If Google had any sense, they would be throwing a tonne more at this. It may be Ingress with less features and a Pokemon skin but that latter part is exactly the mainstream appeal they need to make AR big. This is their big chance to create a new market. If they sort out the bugginess and roll out decent features in the next couple of months to keep retention, they're onto something big.
At near-on midnight on Saturday, there were 150-200 people sitting in a 70m stretch of the main public park area here in Brisbane CBD (Southbank). During Sunday when I walked through, that was closer to 250-300. This is purely because there's 3 or 4 points of interest in close proximity so people congregate there to interact with it. It's truly a sight to behold.
This game has captured the imagination of non-gamers better than anything I can think of in recent history. It's nearing WoW / CoD levels of ubiquity.
Ignoring the comparison with Twitter for a moment, this shows that Nintendo's mobile strategy has been woefully slow. They've been ignoring a huge market segment to try to shift hardware instead, and this toe in the water shows that a lot of people are interested in playing their games but not necessarily buying their consoles. I'd argue this means their business needs to change dramatically - away from their own hardware and towards leveraging their terrific IP on other platforms. Very much like Sega did a while ago.
Doesn't that depend on if they can make money on this model? This is a 126-year-old business, not a startup that's starving for "eyeballs" to increase their VC valuation. Selling hardware and $60 games could be a better (and more long-term) business than selling in-app "coins". (Or not!) I guess we'll see now.
Part of that is because mobile gaming largely sucks, and Nintendo doesn't want to be associated with something that sucks. So their entry into mobile is much more cautious and calculated, intended to present the kind of experience Nintendo is known for rather than the usual sort of IAP money farm that is commonplace in mobile gaming.
The approach of Sega, Capcom, and Konami was to pivot from traditional games into money farms, and that sowed a lot of ill will among their fans.
Try playing Sonic Runners. It's sort of okay for a while, then it hits the wall of "spend money or be forever in grindy hell". It's like a stripper who's very friendly with you for 30 seconds, then starts asking for money to keep being friendly.
If Nintendo did that, it would take a power dump all over their brand. So they're playing it safe and taking a more measured approach to mobile.
I don't think it's their hardware, but their platform that they've been clinging to. Owning the platform gives gives them a lot of control over the gameplay experience.
I don't think they need to give up their platform-owner (or first party in game industry parlance) status in order to take advantage of the mobile space. Just an adjustment in strategy.
Nintendo has always relied on ancillary hardware to make their console platform work - TVs. If you think of Apple and Samsung as the screen makers the same way that Zenith and RCA were the screen makers when the NES launched, then you can see that what Nintendo really needs to do is launch their own platform app.
How much would a gamer pay for the Nintendo NX app? $50? $100? All of the games could come via in-app purchases and loaded or streamed from the cloud at the user's convenience. Meanwhile, Nintendo still gets their platform, but this time as a virtual console instead of a hardware one.
On the mobile side, they probably want to try to avoid cannibalizing their portable hardware sales. They own that space and have sold 60+ million 3ds, and 150+ million DS family units.
From the genesis Sega went through the 32x (665k), sega cd (2.25 million), bailed on the neptune, saturn (9m), and the dreamcast (9m).
Nintendo is successful despite Nintendo in some cases. There are so many missed opportunities with them. For example, first DS and Wii had a technical capability to talk to each other. They even announced it as one of the key points before launching either. It never happened. They could've had Pokemon GO on that platform already if they chose to.
The amazing thing to me is that, at least on iOS, the game is pretty objectively bad.
Of course that hasn't stopped me from sinking a lot of time into it this weekend. I've spent $10 on it, which is easily a record for free to play game for me.
The server issues are one thing, but the game doesn't even get lots of basic things right. If the server goes away, or sometimes if I'm just out of the app too long, I have to log back in. It seems to forget my settings for weather I want sound and music on, or to use the AR functions. I've run into numerous crashes and graphical glitches. Input getting confused requiring app restarts. Poor handling of the (common) network/server issues.
One of the mechanics requires walking around, which it won't track outside the app despite the fact that iPhones have had motion coprocessor for years. So they offer a special mode (very poorly documented) that basically turns the screen black and tries to reduce power usage a bit. But you have to keep the Pokémon app open to track steps.
I am having fun. I REALLY hope they can fix these issues. I sought earlier today that they do plan to add Pokémon trading and expand the functionality of the various waypoints in the world. I'd also love to be able to battle my friends.
