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Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession

361 points by nateberkopec 10y ago

ro_sharp 10y ago
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/ https://www.facebook.com/events/267390546965461/
- droopyEyelids 10y ago
  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've never seen anything like it.
  - 086421357909764 10y ago
    we had close to 250 people in a small park near my house close to all day. There were 5 points all within 200 meters of each other, and one gym. It was refreshing to see a lot of people outside that look like they don't get out much.
  - blacksmith_tb 10y ago
    I just came back from a walk to a large nearby park, and there were dozens of people playing. It struck me as interesting they were mostly groups of friends, and not people playing by themselves.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  I think the real tell will be how many people are still playing in a month. The game can get very expensive, especially if you're in a rural area.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    I do hope they rebalance it a bit. The only way to get coins without paying money is to own a gym, which is difficult to do. And less you're willing to go farm a bunch of little Pokéstops then you probably have to buy potions. If there was something equivalent to the Pokécenter then things would be better. It be nice to be able to battle friends to train your Pokémon as well.
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      Niantic are either too busy or really don't care about social media. There's lots of people pointing out real problems with the game. I hope it's not like Ingress all over again, where the only way to get something fixed was to know someone at Google.
      - MBCook 10y ago
        Since it has the Pokémon company's brand (and therefore Nintendo's) I really hope to be a great app. One of the things I love about Nintendo with how well they polish all their software. Instead it's very clear to me that it's a Google app with Pokémon branding. Release fast, bugs are OK, we can fix them later. Don't worry about the fact that the iOS version feels like an Android app and is somewhat obnoxious to use. I can't help but think that if this game had another two months of polish it would be amazing. Instead, it's in its current slightly crappy state with a serious server issue going on.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        Pokemon Go isn't made by Google, it's made by Niantic. Niantic were originally linked to Google, but have been independent since October 2015. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc.
        MBCook 10y ago
        It was an internal Google startup that spun out, so I'm assuming they're used to 'the Google way' of operating. I don't feel great saying this stuff, but I don't know how else to communicate just how startlingly bad the app can be, and how much it feels like a terribly lazy port of an Android app. I don't know. Maybe if I use the Android app for a few days I'd find out that more or less every single issue is just as bad.
- Washuu 10y ago
  I caught one of the local, younger, farmers stopping his tractor to catch a Pokemon. 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 10y ago
  I live in the Valley, and ended up hanging out with some of the people from the pub crawl. It's amazing to watch :)
- fphhotchips 10y ago
  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.
niftich 10y 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.
- detaro 10y ago
  And clever reuse of user-collected data from Ingress, to find good public landmarks all over the world.
  - cloudjacker 10y ago
    I had a hunch thats what was going on
kdamken 10y ago
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.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Ingress was as exciting as this. And it was a lot of fun running into other players (friendly and enemy) and spotting them from a few dozen yards away. I still regularly talk to people I met on the Ingress scene, including one enemy player who was, at the time, my "archnemesis" of sorts. I did meetups with other local players to takeover large areas as a group and stuff as well. But yeah, version 2 is cool too, I guess. ;) Like Ingress, it'll be pretty busy for a few months and then it'll probably recede back to a core community of people who really really get into it.
  - niftich 10y ago
    No doubt Ingress was exciting, but it was a new AR/VR concept and an original sci-fi plot, putting it in the same ballpark demographic as a AAA video game. Pokemon GO has the advantage of being based on an multi-billion dollar, 20-year-old franchise. Its appeal goes beyond that of a typical videogame, so has a significant leg up over Ingress in people's hearts and minds. Its popularity will eventually segment into a hardcore group and a mainstream group, but its mindshare among the wider population is likely to remain strong.
    - MBCook 10y ago
mkagenius 10y ago
Is Tinder the right app to make the comparison with? Game vs Game would be better, like Angry birds or something.
- 0003 10y ago
  It's a swiping game. Comparison is valid.
- kaspm 10y ago
  I agree, my first thought in seeing this headline, even the applicable market of people is much, much bigger for Pokemon GO. In addition to the entire market of Tinder, there's also kids and married people.
- MBCook 10y ago
  The only good reason I can think of Tinder being used is because it's a well-known app and involves real life social things. I can't think of a well-known game that has in person/real world social interaction like this.
- mrtnrdl 10y ago
  And, as on tinder, it's all about 'catching em all'! ;)
alexmingoia 10y ago
Let's wait a month to see what engagement looks like. Most people are downloading simply because everyone is talking about it - especially news media
- gre 10y ago
  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.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    I feel that if they don't get the server issues under control soon (I saw they delayed the European lunch) then it doesn't matter what WOULD have happened the game is going to lose players in the social/network effects won't be there.
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      I think more of an issue will be people hitting "completion" relatively soon. Certainly, the most interesting part right now is just catching new Pokemon, but there aren't so many that you can't burn through most of that enjoyment fairly quickly. The gym battles are terribly boring.
      - neuronexmachina 10y ago
        So far the game only includes the 151 original Pokémon, and I imagine it should be pretty straightforward to add in the later generations (700-something total). That's without adding things like shinies, gender, etc.
- herbst 10y ago
  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.
MBCook 10y ago
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.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  It's bad because it can be. Mobile apps are easily updated, so they don't feel the need to do as much testing. There's no way an actual Pokemon release would be that buggy, because they couldn't fix bugs later.
  - usagimaru 10y ago
jgalt212 10y ago
AR >> VR
jomamaxx 10y ago
Who cares about Tindr. Tindr is the poster boy for lowest common denominator both in the social and technological sense. Ok, maybe Ashley Madison.
