4 ms·

Well, from what I've seen, there would have been no other way for this app to be successful without piggybacking on the success of another company's obsessive f

Well, from what I've seen, there would have been no other way for this app to be successful without piggybacking on the success of another company's obsessive fans. No other customer would put up with a game that is so badly made. From a developer's perspective, this app is a true disaster, with an amazing level of incompetence that permeates the entire launch. First, the servers have been going up and down like a yoyo, which despite its unprecedented success should never have happened more than once. Second the app on iOS crashes every few minutes - I've never seen a more buggy app. Using Unity no less. It's not due to some weird edge case, it's constant... log the damn errors and make sure it doesn't happen again. It's Monday, I should have had an update from the App Store by now, but nope. Third, there's apparently no caching (which might explain their server problems). Every time the app starts (or more likely crashes and restarts), it hits the server to download all the local POI info again from scratch. God help you if you're in a spot with bad connectivity. Fourth, what is it doing do drain the battery so badly?? I've driven for a couple hours with maps apps running without killing my device. It must have zero logic in the app to manage power drain because it'll kill my iPhone in an hour easily. This game owes its success 100% to the popularity of Pokemon and nothing else, the app would never had any success if it had to stand on its own merits. As it is, Niantic is doing its utmost to kill the franchise with their ineptitude.

ams6110 10y ago
Well, sounds a lot like Twitter in the early days.
n0us 10y ago
Personally I can deal with the other stuff but I can't stand looking at that silly looking character walking over a featureless flat blue map of every parkbench around my building. As far as I can tell there are no "friends", "clans", or even any way to battle your pokemon. I think I've clicked through everything and after restarting the game 50 some times looking for the core features associated with pokemon and now I've given up. In what way does this constitute a game? The technical issues can be fixed but I feel like there are some more fundamental features. What was the company even doing this entire time? Those spinners in the pokecenters couldn't have taken years to build, and it also couldn't have taken years to populate the map with zubats and wevils.
- onewaystreet 10y ago
  GO has teams (Red, Blue, Yellow). You need to get to level 5 to join a team. Once you join a team you can battle at and take over gyms.
  - n0us 10y ago
    Well that answers it. If I can get the app to work long enough to reach level 5 I'll try that. It's a good thing they decided not to include that information from the start. They wouldn't want people to think there might actually be something fun to do.
    - AznHisoka 10y ago
      Their Onboarding is horrendous. It took me awhile to figure out how to actually capture a Pokemon.
      - manachar 10y ago
        The onboarding is surprisingly bad, so bad, I wonder if it was intentional. It sort of forces you to get social to compare notes on how to make things work. Most of what I've learned so far has come from either trial & error or from social sources (in meatspace and cyberspace).
        petercooper 10y ago
        Minecraft in the early days was similar, but it's also what I enjoyed about it. Having to have the Minecraft wiki open on another screen just to figure out how to actually build anything.. :-D
      - jack9 10y ago
        Took me exactly 0 seconds, since I had played trash toss and basketball toss games before. The whole 3d avatar customization is wasted effort, at a glance. It will lead to vanity items later, obviously, but why have it in the game at all right now?
danieltillett 10y ago
Well apart from all this it sounds like a well designed app. More seriously I think as tech people we overvalue product quality and undervalue market demand. If you create something people really want then they will tolerate very poor quality.
jonah 10y ago
Why is it so bad? I assume its the same team that built and runs Ingress. It's been around for years. Not as popular so I can excuse the server load issues, but shouldn't the app/gameplay be more solid?
jimmywanger 10y ago
This is a reskinned Ingress, with simpler game mechanics. Log the damn errors and make sure it doesn't happen again? Have you written software? That is the most simplistic advice in the world. By your thoughts, all software should have been updated in a few days to be bug free. Had an update from the App Store? You realize that is gated by Apple and that you have to submit the update and wait an indeterminate amount of time for the update to be approved before appearing on the App Store? No caching? How would you cache game state when at any time the board state can change without warning, due to the actions of another player? And cached game state would invalidate your game actions, which would cause inconsistencies. With draining battery, it needs location services as well as constant internet connectivity. If you're looking for directions, you can make educated guesses when you're going to have to pull location again. Whereas now, you have to constantly be polling, because you yourself don't know where you're headed. And re: Nianitic's "ineptitude", you don't have any ideas what problems they're trying to solve.
- randartie 10y ago
  > By your thoughts, all software should have been updated in a few days to be bug free. Anyone who has used this app knows it is extremely crashy. It's not supposed to be bug-free, but releasing an app this crashy is fairly sloppy.
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    Not arguing with the bugginess or not bugginess. But arguing with "just log it and fix it" is like saying to a plumber "just find the leak and fix it". It's insulting to both the developer and the plumber.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      I think most plumbers wouldn't have much problem with that request, either hearing it or complying with it. After all plumbing is what they do. Hell I'm not even a plumber and I've found and fixed several plumbing leaks already this year.
- 10y ago
forthefuture 10y ago
Something I'd add is that many people who actually play (buy) the real Pokemon games realize the state of this game as well. Most of my friends who play Go are people who know Pokemon from the 90s, not people who have contributed to the franchise economically for the past 20 years. Also, I don't think people are as invested in Pokemon Go as the numbers seem to suggest. It's something fun for a few days, but because of how legitimately boring the game is, normal people won't be able to keep playing once their friends stop posting about it.
paulsutter 10y ago
For such an awful app, you certainly seem to use it a lot.
- russellbeattie 10y ago
  As I said, that's 100% due to Pokemon (and a couple relatives who are rabid fans). Any other app would have been deleted after the third crash.
jack9 10y ago
> Second the app on iOS crashes every few minutes - I've never seen a more buggy app Then I'll posit you haven't played many mobile games, much less the top 10 for the past few years. Blood Brothers 1 (as with most DeNA titles) was notoriously this unstable, for example.