The social aspect on this just amazes me. In the last couple of days they're been numerous times when I saw a random people clearly playing this game. Guys walking around parking lots at work, cars parked at empty banks that were closed because there happened to be a gym there. Numerous posts on social media about random gatherings and flash mobs because of something going on in the game.
It's clear that Ingress had a pretty good idea. Tying it to a major brand (not unlike the way Mario kart was created) that really encourages the collecting aspect and getting it out on iOS at basically the same time have clearly made a huge difference.
I'll also say, is a Pokémon fan I'm glad that it's only the 150 original in the game. At this point there are way too many Pokémon that seem the same to me, so I'm glad to see my old friends instead. I imagine that'll change someday but this is a good start.
I think people will look back on this game as important, as something special. I've been playing video games for over twenty years, and I can't remember the last time something felt quite as exciting as this. Each time I've gone out, I've seen other people walking around playing, and everyone gets the same goofy smile when you ask them if they're playing Pokemon too.
It shows the potential for AR games, and I think it will help a lot of people get in shape. I've walked around outside more in the past three days than I have in the past two months. Even hanging out with friends, rather than sitting inside watching tv or playing xbox, it's like "let's check out that lure", or, "I see a Bulbasaur, let's go get it".
When I was a kid, I remember wishing that Pokemon was real. This game really captures some of the magic and sense of adventure I felt when I first played it so many years ago.
The previous iteration of this concept was Ingress, by the same developer. It's an active subculture, but not to the level of Pokemon GO.
The marketing is ingenious. It manages to capitalize on the nostalgia of two generations that grew up playing Pokemon games, and the fact that the stated (virtual) premise of Pokemon was always to roam the world and catch these creatures.
Regardless of the longevity of the game, this phenomenal marriage of a popular videogame series with an experienced alternate reality company will be studied for many years.
I'm in Australia, and I've never seen an irl viral phenomenon on the streets like this. In the inner city of Brisbane, every second person I see is staring at their phone, swiping up to catch Pokemon. Mobs of 100+ people chasing 'lures' are being moved on from parks in the middle of the night. And there was a pub crawl: https://www.facebook.com/events/267390546965461/
I live in Docklands in Melbourne. For those unfamiliar, it's basically an ex-port that was transformed into an extension of the city 10 or so years ago. It's known for being basically dead after-hours and on weekends, as there's not much to do and not a lot of culture (and the weather tends to be rubbish, since it's exposed).
This weekend was... different. Even though the weather was miserable, the area was buzzing. I've never seen so many people with a common purpose in the area, or being so friendly and connected. The connection? Magikarp spawn near the water.
Same thing in America. I remember the first night it was released I was walking to the grocery store and it was almost like a low-key street festival going on. People of all ages, genders and races on the streets running around with their phones.
I'm surprised there's so little talk about privacy and nuisance implications of this.
We've had a large number of "suspicious behavior" reported in our neighborhood in the past week - and, honestly, it really is suspicious, as in people crawling through the bushes on private property at dusk snapping pictures with cellphones; you know, the kind of stuff that would normally make you go "hmm, I wonder if this house gets robbed soon", and give your local PD a quick call.
But I'm pretty sure it's mostly GO, just looking at how many are around. What's worse is that the game places some of those pokemons in private yards or even inside buildings, with no way to access them short of trespassing...
I expect this to go quite a bit like Miitomo. Quick uptake, followed by most of the userbase getting bored and forgetting about it.
This game is pretty superficial. There isn't much to do. It unfortunately perpetuates the notion that mobile games cannot have depth or good, lasting gameplay.
Last phone game I really enjoyed was Tiny Wings. That was a while ago. Since then, anything I play on my phone has been in an emulator with a GameKlip and a DualShock 3.
All I know is that I mentioned Pokemon GO to my kids (it’s not out in the UK yet, so no advertising push to make them aware of it already) and they were instantly telling me that they had to have it.
I can’t imagine any other brand having that kind of impact - Talk about an unmet need in the marketplace waiting to be filled!
The data and methodology is pretty suspect here -- Google for Pokémon Go reports 5m-10m installs while Tinder is reported to have 50m to 100m installs. This is an order of magnitude more worldwide installs. I think the 'current data' is being heavily weighted and producing a too sensational of an article.
For Tinder, about 25% of it's installs came from the US on Android. That still puts it at 12.5m - 25m Android installs range.
The crazy thing for me is the sheer explosive growth this has seen. I was walking around downtown Redwood City last night near the theater. Easily 50% of the people on the sidewalk walking or standing around were playing as verified by glancing at their screens as I passed them.