- andyjdavis 10y ago
  >Tindr is the poster boy for lowest common denominator Why yes, it does have very broad appeal.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    So do porn, gambling, and films like 'Transformers' that literally have no plot.
    - astrange 10y ago
      That's pretty harsh for an app that just shows you people's European vacation photos and lets you talk to them.
      - jomamaxx 10y ago
        Aside from some basic benefits, it mostly encourages people to make judgements about important things ('human relationships') based on the most absolutely material, fleeting and trivial physical elements. Especially given the magnitude of 'choice', it commoditizes people. Even worse, it normalizes this behaviour. Far from connecting us, it actually disconnects us. Talking recently to a female friend recently who is on Tindr ... it was pretty astonishing how numb she'd become to the profiles... absolute objectification. Even as she was fairly self-aware about it. It's about as healthy as nicotine. Admittedly, it's an absolutely brilliant business model, tapping into primal forces, but it's not a step forward. It's a step sideways, at best, and maybe even a little step back. When VC meets creativity meets technology, it will induce a lot of dollars in this direction irrespective of long term positive economic or social outcomes, often taking attention away from 'better' causes. Absent reasonably enlightened consideration (and I mean just 'basic' consideration, not some holier-than-though ideology), there is no moving forward - just moving in random directions, pulled by the arbitrary forces of hyper-populist memes and trends. Some will make a lot of $$$ as the money sloshes around in a zero-sum game, but surely, but that really isn't the point. In the long run, the Valley and tech scene will lose authenticity and be about as credible as politicians, homeopaths, or Amway. I'll bet $100 that anyone working in tech or any other industry for more than 5-8 years, will start to understand that it's not about 'a job' or 'making bling', or 'being startup famous' and that they work they do has impact across cultures and communities, and that they are ultimately responsible for whatever it is they are working on. Given that there are 10 000 projects around to chose from, it's hot hard to climb higher on the ladder than Tindr, by almost any measure, even $$$. I don't really care about Tindr that much, I have about as much 'against it' as I do a ridiculous Transformers film (which is nothing), but it's not worth any attention either. I'm looking forward to Pokemon :)
bpchaps 10y ago
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. https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en/ 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 https://imgur.com/MMyjbQN
Fej 10y ago
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.
- TheHippo 10y ago
  If you are looking for an AR mobile game with more depth maybe you should try Ingress.
diziet 10y ago
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. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlabs.pokemongo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlab...
- mikek 10y ago
  Yes, but there were also many uninstalls. These numbers are accounting for that.
- al_chemist 10y ago
  Hype started before official release in all countries and people installed it outside of Google Play. In some countries it is still unavailable.
kriro 10y ago
Release in Germany is delayed due to server issues. You can download the APK and play the game if you want to. I'm sticking with Ingress until the final release. It's pretty bad that Google can't scale this. It's not like the mass of users is unexpected. They have Ingress data to go on and there's the Pokemon factor. Makes me not want to use the Google cloud for my next project.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  Google / Alphabet != Niantic. [1] I'd be pretty embarrassed at not predicting the load that a game like this would put on servers. I wonder if they got a good deal from GCE? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc.
NamTaf 10y ago
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.
- taigeair 10y ago
  Does it ask you to login all the time too? My session gets expired very quickly.
  - NamTaf 10y ago
    From what I understand, it'll ask a new login if the servers crash between usage sessions of the app. I've not had to log in today, for example, but yesterday I had to two or so times. The login bug is relatively low-priority to me - all it does is force me to switch to the 2FA app and then untick the music in settings. Compared to other bugs, that's trivial. I'm still occasionally seeing bugs with gyms - for example, instantly kicking me back to the gym screen as soon as I try to battle - but that's fixable by going and battling another gym. I've yet to see a way to solve the other big gym bug wherein enemies stay at 1hp but never die or do anything until the timer runs out. Otherwise, the standard client/server sync bugs (pokeballs sitting on screen doing nothing if you lose server connectivity during capturing it) and client-side bugs (battery saver mode cuasing the game to become completely unresponsive to touch sometimes when you bring it back by turning your phone upright again) are the main gripes.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  Google doesn't own Niantic anymore.
sumitgt 10y ago
The game is acting like a Tinder for Pokemon fans. I've seen hoardes of people gathering around Pokestops and socializing as a side-effect.
cdevs 10y ago
The terrifying thing is how the games location of items can manipulate foot traffic and could show bias of one business over the other across the street in turn manipulating be economy by moving us and our eventual spending around like lemmings....but it's just Pokemon right?
- markcerqueira 10y ago
  Yeah - it's definitely "new age" advertising but why jump to a "terrifying" "moving us around like lemmings" conclusion? If a company wants to spend money to drop lures good for them. People can go there if they choose or just ignore it.
- Trundle 10y ago
  Why is that terrifying? It's not like our spending isn't moved around by the whims of companies at the moment.
DKnoll3 10y ago
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned anything about Niantic being an "independent" spinoff from Google/Alphabet. Interesting to think about what personal information they're gaining from this, as well as mapping information.
- jwcooper 10y ago
  Nintendo (along with Google and the Pokemon Company, which Nintendo also partially owns) invested $30 million into Niantic 9 months ago [1]. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/nintendo-gains-on-investment-pokemon-go-game-developer-niantic http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/nintendo-g...
BillyParadise 10y ago
Yeah, but will it get me laid?
- wccrawford 10y ago
  If you count meeting people and possibly getting to know them to be a first step on the path to that, then yes. It's very easy to see who's playing the app nearby, and people often get talking while they're trying to take over a gym over waiting for spawns near a lure.
- varjag 10y ago
  It will get you to a gym at least.
shostack 10y ago
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]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_trying_to_get_people_outside_for_2_decades/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_t...
