness of the whole thing and something that makes waiting at airports more fun than it used to be).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you just leave the app open and don't do anything with it while driving it's fine, or of course a passenger can do anything (which is more what I meant).
I will admit that while stopped at a light I'll spin a pokestop (you can immediately tap off after spinning and you still collect everything it has).
The main reason to drive around with it on is to discover areas you may want to come back and spend some time, or if you see something like a park up ahead with a lot of stops why not stop for a break?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are some flower parks I go to several times a year, for photography locations. This summer, it was almost impossible, due to the pokemon' zombies. The past couple weeks, I've noticed most of them have given up on it.
Niantic blocks root users.
No, no. We need to keep this going as strong and as long as possible.
We have a HUGE epidemic of people stupid enough to wander into the street while tunnel-visioned into their phone.
The only long-term solution is to encourage them to continue such behaviors.
I installed it a long time ago but was only ever able to log in once so I never really played it.