And these weren't just kids. Adults, men, women, all ethnicities, etc. were all playing. I've never seen anything like it. They've really stuck to their goal of getting people outside as summed up by this hilarious Reddit post [1].
It honestly has reminded me of when Facebook launched at my college back in 05. I remember being in the library and had Facebook pulled up, another student who I didn't know walked by and was like "Facebook! Add me!"
Immediate flashbacks when last night I was walking to my car from the grocery store with Go up on my phone. Guy yells "Pokemon go, right?"
Currently discussing with friends best way to crack it and make it seem like there's a rare pokemon just up ahead - for all those people who slowly clog up the sidewalks and stations staring at their phones.
Ideas welcome!
(For the official record, since you have to say this these days - I'm only joking)
The first pokecrime has already been committed -- criminals placed a "lure" in the middle of a night in a secluded space, and robbed teens that showed up there at 2am:
The Twitter comparison seems very off. Note that the article is talking about Android only. According to https://about.twitter.com/company, Twitter has 310 MAUs and 83% are Mobile. They've publicly stated MAU to DAU retention is 44% (Bloomberg, etc). That leaves Twitter on Android with 40-60M+ DAUs. Pokemon Go's download number which is plainly visible in the Google Play Store is >5M but <10, and that's worldwide. So Android Pokemon Go = 5-10M DAUs MAX, Android Twitter = 40-60M DAUs
Has anybody gone through their privacy policy? The speed that this became viral and the possibilities to have an enormous amount of people take video all over the place gives me the heeby jeebies.. Some of the things in the policy sound very, very invasive.
Engagement is crazy right now. I drove home at 3am last night and stopped by a PokeStop, and as I was leaving the parking lot, another car pulled in just to play... Same at the church by my place 15 minutes later. Different car.
What will really be telling is how many people still play after a week or two.
I was super excited but then pretty fast realized that:
a) its the same as ingress. With all but even more of the annoying bugs.
b) It eats even more battery than ingress
c) Its purely pay to win. I could have lived with free 2 play and buying some special or cosmetic items. But not selling essential items ...
Currently i mostly wonder why people don't care about that. I hate playing games where other players can just spend $10 and overtake hours worth of skilling.
I've seen many people who are 'older' now get into playing Pokemon mostly because it strikes up the nostalgia factor. For many of us (people who experienced Pokemon in the '90s), being able to "become part of the world of Pokemon" was something that would have been quite awesome, and this game really allows that to become a thing.
Saying it's a fad like Flappy Birds is a gross oversimplification. Also, the key difference between FB and Pokemon Go is that FB is meant more as an arcade game you play in very short bursts. Pokemon Go, on the other hand, is meant to be walked around with where it becomes part of your regular activities.
Not saying it's not a fad, but isn't it different in quite a number of ways? The Pokemon brand and geo coordinate aspects had all my friends ("core gamers", if you will, who would probably not have dreamed of playing flappy birds for fun) playing it all weekend.
Flappy Bird is still more popular than I imagined. I went to Dave and Buster's for my nephew's birthday, and there was an arcade version of the game there, with a ~2' wide by ~4' tall screen. People were happily paying good money to repeatedly press the single button on the console. In fact, I was surprised to see quite a few popular mobile games offered up in arcade format there, with people playing them.
Cave lector: Twitter, in this case, seems to refer to the Android twitter app, compared against the Pokemon GO Android app. If that is the case, I expect the reported Twitter DAU to be much lower than the actual Twitter DAUs.
It's difficult to escape the feeling that Nintendo is not exactly central to the success of Pokémon Go, and that the 7BB increase in market cap is. . . excessive.
Fact is, this game is the work of a small VC-backed game shop in San Francisco with some great talent. They license the Pokémon characters, which are owned by The Pokémon Company, which is minority owned by Nintendo.
Kind of cool idea but I feel like they didn't do enough with it. Really it's walk around and collect Pokemon. But what kills me is to do anything in the game you have to go places. Which means if you live in an unpopulated area (or area where nobody played Ingress) there are no Gyms or other points of interest. So you literally can do nothing except have the game up and hope Pokemon pop up. You have to physically be near a Gym to battle Pokemon. What the hell do you do when you are not near places and want to play? Nothing. It's basically a walking app with a Pokemon overlay.
Yeah...I have serious doubts about the longevity of the game. There's some cool tech behind it, and the sense of being part of a worldwide event is really impressive. But the core game itself just feels so...bland to me. The battle system is incredibly shallow even when compared to the first Pokemon game which came out 20 years ago. And this is coming from someone who grew up with the original series and loved it.