- sharkweek 10y ago
  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?"
prawn 10y ago
Can someone explain how it works? I understand that it's AR- and location-based. How/where/why do you acquire the virtual creatures? Do you have to look for them aimlessly or are there clues?
- stormbrew 10y ago
  Various landmarks are 'pokestops', where you can get pokeballs and other items. Some of those places are gyms, where you can pit your pokemon against others. The pokemon themselves are spawned from random spots on the map and wander around, if you're in the area and have the app open you'll see it and can capture it by throwing pokeballs at it. There's a kind of wonky proximity indicator for nearby pokemon, and they're shown on the map by the random appearance of rustling grass.
- woah 10y ago
  Just played a little bit on someone else's account. You walk around looking at a map on your phone (very little detail on the map, it's just a 3d street map) and sometimes you see a pokemon running around on your block. You tap on the pokemon and a screen opens up where you have to throw a ball at it. When you hit it, you capture it. There are also these floating disks with images of local landmarks, and when you swipe on them, you get more balls or other prizes. That's about it.
  - pests 10y ago
    You missed leveling, evolving, gyms, the meta game, searching for rare Pokemon, and more.
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  You walk around until you see a Pokemon near your player, then tap it. Then the game goes into "camera" mode where you can snap a picture of the pokemon placed in the real world, or throw pokeballs at it by swiping your finger properly. You walk around and your player walks around using the GPS.
cpeterso 10y ago
Pokémon Go is very similar to the Nintendo DS game "Treasure World" (2009), where you collect randomized virtual loot based on Wi-Fi networks around you: http://www.gamesradar.com/treasure-world-review/ http://www.gamesradar.com/treasure-world-review/
shostack 10y ago
I'm just waited for the first theft tied to this. Shouldn't take a thief long to get the app and find a seedy area to drop a Lure in. Wait for unsuspecting hapless victim(s) to stand around staring at their phones oblivious to the world for an extended period of time and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for a ride-by phone snatcher on a bike.
- legohead 10y ago
  Wait no longer: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/thieves-pokemon-find-players-rob-missouri-article-1.2706417 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/thieves-pokemon-find-p...
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  Having lived in Bolivia, I would never even -dream- of playing this in a third world country. People get shot for smartphones/tablets there, no respect for life.
- userbinator 10y ago
  and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel Catching Pokemon in a barrel?
int_19h 10y ago
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...
- gagege 10y ago
  I just turn off AR mode if it's in someone's house or yard.
jmadsen 10y ago
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)
- abstractbeliefs 10y ago
  It's already been noted that the application itself doesn't verify the validity of TLS certs, so it's trivial to MITM the connection and there are currently people working to learn the ins and outs of the API.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    It verifies certs, it just doesn't pin them. So if you can hack your phone, you can hack it, shocker. Not a security flaw.
    - chatmasta 10y ago
      And if you can hack your phone, you can disable pinning.
    - cocotino 10y ago
      No need to hack anything, just install your own cert
    - bognition 10y ago
      Curious why you don't think this is a security flaw. Surely a browser failing to pin certificates would be a bad thing, no?
      - wepple 10y ago
        browsers generally don't pin certs. there are methods to do it but everyone is scared to do it as it's a pretty quick way to DoS your entire user-base if you get it wrong. The intended design of PKI suggests that pinning should not be a thing. unfortunately PKI is broken and pinning is a 'patch' because it's too each to obtain a cert for a property you don't own (hi bluecoat)
karimdag 10y ago
It seems to me that almost every other app is about to or has surpassed Twitter in Daily/Monthly active users. Twitter seems to have some pretty big problems keeping its users engaged.
- guidopallemans 10y ago
  Instagram and Snapchat are not just every other app. I think Twitter is used as a reference in these kind of statements because their number of active users is pretty stagnant.
jacquesm 10y ago
I wonder what the intersection of the sets of gamers and people that wonder how they can improve their productivity is.
golergka 10y ago
The most important quality for such a game is how many players are playing it. In that sense, Pokemon GO is already far better than Ingress or anything else.
pja 10y ago
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!
onion2k 10y ago
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.
- kalleboo 10y 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.
  - merb 10y ago
    I will never buy any in App Coin, but I have a lot of consoles + games from nintendo. Even the 'New 3DS'.
    - donkeyd 10y ago
      I used to live by the same principles, viewing in-app-purchases as something that's always bad. I have now, though, decided that I will decide what value a game has to me and will probably spend that amount on in-app-purchases. If the game has purchases that I think are worth it though. In Pokemon Go i haven't found them worth it yet, but that may come later. Also, I think a game shouldn't impose too many boundaries when not buying anything in-game. So I won't buy off timers that essentially break the game (i.e. Candy Crush, though I never played that, so I might be wrong). I will, however pay for something to get that instant gratification of speeding up a timer that isn't game breaking.
      - mentalpiracy 10y ago
elmar 10y ago
This Guy Used a Drone to Try to Catch Pokémon http://gizmodo.com/can-you-speed-up-your-pokemon-go-progress-with-a-drone-1783418966 http://gizmodo.com/can-you-speed-up-your-pokemon-go-progress...
AnonymousPlanet 10y ago
I am really surprised it has taken this long for such an app to emerge. After smartphones took off and gained GPS, I remember sitting in a friend's student den (ca. 2009) idly brainstorming an AR game that would let you roam the city as an RPG character, occasionally battling or collaborating with other players. We thought it was pretty obvious and we wouldn't be the first to think of it, so we never bothered to actually pursue the idea. Ingress was the first big game I remember that provided something similar, but it kind of ended there. The Pokemon theme is pretty much perfect for such a setup: inventory, challenges, not too martial and you get to piggyback on an existing story. Our vision was more geared towards the WoW gamer crowd.
sergiotapia 10y ago
I've run into people playing this game in the park, at Publix, in Costco and even restaurants. It's a SENSATION, never quite seen something like this. I'm excited for the future for Nintendo - we could be witnessing the birth of a new age of Nintendo supremacy!
eva1984 10y ago
