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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:
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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.
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.)
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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
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.
My concern at the light is you're now paying attention to the game instead of the intersection. Maybe the phone is being a little funky, maybe a really cool pokemon pops up, maybe the light turns earlier than you expect. Suddenly you're half a second late starting up on the yellow. You're not as aware of the intersection as you should be, you don't see the pedestrian or vehicle that's late going through the light, and you have an accident.
It's a low probability scenario, but if you roll the dice often enough then low probability scenarios start to happen.
I stole this Sig
Level 23 Instinct (Valiant is for losers!!), just spent my first money on it.
Most free to play games, I will try, if I like them and play them for a while I figure it is time to help the cause and pay a bit as I got significant enjoyment out of it. I throw a few bucks at it to support. I think gran total I have paid maybe $50 for free to play aps in 5 or so years.
Not that I needed to pay to play at all, just got to a point where I thought it was time to support the game with a little of my money.