[+] [-] NamTaf|9 years ago|reply
At near-on midnight on Saturday, there were 150-200 people sitting in a 70m stretch of the main public park area here in Brisbane CBD (Southbank). During Sunday when I walked through, that was closer to 250-300. This is purely because there's 3 or 4 points of interest in close proximity so people congregate there to interact with it. It's truly a sight to behold.
This game has captured the imagination of non-gamers better than anything I can think of in recent history. It's nearing WoW / CoD levels of ubiquity.
[+] [-] onion2k|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|9 years ago|reply
The approach of Sega, Capcom, and Konami was to pivot from traditional games into money farms, and that sowed a lot of ill will among their fans.
Try playing Sonic Runners. It's sort of okay for a while, then it hits the wall of "spend money or be forever in grindy hell". It's like a stripper who's very friendly with you for 30 seconds, then starts asking for money to keep being friendly.
If Nintendo did that, it would take a power dump all over their brand. So they're playing it safe and taking a more measured approach to mobile.
[+] [-] padobson|9 years ago|reply
I don't think they need to give up their platform-owner (or first party in game industry parlance) status in order to take advantage of the mobile space. Just an adjustment in strategy.
Nintendo has always relied on ancillary hardware to make their console platform work - TVs. If you think of Apple and Samsung as the screen makers the same way that Zenith and RCA were the screen makers when the NES launched, then you can see that what Nintendo really needs to do is launch their own platform app.
How much would a gamer pay for the Nintendo NX app? $50? $100? All of the games could come via in-app purchases and loaded or streamed from the cloud at the user's convenience. Meanwhile, Nintendo still gets their platform, but this time as a virtual console instead of a hardware one.
[+] [-] toxican|9 years ago|reply
Yes, but hopefully without a massive dip in quality of established properties. Although the writing was on the wall for that one, I suppose.
[+] [-] serge2k|9 years ago|reply
The WiiU is a flop, but the Wii sold massively.
On the mobile side, they probably want to try to avoid cannibalizing their portable hardware sales. They own that space and have sold 60+ million 3ds, and 150+ million DS family units.
From the genesis Sega went through the 32x (665k), sega cd (2.25 million), bailed on the neptune, saturn (9m), and the dreamcast (9m).
[+] [-] Keyframe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBCook|9 years ago|reply
Of course that hasn't stopped me from sinking a lot of time into it this weekend. I've spent $10 on it, which is easily a record for free to play game for me.
The server issues are one thing, but the game doesn't even get lots of basic things right. If the server goes away, or sometimes if I'm just out of the app too long, I have to log back in. It seems to forget my settings for weather I want sound and music on, or to use the AR functions. I've run into numerous crashes and graphical glitches. Input getting confused requiring app restarts. Poor handling of the (common) network/server issues.
One of the mechanics requires walking around, which it won't track outside the app despite the fact that iPhones have had motion coprocessor for years. So they offer a special mode (very poorly documented) that basically turns the screen black and tries to reduce power usage a bit. But you have to keep the Pokémon app open to track steps.
I am having fun. I REALLY hope they can fix these issues. I sought earlier today that they do plan to add Pokémon trading and expand the functionality of the various waypoints in the world. I'd also love to be able to battle my friends.
The social aspect on this just amazes me. In the last couple of days they're been numerous times when I saw a random people clearly playing this game. Guys walking around parking lots at work, cars parked at empty banks that were closed because there happened to be a gym there. Numerous posts on social media about random gatherings and flash mobs because of something going on in the game.
It's clear that Ingress had a pretty good idea. Tying it to a major brand (not unlike the way Mario kart was created) that really encourages the collecting aspect and getting it out on iOS at basically the same time have clearly made a huge difference.
I'll also say, is a Pokémon fan I'm glad that it's only the 150 original in the game. At this point there are way too many Pokémon that seem the same to me, so I'm glad to see my old friends instead. I imagine that'll change someday but this is a good start.
[+] [-] kdamken|9 years ago|reply
It shows the potential for AR games, and I think it will help a lot of people get in shape. I've walked around outside more in the past three days than I have in the past two months. Even hanging out with friends, rather than sitting inside watching tv or playing xbox, it's like "let's check out that lure", or, "I see a Bulbasaur, let's go get it".
When I was a kid, I remember wishing that Pokemon was real. This game really captures some of the magic and sense of adventure I felt when I first played it so many years ago.