Well, doubt how many will remain after 1 month.
- rickyc091 10y ago
  I'd imagine people will stay as they did with the original Pokemon. To this day, they are still adding more and more Pokemon. I'd expect they'd treat this game in a similar fashion. They'll probably introduce trading (already confirmed), a battling system amongst peers, side objectives, events (battle Mewtwo) as we saw in the commerical, etc.
wodenokoto 10y ago
I think this number is considerably more impressive than beating the number of Tinder installs.
- userbinator 10y ago
  Indeed, although I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Tinder.
  - evook 10y ago
    Going with that, I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Twitter.
Sephiroth87 10y ago
Just image if the game was actually good... It's kind of a shame :(
- jhanschoo 10y ago
  I'm optimistic that the game will continue getting fleshed out; there's no way Niantic isn't going to capitalize on this.
  - Sephiroth87 10y ago
    I don't doubt it'll get better, but I also don't expect any major rewriting of the core loops / mechanics, which might invalidate user progress
    - toxican 10y ago
      The way I see it, they've got like two weeks tops to flesh it out more. Because after that, running around catching them and struggling against the weird gym system until you win is going to stop being enjoyable at all (and I do find it enjoyable for now!). Even just a bare bones friends system and a combat system that utilizes the 2 attack method gym battles have could go a long way to give the game a little more staying power.
  - spike021 10y ago
    I don't have a link to the article handy at the moment, but they've already said they'll be adding player trades. Honestly I hope they add functionality so people who run into each other while playing can battle. It'd really be just like the game at that point, other than the battle system being very different.
- b2384912 10y ago
  It's surprising that they managed to "streamline" a pokemon game even further. The original pokemon combat system is already quite simple. The combat boils down to 4 attacks, using items, switching pokemon and running away which is actually ideal for a touch enabled device such as a smartphone.
jhanschoo 10y ago
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.
- rout39574 10y ago
  Caveat? ;) I mean, those readers can be scary, but...
  - trvz 10y ago
    Cave is the singular imperative form. Cave lector therefore makes sense, meaning "beware, reader", while caveat means "warning".
    - jhanschoo 10y ago
      Either should be fine; caveat is the jussive subjunctive, and so the meaning is similar.
Eun 10y ago
Just a side note I leave here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450
- celticninja 10y ago
  You should look at auto detecting the users location instead of a drop down menu.
  - Eun 10y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. => Done :)
    - celticninja 10y ago
      Could I be cheeky and ask to see the bit of code that achieves the affect?
      - sleepychu 10y ago
        https://github.com/Eun/is-pokemon-available/blob/gh-pages/index.html#L32 https://github.com/Eun/is-pokemon-available/blob/gh-pages/in...
- patmurraydev 10y ago
  Not sure what you're polling, but it says it's not available in Australia despite Australia being the first release country. Might just want to check that out.
Eun 10y ago
Just a side note I leave here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450
robotboy1000 10y ago
Does this include downloads from apkmirror etc.?
Chris2048 10y ago
Tinder - gotta catch 'em all!
jhwhite 10y ago
Yeah, but what's the daily active users like?
ryenyc 10y ago
The Twitter comparison seems very off. Note that the article is talking about Android only. According to https://about.twitter.com/company 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
smaili 10y ago
To be fair: > Data published today by SimilarWeb indicates that the mobile game is poised to surpass Twitter in daily active users on Android.
jlebrech 10y ago
It's a much less cringey way to meet someone than Tinder, especially if you want to meet someone who's into Pokemon.
skc 10y ago
This game has all the makings of a fad. The AR angle is new but this is simply Flappy Birds all over again.
- savanaly 10y ago
  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.
  - bargl 10y ago
    I'm into this game. It's fun, it gamifies walking and going to parks. I love that I can play this for a few minutes while walking my kid to the park, or while he's at the park playing. Is it perfect? Hell no, but I play it in spite of how popular it is. It is fun, engaging, rewards activities I want to do more (walk) and really doesn't work well in the house. My wife likes that I wanted to get out of the house more this weekend. Is it kinda sad that I need a videogame to make going outside fun for me? Yeah sorta, but that's who I am. EDIT: One final note. This game uses the Pokemon I played with as a kid. The ones I traded on cards and really leverages that nostalgia to make it something I want to do. I want to catch these specific pokemon because I've done it before. And it's more rewarding because I have to physically earn them too.
- burkaman 10y ago
  You don't think including a brand that has been globally popular for 20 years changes anything?
  - ythl 10y ago
    I think the layman that is just jumping on the fad wagon will get bored of Pokemon Go within a month or two. The diehard Pokemon fans will continue playing, but I don't see how they can keep the hook in for long. It's like Pokemon Cards - they went from cards to practically currency back to cards within 6 months.
veeragoni 10y ago
Do I need to feel out of place in this world? I still dont understand why the game is so popular!
- mkane848 10y ago
  It's the social aspect and the act of "dude there's a Snorlax at the basketball court let's go" and getting a group of your friends to go, then as you show up you see other people doing the same thing. It's an innocent conversation starter. What better ice-breaker between social groups than "You playing Pokemon?" Even people who aren't playing know what's going on. The game itself isn't the selling point here. Being an IRL Pokemon trainer is.
- jsonau 10y ago
  Everyone now with a smartphone can Pokémon game for free! This captures the previous market who grew out of it. Furthermore AR works very well with the Pokémon theme.
agumonkey 10y ago
Central Park now https://twitter.com/IGIhosT/status/752357024156028928 https://twitter.com/IGIhosT/status/752357024156028928
kelukelugames 10y ago
I don't do much cardio but I walked 4 miles this weekend trying to catch Pokemon. I love a game that makes me healthier.
malchow 10y ago
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.
- tdaltonc 10y ago
  Nintendo is also an investor in Niantic Labs. If you think the price is high, you're welcome to short it.
  - malchow 10y ago
    Do you have a link for this? (I believe you, but I don't see it reflected in any of the VC DBs.)
    - tdaltonc 10y ago
      https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-google#/entity https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-google#/...
- chrisdbaldwin 10y ago
  So short it.
darkboltyoutube 10y ago
A story of how 2 people nearly died playing this game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KXVfnw4rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KXVfnw4rg

