5 ms·

Ingress ultimately hard more complicated gameplay and less brand appeal

flatline 10y ago
It's too bad in a way, Pokemon Go is a way better idea, Ingress always felt like some cool ideas thrown together in search of a unifying theme. It is the only AR game with any real lasting appeal that I'm aware of, until perhaps Pokemon Go, but a lot of the choices made in building Ingress are less than ideal for Pokemon, and yet they form its foundation. I was never really clear what kept Niantic afloat, I always figured they were nothing more than a cost center at Google. Perhaps Pokemon will have enough success to prompt them to evolve the gameplay, and fix some of the common bugs with Ingress.
- efaref 10y ago
  I thought the purpose of Ingress was to crowdsource location data and photographs of points of interest for Google Maps.
  - flatline 10y ago
    A common speculation, but I can't fathom how much value this adds to Google Maps, if any, what with street view and other 360 degree content they have at their disposal. I suppose that the crowd-sourcing aspect of it could serve to identify small sites of interest off the beaten path? Again though, what possible value does this provide to Google maps? Plus, a lot of the sites are already well known locations (churches) or are bunk (the "big red ball" out front of a local target)
fphhotchips 10y ago
Ingress also had an invite-only launch, which meant that by the time lots of people got into the game, the portals were all super high level and playing the game was difficult. Pokemon Go is already showing signs of the same problem at Gyms, where newer players are going to have to grind for days to take on a gym that their team doesn't already own.
- joshschreuder 10y ago
  Yeah I can see that. It would be good to be able to build your own gym up, so you could place a gym at your house after acquiring some kind of resource, and people could try and take you down. It would help to add to the density of the map in less populated areas, though that might make the trespassing issue a lot worse.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Please submit this as a support request - this seems to be the only way to get Niantic to see anything as they don't seem to use Twitter, Facebook or HackerNews.
- tonfa 10y ago
  Wasn't high level portals a good thing for ingress? It made the social aspect more important. New players would meet experienced ones and quickly level up.

It's too bad in a way, Pokemon Go is a way better idea, Ingress always felt like some cool ideas thrown together in search of a unifying theme. It is the only AR game with any real lasting appeal that I'm aware of, until perhaps Pokemon Go, but a lot of the choices made in building Ingress are less than ideal for Pokemon, and yet they form its foundation. I was never really clear what kept Niantic afloat, I always figured they were nothing more than a cost center at Google. Perhaps Pokemon will have enough success to prompt them to evolve the gameplay, and fix some of the common bugs with Ingress.

efaref 10y ago
I thought the purpose of Ingress was to crowdsource location data and photographs of points of interest for Google Maps.
- flatline 10y ago
  A common speculation, but I can't fathom how much value this adds to Google Maps, if any, what with street view and other 360 degree content they have at their disposal. I suppose that the crowd-sourcing aspect of it could serve to identify small sites of interest off the beaten path? Again though, what possible value does this provide to Google maps? Plus, a lot of the sites are already well known locations (churches) or are bunk (the "big red ball" out front of a local target)

fphhotchips 10y ago

Ingress also had an invite-only launch, which meant that by the time lots of people got into the game, the portals were all super high level and playing the game was difficult. Pokemon Go is already showing signs of the same problem at Gyms, where newer players are going to have to grind for days to take on a gym that their team doesn't already own.

joshschreuder 10y ago
Yeah I can see that. It would be good to be able to build your own gym up, so you could place a gym at your house after acquiring some kind of resource, and people could try and take you down. It would help to add to the density of the map in less populated areas, though that might make the trespassing issue a lot worse.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  Please submit this as a support request - this seems to be the only way to get Niantic to see anything as they don't seem to use Twitter, Facebook or HackerNews.
tonfa 10y ago
Wasn't high level portals a good thing for ingress? It made the social aspect more important. New players would meet experienced ones and quickly level up.