[+] [-] niftich|9 years ago|reply
The marketing is ingenious. It manages to capitalize on the nostalgia of two generations that grew up playing Pokemon games, and the fact that the stated (virtual) premise of Pokemon was always to roam the world and catch these creatures.
Regardless of the longevity of the game, this phenomenal marriage of a popular videogame series with an experienced alternate reality company will be studied for many years.
[+] [-] detaro|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ro_sharp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fphhotchips|9 years ago|reply
This weekend was... different. Even though the weather was miserable, the area was buzzing. I've never seen so many people with a common purpose in the area, or being so friendly and connected. The connection? Magikarp spawn near the water.
[+] [-] voltagex_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|9 years ago|reply
I've never seen anything like it.
[+] [-] Washuu|9 years ago|reply
Which is a really great way to do it since playing this game in a rural area basically requires walking significantly further than in a city.
[+] [-] girvo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] int_19h|9 years ago|reply
We've had a large number of "suspicious behavior" reported in our neighborhood in the past week - and, honestly, it really is suspicious, as in people crawling through the bushes on private property at dusk snapping pictures with cellphones; you know, the kind of stuff that would normally make you go "hmm, I wonder if this house gets robbed soon", and give your local PD a quick call.
But I'm pretty sure it's mostly GO, just looking at how many are around. What's worse is that the game places some of those pokemons in private yards or even inside buildings, with no way to access them short of trespassing...
[+] [-] gagege|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fej|9 years ago|reply
This game is pretty superficial. There isn't much to do. It unfortunately perpetuates the notion that mobile games cannot have depth or good, lasting gameplay.
Last phone game I really enjoyed was Tiny Wings. That was a while ago. Since then, anything I play on my phone has been in an emulator with a GameKlip and a DualShock 3.
[+] [-] TheHippo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pja|9 years ago|reply
I can’t imagine any other brand having that kind of impact - Talk about an unmet need in the marketplace waiting to be filled!
[+] [-] agumonkey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diziet|9 years ago|reply
For Tinder, about 25% of it's installs came from the US on Android. That still puts it at 12.5m - 25m Android installs range.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlab...
[+] [-] mikek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] al_chemist|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shostack|9 years ago|reply
And these weren't just kids. Adults, men, women, all ethnicities, etc. were all playing. I've never seen anything like it. They've really stuck to their goal of getting people outside as summed up by this hilarious Reddit post [1].
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_t...
[+] [-] sharkweek|9 years ago|reply
Immediate flashbacks when last night I was walking to my car from the grocery store with Go up on my phone. Guy yells "Pokemon go, right?"
[+] [-] jmadsen|9 years ago|reply
Ideas welcome!
(For the official record, since you have to say this these days - I'm only joking)
[+] [-] Erwin|9 years ago|reply
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/07/10/four-suspects-...
[+] [-] ryenyc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpchaps|9 years ago|reply
https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en/
Edit: Heh, I went on indeed to see if there was a spike of video analyst jobs and got this awesome ad on the right: https://imgur.com/MMyjbQN
[+] [-] alexmingoia|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gre|9 years ago|reply
What will really be telling is how many people still play after a week or two.
[+] [-] herbst|9 years ago|reply
a) its the same as ingress. With all but even more of the annoying bugs. b) It eats even more battery than ingress c) Its purely pay to win. I could have lived with free 2 play and buying some special or cosmetic items. But not selling essential items ...
Currently i mostly wonder why people don't care about that. I hate playing games where other players can just spend $10 and overtake hours worth of skilling.
[+] [-] skc|9 years ago|reply
The AR angle is new but this is simply Flappy Birds all over again.
[+] [-] spike021|9 years ago|reply
I've seen many people who are 'older' now get into playing Pokemon mostly because it strikes up the nostalgia factor. For many of us (people who experienced Pokemon in the '90s), being able to "become part of the world of Pokemon" was something that would have been quite awesome, and this game really allows that to become a thing.
Saying it's a fad like Flappy Birds is a gross oversimplification. Also, the key difference between FB and Pokemon Go is that FB is meant more as an arcade game you play in very short bursts. Pokemon Go, on the other hand, is meant to be walked around with where it becomes part of your regular activities.
[+] [-] savanaly|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burkaman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stronglikedan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhanschoo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rout39574|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malchow|9 years ago|reply
Fact is, this game is the work of a small VC-backed game shop in San Francisco with some great talent. They license the Pokémon characters, which are owned by The Pokémon Company, which is minority owned by Nintendo.
[+] [-] Sephiroth87|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spaceisballer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhanschoo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jordrok|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Keyframe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b2384912|9 years ago|reply
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