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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.
limited playtime
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.
The game is not a scam and doesn't force you to buy anything.
You can progress and compete without paying a cent. Pokemon Go is not a pay2win game and I hope it will stay that way.
"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."
Have you actually played the game? Virtual critter level is in range 1..your_level. Nobody forces you to catch high level pokemons.
Moreover, you can only buy the very basic balls (used to catch pokemon) with virtual currency. Higher level pokeballs can be obtained for free from pokestops. Needless to say that these high level pokemons will require higher level balls. And you can't obtain it by payng. Period.
There is no such thing as "chance of remaining in your poke-inventory". Seriously. Stop spreading misinformation.
Basically everything you said is false. I am free2play and currently level 29, so I know what I'm talking about. I am also very hardcore player, I calculate catched pokemon levels, Individual Values (IVs) and best movesets as attacker/defender.
I find myself discarding red pokeballs (the ones you can buy with virtual currency) all the time to make up space for better stuff in my bag, stuff that I obtain by walking around and spinning pokestops.
There are reasons spending money in game (egg incubators, lucky eggs), but they are not pokeballs. Whoever buys pokeballs is clearly a noob or casual player.
Uhh, that term comes from gambling.. It's a well known term.