361 points by nateberkopec 10y ago

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/ https://www.facebook.com/events/267390546965461/

droopyEyelids 10y ago
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've never seen anything like it.
- 086421357909764 10y ago
  we had close to 250 people in a small park near my house close to all day. There were 5 points all within 200 meters of each other, and one gym. It was refreshing to see a lot of people outside that look like they don't get out much.
- blacksmith_tb 10y ago
  I just came back from a walk to a large nearby park, and there were dozens of people playing. It struck me as interesting they were mostly groups of friends, and not people playing by themselves.
voltagex_ 10y ago
I think the real tell will be how many people are still playing in a month. The game can get very expensive, especially if you're in a rural area.
- MBCook 10y ago
  I do hope they rebalance it a bit. The only way to get coins without paying money is to own a gym, which is difficult to do. And less you're willing to go farm a bunch of little Pokéstops then you probably have to buy potions. If there was something equivalent to the Pokécenter then things would be better. It be nice to be able to battle friends to train your Pokémon as well.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Niantic are either too busy or really don't care about social media. There's lots of people pointing out real problems with the game. I hope it's not like Ingress all over again, where the only way to get something fixed was to know someone at Google.
    - MBCook 10y ago
      Since it has the Pokémon company's brand (and therefore Nintendo's) I really hope to be a great app. One of the things I love about Nintendo with how well they polish all their software. Instead it's very clear to me that it's a Google app with Pokémon branding. Release fast, bugs are OK, we can fix them later. Don't worry about the fact that the iOS version feels like an Android app and is somewhat obnoxious to use. I can't help but think that if this game had another two months of polish it would be amazing. Instead, it's in its current slightly crappy state with a serious server issue going on.
      - ZenoArrow 10y ago
        Pokemon Go isn't made by Google, it's made by Niantic. Niantic were originally linked to Google, but have been independent since October 2015. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc.
        MBCook 10y ago
        It was an internal Google startup that spun out, so I'm assuming they're used to 'the Google way' of operating. I don't feel great saying this stuff, but I don't know how else to communicate just how startlingly bad the app can be, and how much it feels like a terribly lazy port of an Android app. I don't know. Maybe if I use the Android app for a few days I'd find out that more or less every single issue is just as bad.
Washuu 10y ago
I caught one of the local, younger, farmers stopping his tractor to catch a Pokemon. 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 10y ago
I live in the Valley, and ended up hanging out with some of the people from the pub crawl. It's amazing to watch :)
fphhotchips 10y ago
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.

niftich 10y 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.

detaro 10y ago
And clever reuse of user-collected data from Ingress, to find good public landmarks all over the world.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  I had a hunch thats what was going on

kdamken 10y ago

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.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Ingress was as exciting as this. And it was a lot of fun running into other players (friendly and enemy) and spotting them from a few dozen yards away. I still regularly talk to people I met on the Ingress scene, including one enemy player who was, at the time, my "archnemesis" of sorts. I did meetups with other local players to takeover large areas as a group and stuff as well. But yeah, version 2 is cool too, I guess. ;) Like Ingress, it'll be pretty busy for a few months and then it'll probably recede back to a core community of people who really really get into it.
- niftich 10y ago
  No doubt Ingress was exciting, but it was a new AR/VR concept and an original sci-fi plot, putting it in the same ballpark demographic as a AAA video game. Pokemon GO has the advantage of being based on an multi-billion dollar, 20-year-old franchise. Its appeal goes beyond that of a typical videogame, so has a significant leg up over Ingress in people's hearts and minds. Its popularity will eventually segment into a hardcore group and a mainstream group, but its mindshare among the wider population is likely to remain strong.
  - MBCook 10y ago

mkagenius 10y ago

Is Tinder the right app to make the comparison with? Game vs Game would be better, like Angry birds or something.

0003 10y ago
It's a swiping game. Comparison is valid.
kaspm 10y ago
I agree, my first thought in seeing this headline, even the applicable market of people is much, much bigger for Pokemon GO. In addition to the entire market of Tinder, there's also kids and married people.
MBCook 10y ago
The only good reason I can think of Tinder being used is because it's a well-known app and involves real life social things. I can't think of a well-known game that has in person/real world social interaction like this.
mrtnrdl 10y ago
And, as on tinder, it's all about 'catching em all'! ;)

alexmingoia 10y ago

Let's wait a month to see what engagement looks like. Most people are downloading simply because everyone is talking about it - especially news media

gre 10y ago
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.
- MBCook 10y ago
  I feel that if they don't get the server issues under control soon (I saw they delayed the European lunch) then it doesn't matter what WOULD have happened the game is going to lose players in the social/network effects won't be there.
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    I think more of an issue will be people hitting "completion" relatively soon. Certainly, the most interesting part right now is just catching new Pokemon, but there aren't so many that you can't burn through most of that enjoyment fairly quickly. The gym battles are terribly boring.
    - neuronexmachina 10y ago
      So far the game only includes the 151 original Pokémon, and I imagine it should be pretty straightforward to add in the later generations (700-something total). That's without adding things like shinies, gender, etc.
herbst 10y ago
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.