ams6110 10y ago

Well, sounds a lot like Twitter in the early days.

n0us 10y ago

Personally I can deal with the other stuff but I can't stand looking at that silly looking character walking over a featureless flat blue map of every parkbench around my building. As far as I can tell there are no "friends", "clans", or even any way to battle your pokemon. I think I've clicked through everything and after restarting the game 50 some times looking for the core features associated with pokemon and now I've given up. In what way does this constitute a game? The technical issues can be fixed but I feel like there are some more fundamental features. What was the company even doing this entire time? Those spinners in the pokecenters couldn't have taken years to build, and it also couldn't have taken years to populate the map with zubats and wevils.

onewaystreet 10y ago
GO has teams (Red, Blue, Yellow). You need to get to level 5 to join a team. Once you join a team you can battle at and take over gyms.
- n0us 10y ago
  Well that answers it. If I can get the app to work long enough to reach level 5 I'll try that. It's a good thing they decided not to include that information from the start. They wouldn't want people to think there might actually be something fun to do.
  - AznHisoka 10y ago
    Their Onboarding is horrendous. It took me awhile to figure out how to actually capture a Pokemon.
    - manachar 10y ago
      The onboarding is surprisingly bad, so bad, I wonder if it was intentional. It sort of forces you to get social to compare notes on how to make things work. Most of what I've learned so far has come from either trial & error or from social sources (in meatspace and cyberspace).
      - petercooper 10y ago
        Minecraft in the early days was similar, but it's also what I enjoyed about it. Having to have the Minecraft wiki open on another screen just to figure out how to actually build anything.. :-D
    - jack9 10y ago
      Took me exactly 0 seconds, since I had played trash toss and basketball toss games before. The whole 3d avatar customization is wasted effort, at a glance. It will lead to vanity items later, obviously, but why have it in the game at all right now?

danieltillett 10y ago

Well apart from all this it sounds like a well designed app. More seriously I think as tech people we overvalue product quality and undervalue market demand. If you create something people really want then they will tolerate very poor quality.

jonah 10y ago

Why is it so bad? I assume its the same team that built and runs Ingress. It's been around for years. Not as popular so I can excuse the server load issues, but shouldn't the app/gameplay be more solid?

jimmywanger 10y ago

This is a reskinned Ingress, with simpler game mechanics. Log the damn errors and make sure it doesn't happen again? Have you written software? That is the most simplistic advice in the world. By your thoughts, all software should have been updated in a few days to be bug free. Had an update from the App Store? You realize that is gated by Apple and that you have to submit the update and wait an indeterminate amount of time for the update to be approved before appearing on the App Store? No caching? How would you cache game state when at any time the board state can change without warning, due to the actions of another player? And cached game state would invalidate your game actions, which would cause inconsistencies. With draining battery, it needs location services as well as constant internet connectivity. If you're looking for directions, you can make educated guesses when you're going to have to pull location again. Whereas now, you have to constantly be polling, because you yourself don't know where you're headed. And re: Nianitic's "ineptitude", you don't have any ideas what problems they're trying to solve.

randartie 10y ago
> By your thoughts, all software should have been updated in a few days to be bug free. Anyone who has used this app knows it is extremely crashy. It's not supposed to be bug-free, but releasing an app this crashy is fairly sloppy.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  Not arguing with the bugginess or not bugginess. But arguing with "just log it and fix it" is like saying to a plumber "just find the leak and fix it". It's insulting to both the developer and the plumber.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    I think most plumbers wouldn't have much problem with that request, either hearing it or complying with it. After all plumbing is what they do. Hell I'm not even a plumber and I've found and fixed several plumbing leaks already this year.
10y ago

forthefuture 10y ago

Something I'd add is that many people who actually play (buy) the real Pokemon games realize the state of this game as well. Most of my friends who play Go are people who know Pokemon from the 90s, not people who have contributed to the franchise economically for the past 20 years. Also, I don't think people are as invested in Pokemon Go as the numbers seem to suggest. It's something fun for a few days, but because of how legitimately boring the game is, normal people won't be able to keep playing once their friends stop posting about it.

paulsutter 10y ago

For such an awful app, you certainly seem to use it a lot.

russellbeattie 10y ago
As I said, that's 100% due to Pokemon (and a couple relatives who are rabid fans). Any other app would have been deleted after the third crash.

jack9 10y ago

> Second the app on iOS crashes every few minutes - I've never seen a more buggy app Then I'll posit you haven't played many mobile games, much less the top 10 for the past few years. Blood Brothers 1 (as with most DeNA titles) was notoriously this unstable, for example.