MBCook 10y ago

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.

ikeboy 10y ago
It's bad because it can be. Mobile apps are easily updated, so they don't feel the need to do as much testing. There's no way an actual Pokemon release would be that buggy, because they couldn't fix bugs later.
- usagimaru 10y ago

jgalt212 10y ago

AR >> VR

jomamaxx 10y ago

Who cares about Tindr. Tindr is the poster boy for lowest common denominator both in the social and technological sense. Ok, maybe Ashley Madison.

andyjdavis 10y ago
>Tindr is the poster boy for lowest common denominator Why yes, it does have very broad appeal.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  So do porn, gambling, and films like 'Transformers' that literally have no plot.
  - astrange 10y ago
    That's pretty harsh for an app that just shows you people's European vacation photos and lets you talk to them.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      Aside from some basic benefits, it mostly encourages people to make judgements about important things ('human relationships') based on the most absolutely material, fleeting and trivial physical elements. Especially given the magnitude of 'choice', it commoditizes people. Even worse, it normalizes this behaviour. Far from connecting us, it actually disconnects us. Talking recently to a female friend recently who is on Tindr ... it was pretty astonishing how numb she'd become to the profiles... absolute objectification. Even as she was fairly self-aware about it. It's about as healthy as nicotine. Admittedly, it's an absolutely brilliant business model, tapping into primal forces, but it's not a step forward. It's a step sideways, at best, and maybe even a little step back. When VC meets creativity meets technology, it will induce a lot of dollars in this direction irrespective of long term positive economic or social outcomes, often taking attention away from 'better' causes. Absent reasonably enlightened consideration (and I mean just 'basic' consideration, not some holier-than-though ideology), there is no moving forward - just moving in random directions, pulled by the arbitrary forces of hyper-populist memes and trends. Some will make a lot of $$$ as the money sloshes around in a zero-sum game, but surely, but that really isn't the point. In the long run, the Valley and tech scene will lose authenticity and be about as credible as politicians, homeopaths, or Amway. I'll bet $100 that anyone working in tech or any other industry for more than 5-8 years, will start to understand that it's not about 'a job' or 'making bling', or 'being startup famous' and that they work they do has impact across cultures and communities, and that they are ultimately responsible for whatever it is they are working on. Given that there are 10 000 projects around to chose from, it's hot hard to climb higher on the ladder than Tindr, by almost any measure, even $$$. I don't really care about Tindr that much, I have about as much 'against it' as I do a ridiculous Transformers film (which is nothing), but it's not worth any attention either. I'm looking forward to Pokemon :)

bpchaps 10y ago

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. https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en/ 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 https://imgur.com/MMyjbQN

Fej 10y ago

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.

TheHippo 10y ago
If you are looking for an AR mobile game with more depth maybe you should try Ingress.

diziet 10y ago

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. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlabs.pokemongo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlab...

mikek 10y ago
Yes, but there were also many uninstalls. These numbers are accounting for that.
al_chemist 10y ago
Hype started before official release in all countries and people installed it outside of Google Play. In some countries it is still unavailable.

kriro 10y ago

Release in Germany is delayed due to server issues. You can download the APK and play the game if you want to. I'm sticking with Ingress until the final release. It's pretty bad that Google can't scale this. It's not like the mass of users is unexpected. They have Ingress data to go on and there's the Pokemon factor. Makes me not want to use the Google cloud for my next project.

voltagex_ 10y ago
Google / Alphabet != Niantic. [1] I'd be pretty embarrassed at not predicting the load that a game like this would put on servers. I wonder if they got a good deal from GCE? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc.

NamTaf 10y ago

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.

taigeair 10y ago
Does it ask you to login all the time too? My session gets expired very quickly.
- NamTaf 10y ago
  From what I understand, it'll ask a new login if the servers crash between usage sessions of the app. I've not had to log in today, for example, but yesterday I had to two or so times. The login bug is relatively low-priority to me - all it does is force me to switch to the 2FA app and then untick the music in settings. Compared to other bugs, that's trivial. I'm still occasionally seeing bugs with gyms - for example, instantly kicking me back to the gym screen as soon as I try to battle - but that's fixable by going and battling another gym. I've yet to see a way to solve the other big gym bug wherein enemies stay at 1hp but never die or do anything until the timer runs out. Otherwise, the standard client/server sync bugs (pokeballs sitting on screen doing nothing if you lose server connectivity during capturing it) and client-side bugs (battery saver mode cuasing the game to become completely unresponsive to touch sometimes when you bring it back by turning your phone upright again) are the main gripes.
Nullabillity 10y ago
Google doesn't own Niantic anymore.

sumitgt 10y ago

The game is acting like a Tinder for Pokemon fans. I've seen hoardes of people gathering around Pokestops and socializing as a side-effect.

cdevs 10y ago

The terrifying thing is how the games location of items can manipulate foot traffic and could show bias of one business over the other across the street in turn manipulating be economy by moving us and our eventual spending around like lemmings....but it's just Pokemon right?

markcerqueira 10y ago
Yeah - it's definitely "new age" advertising but why jump to a "terrifying" "moving us around like lemmings" conclusion? If a company wants to spend money to drop lures good for them. People can go there if they choose or just ignore it.
Trundle 10y ago
Why is that terrifying? It's not like our spending isn't moved around by the whims of companies at the moment.

DKnoll3 10y ago

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned anything about Niantic being an "independent" spinoff from Google/Alphabet. Interesting to think about what personal information they're gaining from this, as well as mapping information.

jwcooper 10y ago
Nintendo (along with Google and the Pokemon Company, which Nintendo also partially owns) invested $30 million into Niantic 9 months ago [1]. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/nintendo-gains-on-investment-pokemon-go-game-developer-niantic http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/nintendo-g...

BillyParadise 10y ago

Yeah, but will it get me laid?

wccrawford 10y ago
If you count meeting people and possibly getting to know them to be a first step on the path to that, then yes. It's very easy to see who's playing the app nearby, and people often get talking while they're trying to take over a gym over waiting for spawns near a lure.
varjag 10y ago
It will get you to a gym at least.

shostack 10y ago

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]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_trying_to_get_people_outside_for_2_decades/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_t...

sharkweek 10y ago
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?"

prawn 10y ago

Can someone explain how it works? I understand that it's AR- and location-based. How/where/why do you acquire the virtual creatures? Do you have to look for them aimlessly or are there clues?

stormbrew 10y ago
Various landmarks are 'pokestops', where you can get pokeballs and other items. Some of those places are gyms, where you can pit your pokemon against others. The pokemon themselves are spawned from random spots on the map and wander around, if you're in the area and have the app open you'll see it and can capture it by throwing pokeballs at it. There's a kind of wonky proximity indicator for nearby pokemon, and they're shown on the map by the random appearance of rustling grass.
woah 10y ago
Just played a little bit on someone else's account. You walk around looking at a map on your phone (very little detail on the map, it's just a 3d street map) and sometimes you see a pokemon running around on your block. You tap on the pokemon and a screen opens up where you have to throw a ball at it. When you hit it, you capture it. There are also these floating disks with images of local landmarks, and when you swipe on them, you get more balls or other prizes. That's about it.
- pests 10y ago
  You missed leveling, evolving, gyms, the meta game, searching for rare Pokemon, and more.
sergiotapia 10y ago
You walk around until you see a Pokemon near your player, then tap it. Then the game goes into "camera" mode where you can snap a picture of the pokemon placed in the real world, or throw pokeballs at it by swiping your finger properly. You walk around and your player walks around using the GPS.

cpeterso 10y ago

Pokémon Go is very similar to the Nintendo DS game "Treasure World" (2009), where you collect randomized virtual loot based on Wi-Fi networks around you: http://www.gamesradar.com/treasure-world-review/ http://www.gamesradar.com/treasure-world-review/

shostack 10y ago

I'm just waited for the first theft tied to this. Shouldn't take a thief long to get the app and find a seedy area to drop a Lure in. Wait for unsuspecting hapless victim(s) to stand around staring at their phones oblivious to the world for an extended period of time and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for a ride-by phone snatcher on a bike.

legohead 10y ago
Wait no longer: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/thieves-pokemon-find-players-rob-missouri-article-1.2706417 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/thieves-pokemon-find-p...
sergiotapia 10y ago
Having lived in Bolivia, I would never even -dream- of playing this in a third world country. People get shot for smartphones/tablets there, no respect for life.
userbinator 10y ago
and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel Catching Pokemon in a barrel?

int_19h 10y ago

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...

gagege 10y ago
I just turn off AR mode if it's in someone's house or yard.

jmadsen 10y ago

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)

abstractbeliefs 10y ago
It's already been noted that the application itself doesn't verify the validity of TLS certs, so it's trivial to MITM the connection and there are currently people working to learn the ins and outs of the API.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  It verifies certs, it just doesn't pin them. So if you can hack your phone, you can hack it, shocker. Not a security flaw.
  - chatmasta 10y ago
    And if you can hack your phone, you can disable pinning.
  - cocotino 10y ago
    No need to hack anything, just install your own cert
  - bognition 10y ago
    Curious why you don't think this is a security flaw. Surely a browser failing to pin certificates would be a bad thing, no?
    - wepple 10y ago
      browsers generally don't pin certs. there are methods to do it but everyone is scared to do it as it's a pretty quick way to DoS your entire user-base if you get it wrong. The intended design of PKI suggests that pinning should not be a thing. unfortunately PKI is broken and pinning is a 'patch' because it's too each to obtain a cert for a property you don't own (hi bluecoat)

karimdag 10y ago

It seems to me that almost every other app is about to or has surpassed Twitter in Daily/Monthly active users. Twitter seems to have some pretty big problems keeping its users engaged.

guidopallemans 10y ago
Instagram and Snapchat are not just every other app. I think Twitter is used as a reference in these kind of statements because their number of active users is pretty stagnant.

jacquesm 10y ago

I wonder what the intersection of the sets of gamers and people that wonder how they can improve their productivity is.

golergka 10y ago

The most important quality for such a game is how many players are playing it. In that sense, Pokemon GO is already far better than Ingress or anything else.

pja 10y ago

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!

onion2k 10y ago

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.

kalleboo 10y 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.
- merb 10y ago
  I will never buy any in App Coin, but I have a lot of consoles + games from nintendo. Even the 'New 3DS'.
  - donkeyd 10y ago
    I used to live by the same principles, viewing in-app-purchases as something that's always bad. I have now, though, decided that I will decide what value a game has to me and will probably spend that amount on in-app-purchases. If the game has purchases that I think are worth it though. In Pokemon Go i haven't found them worth it yet, but that may come later. Also, I think a game shouldn't impose too many boundaries when not buying anything in-game. So I won't buy off timers that essentially break the game (i.e. Candy Crush, though I never played that, so I might be wrong). I will, however pay for something to get that instant gratification of speeding up a timer that isn't game breaking.
    - mentalpiracy 10y ago

elmar 10y ago

This Guy Used a Drone to Try to Catch Pokémon http://gizmodo.com/can-you-speed-up-your-pokemon-go-progress-with-a-drone-1783418966 http://gizmodo.com/can-you-speed-up-your-pokemon-go-progress...

AnonymousPlanet 10y ago

I am really surprised it has taken this long for such an app to emerge. After smartphones took off and gained GPS, I remember sitting in a friend's student den (ca. 2009) idly brainstorming an AR game that would let you roam the city as an RPG character, occasionally battling or collaborating with other players. We thought it was pretty obvious and we wouldn't be the first to think of it, so we never bothered to actually pursue the idea. Ingress was the first big game I remember that provided something similar, but it kind of ended there. The Pokemon theme is pretty much perfect for such a setup: inventory, challenges, not too martial and you get to piggyback on an existing story. Our vision was more geared towards the WoW gamer crowd.

sergiotapia 10y ago

I've run into people playing this game in the park, at Publix, in Costco and even restaurants. It's a SENSATION, never quite seen something like this. I'm excited for the future for Nintendo - we could be witnessing the birth of a new age of Nintendo supremacy!

eva1984 10y ago

Well, doubt how many will remain after 1 month.

rickyc091 10y ago
I'd imagine people will stay as they did with the original Pokemon. To this day, they are still adding more and more Pokemon. I'd expect they'd treat this game in a similar fashion. They'll probably introduce trading (already confirmed), a battling system amongst peers, side objectives, events (battle Mewtwo) as we saw in the commerical, etc.

wodenokoto 10y ago

I think this number is considerably more impressive than beating the number of Tinder installs.

userbinator 10y ago
Indeed, although I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Tinder.
- evook 10y ago
  Going with that, I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows about Pokemon than Twitter.

Sephiroth87 10y ago

Just image if the game was actually good... It's kind of a shame :(

jhanschoo 10y ago
I'm optimistic that the game will continue getting fleshed out; there's no way Niantic isn't going to capitalize on this.
- Sephiroth87 10y ago
  I don't doubt it'll get better, but I also don't expect any major rewriting of the core loops / mechanics, which might invalidate user progress
  - toxican 10y ago
    The way I see it, they've got like two weeks tops to flesh it out more. Because after that, running around catching them and struggling against the weird gym system until you win is going to stop being enjoyable at all (and I do find it enjoyable for now!). Even just a bare bones friends system and a combat system that utilizes the 2 attack method gym battles have could go a long way to give the game a little more staying power.
- spike021 10y ago
  I don't have a link to the article handy at the moment, but they've already said they'll be adding player trades. Honestly I hope they add functionality so people who run into each other while playing can battle. It'd really be just like the game at that point, other than the battle system being very different.
b2384912 10y ago
It's surprising that they managed to "streamline" a pokemon game even further. The original pokemon combat system is already quite simple. The combat boils down to 4 attacks, using items, switching pokemon and running away which is actually ideal for a touch enabled device such as a smartphone.

jhanschoo 10y ago

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.

rout39574 10y ago
Caveat? ;) I mean, those readers can be scary, but...
- trvz 10y ago
  Cave is the singular imperative form. Cave lector therefore makes sense, meaning "beware, reader", while caveat means "warning".
  - jhanschoo 10y ago
    Either should be fine; caveat is the jussive subjunctive, and so the meaning is similar.

Eun 10y ago

Just a side note I leave here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450

celticninja 10y ago
You should look at auto detecting the users location instead of a drop down menu.
- Eun 10y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. => Done :)
  - celticninja 10y ago
    Could I be cheeky and ask to see the bit of code that achieves the affect?
    - sleepychu 10y ago
      https://github.com/Eun/is-pokemon-available/blob/gh-pages/index.html#L32 https://github.com/Eun/is-pokemon-available/blob/gh-pages/in...
patmurraydev 10y ago
Not sure what you're polling, but it says it's not available in Australia despite Australia being the first release country. Might just want to check that out.

Eun 10y ago

Just a side note I leave here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450

robotboy1000 10y ago

Does this include downloads from apkmirror etc.?

Chris2048 10y ago

Tinder - gotta catch 'em all!

jhwhite 10y ago

Yeah, but what's the daily active users like?

ryenyc 10y ago

The Twitter comparison seems very off. Note that the article is talking about Android only. According to https://about.twitter.com/company 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

smaili 10y ago

To be fair: > Data published today by SimilarWeb indicates that the mobile game is poised to surpass Twitter in daily active users on Android.

jlebrech 10y ago

It's a much less cringey way to meet someone than Tinder, especially if you want to meet someone who's into Pokemon.

skc 10y ago

This game has all the makings of a fad. The AR angle is new but this is simply Flappy Birds all over again.

savanaly 10y ago
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.
- bargl 10y ago
  I'm into this game. It's fun, it gamifies walking and going to parks. I love that I can play this for a few minutes while walking my kid to the park, or while he's at the park playing. Is it perfect? Hell no, but I play it in spite of how popular it is. It is fun, engaging, rewards activities I want to do more (walk) and really doesn't work well in the house. My wife likes that I wanted to get out of the house more this weekend. Is it kinda sad that I need a videogame to make going outside fun for me? Yeah sorta, but that's who I am. EDIT: One final note. This game uses the Pokemon I played with as a kid. The ones I traded on cards and really leverages that nostalgia to make it something I want to do. I want to catch these specific pokemon because I've done it before. And it's more rewarding because I have to physically earn them too.
burkaman 10y ago
You don't think including a brand that has been globally popular for 20 years changes anything?
- ythl 10y ago
  I think the layman that is just jumping on the fad wagon will get bored of Pokemon Go within a month or two. The diehard Pokemon fans will continue playing, but I don't see how they can keep the hook in for long. It's like Pokemon Cards - they went from cards to practically currency back to cards within 6 months.

veeragoni 10y ago

Do I need to feel out of place in this world? I still dont understand why the game is so popular!

mkane848 10y ago
It's the social aspect and the act of "dude there's a Snorlax at the basketball court let's go" and getting a group of your friends to go, then as you show up you see other people doing the same thing. It's an innocent conversation starter. What better ice-breaker between social groups than "You playing Pokemon?" Even people who aren't playing know what's going on. The game itself isn't the selling point here. Being an IRL Pokemon trainer is.
jsonau 10y ago
Everyone now with a smartphone can Pokémon game for free! This captures the previous market who grew out of it. Furthermore AR works very well with the Pokémon theme.

agumonkey 10y ago

Central Park now https://twitter.com/IGIhosT/status/752357024156028928 https://twitter.com/IGIhosT/status/752357024156028928

kelukelugames 10y ago

I don't do much cardio but I walked 4 miles this weekend trying to catch Pokemon. I love a game that makes me healthier.

malchow 10y ago

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.

tdaltonc 10y ago
Nintendo is also an investor in Niantic Labs. If you think the price is high, you're welcome to short it.
- malchow 10y ago
  Do you have a link for this? (I believe you, but I don't see it reflected in any of the VC DBs.)
  - tdaltonc 10y ago
    https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-google#/entity https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-google#/...
chrisdbaldwin 10y ago
So short it.

darkboltyoutube 10y ago

A story of how 2 people nearly died playing this game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KXVfnw4rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KXVfnw4rg